Latest / Teachings On This Day On FerventWord / On Jul 07, 2019: Isaiah 2:1-5 Let Us Walk In Light Of The Future
Transcript
- As we work our way through the Bible in three years, we now find ourselves in the book of the prophet Isaiah. And Isaiah is a prophet of the Lord who is used by the Lord to bring forth some incredible words from the Lord. One of the things that we usually associate with this role of the prophet is the things of the future. And a prophet, you know, telling the future, declaring the future, they kind of go hand in hand in our mind. And that is true in the sense that God used prophets many times to bring forth the declaration of what would come to pass. And yet at the same time, it was not the primary role of the prophet. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, all of these who we look to and we look at their prophetic writings and we look forward to the things that they have declared will come to pass. They did speak about the future, but primarily their role was not to speak about the future, but their role was to call people to repentance. Isaiah's primary mission from the Lord was to call the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah back to right relationship with God. Although those proclamations of the Final blessings that God has for Israel. There's proclamations of the judgment that would come for their rebellion against Israel. Those proclamations about the future were not so much about the future themselves, but were tools for the Lord's ministry to call the people back to right relationship with him. As we work our way through the prophets, sometimes you can get a little bit challenged and discouraged working your way through these and reading through these passages because there is a lot of times where judgment is being pronounced and declared that it will come to pass upon different peoples. And yet as we work our way through these books, I would encourage you to remember that God is never more merciful than when he announces judgment. Right? Every time you come across a passage announcing his judgment to come, it can be easy to kind of think of that and take that as a dark passage, as something difficult. But I would remind you and encourage you to think about it and understand that God is never more merciful than when he announces judgment. to give people who deserve to be dealt with for their sin, to give them an opportunity to turn back and get right and be forgiven and have a restored relationship with God. It's when God's mercy is the brightest and demonstrated the most. And so God rose up Isaiah. He rose up Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and these other prophets, Elisha and Elijah and Samuel. All of these different prophets, God raised them up for the particular purpose of calling people to repentance and restoring the right relationship with God and giving them opportunity to be delivered from the punishment and the judgment that they deserved as a result of their sin. They told the future, they spoke about the future as a tool, as an instrument to help people understand Have the opportunity to come back and get right with God. And so as we work our way through these books over the next couple months, we're going to be experiencing the same thing. God is going to be reminding us about the future as an opportunity. He's going to be calling out sin and dealing with things of judgment so that we have the opportunity. if we are not aligned with the Lord properly, if we are astray, if we are off, that God wants to give us that opportunity. And so he's orchestrated things, he's designed things, and he's set us on this path to go through these books together that we might draw near to him, to be forgiven of our sin, to be set right in our course and in our path and in our relationship with him. Well, as we jump into Isaiah's ministry and his message in chapter 2 this morning, I've titled the message, Let Us Walk in Light of the Future. Here, Isaiah prophesies of the future. Again, not so much just to tell us something about the future, but to help us to walk then in light of that future, understanding and recognizing what the future holds instructs us to how we are to live today. It's kind of like this. If I were to write down the winning lottery numbers for next week and I hand them to you and then you go and you buy a lottery ticket and Now, I hand these to you. I say, look, these are the winning numbers. You can trust me. I'm a pastor. Here they are. And if you go buy a lottery ticket and you use different numbers, well, it's a clear indication you didn't really believe that I knew the winning lottery numbers, right? You thought, well, I have a better chance just picking my own numbers. I'm not going to listen to Jerry. But if you believed, if you knew these are the winning numbers, you Well, when you went to buy the ticket, you would use those numbers. It would instruct you, knowing those things would instruct you today in how you behave. Or maybe you could think about it a little bit like insider trading. I don't know if you've been following this news account, but you might remember that there was a huge data breach of personal and private information from Equifax not too long ago. And Equifax, this huge company that collects data on everybody, had this crazy amount of data leaked out. They were broken into. They had that information exposed. And well, as that was about to break, one of the executives knew about the situation before it was public and decided, you know what? I think I might need to take some action because I know what the future holds. I know this is going to come out. I know this is going to impact the company. I know this is going to impact my shares in the company. He began to do some research, which kind of incriminated him, and found out like what happens to companies when this kind of data breach occurs? What happens to their stock value? What happens to the value of the company? Well, he found out, yeah, it doesn't go very well. It takes a big hit. And so leading up to the time before it became public, this executive sold a bunch of shares and liquidated himself in that way so that he would not lose when the information became public. Well, just this last week, this executive was sentenced to four months in prison as a result. along with a hefty fine to pay back some of those losses. It's insider trading. You're not supposed to. You can't, at that level, have that kind of inside knowledge and then act on it in that way. That's not appropriate. Now, insider trading is illegal, But when it comes to the illustration I'm trying to point to, the prophetic things of the Lord, we have some insider knowledge and it's not illegal or improper for us to act on that knowledge like it is for these kinds of executives. We know what's about to come. We know the news is going to break. It's going to become public anytime, the future plans of the Lord. And so what we have then is the opportunity to then act in advance of To begin to sell our stocks in this world. To begin to liquidate, you know, the things of this life and the things that are placed in inappropriate places. And instead, to invest ourselves in the things of the Lord. And so here we have Isaiah calling a people to repentance. He's ministering to a people that have been in rebellion against God for a couple hundred years now. To give a little bit of context, I want to just walk through the timeline briefly with the ministry of Isaiah and where it falls. Because, well, as we've been reading through the Bible for the past couple years now, we have worked our way through the history of the nation of Israel. We saw Israel brought into the promised land and to conquer the land and to be settled in the land. But it wasn't until many years later, after the times of the judges, that they really became a kingdom with the first king, Saul. And after Saul came David, who was the man after God's own heart and the one that God had appointed to be their king. And then after David was Solomon, who took the kingdom of Israel to the greatest lengths, to the greatest heights. It was the peak of Israel's history under the reign of King Solomon. And the temple was built and incredible things happened for the people of God during that time. But after Solomon, under the reign of Solomon's son Rehoboam, the kingdom was divided and split in two. There was a civil war and now there's two kingdoms as a result. The northern kingdom called Israel and the southern kingdom called Judah. Both of these kingdoms were basically in a decline of rebellion against God. They were rebelling against God more and more and more until they were finally conquered and destroyed. Israel, the northern kingdom, they never had a good king. And so they didn't last as long. They lasted a couple hundred years. And then the nation of Assyria, world empire of the day, came and conquered Israel and took all of the people captive. The nation of Judah had some good kings, but mostly bad kings. So they had moments of revival. They lasted a little bit longer as a result because they would come back to the Lord and get things right. But then they would wander again. And They lasted a little bit longer than the nation of Israel until finally their rebellion brought about the destruction of Judah by Babylon, the empire that came after Assyria. And Babylon came and conquered Judah and Jerusalem, took the people captive, and so Israel was emptied out. And then Israel was left empty for about 70 years. until finally under King Cyrus, they were released to go back and rebuild the temple. And we see that in Ezra, Nehemiah. And so there's this history that we've been covering as we worked our way through. So in 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, we've covered the history of the nation as a whole for most of their existence. And now as we get into the prophets... We're going to be going back to those times in the account. We're not really adding to the history. We're just going back and filling in some of the gaps and going along with the things that we've studied and learned throughout the history of Israel and the history of Judah. Now, Isaiah in particular ministered during kind of this middle time of the nation of Judah. And he ministered primarily to the nation of Judah, calling them to repentance. But it was during the time where their sister kingdom, Israel, was conquered by Assyria and led away captive as a result of their rebellion. And so at this point, they've been in rebellion against God for some time. They've been distant. They've been far from God. Again, they've had some good kings, but mostly bad kings. And so they're in desperate need for this call. They're in desperate need to hear about this future plans of God and then begin to walk accordingly. And so as we dive into these things, again, this is an opportunity for us to see what God has in store. These future things that Isaiah prophesied about are still future for us today as we read them. And so we get to look at these things and learn also how to walk in light of the future. So we're going to work our way through verses 1 through 5 here of Isaiah chapter 2. Looking at four different points here in our passage together. The first one is found in verse 2. Point number one is the Lord alone will be exalted in the last days. The Lord alone will be exalted in the last days. Verse 2 tells us this. Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that Isaiah here tells us when this time frame that he's talking about is going to take place. It's going to happen in the latter days. The last days, the latter days, it's a common theme throughout the book of Isaiah and many of the prophecies of the Bible. It's not so much a period of 24-hour days. It's referring to a block of time where, well, it's the Lord's agenda. And the Lord has some particular things that he has in store in his final plans for this earth. And so you could think of the last days or the latter days as a block of time, including a variety of things. Here's a couple things to think about and are lumped into this idea of the last days, the rapture of the church, that time when the church will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. It will be in an instant and we will be changed. It's going to be something incredible that God does. It's not the return of Jesus Christ. That happens later, but the church is caught up to meet the Lord in the air. We also have in the last days the time of tribulation. It's that seven-year time of judgment upon the earth where the wrath of God will be poured out upon the earth. And that is primarily what you see spelled out for us in the book of Revelation. At the end of the tribulation is the second coming of Jesus. That's part of the last days or the latter days. And then you have the 1,000-year reign of Christ, also known as the millennium. This is a time of peace where Christ rules and reigns upon the earth and establishes his kingdom here, reigning on the throne there in Jerusalem. After that, we enter into eternity and there's much that God has in store and much that we don't know about. The great white throne judgment is one of those things, but there's also much more that God has in store. Now, thinking about These events, we also, of course, need to understand the different parts that people will have to play in these different time frames. And so here's just a quick look, and I'm not getting into details here, but just a refresher on these end times events, these last days events. We have the rapture of the church, where believers in Jesus at that time will be caught up to be with the Lord, and then we will forever be with the Lord. Heading into the tribulation period, there will be those who believe in Jesus and then have to die as a result of their faith. And they will be martyrs for the Lord. And they will enter into eternity at that time during the tribulation period. There will be other believers who survive the tribulation and head into the millennial kingdom. As they head into the millennium, if they die, they will enter into eternity with God. If they make it through the end of the millennium, which is much more likely in that time because of the reign of Christ. Then after that, they will enter into eternity with God in that way. Unbelievers, on the other hand, in contrast to those who are believers, well, unbelievers are believers Taken to a place referred to as Hades, whether that happens right now or after the rapture or during the tribulation or during the millennium. And then after the millennium at the great white throne judgment, Hades is emptied out and those who are there are taken to the great white throne judgment and then finally cast into the lake of fire. This is a quick snapshot of the last days. And you can see there's two options here. Ultimately, eternity with God or eternity apart from God. This is the way it ends. And in light of that, knowing that, well, it gives us some opportunity to then behave accordingly and to respond to the plans that God has set. And so here, Isaiah is talking about this block of time, the latter days, and particularly he's focused on the millennium when Christ rules and reigns upon the earth. During that time, he says in verse 2, During this time, during the millennium and then on into eternity, the Lord will be exalted above all else. Throughout the whole earth. For every community, for every nation, for every peoples, the Lord will be exalted above everything else. And that concept, that specific phrase comes from here in Isaiah chapter 2 in the following verses that we're not going to really dive into this morning. But in Isaiah chapter 2 verses 12 through 18, Isaiah goes through this. Some of the things that God will be exalted above and over. I'm going to read through it briefly here for you. Verse 12 says, Upon all the high mountains and upon all the hills that are lifted up, upon every high tower and upon every fortified wall, upon the ships of Tarshish and upon all the beautiful sloops, the loftiness of man shall be bowed down and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day, but the idols he shall utterly abolish. Here, Isaiah declares for us some important reminders about what is to come. There is a day coming where the Lord will be exalted alone above all else. Everything else that is exalted will be brought low, will be cast down. And he goes on through kind of a list of some examples. The cedars of Lebanon, or some might say the redwoods of California. Huge, tall, impressive trees. You might be excited about them. enamored by them, but the Lord will be exalted above them. Above all the mountains that are lifted up, the high mountains. You might be excited about Mount Everest or the Sierras or some other incredible work of creation. But here Isaiah is saying, above all creation, above all that has existed, above all things, no matter how impressive they are, how excited we might be about them, in that day, The Lord will be exalted above those. Those will all be brought down. We will not be excited about those. People will not be enamored by those. The Lord will be exalted and the Lord alone in that day. But not only the elements of creation, but the things that mankind has put together and created. He says, upon every high tower and every fortified wall. Throughout history, there's been many occasions where humanity has been really excited about and impressed with what we have built, what we have created. And we find great security in our fortified walls and great pride in our high towers. For many years here in the United States, we had the tallest building in the world, the Empire State Building. It was built in 1931. 1,250 feet tall. It was the first building to exceed 100 stories. It had 102 floors. And for many years, it was the tallest building in the world. But you know how we are. We kind of have to outdo ourselves. And so, well, there's a new tallest building in the world. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but it's in Dubai. And there in Dubai is this building built in 2010 that is 2,717 feet tall. tall. Now, if you're not good at, you know, quick equations, that's over half a mile, half a mile tall. I intended to look up, you know, how long is the elevator ride for this, but I didn't get a chance to. So you can look that up later. But 163 floors, it's the tallest building in the world. And it's incredible to behold, right? We can easily look at these creations of ours, these high towers and fortified walls that And we exalt ourselves. We exalt our way of life. We exalt our engineering. We exalt our technology. We exalt ourselves today. We have throughout all history. And we will continue as humanity to exalt ourselves until that day. In those latter days, we will no longer be exalted. We're not going to be impressed by our great buildings, by our great achievements, by our incredible accomplishments. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day. There is so much that we exalt, again, today and throughout history and for time to come. We exalt nations. We have great pride in ourselves as a nation and other nations have great pride in themselves. And there is this exaltation of who we are and maybe our ways and our system and our marketplace and our democracy and our this or our that. Here within our nation, we exalt political parties. We exalt candidates. We exalt particular people. Or we exalt entertainers or athletes. And we have such great pride in, you know, our achievements or what we accomplish or these particular peoples. We have great pride in plans and purposes. We exalt, you know, our way of life and so on and so forth. There's so many things that are exalted for us as a people, but then also for us individually. But in that day, none of those things will be exalted. Nobody's going to be impressed by the technology. Nobody's going to be impressed by the nations or the politics or the plans or the superstars. The Lord alone, the Lord alone deserves all glory and honor and praise. And in that day, That's how it will be. He alone will be exalted. That's where we're headed, Isaiah says. In those latter days, it will be clear. Every individual will know. Every nation will know. Every peoples will know. Every community will know. The Lord alone deserves all glory and honor and praise. Now, as we move on to the next three points, continuing on here in verse two, we get point number two. Point number two is let us exalt the Lord now. And the idea here, Isaiah is telling the people of Israel this, the people of Judah this. He's speaking this to us today, not just so that we know about the future, but he's calling us to then respond to what we know is coming. Again, it's a little bit of insider trading, but in a good way and in a profitable way to understand what the future holds and then to behave now in light of that. In verse 2, again, it says, Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow to it. And then jump to verse 5. Isaiah says, O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord. Knowing what is to come, knowing these future events and this future exaltation of the Lord, Isaiah says, okay, now, Come and walk in the light of the Lord. Walk in the understanding of this truth that is revealed. Don't just wait until then for the Lord to be exalted, but he calls us now to take what we know about the exaltation of the Lord and make it a living reality right now. To live our lives in a way that exalts the Lord. In verse 17 here of Isaiah chapter 2, Isaiah says, the loftiness of man shall be bowed down and the haughtiness of man shall be brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day, but the idols he shall utterly abolish. Here's what we know about the future. In that day, during the millennium, or in that day that you stand before God, whichever comes first. In that day, the Lord alone will be exalted. He alone will be praised. He alone will be impressive. He alone will be will be exalted above all else. And everything else that is exalted will be brought low. That's the reality. And so Isaiah encourages us then, walk in that reality right now. It's tempting to get caught up in the exaltation of all the other things that we as humanity do exalt and we do get excited about and passionate about. But we need to make sure that the Lord alone exalts is exalted in our lives, in our hearts, and in our minds. How do we do that? There's a few ways that you could consider, and I'll just kind of run through these, and you can seek the Lord further on your own as far as your response to this call to walk in light of this exaltation. The first thing is that we should make sure that the Lord is the most important part of our lives. What's the most important part of your life? What is the most important The thing that you're most excited about? What is the part of your life that you're most passionate about? We have some cool parts to our lives, right? I mean, God does bless us with abundant and full lives. We get to have relationships with one another and friendships and family. We get to have careers. We get to have relationships. Things that happen in this life that are awesome, that are great, and that are wonderful. And those are blessings from the Lord. But we need to continue to battle to hold the perspective that although we enjoy those things, none of those things are the most important things of our life. If all of that goes away, if I have no job and no family and I have nothing, not even my health, the Lord is still exalted. That's the most important thing. We can get excited about a lot of things. We can get passionate about a lot of things. And again, the Lord has blessed us with those opportunities and those exciting things that happen in our life. But we need to battle and fight and maintain the perspective. Let's walk in the light of the Lord. In light of what he has declared to us, let's not forget the Lord alone will be exalted. He is what we must be most passionate about. And there should not be anything that competes with that in our lives. Things that compete with that passion, with that excitement, with that level of importance in our lives, those are called idols. Idols can take the form of statues that we actually like bow down and we hope will save us, but it can take the place or can take the form of anything that is more important to us than the Lord. Anything that we're more excited about than the Lord. Anything that we're more passionate about than the Lord. We need to make sure that the Lord is the most important. Let's exalt the Lord now because that's his rightful place. That is the place that he will have regardless of what we do. And when we stand before him, what's gonna matter most is how we exalted the Lord in our lives. Another way to exalt the Lord now is to humble ourselves before the Lord. It's the same concept, but it's the other side of the coin. It's the laying aside of those idols. You know, it's interesting that we have a problem with humility. That's difficult for us. But a lot of times it's only when it comes to the Lord. Isaiah points this out here in verse 8 and 9 of chapter 2. He says, He says, Each man humbles himself, lays aside his dignity, lays aside his pride, in this case for the nation of Judah, to bow down before statues that they had formed with their own hands. It was foolishness. In doing so, they humbled themselves, but in the inappropriate way. And there's a thousand reasons that you and I might humble ourselves. We'll throw away our dignity because our favorite team is, you know, winning the Super Bowl. And we scream our head off, and we shout, and we, you know, run around like crazy people, and you're like, whoa, I never knew Josh liked the Raiders so much. We'll lose our dignity, you know, for our favorite concert or band or whatever, right? It's like, wow, you know, I didn't know Richard liked the Newsboys so much or New Kids on the Block or I don't know, some other embarrassing band. We can easily lose our dignity. We can lay down, we can humble ourselves and humiliate ourselves for a thousand other causes. But then it comes to honor the Lord and we're so prideful and we hold on to, no, I can't, you know, allow people to see me love God like that. I can't allow people to see me worship God or honor God or seek the Lord or serve the Lord or, you know, and there's this pride that we hold on to. It's really an exaltation of ourselves. Humble yourself before the Lord. That's our ultimate place. But don't wait till then. You have the opportunity now. Let us exalt the Lord now. Another way to consider this is to trust God above all else. To trust God. To really rest and rely upon the Lord. In Isaiah chapter 2 verse 7, he talks about the nation of Judah. He says, "...their land is also full of silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures." The land is also full of horses and there is no end to their chariots. Isaiah looks around at the kingdom around him and he says, it's full of silver and gold. Now, if you take this verse out of context, you just read this by itself, you're like, this is great. That's a promise I claim. Yes, yes. May my land be full of silver and gold, right? May I have this great protection of horses and chariots. And that's something that we would look for and desire, right? But the problem is, the people around him had these things, silver and gold and treasures, and it was a stumbling block for them because then they trusted in their silver and gold. I don't need to humble myself before the Lord because if something happens, I have my treasuries to deal with the situation. I don't need to humble myself before the Lord and Trust in him or turn from sin because, well, if someone attacks, I have horses and chariots. I have fortified walls. I have my plan B's and my plan C's and my savings accounts. And I have these things. And so we learn to rely upon ourselves and we exalt our resources and ourselves above God. Now, God is not saying that you must not have anything and never have any backup plans and never have any plan Bs or savings accounts or any of that. God's not saying that at all. But again, it's the same thing. We need to battle. We need to be wise and build those things, but we also need to battle to maintain the perspective that my trust, my faith is not in my resources, but my faith and my trust is in God. It doesn't matter what happens. Stock market, it doesn't matter what happens. Next election, doesn't matter what happens. Next earthquake, doesn't matter what happens because I trust God above everything else. My confidence, my faith, my rest is not in what I have, in my resources, but it's in the Lord above all else. I like the way that Charles Spurgeon encourages us to exalt the Lord. He says, I like that picture. May God fill our whole horizon of thoughts, our whole view, our whole perspective be filled with the things of God. Let us exalt the Lord now to that degree that we would be captivated, excited, trusting in and filled with the things of God. In light of the future, this is the end. This is what the Lord accomplishes. And so we have opportunity to do a little bit of insider trading. We know what's to come. And we can cash in now. You can start to begin to experience the blessedness of righteousness and relationship with God by exalting the Lord now. Moving on to verse 3, we get point number 3, and that is, let us learn the Lord's ways now. Let us learn the Lord's ways right now. Verse 3 goes on to say this, many people shall come and say, come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. In that day when the Lord is exalted above all, every nation, every peoples, every community will flow to meet the Lord, to hear from the Lord. They will be seeking out the word of the Lord. They will be searching to find the ways of the Lord. At this time, as Isaiah looked around, he could see that Israel was not seeking after the ways of the Lord. They were not finding out the word of the Lord. They were not pursuing the things of God in that way at all. In fact, quite the opposite. Thomas Constable says, "'Israel had stopped living as a distinct people in the world, "'had adopted the ways of other nations "'and had relied on them rather than on the Lord. "'She had looked to the east for light "'rather than to the Lord "'and had become like her enemies.'" Israel blended in to the peoples around them in adopting their ways and adopting their priorities and adopting their pursuits. They did not look like what is described here in verse 3, even though they were the people of God. And it serves as a warning and a reminder for us. We are the people of God, and yet we can adopt the lifestyles and the methods and the ways of the world around us. And so Isaiah says, verse 5, Oh, house of Jacob, come. And let us walk in the light of the Lord. Let's not live the same way that other people live. Let's not walk the same way that other people walk with the same priorities and pursuits and goals. Let's understand what is to come. What's really important, what really matters is the ways of the Lord. And that's going to be evident there at the end. But we don't have to wait until then. In fact, it's foolish to wait until then. Let us learn the Lord's ways now. This is a pattern that you'll see throughout prophecies through the scriptures. Peter uses this pattern as well in 2 Peter 3. He talks about the day of the Lord that will come as a thief in the night. And then he says, therefore, since you know this is how the end is going to come, this is what the result and all of these things will melt with a fervent heat. He goes on to say in 2 Peter 3.11, what manner of persons ought you to be? How should you live now because of what you know the future holds? It should influence you. It should impact you to learn the Lord's ways now. How do we do that? Pastor David Guzik says, to walk in the light of the Lord means to order your life after God's truth and God's ways. The ultimate reign of the Messiah may be many years away, but Jesus can reign in our lives, in our minds, and in our hearts right now. We don't have to wait for the millennium to have the blessing of Jesus's righteousness in our lives right now. We don't have to wait till then. We can start right now. Learning the ways of the Lord. Hearing the word of the Lord. Verse 3 describes people flocking to Jerusalem to hear the word of the Lord. And you and I, we have the word of the Lord right now. Let us learn the Lord's ways by spending time with him in his word. God reveals himself, his ways, his character, his nature, his priorities. He reveals all of these things to us through his word. As we're studying through the book of Ephesians on Wednesday nights, we have been in chapter four and five where we've been seeing Paul make the transition saying, look, you have all of this incredible resources in Christ. You're a new creature, a new creation. You have a new identity now. Chapters four and five. Now live according to that. You have the opportunity and the choice to just kind of throw out what you know and throw out the resources that are available and just live like you've always lived. But don't live that way. That's not you anymore. You have a new identity. Stop walking that way. Walk informed by the new life that you have in Christ. And so we have a new nature. We have a new work that God has done in us. Resources to walk the way that God desires for us to walk. We have the word of God. We have a new nature and we have... The Holy Spirit given to teach us the Lord's ways right now. Jesus tells us in John chapter 16 verse 13, he says, when he, the spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will tell you things to come. The Holy Spirit is given by the Lord so that you can be taught the So that you can learn all the things that you need to learn. So that you can be guided into the truth. So that you can be taught the ways of the Lord. Let us learn the Lord's ways now. By spending time with Him. Spending time in His Word. Allowing the Holy Spirit to minister to us. All that we need to walk with Him. Well, the final point that we'll consider this morning found in verse 4. Here's point number 4. Let us make peace now. In light of the future, we know what's going to take place. We know what's going to happen tomorrow. Let us make peace now. Verse 4 tells us, During this 1,000 year reign of Christ, there is going to be a time of peace. It's really going to be a time of forced peace. Because the Lord will be ruling and reigning with a rod of iron. Revelation chapter 19 verse 15 tells us that when Jesus comes back, a sword will proceed out of his mouth. He will judge the nations and rule them with a rod of iron. He's going to enforce peace. There will not be wars and battles any longer. It'll be the first time in history that that has taken place for a period of time. He will accomplish this peace. And then on into eternity, there will be real peace and no war, not forced, but a genuine peace. That's the future. It's not going to happen from some great world leader. It's not going to happen from some great planet. It will only happen when Christ comes back to rule and to reign. But we don't have to wait till then personally. We have to wait till then globally. But for us as individuals, we have the opportunity now. to live out the peace of Christ right now. Oh, house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord. What does God care about the most? What is most important to him? You know what's most important to him? People. That's why he was willing to give his only begotten son. It's why Jesus was willing to sacrifice himself. To give himself as a sacrifice for many that we might be reconciled, that we might be restored in relationship to the Lord, that there might be peace between us and God. Let this always be a reminder for you. People are never our enemy. And there are times where we are offended by people and we are hurt by people. We are attacked by people. And there is an appropriate time for defense and battle. But at the same time, it's not our first response. Reconciliation and peace is to be our first response, our goal. Again, on Wednesday, we looked at Ephesians chapter five and learned how to walk in love, to be doing what is best for people, to be reconciling with people, to not be holding grudges or containing those divisions. But ultimately, we need to be doing what is best. Jesus taught us to love our neighbor, but also to love our enemy. There is no person who is your enemy. Let us make peace now. Paul tells us in Romans chapter 14 verse 19, Every course that we take, every action that we take, every conversation that we have, let us make peace. Let us pursue the things that make peace. Now Paul also tells us in Romans chapter 12, If it's possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men, which we know there's some people, they're just, they're your enemy, whether you're their enemy or not, right? Like the other way around, but you get the point, right? They hate you. They're attacking you. They're against you, right? Regardless of your position to them. But Paul says, you can't change that, but you can change your response. And the most important thing to God is people. And when you When you exalt the Lord now and learn his ways now, what's going to be most important to you is people and loving them and having the opportunity perhaps to share the gospel, perhaps to reconcile and restore a relationship, perhaps to bring healing. We know that's where it ends. And so Isaiah says, let's walk in that now. Let's learn to make peace now. The Lord alone will be exalted in the last days. We know the future. We know what it holds. And so now we have the opportunity to take what we know about the future and to put it into practice right now, to exalt the Lord right now, to make him the most important, most valuable, the thing we're most passionate about in this life, to trust him above all else, learning his ways, making sure that the people around us are not our enemies, but that we make peace, that we pursue peace for their benefit, that we might demonstrate the love of God. Well, as we finish up our time together this morning, we wanna conclude with a time of communion. And as we do, I was thinking about what Paul wrote in Galatians chapter six. And Kim can come up and the ushers are gonna get ready for worship. But here's what Paul says in Galatians chapter six, verse 14. He said, "'God forbid that I should boast "'except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, "'by whom the world has been crucified to me "'and I to the world.'" Notice what Paul said there. And during this time of worship, let's allow the Lord, let's invite the Lord to bring us to this place where we would say, God forbid that I would boast in anything, that I would exalt anything except for the cross. Here in communion, we have the reminders that the Lord gave us, the bread and the cup, the reminders of his body that was broken, his blood that was shed, the reminders that the most important thing in our lives should be what Jesus Christ has accomplished for us upon the cross, the forgiveness that he offers, the life that he offers, the work that he has done, far supersedes any activity, any work that I could ever do, any accomplishment, any plans, any purposes. What he has done is far superior. God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so as Kim leads us in this worship, let's just bring ourselves, come before the Lord in a place where we would exalt nothing else except for the Lord and what he has done for us. At any time during the song as they hand out the bread and the cup, when you can declare this, when you would pray this along with Paul, God forbid that I would boast in anything else, then you're ready. Then you go ahead and partake. At the end, Kim will give you an opportunity to partake if you haven't. But let's worship the Lord and bring ourselves to that place where He is exalted and lifted high in our lives. Amen? Let's worship the Lord together. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.