Before we open God's Word to Isaiah 35, let me do bring greetings to you from the faculty, staff, and students at Westminster Seminary, California. We invite you to come by and look at the campus. Things have changed quite significantly in recent months. There are some 60 apartments that have been built on campus, and people are moving in, and kids are running around, and it's a wonderful time of change there. Please continue to pray with us. We just graduated our 36th or so graduating class, and a number of those folks have callings and a number don't, so please continue to pray for them. We have an incoming class. Our summer Greek class begins at the end of this month. We have some 40 students. That's a large incoming class of Greek students. So pray for us, for God's blessings as we continue that key work of training folk for the gospel ministry and other Christian leadership positions. In Psalm, excuse me, in Isaiah 35, we have here a series of images of renewal, renewal of the land, renewal of the people that are intended to comfort us and to show us the benefits that we receive from Christ at his first and ultimately at his second coming. Would you stand with me as we read God's word together from Isaiah 35? Hear the word of the Lord. The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad. The desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it. The majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands. and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you. And then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. And then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy, for waters break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water. And the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes, and a highway shall be there. It shall be called the way of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way. Even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. no lion shall be there nor shall any ravenous beast come upon it come up upon it and they shall not be found there but the redeemed shall walk there and the ransom of the lord shall return and come to zion with singing everlasting joy shall be upon their heads they shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Join your hearts with mine in prayer. Let's pray. Lord, open my lips that my mouth may speak in your praise. We pray for the work of your spirit in each of our hearts that we might embrace and rejoice in the gospel and find comfort through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. In whose name we pray, help us, Lord, in our weakness. Amen. Please be seated. Brothers and sisters well loved by our Lord Jesus Christ, you have in your hands this morning here in Isaiah chapter 35, a message of profound encouragement. If you can understand, if you can embrace what Isaiah says here, you will have not just the strength to endure in your Christian life, but even to flourish and to triumph in your Christian life. One of the many ways that our modern world is different from the ancient Near East is our view of poetry. In the ancient Near East, if something was worth recording, it was worth putting into poetic form. We could spend a lot of time looking at this chapter as a piece of poetry. You'll notice that it begins and it ends on the same note. It mentions joy and singing, rejoicing at the very beginning and the end. We call this an envelope or an inclusio structure. The key, most outstanding feature of Hebrew poetry is parallelism, and almost every line, you can hear the parallelism in this passage. The glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God, parallel. The eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped. These are parallel expressions. You'll notice that the image of the transformed wilderness, which we see in verses one and two, comes back at the beginning of the second half, as well in verse 6b and following. There's a lot that could be said about the poetics, and by way of poetic analysis here, it's very rich. One of Britain's finest interpreters of Isaiah, Bishop Lowth, who was writing in the late 18th century, said of Isaiah that there is no poetry extant in any language with such a richness of invention, variety of images, beauty of disposition, strength of coloring, greatness of sentiment, brevity, perspicuity, force of expression. It stands among the monuments of antiquity, unrivaled. This is beautiful poetry that we have here. This is a very beautiful text. But as we approach it today, I'd like for us to approach it not first and foremost as poetry, but I'd like for us to seek to hear it as God's word for us. its impact on us, and I would suggest two headings to guide us in our reflections on this passage. First, reasons for fear, and second, reasons for hope. Let's consider this passage under reasons for fear, that is, reasons for anxiety. And second, under reasons for hope, that is reasons that the text gives us for trust and even for joy. These will be our two main headings, our two main points this morning. First look with me at verse three. There we have this command. It says there, strengthen the weak hands, make firm the feeble knees, say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong, fear not. Obviously there are reasons for fear. The people are afraid. They are anxious, they are discouraged, they are wavering in their commitment. And if you look at the context of this chapter, you see they have every reason to be discouraged. And my point comes largely from the context here. If you'll flip the page over to 36, you see that they have reason to fear because the Assyrians are coming. The Assyrians are the most feared, most cruel military force in the day, and they are eating up the cities of Judah one by one. These are people who evidently invented crucifixion, that is, taking human beings and sticking them on poles right through the thorax. and they're coming right up to the gates of Jerusalem. The very existence of the people of God as an independent political power is in jeopardy. There's political reasons for fear. If you flip the page again and you turn over to 39, you'll see that there is another reason for fear, and that is sickness. Hezekiah comes very close to dying. And I think for many of us, the loss of our health, particularly as we get older, is a major reason for anxiety. we can lose our health so easily. I'm feeling it quite a bit. If you see me wincing a little bit this morning, it's because I am having quite a bit of back pain. I just, something over the weekend, boom, and here I am. It may remind you that your health, it's just one little movement and there goes your health. As a seminary community, we've been reeling from the impact of death this year. One of our stalwart pillars and board members, John Andrews, the professional tennis player, early 60s, a very important board member for us, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer suddenly and died within six weeks. It was a tremendous blow, not only to him and his family, but to us. as a community as a whole. There is nothing, not our health, there is nothing that we can look on, it seems, in this world that has any lasting stability. Not even our relationships. We lean on certain people and we trust our lives to them, and they betray us, and they leave us, and they die on us. There is nothing, it seems, not our relationships, not our health, not our finances, that we can lean on and say, this is a secure thing. We have a position, we think, oh, I'm set, I'll be at this job until I retire, and then all of a sudden, there goes the company, or for some reason, I'm let go, or someone stabs me in the back, or whatever it is. We lose our financial stability. Our family's been experiencing that recently. My wife was driving in Escondido on 78 and 17th Avenue and boom, fortunately her life was spared and the other people's as well. But there went the car, boom. And life could have been threatened right then and there. There is no security under the heavens as it were. Health, money, love, these are things that we all seek. But even when we get them, then we are anxious about losing them. We fear to lose these things. For some of us, anxiety becomes kind of a mindset. Anxiety becomes the water that we swim in, becomes the air that we breathe. We become anxious people. This is a temptation. This is an understandable reaction if we just simply consider the insecurities and the threats that face us and those we care about in this world. But for Isaiah, there is even a more profound and more disturbing reason for anxiety than the loss of these things, and that is God himself. Isaiah's favorite terminology for God is he is the holy one of Israel, that God is so set apart from all moral imperfection that no sinner can stand in his presence. The best known example of this comes in chapter six, of course. In chapter five, however, Isaiah is quite able to preach Isaiah preaches in chapter five, woe to those who join house to house. Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may run after strong drink. There he preaches in five, but now in chapter six, he sees the holy guardians. He sees the seraphim. Imagine these as flying, fiery dragons that separate God from all else and protect his presence. And as soon as he hears them saying, holy, holy, holy, he is struck and he says, not woe are they, but woe is me. Because the righteous, Isaiah, sees his moral failing in the presence of God and it strikes him with tremendous fear. Isaiah gives us two kinds of oracles in his majestic work here. He gives us oracles of salvation, and that's what we have in 35. And he gives us oracles of judgment, and that's what we have before 35. There's quite a contrast between 34 33 and 35. You can hear the fiery anger of God against all sin in chapter 34, verses 2 and 3. The Lord is enraged against all the nations and furious against all their hosts. He has devoted them to destruction. He has given them over for slaughter. Their slain shall be cast out and the stench of their corpses shall rise. The mountains shall flow with their blood." This is very strong. The hot anger of God against all sin. Look, flip the page to 33. Look at 12 through 14. 33, 12 through 14, God is speaking himself there. He says, the peoples will be as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down that are burned in the fire. Here, you who are far off, what I have done, and you who are near, acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion are afraid. Trembling has seized the godless. Who among us can dwell with a consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings? Who indeed? And what is the everlasting burning? What is the consuming fire? That is God himself. God himself. God Himself who is a terror for transgressors and people who are guilty like us if left to ourselves. Now you may be tempted to say, well this is just a primitive Old Testament view of God. We have a different view of God in the New Testament. Oh, do we? Our Lord Jesus more than most, speaks of the fiery judgment of God again and again. And the author to the letter to the Hebrews tells us in chapter 10, verse 31, that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. There is a reason for fear. There is a reason for anxiety to stand naked in front of God. When our conscience is active, we see that we have not even lived up to our own moral standards, let alone God's standards. That we have been inconsistent in our own view of what is right and wrong. We have not treated other people as we want ourselves to be treated by any means. We've broken all the commandments, both tables of the law. Each of us has said things that we wish we had not said, things that cut and wound and hurt. And we have done things that we're ashamed of, and we have desired things that we should not have desired. And even the good things we have done, things that are socially good, we do them for the wrong reasons. There's a twistedness in us, and we cannot stand a careful scrutiny of our hearts and of our resume, as it were, before God, who sees everything. So then what reason for hope can we have? Self-reformation. You've just got to clean your act up. Are you strong enough? Are you pure enough to make yourself right before this holy God? Can you save yourself? Can you free yourself from your reasons for fear? As we come to this table here, Is that what you're focused on? Is it by self-purification that you can come and eat at this table today? I dare say you're not strong enough, and neither am I. We need serious external dependable reasons for hope to save us from these reasons for fear. And of course, that's the focus, that's the glorious focus here of chapter 35. Look at verse three again. Strengthen the weak hands, make firm the feeble knees. Now, how are you supposed to do that? by announcing good news. That's what makes the difference. You've gotta announce good news to the people. And that's what we have in verse four. Say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong, fear not. And what's the good news according to Isaiah? Behold, your God will come. That's the good news. He will come and save you. He will save you. The emphasis is not on what you do to save yourself, it is on God's coming to save you. That's the message of Isaiah from first to last. And that's what the focus is on this chapter. It gives us a number of different images. to encourage our hearts that are so anxious, our hearts that are blown about by this fear and the other fear. It's telling us here that God will come and he will save us with a comprehensive, a complete and a total salvation. Let's consider these images that Isaiah gives us here. But before we do, I'd like for you to think about the nature of prophetic speech. That is, how does Isaiah, how does he view God's salvation? He views it at one grand whole, in short. One of the few consolations for driving in Los Angeles, in my opinion, is occasionally you'll come up on a ridge and you can see the mountains in the distance and it's a beautiful thing, a beautiful thing. And as you're looking at the distance at the mountain, it seems like it's one great single ridge, kind of like a comb. It looks like it's all in a straight line, doesn't it? But it's only as you come to it, it's only as you cross the first mountain and then you see, oh, I've just crossed the first ridge, there's another behind it. Then you go through that and you see there's another ridge behind that. So what you see from a distance as one single thing It's by getting into it, by going through it, that you see it's one series after another after another. So what is the salvation that Isaiah sees? He sees the salvation from the Assyrians, which we get in chapter 37. He sees that. That's the first range. He sees the return from exile after the Babylonian captivity. But that's just the second range, right? He sees the first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to die for our sins, which we celebrate at this table this morning. But that's only the third range. He ultimately sees the second coming of our Lord Jesus and the renewal of all things. But Isaiah sees it as one grand whole. And he gives us these powerful images to talk about this comprehensive, multifaceted salvation of God. It's in stages. We who have a different historical point of view, we see that it's in stages. Let me encourage you to meditate on this wonderful chapter, particularly the last verse this afternoon. We're not gonna be able to unpack everything here, of course, but let's look at the main images that he gives us here. First, beginning in verse one, and that is the image of the renewal of the desert. Isaiah loves to talk about reversal. Reversal, major theme in Isaiah, and here we have the reversal in the desert. In chapter 34, we have the sown productive land becoming a desert, and now we have here the desert becoming a productive and sown land. The desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus. He speaks about Lebanon, Carmel, and Sharon. What is the geography of Palestine in terms of rainfall, in terms of plant life? Children, it's just like California. It's just like California. What's the driest part of California, as you go north or south? South? As you go east or west? as you go east, of course. So the driest part is as you go towards Yuma or down to Mexicali. I was recently in Mexicali and picked up a car with a friend, and there was this much dust on the car. The place is very barren and dry, right? So south east is dry. And so in California, where's the most luscious part, north? West. And what's the trees that grow up in the northern part of California where there's so much rain? The redwoods. And what's to the north of Palestine? Lebanon. And what's on the flag of Lebanon? What's Lebanon known for? These huge trees. They call them the cedars, right? So north means rain, means big trees. South means dry. So the southern part, the Negev, as you go towards Egypt, as you go towards the Dead Sea, the wilderness of Judah, that's very dry. And there's very little that grows there. on its own. But God is saying what? In verses, in verse 2, He's saying that the southern land, the Negev, is going to be like the northern land, right? Like the Carmel. You can stand on the Carmel and look out over the plain of Ezdralon, the Valley of Jezreel. It is the breadbasket of modern Israel. It's a beautiful agricultural area, right? Nice and flat, lots of stuff growing on it. You can go slightly to the south and see where Sharon is. Sharon is a great agricultural area. A lot of citrus trees. You may have heard of the Jaffa oranges. That's from that general area. It's a great area. God is saying that he is going to take the dry lands and turn them green. He's going to turn the south land, like the Salton Sea, he's going to turn it into Napa. and the rainforests of the Northwest. God's gonna bring about this renewal, right? That the things that are sad, He's gonna make happy again. The things that are empty, He's gonna make full again. The things that are painful and troublesome, He's gonna take away and replace them with things that are satisfying and joy-giving and life-giving. What a beautiful picture. He comes back to it again in six, at the end of six and seven. Beautiful promise of renewal. Look at verse eight, you'll see a second picture that Isaiah loves to use, and it's a picture of a road. He loves this image, he uses it in chapter two, right at the very beginning in the second introduction of Isaiah. This similar image of a highway. a highway. This is a concrete way of speaking of the return of God's people to their land in peace and in security. Now in California, believe it or not, we have some of the best roads in the world. We really do. In the ancient Near East, roads, highways were rare, very, very expensive, hard to build, and they were rare, right? But God promises the positive and the negative. Look at verse eight. He says, positive, a highway shall be there. Negative, no lion shall be there. Verse nine, right? He's gonna provide the way and it won't be plagued by threats and troubles. A friend of mine, Pete Maraney. visited some friends of his who are missionaries in Kenya. And they're working way far away from the capital city and he was with them for a week. And as they were in their Land Rover coming back to the city of Nairobi, coming back from their far off village, they stopped to have lunch along the way. And so they're having lunch and they have a nine year old son. And the nine-year-old son says, dad, do you mind if I run on ahead and you can come and pick me up? They're in the savannah, right, in the African plains. And the dad says, I bet you can guess, the dad says, no. because wise fathers, they oftentimes say no to us because they know what's not good for us. Well, they got back in the Land Cruiser and well, 200 meters down the way, what was there but a lion, literal lion crouching alongside the road. And if that boy had run on by himself. So what's the promise here? The promise here is that God As a wise father who knows better than we do, he gives us what we need, not what we want. That he protects us along the way. And even though we go through the valley of the shadow of death, he will guard our soul from all evil ultimately. Even the setbacks and the heartbreaks that we experience in this life, they must be somehow for our good. Even though they crush us, because He is a good, ultimately, loving, heavenly Father. He will protect us, and He will help us. Look at the end of verse eight. I love that little expression there. It speaks to me. It's speaking about a fool. Speaking about a fool. I really appreciate this very much. Now, if we've been Christians for any length of time, we've probably seen some professing Christians to, we've seen them crash and burn. There are some sins, it seems, that are so soul-sucking that they just grab a person and bring them down to perdition, as it were. And what a horrible and sad thing it is when we see that happening to a professing Christian. But here in verse nine, he calls us his redeemed. In verse 10, he calls us his ransomed. And if we are sincerely His, if He has saved us, then the promise here is that He will what? He will keep us. He will keep us. We will not ultimately go astray, though we may vary. He will hold us, bring us back, and He will keep us. Have you been to a bowling alley and seen the rails that they put up alongside the bowling alleys from time to time? Normally, it's when kids are playing, or when people who are terrible bowlers like me play. You need that. But what happens when you put those rails up in the bowling alley? What does that mean for the bowling? Well, that means if the ball starts, what's going to happen? it's gonna make it to the end. There's no question. It won't go astray because what? Because those rails are there to keep the ball in. And that's what God is saying. He's saying, if you've begun the Christian life, if you're his by grace, if you started, then he will see you to the end. Then you will surely make it. Even though we see our own weakness and our tendency to go this way or that, God promises He will keep us in the way even though we are fools. Praise God. For we are often so foolish, so weak, but our own weaknesses and sins can't ultimately derail us, right? This is not an excuse for sin, of course. That would be absurd. But we can take confidence in the promise, as the apostle puts it in Philippians 1.6, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ. We can have confidence in that. And we don't need to despair, even though we sense our own weakness in the spiritual life. What a beautiful thing that is. What an assurance that is. But look with me at verse five. Here, perhaps here most clearly, we see how God fulfills these promises of renewal. Brothers and sisters, I believe that soon there is coming a thoroughgoing renewal of all things, all things, of material itself, this world itself, you yourself, in every sense, Physically. And how can I believe that this is true? I can believe in this complete coming renovation because I know someone who already has carried out a partial renovation right along these lines. What does it say there in verse five? It says, the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, But Mark tells me that this is what my Lord Jesus did in chapter seven, verse 32 and following. They brought to Jesus a man who was deaf. and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him, and taking him aside from the crowd privately. He put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting, touched his tongue. And he looked up to heaven, and he sighed and said to him, Ephaphata, that is, be opened. And his ears were opened, and his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Jesus has already done this. Jesus gets down and dirty with sinners like us and he sticks his fingers in our ears and he spits on our tongue. He identifies with us in our earthiness, in our lowliness, in all of our need to do us good. This is what he came for. What do we read in verse six? It says, the lame man shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. But we read that this is exactly what the apostle did in the name of Jesus. We read in Acts chapter three, verse seven, that he took him by the right hand, raised him up, speaking to this lame man. Immediately his feet and ankles were made strong and leaping up, he stood and began to walk and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. Right? This is what the Lord Jesus came to do. Matter of fact, I think Jesus saw his whole ministry in terms of Isaiah 35. We can read in Luke chapter seven, verse 20 and following. This is how he explains himself when the men come to him from John the Baptist. Are you the one who's come, or shall we look for another? Luke 7, 21. In that hour, he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind, he bestowed sight. And he answered them, go and tell John what you have seen and heard. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear. The dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them, and blessed is the one who is not offended by me." Right? Christ himself sees himself as doing these restorative, wonderful miracles, right? That's what he came to do. He came to make people whole again. He came to restore them. Brothers and sisters, you can believe that there is a jaw-dropping renewal of the cosmos itself, of the world, and even of your body, because the Lord Jesus has already fulfilled what he came to do. He himself is God come to save us. He himself is, verse four, and that's why he does what he does in verse five. He comes to bring about this complete renewal, right? Now you may be shocked when you read verse four, we're not comfortable with this language. It says God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God, and of course this is serious. This is serious. Let me speak to you, if you've not connected with Jesus Christ by faith yet, perhaps this is something that's strange and new to you, or that you've rejected so far. You need Jesus Christ as your rescuer, otherwise you stand alone. And when you think of the vengeance and the recompense of God, that's serious and scary, as it should be. And I encourage you to take this with the utmost seriousness. Not to drive you away from God, but to drive you to Christ, the Savior. To drive you to close with Him, to receive Him, to rest on Him. He offers Himself to you. to abandon all self-dependence and depend on Him. This is the opposite of the world's message, right? Depend on yourself, dig deep within you, right? No, don't, this is not about looking within you, it's looking outside you to Him, right? But brothers and sisters, this actually, in verse four, when it talks about vengeance and the recompense of God, this is good news to a people who are oppressed by foreigners. If there was another country ruling over you and taking all your money and giving you no freedom whatsoever, the idea that God would avenge you of them, that he would give them a recompense, that's salvation language. So take verse four as gospel. God is coming to save us. It's good news, it really is. Verse two talks about seeing the glory of the Lord. It talks about the majesty and the splendor of our God. How is it that you can have confidence that this is gonna take place? Look at verse four again. This is so easy to read over. Say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong, fear not. How? Behold your God. Did you catch that? The Holy One of Israel has come down to us and connected with us to such an extent in Jesus Christ, He calls Himself your God. He identifies Himself with you. He commits Himself to you. Isn't that beautiful? And what did He come to do? He came to live, He came to fulfill the terms of His own covenant, as we see from this covenant meal. The Lord Jesus, as the new Adam, He fulfilled all the demands of righteousness, the demand for a perfect, obedient life that God demands of all of us, and we cannot provide. He did it for us. And more than that, then he took the covenant curses on himself and was punished in the place of us rebels so that we might be received and adopted as beloved children and made co-heirs with Christ. Citizens of heaven itself and the new earth that's around the corner, right? He did it for us and that's what we're celebrating here when we eat, when we drink in just a moment together. Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ raised people from the dead. Jesus Christ raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus Christ himself was raised from the dead in that new body that you are gonna have. You are actually gonna be the person that you always wanted to be. Externally, body and soul. because he's gonna renew you from the very cellular level up, and you'll never die again, and you'll never sin again. You'll never even want to sin again. And you'll live in a renewed world. What a beautiful promise. How can you be assured of that? Because Christ has come. because Christ has died, because Christ has risen, and because Christ, therefore, we know that Christ will indeed come again. Brothers and sisters, I'm not big into tattoos, but if you wanted to do a tattoo, verse 10 would be a great one. Maybe you could put it on the end, on your palm of your hand right here to be reminded all the time. Right? Verse 10 is worth memorizing. Verse 10 is so awesome that Isaiah himself repeats it in chapter 51, verse 11. Those of you who have been around for a while, you may remember the old Jesus people chorus, right? Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. You remember that? That's worth singing in one version or another. Sing it. Sing it. Put it on your heart. Write it on, put it on your refrigerator. You need this. You need this as you go through the valley of tears and suffering which is this life, right? You can say this. This is for you because Christ is for you, which we have affirmed for us now at the table, right? No matter how dark things may be in your life, you can say, along with the psalmist in chapter 30, verse five, weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning. That's what the promise is here. Brothers and sisters, the secret of the Christian life is so often not letting your soul preach to you, but you preaching to your soul. Don't let your anxious heart preach to you, but you take the gospel and preach to your anxious heart. And give yourself verse 10. On Tuesday afternoon when the depression sets in, give yourself verse 10, right? Be strong, fear not, why? Because you can take verse 10 to the bank. It's a sure thing. Brothers and sisters, look at the end of verse nine. Why is this all possible? It's because of what God has done for us in Christ. We are the redeemed. He's done everything necessary to redeem us. We are the ransomed. He's done everything necessary to set us free and to ransom us. And we can say to ourselves, be strong, fear not. Brothers and sisters, no matter how profound the loss is that you have suffered, no matter how deep the discouragement that you may be facing, no matter what your setback, what your failure, or what your disappointment may be, and they may be coming, Wave after wave after wave. You can take and hold this as gospel truth, as sure truth. You know, as we read in Revelation 7, verse 17, it is true that the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. You know it as you look right here. This is the secret. He has come. and he's done everything necessary already to put you right with God. You do not come now as a person righteous in themself, no. You come looking to Christ as your righteousness, even as we sang in that wonderful Clarkson hymn where he started our service, right? He is our righteousness, and you can trust him no matter how much you may be weeping this week. You can trust him that he will dry those tears. The ransomed of the Lord shall indeed return and come to Zion with singing and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Brothers and sisters, in Christ, our reasons for hope overcome all our reasons for fear. Let me repeat that. I take it that's what the proposition means here in the sermon outline, right? We're getting to it at the end here. Let me say it one more time. In Christ, all our reasons for hope overcome. All, all our reasons for fear and anxiety. Would you join me in prayer? Let's pray. Almighty God and Heavenly Father, we thank you for your commitment to our welfare to the extent that you would send your beloved only son, the son of your heart, for our rescue, for our redemption, for our ransom. Impress on our taste buds and our sense of smell on our sense of touch now as we take his table, as we take his food and drink, that you love us and that you're committed to us no matter what has happened, no matter how bleak our present circumstances may be, that there is coming this time of renewal and you will indeed dry every tear, for Lord we shed many tears. We pray if there are any who have not yet connected with Christ by personal faith, that you would speak to them today, renew them, convince them that Christ is in their best interest, and help them cry out to him. We pray for our children, Lord, that you would make them strong in confidence, not in self-righteousness, not in that they've done it all right, but that Jesus has done it all right for them. Lord, convince our children that there's grace for them. Convince all of us, Lord, that there is grace for us, no matter what our week has been like, what our record has been like. There is grace for each of us in Christ. Thank you, Lord, for these wonderful promises through these many images. Lord, let them settle into our minds. Let them convince us. of your well intention, your good intention toward us through Christ. In whose name we pray, amen and amen.