WWUTT 2074 God Will Accomplish His Good Pleasure (Isaiah 46:1-13)

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Can you predict the events that are going to happen tomorrow? You probably have some expectations of what may happen tomorrow or what you are going to do tomorrow, but only

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God knows the future. He knows the future because He has determined it when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the

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Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our

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Q &A on Friday. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Isaiah, we're up to chapter 46 this week, throwing in chapter 47 as well, because both of these chapters are short.

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We should be able to get through them both. Before opening with the reading, however, let me do a little bit of recap.

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So we're in this section of Isaiah, chapters 40 to 48, where God, through the prophet

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Isaiah, has told Judah that they're going to be exiled into Babylonian captivity and then into the hands of the

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Medes and the Persians. But God has already ordained, He has already designated a king who is going to set them free and send them back into the land and even load them up with the provisions they need to rebuild the temple and rebuild

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Jerusalem. God even names this man, though Judah has not been exiled yet.

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This prophecy is being made a hundred years before they're going to be exiled, and this man's not even born yet.

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But we saw his name, we saw his name in the last chapter and in previous chapters. His name is Cyrus. And God is telling them this so that they will know

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God is Yahweh, Yahweh alone is God.

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There is no other. He is the one who creates peace and causes calamity, as we read in chapter 45.

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He is the one who has ordained the generations, as we saw in previous chapters. There is no

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God but me. Judah has depended upon these false gods, but God even puts those false gods on trial and says, hey, confer together if you want to, who can determine the end from the beginning, who can declare it?

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Only the one who has ordained it can say that these things are going to happen. That's why

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God has revealed to Judah, this is exactly the king who is going to be the one to set you free, though this man's not even born yet, showing that he alone is

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God who has ordained all of this to take place. And so we're picking up today in chapter 46, where we are going to once again read about these idols that God is putting on trial and declaring above them that he alone is

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God. So let's start here in chapter 46. I'm going to read through the whole chapter out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

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Hear the word of the Lord. Bell has bowed down, Nebo stoops over.

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Their images are on the beasts and the cattle. The things that you carry are burdensome, a load for the weary beast.

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They stooped over, they have bowed down together. They could not rescue the load, but have themselves gone into captivity.

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Hear me, O house of Jacob and all the remnant of the house of Israel. You who have been burdening me from birth and have been carried from the womb, even to your old age,

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I will be the same. And even to your graying years, I will bear you. I have done it and I will carry you and I will bear you and I will rescue you.

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To whom would you liken me and make me equal and compare me that we would be alike?

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Those who lavish gold from the purse and weigh silver on the scale, they hire a goldsmith and he makes it into a god.

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They fall down, indeed they worship it. They carry it upon the shoulder and bear it.

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They set it in its place and it stands there. It does not move from its place.

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Though one may cry to it, it cannot answer. It cannot save him from his distress.

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Remember this and be assured, cause it to return to your heart, you transgressors.

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Remember the former things long past, for I am God and there is no other.

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I am God and there is no one like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things which have not been done, saying, my counsel will be established and I will accomplish all my good pleasure.

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Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country, truly

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I have spoken, truly I will bring it to pass. I have formed it, surely

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I will do it. Hear me, you stubborn of heart who are far from righteousness.

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I bring near my righteousness, it is not far off and my salvation will not delay and I will grant salvation in Zion and my glory for Israel.

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These are huge verses. In fact, if you've got a pen or you've got a highlighter, this is another one to highlight.

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Verse 10, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things which had not yet been done, saying, my counsel will be established and I will accomplish all my good pleasure.

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And again, Yahweh setting himself against these false gods. These things can't do anything for you.

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And you notice that we open this chapter with God telling Israel, I will carry you.

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But you who have bowed down to these false gods, you've carried them. They can't do anything for you.

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Why do you continue to trust in them and bow before them and cry to them when they cannot answer?

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So let's come back to the start of this. It's again, all of this to demonstrate to Israel. God is

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Yahweh, Yahweh is God, and he cares for Israel and he takes care of them. These false gods don't do that.

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Bell has bowed down, Nebo stoops over. These are the principal gods among the

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Babylonians. Bell means Lord, and he would have been like the chief

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God. Nebo was like an Assyrian Hermes. If you're familiar with your

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Greek gods, Hermes was a herald of the gods or one of the gods messengers. So Bell would be like the chief

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God and Nebo would be his mouthpiece. But Bell is bowed down and Nebo stooped over.

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Why? Because they've been conquered by the Persians. So apparently these gods were not powerful enough to protect the

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Babylonians from the Persian conquests that came against them. And remember, it is

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God's hand that is behind the Persians. Because God is using the Persians to punish the

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Babylonians. And God is even going to use the Persians to set free the Jews and send them back into their land that they may repopulate it, rebuild it.

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Their images are on the beasts and the cattle. The things that you carry are burdensome, a load for the weary beasts.

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So their images are on the beasts and the cattle, where they would have their big idols that the animals would have to pull, whether it would be on a cart or you might have two cattle on either side and then there would be poles in between them and the idol would be in the center.

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So as they would be paraded like that, they would be pulled by these pack animals. They are a weary burden for the beast.

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And again, God is demonstrating here that I'm not a burden to you. I've carried you, but you carry around your false gods.

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So verse two, they stooped over, they have bowed down together. They could not rescue the load, but have themselves gone into captivity.

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When the Persians come and they take over the Babylonians, they're going to take all the gods and melt them down and destroy them.

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Those gods were not even powerful enough to protect the Babylonians from their enemies. And so God says, hear me,

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O house of Jacob and all the remnant of the house of Israel, those that went into captivity and stayed there and would in their hearts, repent and turn back to the

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Lord. You who have been burdening me from birth and have been carried from the womb, even to your old age,

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I will be the same. And even to your graying years, I will bear you. I have done it and I will carry you and I will bear you and I will rescue you.

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Good news to the hearts of those who had been convicted over their sin and desire that God would set them free from the captivity that they have been put into.

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Yeah, we've been carrying around all our false gods. They've just been a burden to us. They don't do anything for us.

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But here Yahweh says, though I've had to carry you, I'm showing mercy to you.

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So then verse five, to whom would you liken me and make me equal and compare me that we would be alike?

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Of course, this is a rhetorical question. There's no one equal to God. No one comes even close. Those who lavish gold from the purse and weigh silver on the scale, they hire a goldsmith and he makes it into a god.

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They fall down. Indeed, they worship it like you made this thing.

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You formed it and you're bowing to it. What's it going to do for you? You gave it form.

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How is it going to give you anything? They carry it upon the shoulder and bear it. They set it in its place and it stands there.

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It does not move from its place. Though one may cry to it, it cannot answer. It cannot save him from his distress.

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Now, you might think of ourselves today as a more civilized people than the idol worshipers back then or in those more primitive cultures.

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You know, they worship the idols, but we don't do that. We're much too sophisticated for that.

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Well, I just passed by a store today, as a matter of fact, drove by it on the road. And I know that inside that store, it's a chain store.

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It's a brand name store. And yet in that store, they've got statues of Buddha and and Krishna that you can buy and decorate your home with.

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By the way, the store is five below. That store where, you know, everything's supposed to be five dollars and below.

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Yeah, they have idols in there. Every five below I've been in has those idols. You can buy them all over the place.

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I've seen them in other department stores as well. I've been in the mall. You'll pass by one of those stores that has all the trinkets and little decorative stuff you can put in your living room and you'll find little

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Hindu Ganesh statues and and stuff like that. So, yeah, we're not really all that beyond the idol worshipping of some of those what we might refer to as primitive cultures.

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Oh, it's just as prevalent in the United States of America. And plus, there are all kinds of things in the West that people will elevate to the place of God, thinking that they can get some kind of deliverance from it.

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Drug habits, you know, brand new car, certain house, social status, opportunity, money.

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Your TV, your smartphone. People who will claim I need these things in order to be happy.

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If I don't have them, then I can't be satisfied. And they will even look to those things, believing that there will be some deliverance that will come out of it.

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You look at the trans movement as as it exists in the Western world right now. Men who think that they need to become women, they need to even cut parts of themselves off in order to feel whole, which is incredibly ironic.

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They they think that this is what is going to set them free and I will finally be my true self.

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And there are other ways that manifests itself and may not necessarily be a man trying to become a woman. But other ways that people say this is what

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I need, this is where where I need to live, what I need to have in order to feel like that I'm my true self and all this stuff they worship and think that this will make them happy.

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They will bow down to it. They will submit themselves to it. They would do whatever that thing demands of them to do, thinking that they will gain some sort of liberation by it and in and in fact, find themselves more enslaved than they were before.

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It's a burden to them. They're carrying this stuff around thinking that the stuff I'm carrying is going to set them free.

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But it is only God who can save us. Jesus saying in Matthew chapter 12, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

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I guess that's Matthew chapter 11, not 12, Matthew 11, 28. Jesus is the one who sets us free.

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He is the one who carries us. God saying here to Judah, same

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God who put on human flesh, died on the cross for our sins, rose again from the dead so that all who believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

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It is God who does all of this for us. I will rescue you, God says to Judah.

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Verse five, to whom would you liken me and make me equal and compare me that we would be alike.

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Again, there's no one to compare to God. No one comes even close to God. God could stand on the edge of the universe if he wants to and be that far away from us and he would be perfectly just to take up his place there and let us fend for ourselves or perish in his wrath, which is truly what we deserve.

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And yet God shows mercy to us and comes to us and rescues us out of all our distresses.

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Verse eight, remember this and be assured, cause it to return to your heart, you transgressors.

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Remember the former things long past for I am God and there is no other.

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I am God and there is no one like me. Remember that, Christian, that there is no one who is going to give you relief, who is going to lift your burden from you, who is going to forgive your sins and promise you everlasting life.

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No one can do this but God, he who declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not yet been done, saying, my counsel will be established and I will accomplish all my good pleasure.

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And like we had read previously, how is it that God is able to do that? Because he's ordained it. That's how he knows the end from the beginning, because he's the one who's declared it.

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He doesn't look down the tunnel of time to see how things are going to transpire or even look to see that you are going to become a follower of Jesus Christ.

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And so I'm going to elect you because I can see that in the distant future, you're going to be a follower of Christ. So therefore, you know,

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I have learned something about you and I'm going to make you my elect. That is not God. That's a false

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God that's being described there. That's what the pagan gods would do. The pagans were the ones who were the soothsayers, who were the fortune tellers.

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God is not a fortune teller. He prophesies. He's speaking through his prophet here because he's ordained it.

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He is having prophesied what he has already determined is going to happen. What other

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God can step forth and say, oh, I know what's going to happen from beginning to end. That's the indictment that the

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Lord gave to the false gods earlier in this section. You can even take counsel with yourselves if you want to confer with one another, come up with an answer and tell me what the end is going to be from the beginning.

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They can't do it. Only God can do it because he's determined it. He declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things which have not yet been done, saying my counsel will be established.

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In other words, he's not just looking through time. He's the one that has established that this is what is going to happen.

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I will accomplish all my good pleasure. He does it for his own praise and glory. And he's

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God. He can do what he wants. He can save this person and refuse salvation from that person.

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So praise God that he has shown you mercy and called you to himself through Jesus Christ.

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Nothing that God does is unjust. Everybody receives justice. Nobody receives injustice.

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We who are in Christ were justified in Christ because he took our payment for us.

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But those who are not in Christ, they will receive justice. And that justice is eternal separation from God, eternal punishment in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur.

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That's what we deserve. But God, by his mercy, gives us Christ for those who believe in him.

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Hear me, you stubborn of heart. Verse 12, who are far from righteousness,

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I bring near my righteousness. It is not far off. Yes, because you in Christ Jesus wear the righteousness of Christ.

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You have not done anything righteous. God gives you his righteousness. And now you may be declared righteous.

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I bring near my righteousness, he says. You will enter into eternity on the merits of Christ, not on your merits, because you've been clothed in his righteousness.

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My salvation will not delay. And I will grant salvation in Zion and my glory for Israel.

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And so we in the church have received this glory that God has shared with us through Christ, his son, to the praise of his glorious grace.

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As said in Ephesians chapter one, there is none who can compare with God. There is no one who can give

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God counsel, who can say to God, I've accomplished this, I've done this, so you owe me this.

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No one can stand in God's presence and say that. You can't pull out a deed or a contract of any kind and say, see

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God, I fulfilled this portion, so you owe me this or you have to give me this. God will have mercy on whom he has mercy and he will have compassion on whom he has compassion, as he said in Exodus, as is repeated again in Romans nine.

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No one can tell God what to do. Remember the former things long past, he says to Israel, and those are things that we need to remember as well, as said in Romans chapter 15, what was written down in former days was written for our instruction.

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So through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. And we read also this in first Corinthians 10, for I do not want you to be unaware brothers that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink for they were drinking from a spiritual rock, which followed them.

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And the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased for they were struck down in the wilderness.

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Now these things happen as examples for us so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved.

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Do not be idolaters as some of them were, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play talking about the worship of the golden calf, nor let us act in sexual immorality as some of them did and 23 ,000 fell in one day, nor let us put

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Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by the serpents, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.

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Now these things happen to them as an example and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have arrived.

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Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.

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Remember these things that have been written down for us so that you would turn from your sin to Christ who clothes you in his righteousness.

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And if you've been clothed in the righteousness of Christ, then walk in the righteousness of Christ. Be holy as he is holy.

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Let's stop there. Heavenly father, we thank you for what we've read in this section of Isaiah.

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I said I was going to get through chapter 47, but we got caught up beholding the mercy and the grace of God, your sovereignty over all of creation, over all of time and space.

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So God, may we submit ourselves to you knowing that you hold all things in your hands.

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May we not be burdened, may we not burden ourselves with the temptations of our flesh or the promises of the world or the schemes with Satan.

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Going after these things, thinking that they're going to give us relief and then turn to find ourselves enslaved.

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But set us free, Christ Jesus, to worship you and walk with you and in your statutes and in your ways and in your righteousness that we may be holy and blameless before you in love.

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Continue to work out in us our salvation. May we work out our salvation with fear and trembling as said in Philippians 2, for it is

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God who works in us, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

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This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

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and let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word when we understand the text.