me to prepare away for the Lord in the wilderness. And we're so glad that you come and I just pray and trust that it's in your heart too. And I sense that as we were singing. I can line it around now and again to see if anybody else is singing because I sing so loud.
I can only hear myself sometimes. But you are all singing. We're waiting and anticipating the coming of our King. Prepare the way by making his word and his truth, and none to others.
I want to talk to you about comfort. I started this little, I was going to be a message. And then, of course, I prepare more notes that I can possibly get done in a day. So it's become a series now.
But it's on comfort. And we started out with the four voices of comfort. And we looked at the first voice of comfort. And we're going to look at the second one today, God willing.
But I want to tell you a story before I did that. It's about a young man who wanted to comfort other people. And I want to say that welcome to all the Robertson clan that's here today. I'm just so glad to see so many of you with us.
And all you visitors, you're so welcome to be here. And I'll tell you the story. So here's a young man who wanted to be a comfort. And maybe you wanted to be a comfort at times.
And it sort of fell flat a little bit. So maybe you can relate to the story. So I'm just going to tell it to you as you gave it. It's a young piper, the bagpipes.
I was asked by a funeral director to play at a gravesite service for a homeless man with no family or friends. The funeral was to be held at a cemetery way back in the country. And this man would be the first to be laid to rest in the cemetery. As I was not familiar with the backwoods area, I became lost.
And being a typical man did not stop for directions. Amen. I finally arrived an hour late for the service. I saw the backhoe and the crew who were eating lunch.
But the hearse was nowhere in sight. I apologized to the workers for my turdiness and stepped to the side of the open grave, where I saw the vault lid already in place. I assured the workers I would not hold them up for long. But this was the proper thing to do.
The workers gathered around, still eating their lunch. I played out my heart and soul. As I played, the workers began to weep. I played and I played.
I'd never played like this before. I play songs like My Home. And the Lord is my shepherd and two flowers of the forest. And then I closed the lengthy session with amazing grace and walked to my car.
As I was opening the door and taking off my coat, I overheard one of the workers saying to another, bye, I never seen nothing like that before. And I've been putting in septic tanks for 20 years. Sometimes we mean well. But we just misplaced their comfort.
Sometimes we're trying to comfort someone. And we end up, but what I'm going to try to do today is use the shotgun method. And I'm shooting out a blast of shot. And hopefully somebody will get hit with comfort.
The Lord wants to comfort us. And I want you to turn with me, please. And the boys down back are going to help me with this. Because a lot of the guys get up here and they've got the little wand in there.
Let's go on. I can't do that yet. I'll grow up later on. And I'll be able to do that.
But right now, depending on the boys in the back, to make sure that my text gets up there. And the text is from Isaiah chapter 40. So if you have your Bibles, or as we're now told to say, your devices, I don't like that word. But anyway, if you have your Bibles or your devices, turn to Isaiah chapter 40.
The device just sounds wrong. But anyway, if you have your phones, the scripture is downloaded. Isaiah chapter 40, and we will read, I'm reading from the New American Standard at this time. And we'll read from verse one to the end of verse five, please.
Comfort, oh, comfort, my people, says your God. Speak kindly to Jerusalem and call it to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been removed, that she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. A voice is calling, clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness, just saying about that. Make smooth in the heart, excuse me, in the desert, a highway for our God.
Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low, and let the rough ground become a plane, and the rugged terrain, a broad valley. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Would you join me in prayer for a moment?
Heavenly Father, thank you for this time of worship and rejoicing together in song. Thank you for your word, thank you for the command to go out into comfort others. And we pray, Father, as we read your word together today, and we think about it for a few minutes, that there will be, in fact, comfort for hearts that are weary and broken. And we pray that, in fact, we would be equipped to be comforters too, with the same comfort wherewith we are comforted.
We're asking your blessing, Lord, not because we deserve it, but simply because you are an awesome and wonderful, comforting God. In Jesus' precious name, amen. The first voice of comfort that we talked about in the first three verses of this chapter, seem to be, or the first two verses, actually, this chapter seem to be the voice of God calling out to his prophet Isaiah, and perhaps to anyone else. He wanted his people comforted, speak kindly to Jerusalem.
And I told you in that first episode that there are interpretations of scripture, and then there are applications of scripture as well. And if we were going to look at an interpretation of the scripture, there in fact could be a number of different interpretations, but first and foremost would be the interpretation of the historical setting. And historically, the children of Israel were going to be banished, taken into exile and captivity into the land of Babylon. This had not happened yet.
Isaiah is speaking back in the 700s BC, and this would not happen for another 100 or 200 years in the future, depending on when Isaiah spoke and wrote. But Isaiah is saying, you know what? He has been saying all along, in the first 39 chapters of this book, he's been saying, God is going to have to judge. You, my people, because of your sin.
But I want you to know, when he gets to chapter 40, God wants his children to know that that time of judgment was going to be a limited time. Jeremiah tells us in the 25th chapter of his book that it would be for a 70-year period. And at the end of that period, God is going to bring his people back from Babylon back to Israel, and re-establish them as a nation there. So Isaiah is called to comfort, comfort, God's people.
Speak kindly, speak to the heart of these people. Call out to these people that their warfare has ended, their iniquity has been removed, they've received it in the Lord's hand, double for all their sins. And I gave you three piece for that. There you have peace.
Now, God's calling them to peace. He's given them pardon for their iniquities and made provision for their lives. And we talked about this as being the comfort of salvation. God in his great and wonderful gift to salvation gives us these three wonderful things, peace with himself.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have, what? Peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace, hostilities have ended. We now have peace with him.
And then there is pardon for our sins because of the blood of the cross. And there is provision for our lives. As we were talking in the men's group yesterday, it does not mean that we're going to have everything that we possibly ever wanted or desired in our lives. That's not the kind of provision that God is interested in.
He's interested in looking after us spiritually, first and foremost. And he will look after us in other ways as well. We have, therefore, peace. We have pardon and we have provision in Christ.
I wonder, just before we go into what I want to talk about today, the second voice, I wonder if you have those things. Have you experienced the peace of God? Peace from God? The hostilities have ended for you between you and God?
Between you and the world? Because when we are away from God, we are at odds with everyone and everything. Have you experienced the peace that comes through salvation? Have you experienced the pardon for your sins?
Are you still burdened down with the weight and load and guilt of your sin? God wants to give you pardon today. He wants to wash away the sin of your life in the blood of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he wants to provide for you.
He wants to be your father. Have you ever experienced that? I trust that if you haven't experienced that, that today you might put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and now shall be saved.
It's as simple and as profound as that. That would be our prayer. And if you have that, or if you receive that today, you will have a wonderful consolation in God. You will have a wonderful comfort in your heart and in your soul.
That's the first voice of comfort. Today's voice of comfort is slightly different. And I think that we have a different voice speaking. It is the voice of God always calling up to humankind.
But today we're gonna look at this as the voice of communion, verses three to five. The first voice is a voice of salvation. And today we're gonna talk about the voice of communion. And those verses that we just read, I'm gonna reread them, but I want you to listen to them and think about them and see if you can see what the Lord has pointed out to me in these verses.
A voice, verse three. A voice is calling. Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness. Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.
Let every valley be lifted up and every mountain and hill made low and let the rough ground become a plain and the rugged terrain abroad valley. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed. And all flesh will see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness.
A call to communion. God wants to keep company with us. I've been thinking about this. I worked on this many weeks ago, perhaps months ago.
And from that time until now, I've been thinking about this and really working on it. And I know that I mentioned it in the men's group a few times ago that I believe that God truly, really and truly, not just theoretically, but really and truly wants our company. And it's confounding to me to think that he would want my company. But he does.
A few months ago, we had two speakers here, back to back. One was John McKim and the other was Mark J. Jager. And back to back weeks, they spoke on two successive Sundays on the truth that God wants to fellowship with us.
And I believe it was at that point that God planted that seed in my heart to be thinking about this and meditating about this, this truth. God wants to commune with us. God wants to fellowship with us. It is wonderful to know that your sins are forgiven and your soul is saved and you're on your way to heaven.
Isn't that wonderful? It's absolutely priceless. But think of it. God wants, he didn't say to us just so that he could say, I'm taking you to heaven one day, as good as that is.
God wants to know us personally and for us to know him personally today. He wants us to be able to walk with him and talk with him along the way. He wants us to be fellowshipping and communing with him. Isn't that profound?
Isn't that amazing? Are we taking advantage of that? Are we really seeking that? Or are we going on as off just the case in our little treadmills and talked about this last night?
Well, we can get on. We had a hamster when my kids were a little. And that little fellow, we get on this little wheel that we had in his cage. And he would burn rubber on that thing.
He would just go and go and go and go until he was exhausted. And finally, he tumbled out into the bottom of the cage. He was exhausted. And I felt like that many, many times.
Just going for all I'm worth and getting nowhere in life. Because getting somewhere in life is about getting to know the Lord. It's about coming into communion with him. And God wants that for us.
He doesn't want us on that little mill running and running and running for no reason at all. He wants us simply to quiet down and come into his presence. God wants our company. He wants to hang out with us.
He wants to commune with us. The interpretation of this passage, as I said, has to do with the children of Israel, being banished into captivity into Babylon, but then coming back home. And a way was to be prepared for the Lord and for his people to come back home to Jerusalem. That's the first interpretation.
The second interpretation of this passage of scripture is the first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Matthew chapter three, verses one to three, we have John the Baptist out in the wilderness proclaiming. He's a voice in the wilderness crying out, repent, and know the Lord, repent, and know him. And if you read Matthew chapter three, verses one to three, you'll see this passage quoted.
And the references back to Isaiah chapter 40. And so we have an interpretation. We have an idea here that God is calling his people back to himself, whether it was in the Old Testament times of Isaiah or in the New Testament times of John the Baptist, as recorded by Matthew. God was calling his people back to himself.
And I believe we can make an application here that God still wants his people to come to himself. He still is calling for his people to come to himself. And I would propose to you that this is the purpose, the purpose of God is to have us in fellowship with himself. J.
Oswald Saunders, I, Jerry and I went away for a little while to go on to her to visit with her family. And when I go somewhere, I take a bag full of books with me. And usually, we just barely make it on the plane because of the weight factor. But this is one of the books that I had with me.
It's called Enjoying Intimacy with God, by J. Oswald Sanders, who at the time, or Saunders, excuse me, but the time was the consulting director of overseas missionary fellowship. I don't know whether this brother, Sol Leivre, not this written a long time ago, but enjoying intimacy with God. And there's a quote in this book that I found startling as I was reading it.
And it's going to come up on the screen back there. It's the quote from J. Oswald Saunders. And he said, see, it's coming.
We are now, and we will be in the future, only as intimate with God as we really choose to be. I found that shocking to me. Shocking in the sense that it hit hard. It took the wind out of my belly.
We are now, and we will be in the future, only as intimate with God as we really choose to be. How does that make you feel? How is your intimacy with God right now? It's just exactly where you want it to be.
You say, no, no, no, no, no, no, brother, I don't want it to be there. I want it to be way higher than that. I would say that too. I would say that too.
But I need to come to the understanding that it's not God's fault if I'm not intimate with him. It's not his fault. He wants to have intimacy with us. And we are exactly where we want to be, because you know what?
In order to have intimacy in any kind of relationship, there's work involved, is there not? You can't ignore the person you want to be intimate with. You can't ignore that person and say, I don't know why. I never talked to him.
I never let them talk to me. We don't hang out together. I don't know why they don't like me. I don't know why we're not getting long better.
We need to spend time working on our relationship with God, just like we would with anybody else. And it's not because God doesn't want the relationships, because we're busy doing other things. Let's look at this passage of scripture in application and see if we can understand how to prepare a way for the Lord and the wilderness, the wilderness that we're living in. The purpose is that we should have a relationship with God.
Let's look at the preparation. And the preparation begins in Isaiah 40, verse 3. Clear the way for the Lord and the wilderness. It says, make smooth in the desert, a highway for our God.
Make smooth. That's my translation. I think if you looked at other translations, they would have the word straight. Straight.
Some of you have that in your translation, straight. That's a good translation. I think it's better than the one I'm using right now. Straight.
God, you know what? The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. We all, we've been taught that from the time we're little. A straight line.
I studied and worked as a land surveyor for a number of years. And I know that you can't stand here and say I'm going to make a straight line for somewhere where you're under a mile and a half away. You're not going to hit your target if you're doing it by eye. Because if you vary just a little bit in that kind of a distance, you're going to be way off when you get to a mile or two down the road.
So we used to use an instrument called a transit, or if you're English, a Theodolite. And we would set this instrument up over a point. We would know where we're going, the direction that we're going. We'd set that baby up.
And we could sight a line. And that thing would take us to the point that we wanted to reach. Unless the instrument manager was himself a little bit offline. But if you set that thing up correctly, that will take you there.
But it was a straight line, a straight line. And the scripture here says, if you're going to make a way for the Lord, a highway in the wilderness for the Lord, make it straight. Make it straight. Well, what does that mean?
When I was a younger person, back home, we had highway number three. That took us wherever we needed to go. Highway number three. And highway number three went like this.
And it went through 30 mile zones. You see, I'm very bilingual. I can do English, and I can do metric. So we used to do 30 mile speed zones, 30 mile speed zones, through a twisty, turny road.
Right? And there was a handful of places. If you wanted to go from my hometown, which was a village of about 50 people, called Glenwood. And if you wanted to go from Glenwood to Yarmouth, you're looking at about a 45 minute to an hour's drive.
Through this twisty, windy road, you'd have to cross the Tusket River on a one lane bridge. So if you happen to get there in this traffic coming the other way, you've got to stop and wait for the other traffic to go through. And then you go through these 30 mile speed zones with a handful of places where you could pass. And if the cars come the other way, you know.
So it was a long journey to get to the city of Yarmouth. A long, long journey. When I was probably in my teens, they built the amazing 103 highway. Man, you could get on that baby when it was done.
And you could get there in 20 minutes, 15 if you're crazy. You could really get there. It really cut the time down. Because that highway was comparatively straight.
There was, in fact, I remember when my brother-in-law was working on the highway when it was being made. And he was a truck driver. And he came before we had a chance to get on the highway ourselves before it was completed. I remember him coming to our house on a Sunday and saying, you know what?
There's a strip on that highway. And this blew me away. There's a strip on that highway where you can see for two kilometers. I didn't know what a kilometer was at that time.
But that was a long ways. You could see for two kilometers. Now, I've been to Manatulba since then. You can see forever in Manatulba.
The roads, they just go forever, straight. But in Yermouth County, window 103 went through, that was straight. That was amazingly straight. God wants us to prepare a highway for him that is straight.
And we take the circuitous route to get to God, don't we? Oh, over the place. We, me, Andrew, we wander. And we're in the 30-mile speed zone.
And we're stopped at the One Lane Bridge. And how come it's taken so long to get there? Because we're not going straight. Let's take another analogy.
We've got the building of a highway for God. Let's take another analogy of the runner. All right, the runner. And in Hebrews, chapter 12, we have this analogy given to us of the runner.
And if you've got your Bible's handy for your devices, turn to Hebrews, chapter 12 with me. And just look at this little passage of scripture. Hebrews 12, verse 1, therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance in the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race set before us. Now, verse 2, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, the spies in the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
You see, this is like a runner running a race. And I had a friend back home when I was a kid. He used to run. Usually he was, he'd get somebody mad at him, and they start chasing him.
And this is what he loved to do, get somebody mad at him. And then they start chasing him. And he could run pretty fast. There's no doubt about it.
But he was all the time looking over his shoulder to see how close the other guy was. And he'd say, and say, look over shoulder, look over shoulder. You can't make any time looking over your shoulder. You gotta look straight ahead.
Now, I'm not a runner. Never was. But I know this. He kept getting caught.
And I noticed that. If you're going to run and it'll run somebody, you gotta run straight. And so it says, looking under Jesus, fixing your eye on the Lord Jesus. He's your target.
The surveyor has a point that he's looking at that he wants to get to. What's your objective? What is it that you're focusing on? And we would say the directional aspect of your life.
What direction are you going? Have you ever stopped to think about the direction you're going? Is it unto Jesus? Is it in the direction of the Lord?
What is your goal? What is your objective in life? What is your focus? And then secondly, it says here, back and down.
Keep your finger in Hebrews, OK? Back in Isaiah again with your finger in Hebrews. Back in Isaiah chapter 40 says, not only should it be straight, make straight in the desert highway for a god, then it says let every valley be lifted up in every mountain and hill made low. So here's leveling, leveling.
You use a theodolite or a transit for straight, and you use a level for getting things level. And so the call is to bring the hills down and to bring the valleys up. I don't, I'm old, but I'm not that old. I can't remember back into the ancient times when they used to do this.
I'm told that in ancient times when a general went out and fought a war in one, that they would prepare away for this general to come marching back home. They'd prepare actually a highway for him, because he wanted this guy to come back home in style. And so they would go out and they would make this highway, and they would level it. They would level it.
The hills were brought down, the valleys were lifted up, and he had a nice level road for he and his soldiers to march back home in triumph. Interestingly, also Sonders brings this up. But this was the habit back in that time, and perhaps Isaiah was even referring to that type of thing. If the Lord, if you want the Lord, if you and I want the Lord in an intimate relationship with us, let's level things out.
Have you noticed your life? How, you know, we talked about focus going straight, but how about the ups and downs? Is your life, your spiritual life, sort of like a sine curve? The mathematicians know what a sine curve is, right?
Most of us would say, yeah, my life is kind of like that. To one degree or another, whatever the amplitude may be, life is like a sine curve up and down, up and down. One of the things about the roads back home besides them being twisty-turny is up and down. A lot of that.
Again, Manitoba, they don't know what up and down is. They have no concept of that. It's flat out there, but not here. It's up and down, isn't it?
And sometimes my life as a believer has that sine curve, in fact, God says, you know what? Prepare away from me. I want to come and fellowship with you. Make it level, make the road level.
And that speaks of the faithful attendance to seeking God, doesn't it? It speaks of our consistency. Hebrews 12, verse one, it says, in that verse, it says, run with endurance, the race that is set before us. Run with endurance.
I used to teach at Christian School back home in your own theory. And every year we'd have this track and field event where we take all our kids, well, not all our kids, but some of the kids that were silly enough to go, they would go to this track and field event. We didn't have any track or field in our school, right? And so we go to this event in Shuro.
Sam, did you ever go to those? No, I didn't go to those. I went, not because I was an athlete or a coach or anything. I went because, hey, I want to be part of the fun.
And day off school, right? So I remember going, we took our kids, and there was there's javelin and shot puts and all kinds of things that they'd never done before in their lives. And we're putting them out there to go ahead and compete against other schools that had all these equipment and so on. And I remember two of our kids went into the 1500 meter run, and there was a track there in Shuro, and they were running around the track.
I don't know how many laps they had to do, but it was way more than I wanted to do. But these two guys were twins. So it was kind of neat. James and John Babcock, right?
And James and John got on the starting blocks, right? And they were ready to go. And they started going. And they started running against all these other kids.
And we had with us a guy by the name of Dave. And Dave was a guy that had come to our school and he had some learning disabilities, and he was a great guy. But he just hadn't developed as quickly as other people had. And he was in his early 20s.
And still at a grade three level in mathematics. And I was his math teacher. And just by the way, I remember one day teaching him, and we went through this math problem. And this is one of the highlights of my life.
And I'm sure with you right now. And Dave, we were working through this, and Dave could not figure it out. And I grade three right. So I just said, OK, Dave, this, this, this, this, this, and we get here.
And he looked at me and said, Mr. Win it. You are a genius. And I've lived on the strength of that for years.
Because I don't know anybody else's ever thought for a moment that I was a genius. But Dave still thinks I am. And anyway, Dave was there at the Track and Field event. I'm sorry, I digress.
He was at the Track and Field event. And James and John were running. And Dave had participated in the Special Olympics. And he knew something about way more than I did, about Track and Field.
And Dave was, he watched them as they took off and they ran to the corner. And they were way over on the other side of the field. And Dave's looking at him. He said, this isn't going to work.
And he started hollering, pace yourself, pace yourself. They couldn't hear him. But they were going as fast as they could. And they were way ahead of everybody else.
And Dave was screaming his lungs out, pace yourself. And I think, Dave, they're doing OK. They're doing fine. Don't pace yourself, pace yourself.
And finally, they got back to where he was. And he's screaming at him. You've got to pace yourself. By the time they'd made how many ever circles they had to make to get 1,500 meters out of that thing, they were no longer in first place.
In fact, they barely made it to the finish line. Because everybody else ran past them. They had paced themselves. What is your point?
OK, the point is we need to be focused on our goal and our objective. But we also need consistency. We need faithfulness in our run. And a consistency that paces ourselves.
Sometimes we shoot out of the blocks, and we're running like crazy for God. And we just leave so much behind that we need to learn in the quiet and the solitude of his presence. And we're just running. And God bless us when, as we're trying, we're working our hearts out.
But if we're going across the line in good shape, we need to pace ourselves and be consistent and take the time that's necessary to spend with God every day, every day, time. That's how relationships are formed. So we need to focus on the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to be faithful, consistent in our run.
And then the third thing that's mentioned here in Isaiah, it talks about what is it? Straight, smooth, oh, straight, level, and then smooth. Here it is. Verse number four, let the rough ground become a plane and the rugged terrain abroad valleys.
That's smooth. Straight, level, and smooth. That's the way the highway's supposed to be, right? What kind of highway?
You've been over them, haven't you? Some of our highways in the springtime. After Frost comes out, they ain't smooth, right? They're not that, that's for sure.
But I know some of you, I've talked with Gabriel, some of our highways back home. And they're not smooth early, brother. No, no, smooth. I remember as a kid, we had a little piece of ground in camp.
And my dad that we had a road that goes into our camp that we had there. And every year, Dad would go in with his tractor and he had an old grader blade that he put on the back of that thing. And he'd go there. And he'd grade the roads.
Because in the spring of the year, he'd want to get in first day of fishing. He'd want to get in there, choke fishing. And he'd make ruts in the road. And we'd have potholes.
And so Dad would go in with the grader and the tractor and the grader. And I was there. And my job was to throw the saws and the rocks. They got dug up by the grader out in the bushes.
Because if you left those things there, you rode. It wouldn't matter how much you went back and forth on it. There's rocks and there's all kinds of things in the way. So you clear those things out of the way to make the road smooth.
And every time you went over it, I throw 300,000 rocks out. And you come back over again, another 300,000 rocks. It never ended. I said, Dad, just go over it two or three times.
And I'll go back once. But it's a process to get the rocks and the stuff out of our road that we're building for God. Be focused, be faithful, and be free from encumbrances. Back in Hebrews is sit laying aside every weight and the sin, which so often entangles and encumbers us.
What is there in our life that's a weight or a sin that's encumbering our progress with the Lord? So that's the preparation. We have to think about that. We have to work on that.
Our focus, our faithfulness, and becoming free, our direction, our consistency, and being unencumbered. Now, I want to take you back to Isaiah, because our time has almost gone. And we need to finish this up. Isaiah chapter 40, a voice is calling.
It's a voice of communion. It's God calling and saying, I want to fellowship with you. And I want you to prepare for fellowship with me. My purpose is to fellowship.
My preparation is something that you do. We're only as close to God as we want to be. We're only as intimate with Him as we want to be. It takes work.
But then there's the promise. There's the purpose, the preparation, and the promise. And the promise is in verse number five. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed.
And all flesh will see it together for the mouth of the Lord who's spoken. Here's the promise. The glory of the Lord will be revealed. In the days of the children of Israel, and they were in slavery in Babylon, the glory of the Lord seemed a long ways away, but guys said, no, no, no no.
You will see my glory. You will see my glory. In the days of John the Baptist, the children of Israel, where again, far from God, and John was being used by God to call these people, to repentance. And he says, the glory of the Lord will be revealed.
Jesus came. Didn't he? The glory of the Lord was revealed. I'm telling you, brothers and sisters, just as the Jewish refugees, excuse me, I returned to Jerusalem and just as Jesus Christ came the first time.
So he will come and commune with us just because he's promised it. Well, he's promised it. He's saying, well, brother, I don't know. I just don't know what the God really wants to.
Yes, he's promised it. He's promised to come and commune with you. It seems so intangible. It seems like something we can't get our hands on.
But this morning as we sat around that table, I was thinking about this. We sat around the table of remembrance, the Lord's Supper. And I was thinking, the first song he's saying was, here I am to worship, here I am to bow down. And I was thinking, yeah, I so good to be here.
And I was looking at my brothers and sisters, thinking I'm so glad they're here. And then I thought that Jesus is here. My Lord, Jesus is here. And as much as I love my brothers and sisters, to think that he was here with us, he is here right now.
By his spirit, he's here. He's imminent. He's here. And he wants to walk with us and talk with us.
He wants to commune with us. The close of the story that I referred to a few weeks ago in our youth group, our college and careers group, should say. And Jerry knows a story too. But I heard it first when I was teaching back in Yarmouth in the Christian school year.
And we had a Bible League drive to gather money together for Bible's to send to China. And we had a DVD that was sent in. And we played it. And on the DVD, there was an interview with a gentleman, a Chinese brother, whose name was Pastor George.
And Pastor George was an elderly brother at that time. And he had been through the time of the Cultural Revolution in Mao Seitung. And he had been arrested time and time again for preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus. And one of the last times that he was arrested, they were so fed up with this guy, because he wouldn't stop preaching the gospel.
They took that man and he put him in prison. And even while he was in prison, he's telling all the prisoners. And he's telling all the guards about Jesus. The Lord Jesus loves you.
And he died for you. And they were so sick and tired. The guards were so sick and tired of hearing this. From the warden, to take this brother and segregate him from the rest of the population.
And you know what they did with him? They put him down in a septic system. I told a joke about a septic tank. But they put Brother George, Pastor George, in their septic system.
And he placed in there, and he said, I was up to my waist in human excrement. Can you imagine that? And they leave him there all day. And his job was to make sure that it kept flowing.
It kept flowing. I don't know about you, but I've never experienced any as horrible, unsavory as I can't imagine what that would have been like. But you know what that old man said on that video. He said, you know what?
That was my garden. He said, I used to go there. And I was all by myself with the Lord. And he sang on that video.
I come to the garden alone. You know what song? Sing it with me. While the dew is still on the roses.
And the voice I hear falling on my ear. The son of God discloses. And he walks. And he walks with me.
And he talks with me. And he tells me I am his own. And the joys we share as we teary there. None other has ever known.
What's good for Brother George? It's good for you. It's good for me. He'll be there.
Go to your garden. Wherever it may be, and he'll be there. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word today.
And I just pray that some poor, brokenhearted, lonely, brother or sister may realize the deep desire that you have in your heart for communion with them. That I and they together will come to you individually and know that sweet communion. I pray for anyone here that does not know the Lord Jesus and has no concept of what we're talking about, even to know the freedom of sense or given, that they might come to the foot of the cross today and find that forgiveness in Christ. Thank you for our time together.
Bless each one as we go. In Jesus' name, Amen. Thank you.