Well, take your Bibles and let's go back to Isaiah chapter 40 as we continue to feast on the wonders of grace. Christ and the Gospels. The gospel, I should say. We're talking about the wondrously glorious faithfulness of our God as revealed in Isaiah chapter 40. And one of the things we said was that.
Isaiah chapter 40, particularly verses 1 and 2. Is the gospel of Jesus Christ. By the way, the Bible's one book. It's one book. It all ties together.
It's all centered on Christ. It's all centered on God building for Himself a people. And to build for himself and have for himself a people that would love him. that would be with him forever, that he would enjoy them, they would enjoy him. It required them to become righteous as he is righteous.
And he provided for that, and that's powerfully seen in this text. Let's read Isaiah chapter 40, verses 1 and 2. We'll do a little brief review and then. Lord willing finished the message out this morning. Gloriously wondrous faithfulness of our God.
Verse 1, chapter 40. Comfort, oh, comfort my people, says your God. Speak kindly to Jerusalem. Call or cry out to her. that her warfare has ended.
Her iniquity has been removed. That she has received of the Lord's hand. Double for all her sins. I told you that Manasseh was the king that is. Presiding over Judah, and that you would have to get up very early in the morning to be more wicked than King Manasseh.
He's sacrificing his own children to the false and pagan gods. He filled the temple of Yahweh with foreign idols so the people could go in with the Cosmetic of being Yahweh worshipers, but really they were worshiping the sensual pleasures that the pagan gods and the pagan religions provided. To me, there's too much of a parallel. To much modern evangelicalism, where it has the cosmetic of orthodoxy on the outside, but they're really just fun and games on the inside. Instead of joying in God, they want to make God out to be like the world because that's where their real joy is.
And that's kind of the conditions.
So Isaiah was commissioned. We saw that earlier back in Isaiah chapter 6. He was commissioned to go forth and preach to these people a message of devastating judgment. Matter of fact, in Isaiah chapter 6, when God tells Isaiah what his commission is going to be, it's so dreary and dreadful and horrible that Isaiah says, Well, Lord, how long? How long do I have to stay on this painful message of judgment?
He said, Well, until, here's the way he words it, until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, houses are without people, and the land is utterly desolate. Until the judgment is complete, Isaiah. And then you come to this radical turn. Isaiah chapter 40, verses 1 and 2. I'm not saying this is the all, or the first place, rather, where there's a message of comfort and grace.
But this is a very Firm foundation stone for what will follow as the prophet now moves from austere judgment to passionate hope. For these varying people.
So here he comes, and we saw, first of all, that. He gives this word of Elect compassion to this people. In verse 1 of Isaiah 40, he says. Comfort, oh comfort. Assyria?
No. Babylon, no. Egypt, no. The Hittites, no, the Philistines, the Phoenicians, no. Comfort my people.
Now God's love spreads all across the globe. This morning, wicked, pagan, ungodly people who would not give the true God of heaven one thought. were blessed with breath and air to breathe and food to eat. His love is Tremendous, but Scripture bears out there is a wondrous, deep, infinite covenant love that he has. For what he calls My people.
As a Christian, you're to love all men. All people. And I love all of you, but I don't love all of you like I love Miss Pam. There's a special love there. There's a devotion.
We made a commitment. And that's unique.
Well, that's the way God is with his elect Israel. God is the God who has goodness and kindness and love for all, but there's a special devotion to what he says here. My people. And again, he words it again to show the personal aspect of it. Comfort, oh comfort, my people, says.
Your It's personal It's special. And we went into the review, if you will, of how God called Abram from the Ur of the Chaldees. And there was nothing special about Abram. There's not one trace in the text that Abram had some sort of heart of devotion or holiness or righteousness that made God choose Abram. No, God just chose Abram.
He said, Abram, from you I'm going to make a mighty nation. He reaffirmed that covenant in Genesis chapter 22 after Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son. Of course, God prevented that, but it was his heart of willingness to trust in the Lord. And then God reaffirmed, I'm going to use you. to build a great nation.
And that's the people who are being talked about here. the nation of Israel.
So We ended last time's session with this phrase. I didn't not quite at the end of the message, but right before the end, that God is telling the prophet, you've preached this austere message of harsh judgment.
Now radically turn. Isaiah 40 verse 1 and comfort my people. Comfort my people.
God is saying to these people who feel like we are lost forever in Babylonian exile and captivity, slaves to these wicked people. Are we gone forever and God is saying, here's my point to you? I have not forgotten you and I have not rejected you. I used the strong rod of Babylonian captivity as my correcting judgment. But I have not forgotten you.
Now, let's go forward, new material. That was Roman 1: an elect compassion, a great compassion God shows for his chosen people.
Now, next, let's notice the convincing reassurance. God doesn't just stop with that phrase comfort or comfort. He says, I want you to give them some particular messages. To reassure them that I will keep them as my own forever. First of all, he says, I want you to reassure them persuasively.
I want you to be persuasive, Isaiah, and other prophets I think are included there. He says there in the first phrase of verse 2: speak kindly to Jerusalem.
Now, he's not talking about the city, he means metaphorically the people who served and worshiped God in that city. And the phrase speak kindly literally means speak to their heart, speak to her. Heart.
Now, truth preaching, prophetic preaching, or any preacher who preaches the truth must reach the mind. They must inform the mind.
So don't get this idea that Christianity is some sort of a. Superstitious kind of aura, where if you're just in the presence of the preached word, there's this osmosis that seeks in through your cells and somehow God is with you. No, the mind has to be informed. The mind has to be instructed, but the mind may be informed. The mind may be convinced, and that's important, but the heart.
is where the conviction is. It's something deeper than just an intellectual assent. I I believe uh Dr. Seal, we're missing some of that in our expositional pulpits at times. We have so many, and thank God for brothers who give us the scholarship, but they're teaching the minds, but are they reaching the heart?
Is it I can change your mind, somebody else can change it back. But if God reaches your heart. You're his forever. Your is forever.
So Changing one's mind is so important so that they might change their thinking back to the truth, but convincing one's heart. Is what's being emphasized here. Speak kindly, speak to her heart. Heart.
The mind must be changed, but the heart must be convinced. Romans 10, 9 and 10 reminds us of this very truth. That if you confess with your mouth, Jesus says Lord, and believe in your head, no, believe in your heart. It's a different word than you'd use for mind. That God raised him from the dead, you will be saved, for with the heart.
A person believes, resulting in righteousness. And with the mouth, he confesses, resulting in salvation. I'm very concerned and I'm very convinced. This is not just preacher slinging around a thought here, but millions of evangelical Christians, or those who call themselves Christians, around the world have come to Christ only with their brain and not with their heart. I want you to know something.
When Jesus saved me in my car driving back to Middle Tennessee State University, my brain knew very little. But he had my whole heart. And then he kept informing my brain. Amen. Kept influencing my brain.
And by the way, he's still doing that. Is your brain already perfect as concerning the truths of God and the knowledge of God? No, you come every week, you study your Bibles on your own. We're constantly informing our brains. But when you were saved, He won your heart.
So Isaiah is to reach the heart. In a general sense, this speaking to the heart reminds me of Proverbs 15, 1, that says, A gentle answer turns away wrath. Have you noticed when you're in a conflict with someone, if you'll be gentle? and think about their concerns. Very often the whole argument is over.
You're reaching their heart.
Now, not in the sense maybe of conversion, which is this, I think, is what this is speaking to primarily. It it's probably both hand. It's probably both hand, convincing a converted heart that God's still faithful, God's still good, God still wants you to have reassurance. All this is speaking persuasively, but also I think it's speaking to some of them who may not have come individually to salvation, that they might come to embrace. Yahweh as their only hope and Savior.
Colossians 4, 6, again, generally speaking, speak always, or rather, speech always should be seasoned with grace, as though seasoned with salt.
So we see this persuasiveness he is to have. When you're persuading someone, you change your tone. The spirit of what you're saying is different. The inflection of your voice is Different. Have you ever seen somebody that's just good at that?
Just I mean they're just good at it. Be careful, they're usually dangerous. But it doesn't have to be that way. They can be filled with the Holy Spirit and use it in the right way.
Well, that's what. The prophet is being instructed to find a way, Isaiah. In other words, God's saying, I want Isaiah, I want all you've got behind reassuring my people. Speak kindly to their hearts.
Well, they've had a crushing, hard message for decades.
Now that's all changing. Speak. persuasively to them. Change your tone, Isaiah. Whatever you got to do, but reach your heart.
Number two, not only persuasively, God said, I just can't tell you enough to do here. He said, I want you to speak to her passionately. Notice what he says here. And call out to her. Literally, it means cry out to her.
It's the Hebrew word you would use for a town crier. Back before there was any no other any other way to get information, you depended greatly upon a town crier. He would come from the message of the king or maybe a magistrate from the king and cry out the edict or instruction. People would listen, and he didn't just come through there talking softly. He came into town with passion and volume and convincing words.
Almost sounds contradictory, doesn't it? But what he wants to do is, he says, I want you to grab him and shake them and say, God's still for you, God's still with you. God will still save you, and God will keep you. This exile will be over soon. Comforting them.
with passionate Words.
So, God wants his message of comfort and reassurance to come with conviction and authority. But not only does he say, talk to them. With persuasive words and passionately, but thirdly, Talk persistently about it. persistently.
Now, the Hebrew language has no continuation or present tense verb, I understand, but it has the same idea. This was a command that means to keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it. They needed to hear it over and over and over again. One of the sad things about counseling hurting people is it's. It's hard for them to believe.
Somebody loves them. It's hard for them to believe they can trust this next person because the former people in their life hurt them so deeply. And often it's a matter of keeping on convincing them and telling them and encouraging them. And that's what God tells Isaiah the prophet to do. Persist in it, Isaiah.
I don't know about you, but that's shouting ground in a way, is it not? That God cares so deeply for his children, he wants his preacher to persistently tell them. That he cares for them. And he loves there. And the exile will not last forever.
You know, these people have been in the uh dregs. of despair. I mean, think about it. Here they are in the misery of... Babylonian captivity.
And for a Jew to be forced out of the promised land and into pagan lands was just the depth of misery, not to mention the physical misery. And added to the actual misery of being in Babylon was the knowledge our sin got us here. Our sin and rebellion is the reason God let them conquer us. God says to those people in that situation. How's the Comfort them.
Comfort them persuasively. Reach their heart. Comfort them passionately. Comfort them persistently. I want them to get it.
Uh So what a complete turnaround. Isaiah chapter six. Preach this harsh. Condemning true message of judgment. Isaiah says, well, how long?
Well, until everything's devastated.
Now Isaiah turned completely around. And comfort, oh, comfort my people.
Well Third thing. Not only do we see an elect compassion, not only do we see the convincing reassurance. But thirdly, we see the removal of misery and pain. The removal of misery and pain. It hasn't been removed yet.
When they heard these words, it hadn't been removed. But they were to receive it in hope. Last phrase there in the second part of verse 2. Call out to her or cry out to her that her warfare has ended. Her warfare has ceased.
So this is a specific way. God is showing that He's going to reassure them and actually bring them out. that her warfare will cease. Warfare and captivity always meant misery, and for decades, this was Israel's common experience. Wars, skirmishes, threats, the threat of exile, the threat of captivity, it had been theirs for years, and now they're actually in captivity, and all of this caused again by her own sin and rebellion.
Two thoughts here again. They are living in the misery and pain. That their sin got them in this position. And they're living in the misery and the pain of their present. physical, actual existence.
The psalmist speaks of this in Psalm 137, verses 3 through 6. For there that's in captivity Our captors demanded of us songs. Israel is known as a singing people. God instructed them to have choirs, orchestras, great singing. And the countries of the world who knew of Israel knew of their great singing.
So the Babylonians said, Hey, you Jews, sing us one of your songs. And our tormentors mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. Their response, how can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? We're in misery. We're in misery.
We're in the depths of despair. There's nothing to sing about. How can we sing the Lord's song in a far land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her skill, may my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth. If I do not remember you, if I did not.
Exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy. In other words, we can't sing for you. We can only sing for God. And we're not around the temple and we're not in Jerusalem. The pain and the misery.
God said, I'm going to bring it to an end, though. Promise you. Yes, your misery. Yes, your pain is your own fault. But I will bring it to an end.
Are you listening to me, child of God? I don't care where you are. You might think right now, man, I'm on top of the world. Everything's going great in my life. Man, I'm on a mountaintop.
It's great life. I don't care. Better stuff's still coming for you. You might be in the valley of despair. And the depths of the depths of misery and woe, I promise you, that's going to come to an end.
Some of you are not really in anything, except your mind convinces you that you are. You remember the fellow that said, I've been through some terrible things in my life, and some of them actually happened?
Some of you are just tormented by a mind that won't shut up. And that's a real torment, but even God's going to fix that one day. Wayward children. Wayward spouse Your life's work just imploded on you maybe? I don't care what your misery is.
I don't care what your pain is. If you're God's, He's bringing it to an end. Comfort my people.
Comfort my people, God says. Even though their pain and misery is caused by their own foolish rebellion, I choose to comfort them. I'm going to remove your Sin and misery. It reminds me on an application level for us today. That the Bible promises the way of the transgressor is hard.
If you live a life in sin long enough without fighting with repentance. Your latter days on this earth will be miserable days. If you live your life on this earth. without fighting against sin with repentance. Your last days on this earth will be Misery.
God says for his children, whatever the misery and the pain, I'm bringing it to an end.
So we see the elect compassion. The convincing reassurance, the removal of misery and pain.
Now strap in. It's about to get real good for you sinners. Hey, for us sinners. The removal of guilt. Perversity And punishment.
Guilt. Perversity and punishment. He says, continuing in verse 2, and her iniquity has been removed. I think the idea there. I don't look at her for what she really is anymore.
I look at her for what I'm making out of her. Kyle and Dalitz, the German scholars, along with other. competent conservative scholars. Tell us the word iniquity. has a threefold meaning.
And he has the idea of your guilty guilt. It includes the idea that you're perverse. There's a perversity, a warpness to your soul. And it includes the idea that there is a consequential punishment coming against you. Guilt.
Perversity Punishment. Just one at a time, first of all, the word guilt there in the original Hebrew has the idea of being bound to something. You are bound. With an obligation to answer to God for your sin. You're bound!
In the root Hebrew word for the word guilty here. And I don't think we're stretching it too hard, has the idea of someone having a quarrel against you. Got a grudge against you, literally. God looks on the sinner and says, I want you to know something, son. I've got a quarrel with you.
I've got a grudge against you. You're guilty. I'm holy. I have holy justice, and it demands that I take out against you. The grudge I've got against you for violating my holy laws.
Powerful stuff. Perversity, as I said, means a wartness of being. The innermost part of you is perverse and corrupted. God said I hate it. I despise it.
Everything about your innermost being is. contrary to me and offensive to me. And then punishment, the third part. Of iniquity. Consequence for this guilt and this perversity is a just punishment.
So, iniquity in the biblical sense is not an individual sin. It's more your sinfulness. It's your moral distortion. It's your guilt-bearing weight. Before a holy God.
Well The Bible's one book. The New Testament bears this out very clearly, does it not? James 2:10 says, For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point has become guilty of all. It's because you're iniquitous. You're one of iniquity.
Romans 3:9, what then are we better than they? Not at all. For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin, we're all guilty. Romans 3:19.
Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed and the world may become accountable to God. He said, Shut every mouth, you're all guilty Perversity. There's a wartness. to our very being. Ephesians 2, 1 through 3.
And you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked. According to the course of this perverse world, I'm inserting the word perverse there. According to the prince of the power of the air, that means you're perverse. Of the spirit that's now working in the sons of disobedience, that spirit lives in you. That's a perverse spirit.
On them we To all formerly lived in the lust of our, again, perverse flesh. indulging in the desires of the perversity of the flesh and of the mind, And were by very nature children of wrath. Your very being cried for God to curse you for your perversity.
Now, some would say, well, preacher preaching like that, you're going to discourage the whole church. No, you've got to know you need to be healed to be healed. You've got to know you need to be saved to be saved. And then punishment. Guilt Perversity and punishment.
New Testament again, 2 Peter 2, 9 and 10. Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment. You know, the word punish there is in the present tense. It means God's active and continual in punishment. That's all white.
heavy load. And literally, it has the idea of to prune or to cut back. We have some hydrangeas at our house, and they just don't do good. They're ugly. We prune and we prune.
We look at Martha Stewart, or whoever, and They say, prune at this time, we prune at this time, they still don't do good. And we cut them back. And why do we do all that?
So they will flourish. But listen, when this word punishment means to prune or to cut back, but not to your flourishing, but to cut you back and cut you off. Punishment. Powerful picture. But the prophet says Her iniquity has been Removed.
I don't see you as guilty anymore. I do not see you. as perverse anymore. I do not consider you an object of divine punishment. any longer.
That's all gone. But at great cost. This same Isaiah prophesied in chapter 53 of the suffering servant, pointing to Jesus. In the end, Isaiah chapter 53, the prophet said, prophesying of the coming Savior for Israel and for all who will believe. The Lord was pleased to crush him.
When Jesus hung on the cross, he became guilty, and the Father looked at him as a guilty one. When Jesus hung on the cross in the eyes of God the Father, he became perverse and corrupt. And in the eyes of God the Father, he became one who is worthy and deserving of the wrath and the judgment of God. And by the way, it all came on Jesus. It all came on him.
All of it, all of your iniquity. Jesus lifted it up with his massive shoulders, took on the full brunt force of the judgment that was against all of us, consumed it all. It was expiated, burnt out in his very flesh on the cross, and he's carried away all the consequences. of our guilt. Adversity.
And punishment. I remember reading about a missionary in a remote part of Asia. These Precious Asian souls, they just packed the building to hear his message, and he preached on the Son of God dying for our sins and wrongdoings. And they got that. You know, men everywhere know they're sinners.
God put a conscience in there. We know we're sinners. And he talked about the salvation of God through his son, Jesus Christ. And he went on for a long time. And it was getting late.
And he said, We're going to stop. And I'll tell you what, we'll come back tomorrow and we'll pick up and I'll tell you some more about Jesus. And they didn't move. They wouldn't leave. He said, Look, you're all tired.
I'm tired. Let's go home. We'll come back tomorrow. And one of their leaders stood up and said, Sir, you. You told us we're all sinners, and we understand that, and you told us.
Jesus is God's only true Son, and He became sin for us and took the blast of judgment, and we're free. How can we go home and go to sleep? See so many of you, you You've had good preaching.
Now, don't misunderstand what I'm saying. You've had strong gospel preaching for decades. There are many men who can preach the gospel better than Jeff Knoblett, but nobody can preach a better gospel. Than my gospel. But I've been faithful to you.
Don't look at this message with contempt because you've heard it a lot. Beg God to let it pierce your soul again. And with the glory of the reassurance. Yeah. He says, Your iniquity's been removed.
God said, I've just removed it all. If I was an exile in that condition and the prophet came with that message, I think I would just say. How could he do that? Just 20 years ago, I was in the temple worshiping Asherah and Baal. camouflaging All of it was Yahweh worship.
I was just a hypocrite. And now he just says. I remove all of it.
Well, that's just the kind of God he is. That's just the type things that he does. What a gift. John 1 29 He's the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. It means He bears it and He takes it away.
John 1:17, 1.7, he cleanses us from all sin. That means the conscience in the life.
Now, that thing of cleansing our conscience is a powerful truth, and it's mentioned in the New Testament. Not that we're having we have a clear conscience about our own performance, but in Christ, we have a clear conscience that He's taken our place and removed the consequence of all of our iniquity. gives me a clear conscience. that he is sufficient to provide for me. in my standing before the triune and holy god 1 John 1, 9, he cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
What shall we say to these things?
So is it too much to keep someone in your home for our missions conference? Is it too much to faithfully bring the tithe and the offering? Is it too much to dive into your small group and be a part of the overall body life of caring for one another in the body of Christ? We've seen the elect compassion. We've seen.
The convincing reassurance: we've seen the removal of misery and pain, and we've seen the removal of guilt, perversity, and punishment. God says, I'm not doing. Is that done yet? Last two phrases, verse 2 of chapter 40 of Isaiah. And that she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
I don't know how in the world, in the flow of the context, you can make that mean she's going to receive double judgment. What it means is, if you measure out her sin, it's immensely great. But if you measure out my grace toward her, It's abundantly greater. Double double I mean, this is the extension of superabundant blessings. Roman numeral five.
Superabundant. I'm not just going to go 50-50 here. I'm not just going to meet you halfway. I'm going to take the great amount of your sin and I'm going to forgive even greater. I'm going to give you grace even greater than all of your sin.
So, I want to expound to Tad on this trait of God. To do super abundantly above what we could possibly deserve. He doesn't just. Back up the truck of grace and say, All right, you just ordered three tons. That's all you're going to get.
Now you ordered three tons, and he just keeps backing up those 25-ton loads of grace, and they never stop. Keeps dumping them on us. Keeps dumping them on us. You're swimming in grace. Zechariah mentions this same very principle in Zachariah 9:12.
Return to the stronghold, O prisoners who have hope. This very day I am declaring that I will restore double to you. The New Testament parallel. Romans 5.20. Where sin increased, grace abounded.
The Greek means superabounds. All the The more Your sin is great. The multiplication of sin in the human race is great. The multiplication and metastasizing of sin in your own life is great, but the tsunami of grace washes it all away. Mm-hmm.
Y'all must not be much of sinners.
Somebody ought to be getting this a little bit. Yeah. Now, when the Jews in this day heard this message. They had yet to experience the fullness of the Comfort and reassurance, and the actual deliverance, I guess I should say.
So they had to receive it in hope. Isaiah 42, 3, we have the picture of Of the bruised reed. You know, it's like a stalk of wheat that's been kind of broken. It's just hanging by a thread. It's just going to dry out and fall off.
He says, No, I won't break that. If you're already that broken down and there's no hope for you and there's nothing left of you, he said, I'll come by and straighten you back up and heal that wound and get the juices flowing back to you again. The bruised reed, I will not break off, and the smoldering wick he will not put out until he leads justice to victory. In the old days, in the days of oil lanterns, when it got down to the very end of the oil, the wick would just start smoking, and it was just a defilement in the home. There's no illumination, it was just gone.
So you would go and you would smother out these smoldering wick. God said, when your life gets down to nothing but a smoldering wick, I will not snuff you out. I'll put new and better oil in the lamp and give you new light. Superabundance. They say, well, Pastor, he hadn't done it yet.
Well, you're not in heaven yet. Brothers and sisters, dying and going to heaven is a good thing. It's a good thing. And you're going to say, the moment you enter heaven and you see the glories of God, you're going to say, why did I hang on to the smoldering wick of that past world when I've got this? to look forward to.
So these guys had to Understand we're a bruised read and we're a smoldering wick. But God's promised us double. A superabundance of grace and blessing is being extended to us. Real quick for us, this word of application for us.
Some of these hopes of superabundant blessing are ours now, are they not? forgiveness of sin, a clear conscience that Christ has removed all of our guilt, our perversity and our punishment. He doesn't view us that way any longer. What a joy that is. The Holy Spirit has given to us now.
And in the Holy Spirit, we have the restoration of fellowship with God. I told you this before, but it's cheating for you to pay me for what I do. Please don't stop this late. My retirement's not quite there yet, but It's cheating because I'll be in my study. And these texts will so flood my heart with joy and fellowship with God.
And I thought I'd get paid for this. What can you replace that with? Glorious, superabundant blessings that we're enjoying now. Conviction of sin is a superabundant blessing because sin will ruin you, and God don't want you to be ruined. And He uses the conviction of sin to bring you back to joy in Him so you don't let sin ruin you.
The illumination of Scripture: you can't get what I'm preaching. You cannot get what I'm preaching in the power of your intellect or in the power of your flesh. The Spirit of God has to give it to you. What a gift that is. Material sustenance.
If we'll seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, the things we need will be added to us. I've told you this before, but in my life, things I would love to have, but when God gets me where I don't have to have them, sometimes I don't even want them, then He gives them to me. Because he knows they're not going to replace him. him in my life. What a blessing!
All of these and so many more are part of the superabundant blessings he's extended to his children. They were guilty. We were perverse. who are worthy of all punishment.
Well, in summary for these Israelites, at least the elect among the nation. They're the objects of his elect compassion. They're the recipients of this convincing reassurance. They've experienced the removal of misery and pain. They've experienced the removal of their standing as guilty and perverse and deserving of punishment.
And they are the objects of superabundant blessings. Hallelujah, what a salvation. And hallelujah, what a Saviour. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians. I'll just go to 1 Corinthians 2.9.
Just as it is written, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard. And which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him. That means those who are generally saved. Oh, the gloriously wondrous Faithfulness of our God. You just can't beat that.
I don't care where you go. You can get better preaching, but you can't beat these truths. It's just off the charts. Ain't nobody on earth got this stuff but us, his children. I said that I said that like I'm from southern middle Tennessee, didn't I?
Ain't nobody got this. Mm-hmm.
