The Baptist Bible Hour now comes to you under the direction of Elder Lacerre Bradley Jr. O for a thousand tongues to sing, my great Redeemer's praise! Thou the grace of my God and King, the triumph of his grace!
This is Lacerre Bradley Jr. inviting you to stay tuned for another message of God's sovereign grace. Holy Spirit, lead us, we pray. We need thy guidance all through the day. If thou but teach us to know thy grace, we follow gladly and sing thy praise. We need thy power along thy way.
Come, gracious spirit of thy today. In you with love, almighty one, O help us now to say thy will be done. Comfort of all hearts, hear us, we pray. Hear us, our strength, from day to day. If we but follow, make thee our guide. Thy peace will be ours and joy alive.
Thy peace will be ours and joy alive. Over the past few weeks I've been emphasizing the importance of having you write us and help with the support of the program if you wanted to continue on your local station. I don't like to be burdening you with this continued reminder, but the fact is if we don't have the support so that we can pay the bills, we can't stay on the air. So if you want us on your station, write us, mention the call letters of the station over which the program comes to you, and pray that the Lord will guide you in what you can give at this time to help keep this message on the radio. I encourage you to visit our website at BaptistBibleHour.org. You can there read the Baptist Witness, you can make a donation to the regular ministry, or if you prefer to write, that address is Baptist Bible Hour, Box 17037, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217.
Thankful to have you with us for the program today. Pray that the message will be a blessing to you, and ask for your prayers that the Lord will bless this effort to get out the good news of salvation by grace through Jesus Christ to so many people every week. The Lord, my precious Shepherding, is I and his little sheep. He leads me to his pastures green, besides still waters deep. In righteous past he leadeth me, lest I should go astray. Restores my soul and makes me glad, I praise him day by day.
Oh, through the shades of death I walk, the valley dark and clear. His blood and staff they comfort me, for he is always near. I head with all angels adored, my cup runs o'er with joy. The feast my Lord prepares for me, my foes cannot destroy. Goodness and mercy follow me, their joys I cannot tell.
They comfort me and give me hope that in this house I'll dwell. I want to praise him for I live, because he loved me so. And rising to that glory birth, a perfect praise I'll know. We are told in Colossians chapter 3 verse 16 to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with grace in our hearts to the Lord. The psalms contain messages of praise and prayer, instruction and encouragement. What a comfort they bring us so many times in our moments of distress to read from the hymn book that was used by God's people long ago. Our hymns are a great source of encouragement and a way by which we worship and praise God.
Just a few days ago I sat down as I do periodically with our hymn book and just turned the pages and read the words of one hymn after another. And what strength we gain from that, what truth is found in these hymns, what encouragement it gives to us. Today I want us to look at a hymn that has been a favorite of mine for many years. God Leads Us Along. In shady green pastures so rich and so sweet, God leads His dear children along. Where the waters cool flow, fades the weary ones feet, God leads His dear children along. Sometimes on the mount where the sun shines so bright, God leads His dear children along. Sometimes in the valley in the darkest of night, God leads His dear children along. Though sorrows befall us and Satan opposed, God leads His dear children along. Through grace we can conquer, defeat all our foes, God leads His dear children along. Away from the mire and away from the clay, God leads His dear children along. Away up in glory, eternity's day, God leads His dear children along.
Some through the waters, some through the flood, some through the fire but all through the blood, some through great sorrow but God gives a song in the night season and all the day long. George A. Young was the author and composer of that hymn. He was an obscure preacher and carpenter who spent a lifetime humbly serving God in rural areas. His income was meager and his life was difficult. Through it all, George Young and his wife never wavered in their loyalty to serve God. The story is told that after much struggle and effort, the George Young family was finally able to move into their own small home which they built themselves.
But then while Young was away holding meetings in another area, hoodlums who disliked the preacher's gospel message set fire to the house, leaving nothing but a heap of ashes. It is thought that out of that tragic experience George Young completed this hymn, which reaffirms so well the words of Job chapter 35 and verse 10, God my Maker who giveth songs in the night. My subject, God leads us along. My text, John 10 3, He calleth His own sheep by name and leadeth them out. God leads His children.
How good to know that. He led Jacob in times of old. In the book of Deuteronomy chapter 32, we read of God visiting this man at an unexpected time. Verse 9, For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land and in the waste howling wilderness. He led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. When Jacob laid down his head that night, taking stones for his pillow, he was not expecting to be visited by God.
He was running away. But the Lord found Jacob. Wasn't Jacob finding the Lord?
People sometimes get that a little confused in their thinking. You know, they'll say, I found the Lord. No, if you found anything, it's because the Lord found you.
He loved you first. So he found Jacob in the waste howling wilderness. And that's where he found all of us.
We're in the wilderness of this world, in the wanderings of our own sinful nature. But he found Jacob. He led him about.
He kept him as the apple of his eye. And Jacob's name was changed to Israel. And God led the whole nation of Israel. In Deuteronomy chapter 8, he is speaking to his people, warning them that when they come into the land, they should not be lifted up in pride. And in the process, reminding them of the ways in which they have been led. Verse 14, Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage.
So there's the first thing. They were in bondage. They were in hard labor.
They groaned and they cried. And God heard them and brought them out of Egypt, sending the ten plagues upon the Egyptians parting the Red Sea. So it says, Who led thee through the great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions and drought, where there was no water, who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint, who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee and that he might prove thee to do thee good at the latter end. God led that nation of people.
It seemed an impossibility for a people who had been enslaved for so long to come out now enjoying their freedom. To make this journey, how will their provisions be made available to them? But God rains down the manna from heaven and brings water out of a rock. He leads them by the pillar of cloud in the daytime and by fire at night. He directed their steps. How good to know that God leads His people.
And the fact is, He's still doing it. He leads His people today. Psalm 31 verse 15 says, My times are in thy hand.
Are you not glad to know that? If everything was left up to you, if your present and your future was in your own hand, it was depending upon your faithfulness, your determination, your plans, your schemes, to get through the twisted winding path of life, you might surely be driven to despair. But to know that you can say with the psalmist, My times are in thy hand. My good times, my bad times. My times when the sun shines brightly, my times in the darkness. My times when I'm struggling, my times when I'm rejoicing. My times when I'm facing difficulties, my times when there may be opposition and enemies attacking me.
My times are in thy hand. God leads His people. God leads His children through trials. The hymn says, Some through the waters, some through the flood. We think of Isaiah chapter 43 verse 2, When thou passes through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee.
When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. Some through the waters, the cold waters of sorrow. They're experiences that we encounter that we would not have anticipated. Jeremiah said, Suddenly are my tents spoiled. There are troubles that come so unexpectedly to sweep us off our feet like the raging waters of a flood. But the promise of God is, I will be with thee. When the waters are deep and are very cold, when the troubles seem so severe, you wonder how you're going to be able to get through them. When it seems that they're coming in proportion as a great flood, and that you would be swept away in the midst of the troubles, what better promise could you ask for than for God Himself to say, I will be with you.
In Isaiah chapter 59 in the 19th verse, He says, When the enemy comes in like a flood, then the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. And the enemy sometimes comes just that way. There are many ways in which the Lord's people suffered difficulties in this life.
There are those troubles that are common to all men, but there are those that specifically belong to the Lord's people because Jesus said, In the world you shall have tribulation. You're going to face opposition. If you're following Me, if you're serving Me, there are going to be people who will be your enemies. But the good news is that we don't have to face them alone.
He says, I will lift up a standard against them. And then some go through the fire. And this very promise in Isaiah says, When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned. You remember that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who refused to bow to the king's demand, were thrown into the fiery furnace. The heat was so intense that those who threw them in were themselves consumed by the heat of it. And the king stands there in amazement and looks in and says, Did we not cast in three men bound?
And I see four. Only the Spirit of God could make him realize that the figure that he saw in there was God Himself. Let me tell you, as difficult as it is to face the fiery furnace of trials, it's better to be in the furnace and the Lord be your side than to be out of it and the Lord having withdrawn. And so, that fiery furnace was not a place of destruction for those three young men, but a place of joy to see the deliverance that God wrought for them. When you feel that the fire is hot, the troubles are intense, how am I going to bear it?
Remember, you're not by yourself. Zechariah chapter 13 in the ninth verse says, And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried. They shall call on my name, and I will hear them. I will say, It is my people, and they shall say, The Lord is my God. One of the reasons the Lord leads His people, even through the fires that they face from time to time, is that the dross might be consumed.
He is refining them as gold and silver. And so, it will enable us to be patient in those difficult times when we cannot understand. In those situations where we say, Lord, it looks like to me this would be a good time to turn down the heat.
It looks like I've suffered a lot, and I hope I've learned a lot, and could you just make it a little easier? And instead, it seems that the fire gets hotter, and the burden gets heavier, and the trouble gets greater. But it's not because the Lord doesn't care for you, it's because He does. Some of us are slow learners, and it takes a little longer in the fire than might be anticipated.
The Lord knows all about us, knows far more about us than we know about ourselves. And so, He leads us through the fire. Sometimes in the valley, in the darkest of night. Now we obviously would choose to be on the mountaintop rather than in the valley.
But the land to which Israel journeyed was a land of hills and valleys. And we have to travel in both places along the journey of life. Not just in the brightness of the noonday sun, but in the darkest night as well. Lamentations chapter 3 verse 1, the prophet says, I am the man that hath seen affliction with the rod of his wrath. He hath led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
Now that's strange language to a lot of people. Because the assumption has often been made that if I am serving God, if I'm walking obediently, I'll never be in the dark. But here God says to the prophet Jeremiah, I have a purpose in leading you into the darkness.
There's some things that you're going to experience there, some things that you're going to learn that you could not learn elsewhere. And then in the book of Isaiah chapter 50 verse 10, He gives us instruction as to how we should respond when we find ourselves in the dark. Who is among you that feareth the Lord? Now get what it says about the individual that's considered. Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light?
Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. When you're walking in darkness you often feel so discouraged, you say, I didn't well give up. I've been trying to serve God and it still seems that everything's going wrong. Things just keep falling apart. Why cannot I have brighter days?
What's the use? Maybe I've been deceived all along. Maybe I don't even know God.
Maybe I just need to forget about it. But he says to this individual who is walking obediently, he fears the Lord, he obeys the voice of his servant, but you're in darkness. What is he to do? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and do what? Run away? Go back? No, let him stay upon his God. Let him continue to trust.
Let him understand there's no other source of help. There's no other place to go. He is to stay upon his God. And then there's a warning given. Behold all ye that kindle a fire that compass yourselves about with sparks. Walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow. In other words, if you're in darkness and you decide I better build my own fire, you're not going to accomplish anything worthwhile. If you kindle your own fire rather than to depend upon the Lord to give you the light and the warmth and that which you find so necessary, that which you need, walk in the light of your fire.
The sparks that you've kindled, what's going to be the result of it? This shall ye have of my hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow. There's such a tendency to do that because we're impatient. And if we find ourselves in the darkness, we want to change the situation. And so we began to rely on our own schemes and on the philosophies of men rather than upon God and His truth. Some through the waters, some through the flood, Some through the fire, but all through the flood, Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song In the night season and all the day long. That hymn, God Leads Us Along, is a favorite of mine, how beautifully it depicts the travels of God's children, sometimes going down through the deep valleys in great trials and other times coming to the top of the mountain to rejoice in the goodness and mercy of God.
I hope that you will write us and until next week at this same time, may the Lord richly bless you all. Some through the waters, some through the flood, Some through the fire, but all through the flood, Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song In the night season and all the day long. Though sorrows befall us and saves the folks, God leads His dear children along. Through grace again God, relief be our folks, God leads His dear children along. Away from the fire and away from the clay, God leads His dear children along. Away up in glory, eternity stay, God leads His dear children along. The Baptist Bible Hour has come to you under the direction of Elder LeSaire Bradley, Jr. Address all mail to the Baptist Bible Hour, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. That's the Baptist Bible Hour, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. Some through the waters, some through the flood, Some through the fire, but all through the flood, Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song In the night season and all the day long.
