Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ.

Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today at chapter 33 and the stability of thy times. May I say this that how can we have stability in times that are unstable? God gives us some instruction here and you know all scripture is given by God and is profitable. Sometimes for doctrine, sometimes for reproof, sometimes for correction, sometimes for instruction in righteousness. And this is one of these times that this is given to us for instruction so that we can understand how we are to conduct our lives, how we are to face uncertain times.

Isaiah chapter 33, I want to look at verse 1, read this passage, then we're going to pray and jump right into God's Word this morning. Verse 1 says this, Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoil, and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee. When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled, and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee. O Lord, be gracious unto us. We have waited for thee.

Be thou their arm every morning. Our salvation also in the time of trouble. At the noise of the tumult the people fled. At the lifting up of thyself the nations were scattered, and your spoils shall be gathered like the gathering of the caterpillar. As the running to and fro of locusts shall he run upon them. The Lord is exalted, for he dwelleth on high. He hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness. And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation. The fear of the Lord is his treasure. The stability of thy times.

Looking forward to jumping into this this morning. Hope that you can at home if you have your Bible, get your Bible. And if you don't have your Bible, go get your Bible. Look at this passage. We want to break this down in some of these phrases because I think that this will help you right now.

I know that it has helped me and I need help right now. I'm gonna be honest with you. I've been in a little bit of a funk for a few days about this whole thing. Not fear in a sense of sickness, but just my fear of kind of the situation, how this is going to affect the church, maybe the fallout, the residue from a season of being away so long. I have a lot of things, a lot of questions, a lot of concerns. Have some few fears, a few worries, all those things. So this passage has helped me and I believe it'll help you.

So get your Bible. If you can, quiet everything down and just listen to me briefly for a few moments this morning. And I pray that God will use this to help you have stability in these times.

Let's pray. Lord, we love you. Thank you for all that you've done. Thank you, Lord, for your graciousness in the midst of all that we feel and think and fail at and even, Lord, the times we do wrong. Thank you for being faithful despite that. And Lord, I pray that you'd bless your word as you always do.

You have promised that it never returns void. Lord, I need your help today. Lord, I have a tendency humanly to think that I'm preaching to deaf ears sometimes, to folks that might not really care, that really have other things going and don't have time to listen to a TV or a computer this morning. God, I'm asking you somehow that you would allow our people to find through your word, Lord, the importance of what we're saying. Lord, the importance of stopping what they're doing and listening and worshiping in your word. And Lord, I pray that you would overcome that. I know you can, but Lord, we have to let you overcome that. And literally, Lord, our people have to overcome that.

So I pray that they would today. And Lord, a lot of prayer and study goes into these things. And then at times it feels nobody cares. And Lord, I know people care. And Lord, I know you care.

And I know that I care this morning. And Lord, where you and I are in greed and where two or three are gathered together, you're in the midst. And God, I believe that you have a job you want to do, that you have a job you want us to accomplish. And Lord, with your help, we're going to continue to do so. I pray that you'd bless your word today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Verse one, it says this, woe to thee that spoil us.

What is going on here? Isaiah is prophesying to the children of God in Jerusalem, Israelites, what we would call them, the Jewish people. And what had happened is, now we get a lot of playing time about Pharaoh and the children of Israel going through Egypt and all that. But this was 700 years ago that that happened.

What doesn't get as much mention or as much playing time was the fact that the Assyrian armies, as they began to attack the people of God, as they began to attack Jerusalem, and Isaiah was prophesying to these people that had been treated poorly, had been attacked. This was troublesome times. These were unstable times.

They had been literally taken over. They had faced persecution and all these things. And so Isaiah is prophesying to them. And in verse one he is talking about the Assyrian armies led by Sennacherib at this point. And he's talking about what God is going to do.

Listen to what he says. He says, woe to thee that spoil us and thou was not spoiled. He says, you need to watch out those of you that came to attack when we didn't attack you.

You that literally come to spoil us. When nobody spoiled you, he says this, and dealest treacherously and they dealt not treacherously with thee. He said literally the unfairness of you attacking somebody that hasn't attacked you, of you doing something that wasn't done to you.

And the best way I could put it here is that Isaiah was literally prophesying to the people of God that God saw what the Assyrians were was doing and God sees all things and God is going to take care of that. And if I can redneck that down a little bit for you this morning, it means this. This chapter deals with the fact of what goes around comes around. And I want to remind you today before we get into God's word that you and I need to remember that.

We best not forget that. That what goes around comes around. In fact, the Bible says whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

You and I need to be careful about things like this. And I just wanted to remind you, God laid that on my heart. And just like God wasn't going to let the Assyrian army get away with things, God is not going to let you get away with things.

If God let people get away with sin without asking and begging God for forgiveness, if God let that go on without doing anything about that, then he wouldn't be God. And so I'm here to tell you that although the news says things and although the media says things and although we see a lot of things in this world, make no mistake about it. What goes around comes around. And those that have dealt treacherously with those that have not dealt treacherously with them, Judgment Day is coming. And you know what, there might be things and people that are doing things behind the scenes to our country. And yes, churches might be under attack in certain ways. And we need to be wise about that.

We need to be wise as serpents, but don't forget we need to be harmless as doves. But I want to remind you this morning that God has this, that God will not let those things go unpunished and their day is coming. And you and I need to not walk around act as if that they've won the battle, that they've just taken over as if God is asleep and God is gone. I'm here to tell you that God is still on the throne and God will be on the throne tomorrow and next week and next month all the way up till he comes back to get his church and take them back with him.

So I want to remind you what goes around comes around. And even when times are unstable, God is as stable as he's always been. I want you to notice in verse two as Isaiah is prophesying about what the Assyrians had done to the children of Israel literally here, the Jewish people, he says this in verse two, O Lord. Now Isaiah as he is prophesying, now he is praying.

You and I need to be aware of prophecy, but we also need to be busy about praying. This is what Isaiah says, O Lord be gracious unto us. We have waited for thee, be thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble.

I want you to notice as I look at this prayer, just the first part of this this morning, I want you to notice three things that I saw that really encouraged my heart. Number one, Isaiah says God give us grace for delayed solutions. Isaiah describes in verse one what is going on, but in verse two he says, O Lord be gracious unto us. It means apply grace to our lives, God. And this is what he says, number one, we have waited for thee.

That means there is no solution to what is going on yet. They are still attacking and they are still persecuting and we're still going through this. But Isaiah says, O Lord be gracious unto us. We've waited for you.

You promised and we know what you said and we trust what you said and we've waited for you. So God, we need you to be gracious. We need grace for delayed solutions.

May I say this in your lives as you're watching this morning and in my life, I need some solutions to some things. I need God to work some miracles. I need God to do some things in some relationships. I need God to do some amazing miraculous things in church. I need God to give grace for some marriages that I'm trying to help people with right now. I need God to give a solution and God to give grace for some addictions that some people are dealing with that I'm trying to help right now. I don't know about you, but I have a lot of things in my life that I need solutions and it feels sometimes like God has the solution, but it's delayed.

Proverbs chapter 13 verse 12, a verse that has governed my life in many ways. And I actually last week for Mother's Day, as we watched our ladies kind of conduct a service for our ladies last week, Sarah Carter here and our staff mentioned this verse that she heard me share in a message years ago, Proverbs 13, 12, hope deferred maketh the hearts sick solutions that are delayed. I don't know about you this morning, but you and I, especially in 2020, we need grace for delayed solutions. I encourage you wait on the Lord.

Isaiah says, God, we need grace because we have waited for thee. And dear friend, may I tell you the best thing you could ever do is just wait for God. Even though that solution might be delayed, the worst thing you can do is to try to fix it yourself to get all been out of shape to worry and worry and worry every day and ruin what time you have and ruin other relationships in your life and ruin the peace that you could have every day and ruin the contentment that God has promised through his word and through his grace. The best thing you can do is to wait on God. Yes, I know you want it fixed right now.

And yes, I know you're hurting that the solution has not been given yet, but just wait. You need grace every day. You got to say, God, I'm waiting on you and I need grace. I challenge you this morning that are watching.

If you're like me, I get a little bit bent out of shape, you know, a week or two of something I can take, but it starts going into where it begins to form a habit. May I be honest with you as a pastor, I think that I might not be known here at Kerwin as a good preacher and I might not be known for having the most talent or whatever the case you might want to be. One thing I am known is having a wonderful physique.

No, I'm not really known for that either. But may I say this, that one thing that I think I'm known for is I'm pretty honest. Now that's gotten me in trouble a lot, but I'm pretty honest. And can I be honest with you this morning? I've been in a little bit of a funk for a while too, because I don't know if I want things to go back to normal.

I'm just being honest with you. I've enjoyed eating supper with my family. I've enjoyed eating meals with my family. I've enjoyed being able to be home a little bit more.

Yes, I've been busy through the days and visiting and different things of that nature as best I can. But may I say this, sometimes I begin to think, you know, I don't know if I want it to go back to absolutely normal. I don't know if I want to go back to the hours and hours and hours and hours away from home. I don't know if I want that.

I don't know if I want to go back to where the schedule is so busy that you don't even see where you can have time to breathe or to do anything. And dear friend, may I say this, God's got a solution for it all. And God's got a balance for it all. And God has a solution for Kerwin Baptist Church. And God has a solution for your life. And God has a solution for your kids. And God has a solution for the problems in your family. And God has answers for a lot of those things. But what you got to ask God every day for might not be to bring the solution. And it might not be God fix the problem. It might be God, would you give me grace while I'm waiting on you? I want you to notice the second thing that Isaiah prays for. He says, Oh, Lord, by the way, that's a great place to start. Oh, Lord, I've prayed at times where that's all I could get out. Oh, Lord, aren't you glad for the Holy Spirit that is able to take groanings and utterings that you just don't even know how to say and to talk to God on your behalf? Notice secondly, Isaiah says, Oh, Lord, be gracious unto us.

We've waited for the day. Be thou their arm every morning. Isaiah says, God, give grace for daily strength, not just for delayed solutions, but for daily strength.

God, we need help every morning. Isaiah says every morning, God, I need your arm. And Isaiah might've been saying, God, we need your arm to hold the army back. Maybe Isaiah was saying, God, we need your arm to hug us today. Maybe he was saying, God, we need your arm to provide.

We need your arm to protect. Whatever Isaiah might be saying, what he did say this is we need it every morning. And dear friend, may I tell you this, what you and I need to be praying for right now is grace for daily strength. Isaiah says, God, we need it every morning.

And may I challenge you coming to church into a building you have found out over these past weeks, that just coming into a building doesn't cut it, that you've got to walk with God every day. And you know what? Watching a service online doesn't just cut it.

I've had so many people say, you know what? I try to watch online, but it's just not the same. And dear friend, you're right.

It's not the same. But may I say this, a service online or even meeting together in church is not all that you need during the week. You need a daily walk with God. You need grace for daily strength. Dear friend, you've got to be walking with him.

And you've got to be spending time with him. And you need to get over this fact that the pastor needs to come up with something to keep you going every day and every week. Dear friend, that is not the pastor's job. It is not the staff's job. It is not the church's job. It is not your husband or wife or parent's job. It is your job to go to God and get grace for daily strength.

That's something you have to do. Kind of sometimes tired that all the spiritual work people think needs to be done by spiritual people. Listen to me, dear friend, your spiritual work needs to be done by you between you and God. Grace for daily strength. Isaiah says, God, we need your arm every morning. I don't know about you, but there have been many times of an evening.

I feel like I could charge hell with a squirt gun, as preachers have always said. And by the next day, worry has set in. Reality has set in.

Weakness has set in. And I begin to think, well, you know, I don't know if I can do that now. I sure felt good the other day and thought, hey, this is what God wants me to do.

But now I don't know. Dear friend, I have faced that so much at church. God said, hey, go to two services.

And then it came time to go to two services. We're like, oh, Lord, I don't know how this is going to work. Dear friend, we need daily strength. Notice the third thing that Isaiah prays for here. He says, oh, Lord, be gracious unto us. We have waited for thee.

Be thou their arm every morning. Notice this lastly, our salvation also in time of trouble. Isaiah says, God, you need to give us grace for delayed solutions. You need to give us grace for daily strength.

But notice this. He says, God, we need grace for difficult situations. He says, our salvation also in time of trouble. Isaiah says, God, we've got some difficult situations we're dealing with and we need you to be gracious to us. Dear friend, some of you might have some difficult situations.

May I say this? You say, well, what I need is God's grace. And I am telling you what you need is God's grace. You say, well, thank you, preacher.

I appreciate that. But may I say this, remember what the Bible says, that God gives grace to the humble, but he resists the proud. You see, the proud always see what everybody else needs to fix in their life.

The proud sees what everybody else is doing wrong in their life, but the humble only sees yourself. We need grace for difficult situations. Isaiah says, God, would you please give that? If you would, look at verse five. And before we get there, let me read you a couple of verses in between as Isaiah is praying this prayer. He says this in verse three, he says, at the noise of the tumult, the people fled, at the lifting up of thyself, the nations were scattered. Isaiah goes from literally prophecy to prayer back to prophecy. He says, God, I know that you could do that.

It's almost a projection of the future. He said, God, if you showed up, they would scatter. God, if you showed up, it would take care of everything. Look at verse four. He says, and your spoil shall be gathered like the gathering of the caterpillar.

Here, this word caterpillar is used as literally a species of locusts. And he says next, as the running to and fro of locusts, shall he run upon them. He said literally that these people that have come and scavenged us and taken everything we have, that God, if you show yourself like locusts literally go to a field and take everything, they can just clear out a field and eat everything in it.

God, if you showed up, you could do it. And that's absolutely true. But before God does that, before God shows up, before God, like a locust or literally a swarm of locusts before God goes in and just takes everything Satan has and clears out America and clears out the land before that happens.

There are some reasons, some things that have to happen. I want you to notice in verse five, as we come to a close, I want you to see these things. This is what Isaiah says as Isaiah prophesies, then prays and then prophesies. And now he is looking to the people of God and he gives them instruction. He gives them literally principles. It means that he prophesies, then he prays, and then he gives the principles of God.

Notice if you would verse five, Isaiah says this, the Lord is exalted for he dwelleth on high and he hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness. If you'll excuse me, I don't often do it on a Sunday morning. But we just heard obviously a bunch of ambulances and things going by. I've just had a habit since I was a kid.

I always do it. Stop and pray for those. And I don't know when you might be watching this. It might be after the fact, but I want to stop and pray for whoever might be hurt in whatever accident is going on. Lord, we hear an emergency and we hear things. And Lord, I've had enough people in my church that have been involved in things like that, that Lord, we want to pray for whoever might be in danger right now. God, may you have your way, your will be done.

And Lord, would you bring protection if it be your will, please bless them and the families in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Verse five of Isaiah 33, God says this. I mean, Isaiah says this, the Lord is exalted for he dwelleth on high. He hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness and wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times and strength of salvation. The fear of the Lord is his treasure. Now you might read that and you might say, boy, that's just a lot of stuff, preacher. I don't really understand a lot of it.

Now, remember the context of what we're talking about. In verse one, literally, Isaiah talks about all that's going on. He says, listen, this is and this is what they're doing. In verse two, he says, he prays, he says, God, we need their help.

In verse three and four, literally, he gives prophecy saying, God, he projects what God could do, but I want you to understand the principles now that Isaiah gives to the people. He says, all right, I've talked to God. I've prayed to God. I've said, God, we need grace for delayed situation and God, we need grace literally for daily strength and we need grace for difficult situations. But he says to the people, he says, now listen, there are some things you've got to understand as we go forward and we're still in the middle of this.

And while God is working a plan and God is working his will, there are some things you need to understand. Notice number one, we see the priority of suffering. Isaiah looks to his people and he's basically saying this, listen, I know you're suffering right now, but notice what he says in verse five. Number one, the Lord is exalted. The priority of suffering. What is the priority of suffering?

It's for the Lord to be exalted. Now, dear friend, I don't know why you might be suffering in your life and sometimes we bring suffering on ourselves because of our own sin and spirit and attitude and all those things, but things that God allows and when people do you wrong and unfair circumstances and all those things, may I say this, that there is a priority in the middle of that and whatever might be going on, whatever a person has said or done to you, whatever the case might be, there is one priority in this and that is for the Lord to be exalted. The priority is not for you to fix it and you to show them how they're wrong. The priority is not for you to somehow win this war.

The priority is not for you to get what you want. The priority is for the Lord to be exalted. Isaiah looks to the people that are suffering and he says, listen, the Lord is exalted.

Why? Because he says, God, we're waiting on you. God is always exalted when you wait on him and when you let God do what God does. The priority of suffering.

Notice, secondly, the perspective on suffering, the perspective on suffering. Look at verse five. He says, the Lord is exalted. Notice this, for he dwelleth on high. In other words, you've got to remember in the middle of your suffering that God is higher than you. God sees things that you don't see. You're underneath it.

You're under it. You're looking up. You're swallowed by it and all we see is what we can see around us but you need to remember that the Lord is not down where you're at. The Lord is with you but the Lord is on high.

He is above and God has a different perspective than we do. This week, I was texting back and forth with a pastor friend of mine named Kenny Baldwin and I was talking to him about the fact. I said, you know, hey, I feel like I'm in a little bit of a funk and just, you know, maybe worried about some things about how the fallout is going to affect our church and different things. You know, you get into this and you get a system, hey, we're going to survive this but then you think afterwards, you know, what's the fallout going to be? Who's going to leave?

Who's not going to come back and all those things. And as I was texting him about that and he was saying, obviously, he'd been through a few of the same things, he said, you know what? The Lord took me to 2 Kings chapter 6 and Elisha's servant and here of all things, here's a servant that looks at Elisha and says, listen, here's a whole army of people coming.

We're the only ones. And Elisha goes to God and God says, listen, you tell him to look again. And Elisha tells the servant, you need to look again.

And when he looked again, there was an entire army of people with Elisha and his servant. You see, God sees things that we don't see. I don't know why you might be going through what you're going through but may I remind you, he dwelleth on high. We're down here. We've got no choice. This is where God put us. We're on earth. We see our things. We see our circumstances but he dwelleth on high. I want you to notice number three, the provision for suffering. Notice what he says in verse 5. Isaiah says, the Lord is exalted for he dwelleth on high. He hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness. Isaiah says, listen, in the middle of this suffering, God's provided you with something. And notice what he said with judgment and righteousness.

And what does that mean? This word judgment literally is the ideal of perspective. It's literally of being able to see what's right and what's wrong.

It's literally the word verdict. In other words, he is saying this, listen, in the middle of all this, you need to be thankful that God has given you judgment and righteousness. God has already showed you what's right. God has already showed you what he's going to do.

You're on the winning side. You don't have to worry about what they're doing to you. What you know is what God is going to one day do to them. And dear friend, may I remind you in the middle of our suffering that in this world where the earth and literally America and other countries right now, there seems to be the great unknown. May I remind you that we have a lot of things that are known because we're believers. We know God has this. We know God's in control. We know the worst scenario is us going to heaven.

Don't forget that. In the middle of this suffering, God has given you judgment and righteousness. God has allowed you to know what's right and wrong. And a lot of people in this world don't have any idea what's right or wrong.

I mean, their view is so skewed and their objectives are so wrong and their perspective is so guarded and blocked. And as Bible believers, we have something that God's given us. He's given us his word. We know his judgments.

We know his verdict. We know what's right. We know what's wrong. We know how we're supposed to act. We know we're supposed to trust him. We know we're not supposed to walk around like everybody else.

That doesn't know what's going on. We have certainty. We have boldness because we're believers. He's given provision for suffering.

Then Isaiah says this in verse 6, number 4, I want you to see the position despite suffering. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kerwin Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web at kerwinbaptistchurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you.