Identifying with the exercises of Jabez (Quality: Average)

[0:00] If you look unto the Lord for his most needed help, I would seek your attention to the first book of Chronicles, chapter 4, verses 9 and 10.

[0:17] The first book of Chronicles, chapter 4, verses 9 and 10. And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren.

[0:30] And his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bear him with sorrow. Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, O that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me.

[0:52] And that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me. And God granted him that which he requested.

[1:08] We very briefly spoke on Wednesday evening from the commencement of these words. And there is no other reference to this person, Jabez, in the word of God.

[1:23] Not by name, anyway. And it may seem strange, and it does even to most, that in the midst of all this chapter on posterity, and all these names that are recorded, right in the midst of them there is something about a man who feared the Lord.

[1:47] Just two verses. And it is a most blessed two verses. But the prayer of my soul today, and the burden of my soul is this, that you and I might identify ourselves with the exercise of this man.

[2:10] It was said many years ago, the book of Psalms is a remarkable book, because of the highs and the lows of experiences that are found there.

[2:25] But it was also said this, if you fear the Lord, you will find your exercise, your burden in the book of Psalms. It's ageless, as the word of God is ageless.

[2:39] It doesn't fail. It doesn't wear out with time. It is as up-to-date today as it was when holy men of old were constrained by the Spirit of God to write these things.

[2:55] And these dear characters that we have throughout the word of God are but illustrations of the grace of God. And they are evidences of the grace of God in which if you've got a gracious soul, you'll recognize.

[3:14] And you may say, of course, well, oh, he's a much more gracious soul than I am. Well, he may be more than I am, but my friends, the word of God is clear, and that continuously so.

[3:30] It is not the height, nor the depth, nor the breadth, nor the length. It's the substance what matters. And the substance here is that the fear of the Lord was in this man's soul.

[3:46] We may find, too, that such words as are expressed in the prayer of Jabez is constantly the prayer of your soul before the Lord.

[3:57] And may the blessed end of this text be your blessing, too. And God granted him that which he requested.

[4:09] Now, as we said on Wednesday, the word tells us he was more honorable than his brethren. And I take that not to be in any means by any place in providence.

[4:24] I've no reason to say that he may have an office or a higher office than his brethren or a higher position in the land or whatever.

[4:36] I believe that's the honoring that is spoken of here is the honoring that God bestowed upon him. As we quoted on Wednesday in the first book of Samuel, the Lord said, those that honor me, I will honor.

[4:53] Now, I believe Jabez here, therefore, was an honorable man and a blessed soul because the fear of the Lord was in operation within his soul.

[5:04] And his mother called him Jabez, saying, because I bear him with sorrow. Now, what that means, I have to leave to you to consider, but I know not why.

[5:17] It may be by, naturally, the birth of a child is often called the time of nature's sorrow. Or it may be that the circumstances that his mother was in was a time of sorrow.

[5:30] But it's immaterial, really. But, oh, it's this character, Jabez, and it's the work of God in Jabez that we must now attend to and helped by the Lord to speak from.

[5:47] Because this is the cry of a living soul. This is the poor man in Psalm 34. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him.

[5:59] And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed. Real religion, my friends, must there begin, because it's personal.

[6:15] Oh, we beg for the Lord, for the Church of Christ. We beg for the Lord, for the congregations of Zion. We beg the Lord for our own causes of truth.

[6:29] But this is the place, my friends, where real religion shall be seen. Oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed. Because if you are concerned with your soul, you will be concerned afterwards with the souls of others.

[6:48] How can you be burdened down with the state and condition of the Church or of your dear ones? unless you know what it is to be burdened down with your own soul and its sin and its iniquity and the exercise of prayer will be for your own soul's salvation in the first place and the concern for others.

[7:14] O that thou wouldst bless me indeed. you might come to the house of God and we know how many come here not that many but as you walk as you walk in the door may the cry be O that thou wouldst bless me indeed.

[7:33] The poet said, you know, what if my soul should be left out when thou for them shall call?

[7:45] There's nothing more important, my friends, than your never dying soul. It doesn't matter what place you've got in life. It doesn't matter what you've got in the bank.

[7:57] It doesn't matter what your home's like. None of those things cannot in any way compare to the value of your own soul. How shall it be in the swellings of Jordan?

[8:11] Well, my friends, this is the exercise of a child of God. And what a blessed exercise it is not to get on in life.

[8:22] The Lord may have allowed him to get on in life as we might call it. But it's the blessing of the Lord that he wanted. Oh, he shall come to the house of God then.

[8:33] But not only there. Does not the cry of your soul come up before the Lord God of Sabaoth through the week as well? Is it the burden of your soul?

[8:46] You have to cry out with such sorrows and burdens and desires that the Lord would remember your poor soul? And that he might draw near and speak comfortably unto you?

[9:01] I do feel, my friends, that where the cry of this man is, and I said on Wednesday, what an emphasis that he puts on it. This isn't something that comes off the tongue and the lips as readily as some things do.

[9:20] This is the burden of his spirit within this prayer. Oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed. Oh, don't leave me out of the blessing. Bless others.

[9:32] Oh, may the Lord bless all in the house of God, but don't leave me out of the blessing. How painful that would, how painful it is when you hear that, well, we've had a good day today, someone might say.

[9:49] And then you've gone home and put your head on a pillow and wept your eyes out because it hasn't been so. It's as though the Lord has passed you by. It isn't always, my friends, your feelings that are true, of course.

[10:05] But it so often seems so. I used to, in those early days of teaching, go home on a Sunday night and read that chapter in the Song of Solomon before we went to bed.

[10:19] Oh, my friends, it was the cry of my very soul. It seems as though I was as absolute destitute of any comfort. Well, you know what the bride said.

[10:31] By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth. I sought him but I found him not. Oh, that thou wouldest bless me indeed.

[10:44] But here we have too another evidence of grace because the grace of faith is evident. And also the spirit of prayer.

[10:56] You know, prayer is not that rambling of words, that well rehearsed dictation as it were before God. Those orderly words that flow from the mind through the lips and we call it prayer.

[11:14] It's a grace taught blessing. It's a Holy Ghost taught exercises prayer. Because as coupled with it, you know, the needs of the soul.

[11:29] And it is if you have a needy soul the prayers that will flow from your very spirit will be those that shall carry the needs of your soul to the throne of grace.

[11:42] So there's a real God-given exercise here of living prayer. And it will express before the Lord the very concerns that you have, your own soul and its standing.

[11:57] Oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed. We read on Wednesday that a few verses from Genesis where Jacob wrestled with the angel.

[12:13] And the angel said to him, let me go because of the breaking of the day. And Jacob answered that by saying, I will not let thee go unless thou bless me.

[12:27] And we read in a verse afterwards, and he blessed him there. My friends, these are the spots, these are the places. The Lord has brought you into his house.

[12:39] Has he brought you into the place of wrestling prayer? Has he caused you to find, as it were, access to him through Christ? Have you laid the matter of your very soul before him?

[12:53] Because it's, and you know there is an expression, we would use it carefully, very carefully. My friends, there is a right expression. It's a matter of life and death.

[13:03] death. And death in the soul is darkness and distress and bondage. But life in the soul is light also and will be light.

[13:15] And when the Lord is pleased to so burden your soul with a desire for the blessing, I wonder too sometimes, here we have the expressions of Jabez concerning the blessings that he wanted.

[13:30] did. Sometimes, you know, we go to our throne of grace and ask the Lord to bless us, and I suppose if we were to stop and think, what do we need?

[13:41] What do we want? What is the exercise of the soul? You know, when you ask the Lord for something, then something is upon your spirit to pray for. If you have a situation in Providence, that's what you bring before the Lord as helped.

[13:57] but when you ask for the Lord to bless you, what do you want him to bless you with? I'd say again, I'm not ashamed of my experience at all, my friends, that dear old minister said to me, if you want him to bless you, he already has blessed you.

[14:18] Now, that's a mercy, my friends. If you want him to bless you, if you desire him to bless you, he already has blessed you. Oh, you say, but not with what I want.

[14:31] No, but for the desire of what you want. No, my friends, that's the evidence of a living soul, and you can't get much lower than that, can you?

[14:44] It may be that you think you can, but you know, when you pray for a desire, and then the Lord gives you that desire, you pray with that desire for the blessing of your soul, oh, that thou wouldest bless me indeed.

[15:02] But then you know, you can see, I'm sure you can feel it almost, how the dear man centered his exercise and burden upon the God of Israel.

[15:15] He didn't go to the priest. He had every right to go to the priest. priest. Old Testament ceremonies and sacrifices were being offered daily and so on.

[15:28] And as a sinner before a holy God, he was to take an offering which was to be a burnt offering that shall be offered for his iniquity. But my friends, he went with his desire, with his prayer to the Lord God of Israel.

[15:47] He went to where it should come from, that blessing. And he made it before the Lord, that blessing. Oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed.

[15:59] What do you pray for? I said on Wednesday night, you may begin, and I'm not going to say this is an orderly exercise of prayer.

[16:10] What you'll tell the Lord is what you need. And if you need the Lord to pardon your sin, then that sin will be such a burden to you, such an exercise to you.

[16:23] It will be something that will overshadow you, be like a mountain, which you cannot go by. And it will be such a cry from your very soul, daily and nightly, in the night seasons, in the day seasons.

[16:40] My prayers, and that is the blessing that every sensible sinner prays for, the forgiveness of sins. the pardon of iniquity. But then consider too, my friends, what that blessing involves.

[16:58] How can that blessing come to such a fallen wretch of Adam, that you would pray for forgiveness, who was born in sin and shapen it iniquity?

[17:10] But there's a God-given way to the blessing. There's a provision in the covenant of grace for coming sinners, and there's an encouragement in that covenant, that none that come shall be ever turned away.

[17:24] All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. And there is another word which I can't speak completely, but it speaks of the uttermost, and such that are in that state, the uttermost, that come unto him.

[17:48] My friends, they are extremities. But oh, this is the blessing, my friends, that the people of God pray for. And what is so merciful about the covenant, and so merciful about the provision in that covenant, well, as the poet said, I just want to just say these words, yes, the very worst of sinners, who upon his grace rely, shall of endless bliss be winners, and shall sing beyond the skies.

[18:22] Oh, my friends, you may feel, and you may be tempted to believe that the extremity that you're in is beyond his appearance to bless.

[18:36] It's one of those impossible things, Satan will tell you. You've gone beyond the limits of his love. Now, every vessel of mercy, however dark or sinful he may seem to feel to be, and indeed is, and indeed is, never minimize sin, my friends, one sin unpardoned will send you to hell.

[19:01] So the depths of iniquity shall indeed prove to be great, but they're not beyond those limits. I love those words, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin.

[19:21] And there it is, that blessed, comprehensive promise, oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed. but the blessing of forgiveness is a price that was paid at Calvary.

[19:37] The putting away of iniquity caused that the Son of God in human form should suffer and die on a tree. The cost of that blessing was that Jesus Christ in his holy humanity should die and he should be laid in the grave.

[19:59] But laid in the grave too with these words, it is finished and there's the cry of victory he accomplished and won the victory and through him and by him this blessing is for the church, for the people of God.

[20:22] The poor sinners that cry. You may and you will I suppose hear from time to time the church of God or the church of Christ as it were in a general sense of the word.

[20:36] And you might say well yes there is such a person, there is such a number in the church of Christ but I don't feel to be amongst them because I'm such a vile sinner.

[20:49] My friends it means just as much to the poor and the needy that knock by the way. Oh that I want to bless me indeed. May that precious blood that flowed at Calvary flow over my conscience and wash me from all my sins so that I shall say with another poet when he was in such a blessed spot he said I'll tell the father in that day and thou shalt witness what I say.

[21:20] I'm clean, just God I'm clean. Now the Lord's people will come to them places. Oh that thou wouldst bless me indeed.

[21:32] The urgency of this word, the emphasis of this word, the burden that is under this word you can surely feel and understand and are looking to the Lord for the blessing.

[21:47] oh that thou wouldst bless me indeed. And I did say you know on Wednesday too, none of the blessings of the Lord are blessings to be boasted about.

[22:04] Not, I mean of course in that natural way that people boast on attainment. The Lord deliver us from such sin and such iniquity to boast of his graces.

[22:19] Because the effect of the blessing of forgiveness has the opposite effect you know. I know the poet said that then loudest of the crowd are seen while heaven's resounding mansions ring with shouts of sovereign grace, but that will be in glory.

[22:41] But oh the blessing of forgiveness brings humility. Oh it surely does my friends that the God of all grace should look down from the heights of bliss from heaven itself unto such a poor wretched soul and grant him the desire of his soul, the exercise of his soul, those prayers that have been put up have come to pass, the forgiveness of sins is made over to the sinner, he has enjoyed the peace and indeed the pardon that comes through the applied and precious blood of Jesus Christ, such a blessing.

[23:24] Oh the Lord has blessed me indeed. Oh the greatest blessing to pray for and if you pray for it once you'll pray for it all the days of your life. You won't lose my friends a moment to pray for this blessing.

[23:39] At the beginning of the day beg the Lord for forgiveness at the close of the day and all throughout it at times. But what else would you have?

[23:51] What else would you pray for? The hymn that was given out just now has this over it, ask what I shall give thee. What would you ask for?

[24:05] The Lord will direct you to ask, he'll show you what you need and he'll show you this, my friends, how great is this word.

[24:16] You know you can't, you dare not die without what you need. And I say that very humbly I trust. You can't live without it, you dare not die without this blessing that you so much need.

[24:30] The Lord will put such a need in your soul that you will burden your very spirit with prayer for it. oh that thou wouldst bless me indeed.

[24:44] You might look to those blessings which the Lord's people indeed are blessed with. That oneness with Jesus Christ.

[25:00] You know that's a wonderful mercy, you know. You read again John chapter 10 of the safety of the people of God. Where he calls his people his sheep and he said none can pluck them out of my hand and none can pluck them out of his father's hand and then he said this I and my father are one my friends and so is the church.

[25:27] One with Jesus by this oneness they are one with Jesus. Oh to have that knowledge my friends of being in fellowship with the church and with Jesus Christ the great head of the church.

[25:49] Oh that thou wouldst bless me indeed. But then too my friends what else would you if the Lord should speak to you as he did to Solomon with those words ask what I shall give thee.

[26:04] Oh you have unburdened you a very soul before the Lord and that he may be the Lord Jesus Christ may be the saviour.

[26:16] He is the saviour but he might that you might find it very personally my friends an interest in the saviour's blood. One's pardon sealed one's peace with God.

[26:29] The man who stand between would you not pray this oh that thou would bless me indeed with communion with Christ and to be able as it were with nothing between but to pour out your spirit to Christ the mediator at God's right hand.

[26:50] What a blessing. Liberty in prayer, light in prayer, blessed faith to pray in Jesus name, blessed faith, gracious faith in that all prevailing name.

[27:07] What a blessing that is. Oh that thou would bless me indeed. Put me among his children. Make the way, show me the way, put me in fellowship with his people, one with them in this time state, one in the church militant, one in the church triumphant.

[27:31] Oh that thou would bless me indeed. But you know, there is a in this person, in these souls that are blessed with the same exercise as Jameis had here, they must walk their pilgrimage out.

[27:47] They have a way day by day to walk. The Lord knows the length of it, the Lord knows what's within that walk and pathway. And my friends, what, in the contemplation of the untrodden steps, what is it that a child of God often prays for?

[28:08] The Lord himself to be present with you. There is many things to fear in this world. Oh there's many things, you know, this old nature is to be feared and to be prayed against.

[28:22] Christ. But that blessed person of Christ, you're not asking for something that he won't give by the way. Every child of grace must ever be brought to this truth, that he'll be taught to pray by the Spirit for the blessing that he would seek for are the blessings that are in the word of God and under the promises of God for the church and to pray that the Lord might be with you.

[28:55] My friend, it is not indeed a prayer out of place. Before he went to glory, the Lord Jesus Christ said, and lo, I am with you all way, even until the end of the world.

[29:11] Before he went to Calvary, he said to his people, I will not leave you comfort less, I will come to you. And in the same vein, in the same chapter, in the same exercise of the soul of the Lord Jesus towards his people, he said this, I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh away.

[29:41] Oh, the Lord has blessed me indeed with a visit from the Lord. You know, if we've got good friends, oh, how comfortable they are in their company when they come to visit.

[29:56] My friends, but there's no better friend than the friend of sinners. Earthly friends may drop their hold, sometimes hot and sometimes cold, but Jesus is the same.

[30:10] My friends, pray for a visit from the Lord, whether it's in his house or your house. What a blessing that would be. They might say to you, well, surely your pathway is, oh, surely it's a lonely pathway.

[30:27] It never will be, my friends, if the Lord is there. You say, well, your pathway is a very dark and dismal pathway. Well, now that's what it looks from the outside, my friends, but when the light of life shines in the heart, when the sun of righteousness arises with healing in his wings, then there is no darkness at all.

[30:50] Oh, let that one is, bless me indeed. And that blessed company of Jesus Christ indeed encourages communion with Christ.

[31:03] And remarkably so, when the Spirit of the Lord gives you a spirit of prayer and you unburden your very soul before the Lord, my friends, there are those seasons and times when you tell the Lord, but you couldn't tell your nearest and dearest.

[31:19] You would unfold all your foolishness and all your sin. You would tell him all the secrets of your own wicked heart. In Psalm 19, I think it is, it talks about the secret sins in the light of his countenance.

[31:35] Well, my friends, if you have the ear of Jesus Christ, you would tell him all those things. You would tell him how ashamed you are of your iniquity. You wouldn't tell somebody else that.

[31:48] Oh, that I would bless me indeed. That the blessing may be of the Lord, the Lord's blessing. Do we not desire it for us individually?

[31:59] Do we not desire it in the church of God? Don't we desire it in this house of God, the Lord's blessing? blessing. And again, we come back to the, I was going to say, the fundamental.

[32:12] My friends, the word of his grace. Don't you ask the Lord's blessing on the word? What do you mean when you ask the Lord's blessing on the word? That he may suit it to your case and place and season and appointments you are in.

[32:28] That he might send his word as indeed a sweet and sacred season to your soul that will encourage you and comfort you and lift you up.

[32:40] That psalm that we read was a psalm of rejoicing because the psalmist had had those seasons and times when he could see the Lord's hand in blessing.

[32:54] And my soul shall make her boast in the Lord, the humble shall hear thereof and be glad. I magnify the Lord with me and let us exhort his name together.

[33:06] I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears. This blessing of blessings, the Lord's presence, the Lord's appearance, and then a way of escape.

[33:24] It's a word that the Apostle Paul speaks of concerning the church of Christ being tempted, that they are not tempted above that they are able to bear, but with the temptation also has made a way of escape.

[33:40] So Lord bless you with the way of escape. If you look again, and it comes back to me so many times as we have spoken recently on that Passover land, my friends, in the Passover land was the way of escape.

[33:57] It was a way of deliverance. No other deliverance could be possible they were under the taskmasters and under the taskmasters for their slaves before Egypt.

[34:14] How can they escape? Who would undo their chains? Who would deliver them from that dreadful day of oppression and distress?

[34:25] the Lord did and he made a way of escape and it was through the Passover land. Oh, the Lord has blessed me indeed. And deliverance? Do you need delivering?

[34:38] My friends, every child of God needs delivering. That you might be blessed with a means of deliverance. And what do you want to be delivered from?

[34:49] Well, my friends, while you live in the vale of tears, it is surely your own sinful self. deliver me from its power. Deliver me from its temptations.

[35:01] And Satan is as equally as willing to distress and cause the child of God much sorrow. Deliver me from the powers of evil.

[35:13] Can't deliver yourself, you know. Oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed. And return to us in the blessings and the comforts of the gospel.

[35:24] And then we must go on a little further. And enlarge my coast. What does that mean? Well, my friends, it is to me like this. There seems to be in every child of grace, you know, a confession.

[35:41] And that is to the poverty of his possessions. Not that the possessions are themselves poverty, of course. because the riches of his grace, my friends, are more to be desired than the riches of this world.

[35:59] And, oh, the smile of his faith, my friends, is worth more than anything in this world could possibly offer. And enlarge my coast. Well, I believe, my friends, this has some connection with what the apostle Peter wrote, that I might grow in grace.

[36:17] I believe in grace, there is no standing still. And it may take a lifetime, my friends, to teach you and I those things concerning ourselves, those daily revelations of our poverty and wickedness and evil, and then, too, the richness of his grace, the mercy that's in Christ, the preciousness of his blood, oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed and enlarge my coast.

[36:52] Nothing to do with property or expansion, my friends, is to do with the knowledge in the soul of this blessed person. What do you know of Christ?

[37:03] If one should give you a sheet of paper, how much would you write of him you know? How much would you put down? I don't mean what you know by reading this book. You can write a book full on it, I suppose, if you were that way led and able to do so.

[37:19] But I'm talking about what you call spiritual experience. How much would you write? My friends, it would be surely this, and you would have to say what poverty it all is.

[37:36] What a poor Christian I am. How little I know of the Lord Jesus Christ. My friends, from Genesis to Revelation, the Lord Jesus Christ is to be found.

[37:48] But how much is found in your soul? How much experience have you had? How much time is a blessing? Could you write, indeed, my friends, could you write anything of Jesus Christ to your soul?

[38:03] You would start off, I'm sure, by saying, how much I need him. But that's not knowing him. it's a blessed exercise, and God give it to you all, to need the person of Christ in his work.

[38:18] But how much has he been shown to you? How much communication has there been from him? Where are the blessings could you, as it were, chronology, write out, you know what I'm saying, write out the list of blessings that you've known.

[38:36] My friends, how large a piece of paper would you write on the top of it, Christian experience, and enlarge my coast. If you go to some time looking, chapter 3 of the Philippians, you'll find this, that this able preacher of righteousness to Jew and Gentile said, oh that I knew him.

[39:04] You say, well that's a funny expression for a person who's a preacher of righteousness. that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.

[39:23] My friends, you might say, Paul, are you right there? Surely, if ever a man was a preacher of righteousness, the apostle was, head and shoulders. You have to say, as the apostle Paul, in the preaching of Jesus Christ, that was his way that he described, compared with the person of Christ, compare with his greatness, compare his mercy, his compassion, compare with his saving grace, compare, my friends, what you know of his sufferings, death and resurrection, and enlarge my coast.

[40:02] Oh, that it might be a time indeed to my soul, therefore, that he might go on and teach me greater things of mercy and of compassion.

[40:16] But you know, when the Lord enlarges the coast of his people, he does so, if I might so describe it, by balancing out the walk and pathway that you are caused to be in.

[40:30] how he leads you and I, my friends, is according to his divine appointments. And he brings you into places and spots which are unasked for and looked for, but according to his will.

[40:49] But the purposes of his grace are such that by these things, my friends, you will learn as for more of him. You know, the Hezekiah said, didn't he, in 38th chapter of Isaiah, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit.

[41:10] He was in a most solemn place, really. His enemies were at the door almost, and they indeed had much cause to think that they would overcome Judah, because they had overcome all sorts of other nations.

[41:26] So what would stop them? They were able to do so. The God of Israel stopped them. But then the poor man was lying at what he thought was the one had died in bed as well.

[41:39] The Lord delivered him from his enemies, and delivered him out of his affliction, restored him to health and strength, and spared him another 15 years. And so he could say, by these seasons in his life, by these things men live, my friends, if the Lord is enlarging and shall, and he will indeed enlarge your coast.

[42:00] It's not like some attainment, you know, you go to school, and if you're good at it, you go to college, and if you're good at it, you go to university, and you go up the ladder of education, and so on.

[42:12] It's not like that. My friends, he'll put you in spots and places which he'll teach you by. Why did, why did, in the 8th of the Romans, why did the apostle write, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.

[42:33] My friends, he puts his people in places which he's pleased to use as places of blessing and of good to the soul, trying to nature, opposite to nature, but profitable to the soul.

[42:52] I go again to that word that you've heard enough times, I suppose, in the book, in the book of Job, in chapter 37, isn't it, I think it is, where that gracious young man called Elihu speaks to Job and said, does thou know the balancing of the clouds, the wondrous works of him which is perfect in knowledge?

[43:26] He causes it to come, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy. My friends, nothing happens only under the divine control and appointments of God, nothing at all.

[43:42] And if you're a child of God, you must expect these deep places, these dark places, and in those dark places and distressing seasons, the Lord may come and does come at times, and blessedly makes them profitable places.

[44:06] I looked at this hymn this morning, and it's got the last verse really that abodes with me. never, never may we dare what we're not to say we are.

[44:22] Make us well our vileness know, keep us very, very low. And those are the places where he'll teach you. No high places, my friends, in nature.

[44:37] Here, pull down the strongholds of Satan that's in your heart. He'll take away the props that you rest upon, these godly props that you thought you could rest upon.

[44:50] Whether it's your name on a church book, or whether it's your standing in the denomination, or whether it's your parents' religion, or whether it's your upbringing, and so on, he'll knock all that away.

[45:03] But I tell you what, he won't knock away, he won't remove the foundation, because he'll build on that foundation, and he'll build on it gold, silver, and precious stones, and enlarge my coast.

[45:18] I know, my friends, well enough to be able to say, because there isn't a more poor soul that feels his poverty than this poor soul, but I know what the poet says when he said, it is of him I little know, and are still less in joy.

[45:37] But let me close with this. My friends, if you've got the life of God in your soul, you will say indeed, enlarge my coast.

[45:50] If you've got the life of God in your soul, you will be a dissatisfied follower and believer in Jesus Christ. There is no standing still, there can't be any standing still, and there is no satisfying of the soul in this world of sin and woe, in the knowledge of Christ.

[46:09] what does he say? What is it recorded rather? I shall be satisfied when I awake in his likeness. Amen. If the Lord will, there will be a prayer meeting here on Wednesday evening, and our pastor is engaged to preach next Lord's Day.

[46:40] Let us close with hymn 704, tune 507. Lord, we lie before thy feet, look on all our deep distress, thy rich mercy may we meet, clothe us with thy righteousness, stretch forth thy almighty hand, hold us up and we shall stand.

[47:33] Oh, that closer we could cleave to thy bleeding, dying breast, give us firmly to believe and to enter into rest.

[47:47] Lord, increase, increase our faith, make us faithful unto death. Hymn 704.

[47:58] doesn't speak to verse 1, the obedience to heaven, standing behind.

[48:16] Don't And we have the dream.

[48:30] I wish I'd save every day I wish I'd save every day Stretch the light Light and light All the sky All the sky All the sky

[49:31] All the sky All the sky All the sky All the sky All the sky All the sky All the sky All the sky Amen.

[50:34] Amen. Amen.

[51:34] Amen. Amen.

[52:34] Amen. Amen.

[53:34] Amen. Amen.

[54:05] O Lord, if thou hast put these prayers in our heart, then thou wilt surely answer. O do bless thine own word and pardon all that has been amiss.

[54:18] Be with us now as we go through this day. Grant us thy presence, thy preservation, strength according to our need, Lord.

[54:29] And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus, the love of God the Father, the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit remain with us now and always.

[54:45] Amen.