I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand ... fear not, I will help thee. (ii) (Quality: Very good)

[0:00] As the Lord may be pleased to help, I'll venture again to read the text you will find in the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 41, verse 13.

[0:12] The prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 41, verse 13. For I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help thee.

[0:32] For I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help thee.

[0:43] When we commence a new year, sometimes we care to think around those precious words of God, or some word upon which we may ponder during the year to come.

[1:02] And although this thought did not come to my mind this morning, yet it does have the possibility before us of being a world upon which we may well hope and rest in all that may lie before us each in the year to come.

[1:27] For I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help thee.

[1:40] Of course, we may well say that we've needed the Lord's help, and we've needed his guidance, and we've needed the exercise of his power in the year already past.

[1:55] That is true, and cannot we say that has been proved? But as we step into another year, as we step forward each morning, we are virtually stepping forward into the unknown.

[2:12] The future does not belong to us. We discover it as we enter into it. Sometimes, when we look at the future, it is foreboding.

[2:25] We can see a very dark line on the horizon. There are many clouds which sometimes present themselves, and all we can see in prospect is a stormy passage.

[2:39] But whatever may be our lot, and the lot is cast into the lap, and the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord, yet God has always set before us a promise to match every condition, in every condition, in sickness, in health, in poverty is the Lord, abounding in wealth, or so on.

[3:06] The poet mentions the lines, that as thy days, so shall thy strength be. For I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand.

[3:21] Cannot we say in respect to this, that God will lead us on a straight course? We may wonder whether we are wandering.

[3:33] Israel, in the 107th Psalm, described themselves like this. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way.

[3:48] But God led them forth by the right way. That is, a steady, straight course. Naturally, it is easy for us to go off course.

[4:07] But the Lord holds his people sometimes with a tight rein, and with a strong hand, so that they do not go off course, but they are continually brought back onto course.

[4:25] And to this end, it needs one that will have a special care for us, and watch over us continually. And as we discover this correcting or chastening hand of God, so God gives to us a witness, for I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand, and lead you safely through.

[4:53] And then again, although this may seem to be contradictory, yet, the course can still be said to be straight in respect to the purposes of God.

[5:12] In the book of Deuteronomy, we read of the Lord finding Jacob in a desert land. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste-howling wilderness.

[5:27] He led him about. He instructed him. He kept him as the apple of his eye. What then tenderness, therefore, attends the people of God, because God's watchfulness is over them continually?

[5:48] Can we identify ourselves with the people of God by this opening word? He found him in a desert land, and in the waste-howling wilderness.

[6:02] That is, in this world, wandering about, having no purpose. God warned, but God found us.

[6:13] I was found of them who sought me not. Maybe we have been thankful to find that description of the people of God when others perhaps can speak of those things which fill us with dismay, because our case seems to be so very different.

[6:33] Well, God finds his people, and then holds them by their right hand, and leads them on that course which will direct them to Jesus Christ.

[6:51] If we should be led about, God's leading about is not haphazard. God's leading about is not the result of having to regroup and to start all over again and to correct errors.

[7:08] God's leading about is divinely appointed and has a purpose in it. And it may be to you a leading about when to God it is leading on a straight course.

[7:23] We are short-sighted and we cannot always see things clearly. It has been said concerning some of our long roads, some of the Roman roads that run across Britain that if they could be viewed from above that there would be a little, very little divergence from beginning to end in regard to their straightness.

[7:57] There may be a little divergence here and there but in the May the course is straight. It leads from one place to another and the path of the people of God leads from one place to another.

[8:11] It leads out of a wilderness. It leads into the land of Kenya. It leads away from self and all that is destruction to that place which is full of joy and peace.

[8:28] For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand. Here we have the action of God in response to what he speaks in promise.

[8:43] You see sometimes God speaks by his actions. and we have a proverb in the world which says actions speak louder than words.

[8:55] And that's sometimes the case with God. You may say some may say oh but God has not spoken to me about this or the other.

[9:08] But has God spoken to you in his actions toward you? Solemnly we have words like this at times.

[9:20] If ye walk contrary to me I will walk contrary to you. And the Lord may say that once and then not say it anymore. And then you may go on a certain course and may wonder why things seem to be going wrong all the time.

[9:41] Well God is speaking by his actions. And actions which he has told you will come to pass. If ye walk contrary to me I will walk contrary to you.

[9:55] Now this is but one example. We now pass on to the latter part of this verse saying unto thee fear not I will help thee.

[10:09] is it true that our fears arise so high sometimes that we are afraid that God will not help us.

[10:21] Doubtless fears arise from a number of quarters but one of the worst kind of fears is that which suggests that God will not help us.

[10:34] And this seems truly to be connected in some way when the prophet says saying unto thee fear not I will help thee and in spite of your fears and in spite of your unbelief and in spite what an agnostic mind or an infidel mind tells you I will help thee.

[10:59] Fear not in spite of thy sins in spite of all that is evil in you I will help thee. God does not help any of his people for what they are and because of what they are doing.

[11:19] The devil has broadcast a great lie in the world and that lie you can hear it expressed from time to time amongst men God helps them that help themselves.

[11:35] Now that's the great lie that the devil has put across the world and has put into people's mind and alas it is promulgated by quite a few people even who call themselves Christians.

[11:51] It is not true. God helps those that come to the point no help in self I find though often I have sought it well the hidden treasure of my mind is sin and death and hell.

[12:13] Conscious of these limitations we may well wonder sometimes as to whether God will help us but what is our testimony this evening?

[12:26] we may not have observed from whence the help comes sometimes can we not concur with the poet when he says he lends an unseen hand and gives a secret prop and God has been helping sometimes people are very busy helping but they're always demonstrative in their health so that everybody sees that they are helping but when God helps for the most part it is undemonstrative it is quietly and silently given we come to the day each day how necessary it is for us to believe that God will help us can you get through any day without

[13:29] God's help? this particular verse was made very powerful to me some years ago and it was when I came to a Monday morning and I was filled with concern and care with the mountains that lay before me that day in my business but God dropped these words in and I remember now saying in my spirit before God well I shall know if they came from God very soon because it must be seen and I did not have to wait until twelve o'clock to discover that God was performing the words that he had spoken earlier that morning fear not I will help thee

[14:29] God helps in a mysterious way communicates to us the things that we need when we do not know what we need are there times in our lives when we do not know what we need sometimes we find children crying and we may ask them why are they crying and they may say I don't know and maybe God will find some of us in that position at times where we are in anxiety we are filled with apprehension about why what is troubling you you may say I don't know why are you so downcast you may say I don't know well now God can help you under those circumstances many people will say well if you tell me what your trouble is then we can think about giving you some help but sometimes

[15:43] God's people can't pronounce exactly what their trouble is and they do not know where to begin and then they're not sure whether it is at the beginning and sometimes their trouble is in their heart and because they're uncertain of the details of their trouble this begins to make them fear now God says and to thee fear not I will help thee if we should look at this in one or two particulars first of all the strength that is needed for every day there are certainly times with many people and certainly with God's people when the stress and strain of life naturally makes them wonder whether they will get through the day but they do get through the day and maybe they say well it's been with strength enough and none to spare but God has never promised that we should have spare strength but he has certainly promised that we would have sufficient strength and so we can look at it in respect to our bodies but then we also need strength of spirit that we might be able to continue to go forward a spirit less person will make no progress at all and fear sometimes reduces our spirits to such an extent that we're ready to sit down but God says fear not

[17:39] I will help thee we must not lay too much pressure or emphasis upon the fear not to the exclusion of the emphasis that should be laid on this word I I will help thee now it's a blessing to feel that you are strengthened by God I will strengthen thee we have it I think in the tenth verse I will strengthen thee sometimes in afflictions in our bodies we need God to strengthen us there but let us not forget to look at the word I I will strengthen thee and therefore as we go forward and feel that God has given us strength sufficient for the day in respect to our affections our weaknesses and also in our spirits may we come to the end of the day and truly acknowledge the goodness of God let not thy heart respond and say how shall

[18:49] I stand the trying day he has engaged by firm decree that as thy days thy strength shall be fear not I will help thee but then enemies of all sorts and kinds arise to distress us and you know there is an experience which can be described as our strength draining from us we can be bold as a lion when there is no opposition but when our position begins to arise then it is as though our strength drains from us and we become weak and all our boldness seems to disappear like a vapor well then how shall we be strengthened how shall we be equipped to go forward when

[19:54] God whispers I am the strength of Israel and I will help thee I will help thee and then again occasions arise when we need to exercise much patience and if we should say I can stand no more I can stand no more well then it is that God says I will give you patience let patience have a perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire wanting nothing when our dear master will bestow much patience on his friends he loads their shoulders well with woe and thus obtains his ends I must expect a daily cross Lord sanctify the pain bit every furnace purge my dross and yield some patient gain going into the furnace is not at all a pleasant matter to the flesh but faith approves it well saying unto thee fear not

[21:17] I will help thee you have need of patience as after you have done the will of God you might receive the promise and it is one of those graces which God will bring into exercise we have need of patience our time is always we want things now and God says you have need of patience vision is yet for an appointed time in the end it shall speak though it tarry wait for it you say I cannot tarry but God says I will help thee to tarry God says I will be thy strength in tarry and they shall be ready to wait wait and be satisfied in waiting until my time comes fear not I will help thee and so we come to see an occasion where a poor person falls down falls down because their sins are so heavy upon them and they can see no way out no way out and perhaps if a person was to tell them about the

[22:47] Ninevites how they were moved and they said who can tell but God will turn and be gracious unto us yet everything is black absolutely black fear not I will help thee now there is a precious word in the book of Psalms which says this I have laid help upon one that is mighty one chosen out of the people now that is a prophetical word concerning our Lord Jesus Christ I will help thee not with how can I be helped well I can help you by satisfying your need and what is my need my need is salvation my need is to have the light shine shining upon me my need is to be delivered from this present dark state that I am in surrounded with sin and all that goes with it our minds indeed a hopeless case such it had been but for grace but there is grace and grace will speak to us of Jesus

[24:12] Christ and when we think of Jesus Christ in these terms then we may well go to the Corinthians where we read we know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that you through his poverty might be rich are we afraid of our poverty you see it's comparatively easy for people that learn God's truth by rote to speak about those that are poor and those that are poor in spirit but you know poverty can grind you into the earth and poverty can put you in prison even naturally and it certainly can spiritually and so we have difficulty in listening to people who will say well now you've got an evidence of the grace of

[25:26] God if you're poor in spirit well the evidence of the grace of God is when God fulfills that great word blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God and not too much blessed in their poverty except that poverty be foregoing as in the kingdom of God which they are to know about I will help thee out of thy poverty out of thy distress out of thy darkness because help has been laid upon one that is mighty mighty to save able to save able to lift up the beggar from the downhill and to set him among princes even the princes of his people to him I the Lord God will hold thy right hand so that you will not stray from me you will not just fall into the pit as long as

[26:35] I hold your right hand and hold you out of the pit saying unto thee fear not I will help thee sin is one of those tremendous obstacles which separates if anything can between us and our God this same prophet tells us about it he said the hand of the Lord is not short and that it cannot save neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear but it is your sins that are separated between you and your God now what do we do when we get that indictment fixed upon us well we may sit down the doldrum so to speak and be alone putting our mouth in the dust if so be there may be hope until God whispers whispers fear not

[27:39] I will help thee now Dr. Owen speaks about sin entanglements and if you look at your life you may see many occasions where you've become entangled not realising when you first embarked upon some innocent looking thing what the result was going to be now all that has to be undone I will help thee to begin to untangle all the sins of your life is a matter that you cannot possibly begin to grasp but the Lord says I will help thee I will help thee for this purpose was the son of God manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil I believe Mr. Philpott in one of his pieces daily portions refers to the manner in which the Lord as it were in his life spent his life untangling all the tangles that Satan had made in the lives of the church

[29:03] I will help thee and you know it will bring you to the point where you will just sit and look on can we take an illustration like this when a person may attempt to do a certain job and they're not well versed in it and so they make very little progress and then someone comes along who is very capable and they make so much progress that after a time the other person just learning as it were is just looking on and it is as though the more capable person says now leave it to me I'll soon have this done in a very poor way that may illustrate what is intended here fear not

[30:03] I will help thee and we look on while God does wondrously performing salvation before us and if we're dismayed about being saved how can I be saved I shall never be saved God says I will help thee and if God should open our understanding to the deeper work of Christ on the cross the effective work the work in Gethsemane's garden I will help thee and I will help thee successfully and bring thee safely through and so the fear not begins to disappear can you always tell when the fear not disappears is it not true to say that your fear suddenly goes you cannot tell when it went you only know that it isn't there the power of God's work the power of God's word has effectively taken place fear not

[31:22] I will help thee but then these words will bear a very wide application how often may God's people be troubled about prayer they may say well I cannot pray but we must pray prayer is the Christian's vital breath I know not how to order my cause and God says I will help thee we may often remind ourselves as indeed we do we know not what to pray for as we ought but the spirit may give intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered and how mysterious is this secret work of God when he says I will help thee help thee to pray and there's quite a difference when God helps us to pray and we can believe that when God helps us to pray that we shall be delivered what do you have to pray for take not thy holy spirit from me

[32:39] God helps us to pray sometimes by directing us to certain passages of the word of God and whispering in our ear as it were pray this have mercy upon me oh God according to thy loving kindness according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions have you sometimes found that prayer has been given you even when you've read the word of God and you've been thinking well I don't know how to pray God says I will help you and then as you read the word of God you find the very things that you want to put before God in exact words wash me truly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me there are many many things in the book of Psalms that will direct our attention to some of those vital matters which are indeed vital to the church of God fear not

[33:52] I will help thee another point of course which is very real to the people of God is being helped to believe are we not aware of this we must believe and yet the power of unbelief is so strong God says I will help thee how God has the gift of faith God gives us faith faith in praying faith so that we believe whoso cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a reporter of them that diligently seek him it is needful to believe in God before we can believe what he can do and what he does do what are our concerns at the moment will God do this do you believe in God do you believe that he is the great God the glorious

[34:56] God because this is important but if you believe that he is if you believe that he is a living person then you may truly hope that he will help you and all the opposition that you might feel sometimes that he will not help me he has helped other people but how do I know that he will help me does such a temptation occupy our attention sometimes how do I know that he will help me well the only way to prove that is by experience and God does not leave it to you God takes you in hand firmly by your right hand and says unto thee fear not I will help thee to believe to believe that God will appear for me in my providential matters indeed but then there are other important matters that we need to believe a word in 53rd of

[36:11] Isaiah comes to mind the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all do you ever think about that your iniquity the word of God says the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity on us all and you need to believe it and you will know when you believe because the word of God tells us this joy and peace in believing and whenever a person believes they are bound to feel those two attendants joy and peace joy and peace and the psalmist said I believed therefore have I spoken but then the Lord has called his people to walk the pathway of trial and to bear bear a body of sin and death the Lord does not take our body of sin away a body of death away we have to bear it all our lives you may have been convicted of it already some time ago perhaps

[37:38] I remember the case of one young man who on his 21st birthday he was made conscious very conscious of his body of sin and he says to think I have to carry this all my life through cannot get rid of it until the end but then God says I will help thee to bear this tremendous burden which you have got to carry at the same time I will help thee in this my grace is sufficient for thee and my strength is made perfect in weakness I will help thee to bear and in this connection we might think of the poet's words could we bear from one another what he daily bears from us now there are times when we feel sometimes rightly not always rightly that we've been badly treated badly used haven't been thought enough about we therefore can say we do say that we shall bear it no more but the word says could we bear from one another what he daily bears from us and you know that's hell when God sets before us what he bears from us every day do you think we could bear from one another the unthankfulness that so often is found in us by certainly by measure and do you think we could bear from one another a lack of acknowledgement for the goodness bestowed as God has to bear every day do we acknowledge

[40:03] God's goodness do we make it manifest to the godly and the ungodly of God's wonderful goodness towards us or do we dishonor him have you thought God has to bear that and what are you bearing and what am I bearing from one another are we hardly dealt with do we quote the text give honor where honor is due and then the pride of our heart says but I haven't had the honor that I should could we bear from one another what he daily bears from us and this is the way in which God sometimes gives us help because immediately we are strengthened immediately we see the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ immediately we see his patience lengthened out to those that from him rose and it is not difficult to bear base treatment from others when we have in view our own ingratitude and lack of acknowledgement of God in the matters of his being so gracious to us

[41:31] I will help thee now you see that is a mystery a mystery who could understand how a person can be helped of God by a sight and a revelation of Jesus Christ making them willing to bear anything making them to see that their burden is light compared with his burden and then again the bringing into their soul of the truth is another way in which God fulfills this word I will help thee Paul speaks about it when he says our light affliction which is but for a moment while working for us a far greater and abundant crown of glory while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal and the things which are not seen are eternal

[42:45] God can make our convey his help to his church in the wilderness by giving them a view of eternal realities and they are fully persuaded that when their sufferings here have reached a close then heaven affords them sweet repose now have you felt this sometimes has this been your help when you say well it's only a few more days or weeks or months or years and all these things will be passed and peace is before me resting God is before me a never failing sun to shine yea Christ himself in the heavens will more than outweigh all the sorrows through which I've had to pass and all the things that

[43:46] I've had to bear and all the unpleasantness that I've had to endure and all the pride that has been so trying all these things will still will pass have we started counting down the days now we cannot do this exactly as men count down the days to certain things that they are coming to and have an object on that particular day to before but we can count down the days this way each night I pitch my moving tent a day's march near a home and that is a day's march of tribulation pass through and a day's march near a rest and peace and love and glory

[44:47] I will help thee by a revelation of heaven itself that to let get to our poem toll to