Sunday Morning Podcast June 13, 2021. Bro. Dave Goble.
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Thinking of The special song sung this morning “This Stranger of Galilee”, ..He’s a stranger until He’s your friend! Isaiah 40: says starting in verse 1; 1 Comfort ye; comfort ye my people, saith your God. 2 Speak comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORDS hand double for all her sins. 3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: 5 And the glory if the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. Our thought this morning is, “What happens in this valley and what’s meant to happen?” God does something in the world that we live in, to create fairness, and judgement. The high places are brought low, and the low places are brought high. There’s a place there, that God makes for His people. This comes after judgement, verse 2. And He makes a highway, verse 3, a straight way in the desert, through this process, and that’s what we’ll speak on. There’s a personal equation here, to use this as the Lord wants us to understand it. There’s a personal transformation here, how the high are abased, and the lowly are exalted, that brings everybody to a level “playing field,” that God creates. He calls it a highway, and it runs through a desert. And in that desert there once walked a stranger from Galilee, who now can be our Savior, who now can be our friend! He places us from wherever we come from in life, to now be on that highway. And all can walk on the highway, no matter where they came from before And He says, “Even though a fool, though wayfaring, shall not err therein. You don’t have to be a scholar to be on this highway, but you do have to brought down sometimes, or up, and He’ll place you on this highway, then all can walk on it, in the glory of the Lord, after He has made a change, and placed us there.
Our thought this morning is “Two Kingdoms and a Valley.” A kingdom of light, and a kingdom of darkness. I believe the Lord would have us to know which kingdom we are in this morning, and the consequences of being in it, and how we can move to be found in the kingdom of His choosing! Both kingdoms are found in this valley! This morning we will begin to speak about the Kingdom of Light. Next week we will probably continue completing the message on the kingdom of light. Then on the kingdom of darkness. And how to move from the kingdom of darkness into the valley of light, while in this valley. These kingdoms compete with one another in battle. The bible calls it ” the valley of the shadow of death,” The “valley of death” not limited to the passing from this life, but also the valley of this mortal life. A shadow is a “casting of an image” from something that’s real. Shadow of something, has substance. Something that’s real, when you shine a light on it, ..you get a shadow from it. The shadow itself is not something that’s real. Without what’s real, the object, the substance, ..you don’t have a shadow.
TEXT: PSALMS. 23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Death is real. If there’s a light that shines on death, it casts a shadow. It casts a shadow not on what is not yet known, but what is here. And as it casts this shadow, it reveals a valley. And the valley of the shadow of death, is what’s on this side of death. This valley is what we walk through here, which is why we need a rod and a staff to comfort us. We need the Word and the Spirit to help us walk through it. Not just of the most dangerous of places because there is evil in life, ..but to walk through life itself. We need the Word and Spirit to walk through life itself, because it’s a “shadow land.” And the light that is cast from death on to it, reveals a kind of place where we’re all headed through this valley, to this appointment we have with death. This is not about that, but we need to understand that in life, we walk through a valley of shadow. Many today feel that only those things that they can literally see, taste, and touch is real. And that anything that they cannot clearly see, is not real.
So you have this materialistic way of thinking in the world today, that leaves God out. So they allow themselves to conclude that only what we see is real, and nothing else. Today more than any other time in history, it is harder with those thoughts in mind, of only the material things are real in this life, and after that “nothing.” It is that which leaves people hopeless, the evil reckless to have it’s way, because there is ultimately no God in that way of thinking. People want to have their cake, and eat it too. Oh how it hurts to hear them deny God! But this “Stranger of Galilee” found a broken heart, ..and He mended it! He gives us hope, and it becomes real to us! He becomes the light, and everything else in this life becomes a shadow, from the light that He casts. So to presume only what you see is real, and there is no God, ..is a hopeless way of living!. You can’t have your cake and eat it too with saying, “by the way, we will create our own goodness.” “Somehow in our goodness, we’ll battle this eternal evil.” That doesn’t work. We still need a Savior! Because we’re in a valley where there are two kingdoms, and we need to know which one we’re in.
Two Kingdoms In A Valley ..