Sunday Service Online Stream

This page has the notes for the sermon and links for songs used during children’s music time each week. Scroll down to the bottom for the children’s info.

Hopeful When Hopeless

Sunday, December 15, 2024
Pastor Jojo Ma

 

9 Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counselor perished, that pain seized you like a woman in labor? 10 Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor, for now you shall go out from the city and dwell in the open country; you shall go to Babylon. There you shall be rescued; there the LORD will redeem you from the hand of your enemies. 11 Now many nations are assembled against you, saying, “Let her be defiled, and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.” 12 But they do not know the thoughts of the LORD; they do not understand His plan, that He has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor. 13 Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs bronze; you shall beat in pieces many peoples; and shall devote their gain to the LORD, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth. 1 Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek.

What we know of the future shapes how we live right now, especially through the tough times.

This is why we must be rooted in biblical hope that is sure and lasting, not worldly hope that is wishful thinking.

Often it’s in our deepest and darkest places that God brings His good and gracious deliverances.

Is 37:36-37 And the angel of the LORD went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh.

9 Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counselor perished, that pain seized you like a woman in labor? 10 Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor, for now you shall go out from the city and dwell in the open country; you shall go to Babylon.

10 Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor, for now you shall go out from the city and dwell in the open country; you shall go to Babylon.

God is sovereign, God ordains all that comes to pass, and v10 is just another example of the God who rules all creation and all of human history.

10 There you shall be rescued; there the LORD will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.

“The key to persevering with joy in present difficulty is the knowledge of a certain and glorious salvation to come.”

11 Now many nations are assembled against you, saying, “Let her be defiled, and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.”

12 But they do not know the thoughts of the LORD; they do not understand His plan, that He has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor.

Eph 4:18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.

12 But they do not know the thoughts of the LORD; they do not understand His plan, that He has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor.

2 Kings 19:25 Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins.

Dale Ralph Davis: “This is the bad news in predestination that Yahweh has periodically to press upon cocky nations and arrogant rulers who swagger their way through history.”

Bruce Waltke: “The pagan throng do not understand that they are in the Lord’s hands the unwitting tools of their own destruction...The Lord of all the earth will rid the earth of them.”

13 Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs bronze; you shall beat in pieces many peoples; and shall devote their gain to the LORD, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth. 1 Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek.

Matthew Poole: “But here is a mystical and spiritual sense of these words, as they refer to the Messiah’s kingdom, in which he will break hard hearts by the power of his word, and convert sinners to himself.”

This darkness cannot dim the light and hope of Christ. So onward, Christian soldiers. Muster your troops, the siege is laid against us, but the gospel of Christ is the power of God to all who believe.