Behold Your God Part 2 (2026.06.20)

Scott Keffer [: 00:00:02

Hi.

Scott Keffer [: 00:00:02

If you're looking for greater hope, assurance and confidence through the shifting sands of life, then join me on today's episode as we dig deep into the Bible to discover rock solid truth for life and living from the God of the Bible. I'm your host, Scott Keffer. Hi and welcome to today's episode. As always, for a deeper experience, you can go to the show Notes and download the blank insight sheet. Fill in the blanks along with the group. Depending on how you're listening to this, there will be a link to the episode website@beholdingbibletruth.com and a sheet with the answers is included as well. Enjoy today's episode.

Scott Keffer [: 00:00:46

Like we said last week, during the summer we use videos to save prep time for me. And thank you for that, that you still come. And now you get to hear some real teaching as I videos in from folks all over the world. And that's always, that's always good for me. So appreciate that. So after last week, last week's session, Bill said, so you wake up with anxiety. And I said, only every day. And, and we laugh about that.

Scott Keffer [: 00:01:23

But that is true. That is true. And it seems like the longer I go on earth, the more reasons to have anxiety. And I thought the reason that I have anxiety is because things totter. Things totter. One of Beth's favorite verses is Isaiah 41:10. I don't know that I've memorized it. Do not anxiously look about you, Beth.

Scott Keffer [: 00:01:52

You can't unmute. Do not fear, for I'm your God. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will help you. I will uphold you, and I will with my righteousness. Oh, well, we all flunk here. So I will oppose you, strengthen you. I will uphold you with my right.

Scott Keffer [: 00:02:14

I will uphold you with your. My righteous, My righteous, radiant. That one. Anyway, previous to that, he's saying to them here, here we are in Isaiah 40. So last week Alistair bank talked about Isaiah 40. He's going to talk a little bit about Isaiah 44 today. That section from 40 to 45. If you, if you get concerned about the sovereignty of God, just read that.

Scott Keffer [: 00:02:40

Just read 40 to 45. And in 4110 they look around and the Lord says, I'm the first and the last, and there is no God besides me. I'm the beginning and the end. I am the Lord and there is no other. And then it says people will say peace, peace where there is no peace. And then they'll say, hey, check the soldering of the idols. And Then it says, batten them down. Like, nail them down so that they will not totter.

Scott Keffer [: 00:03:15

They will not totter. So think about the things in life that totter. What are the things in life that totter? Health, finances. What do you mean? Personality. The way you think. Oh, yeah. Think. You're thinking Tatar.

Scott Keffer [: 00:03:40

Yeah. Do you say relationships? Relationships where we live. Yeah. Houses, world events. Oh, everything. Yeah, kind of like everything. So here's the most important for you, and that is, which one of these, when it totters, freaks you out the most? Which one of these, when it totters, is the one that gives you the most anxiety? Which one of these write down for you which one of these, when it totters, makes you most nervous? Each one of these, when it totters. So here's what's interesting when you think about this.

Scott Keffer [: 00:04:40

Other than that one, I guess that one. Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me. Bless his holy name, for he satisfies our years with good things. He satisfies our years with good things. Those things. But they taught her. They taught her. And of course, what I want are things that are immovable, unshakable and unchangeable.

Scott Keffer [: 00:05:33

Who's that? Yeah. So if you think he is. He's the Creator, God and sustainer, right? He's. He's the only wise God. He's the God of all, all wisdom, right? Who is in control and who is our comforter, right? So what's the challenge when the things he's given us? Because Scripture would say God's the creator and sustainer. But I want to create and sustain my own life. God is all wisdom, but I want to make my own decisions. God is the controller.

Scott Keffer [: 00:06:27

But I want to be in control. God is the comforter. But I want to comfort. I want to comfort. Why? Because you can be like him. You can be like him, can't you? You can be like him. But in our heart we know where. Where is the eternal, where is the immovable, where is the unshakable? So we live in the midst of temporary things.

Scott Keffer [: 00:06:53

They all have expiration dates. That's the scariest thing, isn't it? Relationships have expiration dates. Houses have expiration dates. Kids, I wish they had expiration. You know what I mean? Like everything on here totters. Everything on here totters. And when that happens, it totters us, doesn't it? And the Lord says, I give you those things to satisfy your years with good things. But your heart, as John Calvin would say, is an idol factory.

Scott Keffer [: 00:07:26

Therefore it takes my gifts and wants to make them your idol wants to make them the reason, right? The way you sustain yourself. Because we want to do all these things, right? We want to do all these things, only God. All right, so that's what we're going to talk about today in Isaiah 44.

Scott Keffer [: 00:07:48

Let him proclaim it. Let him declare, and I'll read another with this question of the incomparability of God and considering that fact in itself. To whom then will you liken God? To whom will you liken God? Now what we've noted is that God is giving us, if you like, a picture of Himself through His own eyes insofar as he is revealing Himself to us through His Word. And so the view of us through the eyes of God makes us man's eye view of God just doubly absurd. So that when we imagine God or we attempt to diminish God in any way, then it is absolutely ridiculous. And all that Isaiah does here is simply point this out and just in relatively short orderverse. 19 an idol, a craftsman casts it, a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and so on. In chapter 44, which we read from, it's borne out in a fuller record.

Scott Keffer [: 00:09:03

But the thing that I want us to notice is at the very end of the chapter of the section that we read in 44 is just that statement. Can this individual who has embraced this, is he unable to see? Is there not a lie in my right hand? Now we don't want to camp on this, but let's be absolutely clear here that God as He has revealed in himself, is the only true and living God. Everything else is a lie. And the Father of lies is none other than the evil One himself. Now if we are going to take this to heart and believe it, and if we're going to be prepared to proclaim it, as I said to you at some point last week, then we're going to have to be prepared to stand up to the implications of it. And not in some form of false bravado or making a fuss or being rude or unkind to anybody, but just being prepared to say the idolatry that is revealed here BC and the idolatry that is prevalent today AD is just a non starter. And you will notice that whether the idol is crafted by somebody who's rich, I take it that that's verse 19. The rich man can get a certain kind of idol, whereas the poor man, he's not going to be able to do that.

Scott Keffer [: 00:10:38

He can get a wooden one and he's going to try and have it fashioned in such a way set up so that it will not move. It is an amazing picture of futility, isn't it? Going to somebody and say, I'd like you to make an idol for me. Could you make it this size? And could you please make sure that the bottom is very, very flat? Because I'm going to put it up on a bureau in my office and it'll be horribly embarrassing if, you know, when I have my business colleagues come in, keeps falling over on the floor. So please, I want it to be as good as you can possibly make it. Well, whether it's a rich man's idol or a poor man's idol, all of us are tempted, actually. All of us have a compulsive desire to create a God of our own fashioning so that we might have one who is manageable, that we might have a God who is, if you like, containable, and that we might have one who is able to go along with our views of morality. You see, the real reason people don't want to have no God. They don't want to have no worship.

Scott Keffer [: 00:11:47

They just want to have someone or something that is companionable and allows them to believe what they want and live any way they choose. This is the spirituality of our day. And it is challenged all these years before Jesus comes. Now, what lies behind the blindness of people to this? You say to yourself, it is virtually impossible to understand, isn't it, that somebody, as we read in 44, could go through that process, cut down a tree, take it, split it in half, use part of it for making a fire and having some. Some meal, and then saying to himself, now I think I'll take the other half and I'll make it into a God that I can worship. It's almost inconceivable, isn't it? And yet it's exactly what happens. And why is that? Well, you need actually to go to the Book of Romans for the best of answers to that. And the answer in a sentence is that there is a willfulness behind the blindness of humanity.

Scott Keffer [: 00:12:50

A willfulness. And it is there for you in Romans, chapter one. And this is what it for. Although men and women knew God, although they knew God as he has made himself known the Creator, they did not honor him as God or gave thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Well, of course, we've seen that we've seen it when we've traveled, and we have seen it increasingly on the high streets of American towns and cities. And if Paul were to show up in Chagrin Falls or in Solon or in Cleveland Heights, I think he would have good reason to repeat his areopagus talk in Acts chapter 17, and have reason to point out, as he did then, to the people who were listening.

Scott Keffer [: 00:14:01

We ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. That's it right there. An image formed by the art and imagination of man, conceiving of God as we choose for him to be. And Isaiah says, you know, to these people who are about to be shipped off into exile amongst the Babylonians, he is bringing a word of comfort to them long before the comfort is applied to them, because there's about a hundred years between the end of chapter 39 and the beginning of chapter 40. And so the prophecy of Isaiah is actually way ahead. And it is an amazing testimony to the veracity of God's word. He's able to tell them of what is going to happen when they are oppressed by the Babylonians, and he's alerting them to the fact that the God who will bring judgment on them in that way is the same God who speaks comfort to them. And yet at the same time, they will be set upon all the way through by the temptation to succumb to the surrounding culture.

Scott Keffer [: 00:15:14

And so he says, it's absolutely ridiculous to manufacture idols, because there is nothing and there is no one to whom God may be compared. He is the Creator, and everything else is the creation. Everything else is the work of his hands. Which, of course is another metaphor, isn't it? Because God is spirit and therefore he has no hands. And so when we read the Bible and we take it literally, we don't go off telling people, you know, I was looking for God's hands. No, we understand what is there. He is infinite and eternal and unchangeable, whereas his creation is limited and finite and temporal and mortal. So you'll notice that he comes back to this in verse 25.

Scott Keffer [: 00:16:03

If you just jump ahead actually there to verse 25, the question is asked again, virtually the same question as in 18. To whom then will you liken God? Notice it is not to what, but to whom. Because even these people understood that there were powers behind these idols. And what is the power behind these idols? Well, satanic power. Of course it is. Who would you compare me to? Verse 25? To whom then will you compare me? That I should be like him, says the Holy One. And you'll notice that this question now in verse 25 is posed by God himself. He said, now listen, I think what we ought to do is let's go outside.

Scott Keffer [: 00:16:49

It's a lovely clear evening. Let's go out for a little while. We could do this if this was school. I loved it when the teacher said, now, let's go out. Any excuse to get out of the place. I was thrilled with. And especially if, you know, something like that. We could keep that going for a very long time.

Scott Keffer [: 00:17:04

Oh, I think I haven't seen it yet, miss. I think we should stay a little longer anyway. If we were to go out, I don't know how well we would do with the naked eye, but we could look up and see. Contemplate the heavens. Man is made by God to contemplate the heavens. You think about it all the way through everything we read about in history. People are always looking up. The fascination with space in the 20th century.

Scott Keffer [: 00:17:28

The great concerns. The fellow that shows up in chagrin falls every so often with that big telescope which he allowed me to look through. And I'm sure I never saw what it was I was supposed to see. But may I be forgiven? I said, oh, yes. I said, that's quite remarkable. It was quite remarkable. I couldn't see a single thing. But anyway, there he was.

Scott Keffer [: 00:17:47

And he comes every so often. And we all go and have a little peek in. What are we doing? We're looking up into the night sky, and we recognize what is happening up there. Incidentally, that's why God made man erect. You can't say to your golden retriever, look up. Look up to the sky. Have you ever seen a dog raise its eyes? It doesn't do it. If he's gonna really get a good view, he'll have to lie on his back or something.

Scott Keffer [: 00:18:17

But God has fashioned us in such a way that we can lift up our eyes. He wants us to. When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, the stars which you have ordained. This is what we teach to our children, our grandchildren, isn't it? We were going down the driveway some months ago. There was a beautiful moon. I said to the little one, I said, look at that. And he said, it's the moon. I said, yes.

Scott Keffer [: 00:18:42

I said, who put it there? He said, I don't know. I said, well, God put it there. He said, oh. I said, yes. So we made it all the way back up, and we turned Around. And I said, look at that. He said, it's the moon. I said, who put it there? He said, God put it there.

Scott Keffer [: 00:18:58

I said, a, let's go in. We're done. But if somebody doesn't tell him that God put it there, somebody else will tell him that chance put it there. Or something else put it there. No. You see, the Babylonians were fascinated by the constellations. If you read of the Babylonian empire, you realize that they were so struck by the heavenly bodies that they were tempted not only to consider them, but actually in the end to worship them. And so God is warning his people, finding themselves in that circumstance.

Scott Keffer [: 00:19:34

And of course, the warning had come that from his servant Moses a long time before that. I didn't realize that it said this. I read it, but I never fastened on it until this week. In Moses Forbidding of idolatry, in Deuteronomy, chapter four, he's saying to the people, he says, therefore, watch yourselves very carefully. Watch yourselves very carefully. You never saw a form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire. Beware, lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourself in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, and so on. And then he says in verse 19, and beware, lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars and all the host of heaven, you.

Scott Keffer [: 00:20:28

You be drawn away and bow down to them and serve themthings that the Lord your God has allotted to all the people under the heavens. So the warning was there. It's reiterated because of the propensity of the human heart. As I read that again this week, I said, I wonder if that was sort of one of the triggers for Daniel and his friends, for Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Cause you often wonder, don't you, what was it that kept those boys in that context? Why is it that they stand out? Because they stand out. Because they're not normal. They're abnormal. If you think about it, when you read Daniel and you read that story, and of course we focus on it, most of us think, oh, yeah, I'm Shadrach, you know, or I'm Meyeah.

Scott Keffer [: 00:21:24

I'm one of those boys. No, we probably wouldn't have been. We'd be the rest who presumably were prepared to bow down to whatever you see. It's very, very easy. I find it easy to take what God has given us as a light on the pathway to himself. And for that to become the end in itself or to take what God has given us to enjoy in life. And instead of that becoming the occasion of our gratitude to God and our enjoyment of his gifts, the gifts become an end in the gift of sex, the gift of food and drink,

Scott Keffer [: 00:22:14

the

Scott Keffer [: 00:22:14

gift of family life. Many gifts that God gives us richly to enjoy. And the danger is that we end up making them the very object that they are and the end that they are, as opposed to a means to an end. Look up into the night sky. Look up there. He. He who brings out the host by number. Now, you know that I ain't no scientist.

Scott Keffer [: 00:22:46

And you know, my report cards made that very, very clear. And so I bailed a long, long time ago on any of this stuff. So I never use any scientific attempts at illustration because I know you'll be going, he got that out of a book. He doesn't know that at all. And so I'm not going to try and even do anything with the galaxies or the solar system or the Milky Way or anything else. I'm not even going to try and hazard a guess at how big the sun is. I'm not even going to attempt to wonder whether the sun is the biggest star in our place. I'm not going to wonder about how many times you can fit the Earth into the size of the sun.

Scott Keffer [: 00:23:28

You're the folks that are going to do all that. You can agree with me, though, that it is impossible to number the stars in the sky. The very scientists who probe these things keep going further and further and further, and there's no possibility of people saying, you know, and we've got an accurate count of them now. You'd have a better chance of carrying the votes in the election than. Than in counting the number of stars in the sky. Okay, that's not a political observation. It's just silliness. We can't count them.

Scott Keffer [: 00:24:08

God names them again. It's an amazing picture, isn't it? The number is so vast, there's no way you can get your arms around it. And God says, oh, yeah, that's him. That's one. You see this, don't you? In other places, have you been with shepherds? And you just see there's great company of sheep, and suddenly the shepherd is picking one out and another one out. You say, how did you do that? When sue and I were in the Free State in South Africa with Vili, who's a father of one of our ladies here, and at one point all of these cows were there. Just look at Big, as they say in veterinary manuals, a big glob of cows and. But no, he called them by name.

Scott Keffer [: 00:24:58

He knew them. They weren't just a vast host to him. No, he calls them by his name, by their names, by the greatness of his might, because he is strong in power and there's no possibility of losing one down. What do they call those things? Black holes. Yeah, I don't even know what that means. But I'm not worried about it, because this is helping me by the greatness of his might. And because he, that is God, is strong in power, we're not gonna be losing any of them. Hmph.

Scott Keffer [: 00:25:34

So God the creator, without any outside help, God the counselor, in no need of advice. And then God created the universe and keeps the universe under his control. I think I want to use the word controller. Derek Kidner uses the word disposer. I didn't like that. I'm not sure I like controller either. But it is fair to say that the entire created universe is under God's control. Look back up at verse 21.

Scott Keffer [: 00:26:09

Cause we skipped this little section by going from 18 to 25. And here the questions come. Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Now, what is Isaiah doing here? Well, he's essentially saying, listen, you know this, you know this. You've heard it, you've seen it on display. You know that this is the case, so you know better. He's speaking to the people of God. The ones who are complaining and who are saying, my way is hidden from God, and so on. He says, you know better than that.

Scott Keffer [: 00:26:42

To despair of the power of God, to doubt the care of God, to deny or to despise the wisdom of God. Now, just allow that to settle for a moment for us. God says to his people, you know better than that. To get in your car and say, I don't know if we're going to be able to make this. To find yourself saying, I'm not sure that God really is as he has revealed Himself to be, that he is as wise as the Bible says He is. Or perhaps, I can't believe that my prayer has gone unanswered for so jolly long. Does God really hear me? Does he care about me? That's what the people of God were saying. That's what the people of God are always saying, if we're honest.

Scott Keffer [: 00:27:32

Now, how does he address this? He says, well, you know, these things, you know, you heard, you know it's been true from the beginning. You've Understood this, if you like, from the foundations of the earth. This is foundational truth to you, and you know that it is he that is the living and true God who sits above the circle of the Earth. Here's another amazing picture. I don't know what the circle of the earth really means, but I get the picture clear enough in my mind. It's a picture of the fact that God is so transcendent and he is above and beyond everything. He's eternal. He's not trapped by time.

Scott Keffer [: 00:28:12

He's not trapped by space. He sits above, beyond, around, if you like, the circle of the Earth. What is he doing? Well, he's upholding and maintaining that which he has made. That's what he's doing. Deism doesn't work. Some of our early founders were deists. The whole idea that God was a creator, he wound up the world and then he went away and left it. And the clock has been running down ever since, and we really don't know what's going on.

Scott Keffer [: 00:28:40

That doesn't help anybody at all, does it? No. You need to make sure that it comes with a maintenance package. Isn't that what they always try and sell you at Apple? And you want to have the maintenance package for this why? Cause the profit is greater on the maintenance package than the jolly hardware that you just bought. I say it with great respect to all Apple employees. I mean, I don't know if that's true or not, but that's the feeling that I get. Cause they're very strong. Well, of course it makes sense. It's a kindly way to put it.

Scott Keffer [: 00:29:09

It breaks down. You don't want it to break down. You want to be able to fix it. What if the whole universe breaks down? What if all the people that are telling us every day of the week, you know, it's gonna be a dreadful day that is coming. There's only a few months left to get the whole world sorted out. The universe is collapsing and so on. Well, listen, I'll tell you what. I can sleep at night because the God I worship sits above the circle of the Earth.

Scott Keffer [: 00:29:36

And frankly, from his vantage point up there, humanity looks like grasshoppers. Grasshoppers. Remember we said this morning, you know, big thoughts of God and small thoughts of ourselves. The first time you fly, that's what someone says to you. Have you flown before? No. And you look down, you say, look how small everything is. He sits above the circle of the Earth. How small.

Scott Keffer [: 00:30:03

What's he doing? Well, Colossians tells us that in Jesus, he is all things are holding together in him. This, you see, is the basis of our security. The picture of grasshoppers doesn't appear there for the first time. In actual fact, if you remember from Sunday school days, your old 12 men went to spy in Canaan. 10 were bad and two were good. You remember that the bad fellows said, it's a terrible place. It's full of great giants, and it's not a good idea to go there. But two fellows, that was Caleb and Joshua, said, well, it is full of great giants.

Scott Keffer [: 00:30:48

In fact, they are so big that we appeared to ourselves as grasshoppers. You can read that in Numbers and in chapter 13. In other words, before the vastness of these people in this territory to which they were going to go, we seemed like this size. And that's exactly what is happening here. Don't you know? Haven't you heard? You do know this. It's foundational. The same God who stretches out the heavens like a curtain. What a picture that is.

Scott Keffer [: 00:31:22

The very fineness of the heavens, if you like. Like a gauze, you know, you have to be. He just stretches it out. And who is this God? Well, he is the God who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. They have barely got their feet under the desk. They've hardly had time to hang the photographs by the credenza or put their diplomas on the wall, and they're gone. That's what happens. He brings them to nothing.

Scott Keffer [: 00:32:04

Those who serve in office, of any kind of office, pastors, policemen, politicians, schoolteachers, will never spend one hour longer in that position than that which God has intended. It's impossible. Because the God who upholds everything according to his power is the God who controls all things. And so it is that when we think, as we think at the moment of all that is going on, we realize what a salutary and necessary reminder this is. He makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. The word that is used there is the same word that is used at the very beginning of the Bible in Genesis 1, where it says the earth was without form and void. That is the word that is used. In other words, the earth in that condition was unfit to.

Scott Keffer [: 00:33:10

For the purpose for which it was created. Unfit for the purpose for which it was created. And that's what God does. He makes them unfit for the purpose. Now you will notice that it is just a breath. It's just a breath. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely are they sown, scarcely is their stem taken root in the earth.

Scott Keffer [: 00:33:35

When.

Scott Keffer [: 00:33:35

When he blows on them and they wither. The tempest carries them off like stubble. If this were another context, we could have a sidebar and talk about it in very practical terms. I don't want to do that. But here's the Just as the stars remain in place not according to some kind of mechanical necessity, but on the basis of, if you like, the creatorial purpose of God, man looks up in the sky and says, we can explain this. I wish I had our man Williams here from the spacecraft. If you ever want to talk to somebody about these things, a scientist who has zoomed around the universe, then you could talk to Williams and he'll be very clear on this. No, God's word makes things very, very clear.

Scott Keffer [: 00:34:34

They are not held in place by mechanical necessity, and neither are the rulers of the world. They will come to an end. Now, can I just pause for a second, take a slight deviation from course, just to bring something into this which I hope will be helpful, and if it isn't, just you can discard it. I want you, if you have your Bible, to turn for a moment to the 45th chapter. We were in 44, now 45. 5. Here we I am the Lord. This comes again again, doesn't it? I am the Lord, and there is no other beside me.

Scott Keffer [: 00:35:13

There is no God. I equip you, though you do not know me. That my people may know. This is a word, incidentally to Cyrus, who is going to be the instrument of God in the unfolding of his purposes. I equip you, though you do not know me. You get the point that God raises up people, surprising people that people may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none beside. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness.

Scott Keffer [: 00:35:49

I make well being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. Now here's the the will and purpose of God from all eternity stands behind everythingeverything, light and darkness, pain and pleasure, peace and calamity. In fact, if you're using a King James version, it doesn't say calamity. It says evil. Evil, which is a good verse to go off for coffee and talk to your friends about. But here's the Nothing nothing can spring into action without God's say so, and nothing can run beyond the boundaries of his purposes. It is impossible because he is God.

Scott Keffer [: 00:36:54

Now, you see, unless we get a hold of this, then we will inevitably fall into the great pit, which suggests that somehow or another God is only sovereign in our lives. When Everything is pleasant. I get this all the time from people who say, well the devil must have done this one, because I know God is only on the side of pleasure. He has got nothing to do with pain. He's got nothing to do with calamity. My loved ones. He's got everything to do with calamity. My friend Motea, my good friend, my much missed friend.

Scott Keffer [: 00:37:30

He said, if God were only sovereign in life's pleasantness, what an endangered species we would be. You take. He leads us in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Right. Psalm 23. What are the paths of righteousness? Well, green pastures. Yes, what else? The deep valley of the shadow of death. Both the valley of the shadow of death and the green pastures are the paths of righteousness.

Scott Keffer [: 00:38:03

God knows what he's doing.

Scott Keffer [: 00:38:06

Question, observation. That's why he starts on the flip side of that. He said he will tend his flock like a shepherd. That picture that he's our comforter. He's our. The Lord is our shepherd. He is our shepherd. Somebody have a hand? Well, he says on the.

Scott Keffer [: 00:38:36

On the other side the fact that God is our comforter and that he is grading you on the palm of his hand, graving you on the palm of your hand. And he goes on to say, he says, how do we explain the weakness of our contemporary church? Before he ends, he says it's an absence of wealth waiting. That the fact is we don't want to wait for God and His timing. We don't want to wait for God and His timing. And so watch today that the desire for convenience and speed will replace the desire to wait upon God. And we'll maybe we'll do a session on study thought used a lot. AI AI is not evil. AI is just technology.

Scott Keffer [: 00:39:32

But what is the potential for our heart for AI to do is give instantaneous counsel. That's its big. Just like the Internet is the same thing. You're actually right. When people are looking for answers, when God's people are looking for answers and don't want to wait upon God. Right? Don't want to wait upon His Word. I don't want him to answer His Word. How's he going to answer? Where am I supposed to go in His Word? Where does he do that? Rather than waiting upon his spirit and His Word to speak, we want convenience and we want speed.

Scott Keffer [: 00:40:07

And that is the big challenge for us. We don't want to wait. And if God doesn't fix this thing quickly, then I'm going to figure it out myself. I'm going to fix it myself, right? So we, we stand at an age when God is showing us everything's tottering because it's either. It. It's a gift for me, it's part of my creation and it's finite. There's only one eternal, immortal, invisible. The only God.

Scott Keffer [: 00:40:36

There's only one God. There's only one immovable, unshakable, unchangeable one. He. He is the one. He. He is the One. And our desire to have that God be the God who comforts and cares and takes care of me and he reminds us.

Scott Keffer [: 00:40:52

He.

Scott Keffer [: 00:40:53

He's all powerful. So he's faithful and he's all loving. So he can, he can, he can do all things, work all things and be all things together for our good, comfort and to care for us, right? And so that's the call. Behold your God. And at the end of the day, he asked this question, okay, to whom then will you liken? To whom or to what? To whom or to what will you liken me? And that's the call in our crazy day as things are getting crazier. He's the one you look to. It is pretty amazing. God, right? May the great shepherd and His Son, may He bless you.

Scott Keffer [: 00:41:35

May he keep you. May he cause his face to shine upon you. May he lift up his countenance and grant you shalom. The deep abiding shalom, the peace in your soul. The soul sense that you are loved by God, that you are His. He knows your name and you're graven upon the palms of his hands, both now and forever. Amen.

Scott Keffer [: 00:42:06

Thanks for listening. I hope you have greater hope, assurance and confidence in your life and a deeper trust in the God of the Bible, in His Son, Jesus Christ. Until next time. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you his peace, his shalom in your soul and in your life. Until next time. May God bless you and keep you.