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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, long to be more like Jesus

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Christ. But they’re the ones who are going to be satisfied.

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See, when you know that your soul needs restoring, you will ask God to restore your soul,Allah

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and that is why sorrow is often God’s back door to joy.

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Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I am David Pick and Colin, I love that

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idea that often sorrow is God’s back door to joy.

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It’s a wonderful truth, isn’t it, and it really does give hope. I want to speak in the message

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today to every person listening who feels, I can never be happy again. Something has

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happened in, in your life and the sorrow that has come to you is so great and it seems to

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be with you so long and so deep. And you say to yourself, I can never really be happy again.

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And in the book of Isaiah, that we’re looking at today, God speaks to people who feel they

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could never be happy again and shows how sorrow could become the back door, the surprising

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back door into a new experience of joy in which you encounter God in a whole new way.

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It would be wonderful for that to happen in the lives of folks who are listening to the

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program today.

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And one of the ways God meets us in that sorrow is when we spend time with him in his Word.

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So, we really want to encourage you to open your Bible, if you can, to Isaiah 54 and 5

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as we continue the message Restore Joy. Here’s Colin.

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Folks who have experienced great sorrow in life may hope to enter into an even greater

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joy.

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Those who have experienced this sorrow are finding joy in God’s people, joy in God’s

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love, and joy in God’s city.

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And the fullness of this joy, of course, awaits the day when Our Lord Jesus Christ will come

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back in power and in glory.

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But in Jesus Christ, the beginning of that joy is ours already, so that when Jesus Christ

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comes again, the little family, nuclear family thing won’t be anymore.

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That’s why there’s no more marriage in heaven.

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There will be an extension of community so that the love of the one who is lonely will

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be as if this one was my own mother, and I was her son.

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And this experience of love and joy that is shared by all in the presence of God will

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be complete.

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But it has begun even now so that by the redeeming love of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are brought

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together into a community where what really matters is not so much that we’re married

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or we’re single or we’re rich, or we’re poor, but we come to find joy in one another in

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Jesus Christ and to build one another up in the body of Christ.

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That’s what the church is all about.

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And we, on that day, we will know God’s love as we have never known it in this life yet

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already we taste the joy of the love of God.

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And although we’ve not yet seen the city that lies ahead of us already, we have come to

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know the one who is building this and he says to us I will build my church and the

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gates of hell will not prevail against it.

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Now, I want you to remember that you don’t need to wait until you have an experience

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of disaster before you pursue this joy.

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This joy is not just for the barren woman, the deserted wife, and the person who is in

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the afflicted city and has lost their home.

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Joy in Jesus Christ will free you to savor all other joys in your life and will strengthen

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you to face all other sorrows in your life.

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And I hope that you will be saying whatever your circumstances of life right now, whatever

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your current experience, how can I cultivate this kind of joy that will be the joy of all

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eternity.

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Joy in God’s people, joy in God’s love, and joy in God’s city.

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Well, that’s what Isaiah 55 is all about.

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It’s about how you cultivate this joy.

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And I want you to notice that it begins with a deep thirst.

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Come all you who are thirsty.

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Chapter 55 verse 1, come to the waters.

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Come those of you who have no money come by and eat.

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The people who find this joy and in who it grows are the folks who have a deep thirst

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within their own lives for it.

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need of it and are very well aware that they do not have what it takes to get it.

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The real distinction among us in this congregation this morning is not whether we’re married,

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single, not whether we’re rich or poor, not whether we have children, grandchildren or

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whatever it is.

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The real distinction is some of us have a great thirst within our souls for this kind

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of joy and others really don’t.

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We’re just very contented.

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We’re contented with where we are, we’re very happy, we are glad to be here in the

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church and we go on and we do something else but there isn’t really a thirst, which is

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why not much ever changes or grows in your Christian life.

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Well, you don’t really have a sense of receiving from God.

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Knowing more of this joy in God’s people, joy in His love, joy in His city, begins with

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a great thirst in your own soul.

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You won’t ask God to restore your soul until you feel that your soul needs restored.

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And God has many different ways of bringing us to that place.

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Remember Jesus spoke about this in the Beatitudes.

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He said, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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Remember the word blessed means happy.

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It means joyful.

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So you want to know more of this joy?

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Here’s where it begins.

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Poor in spirit.

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Blessed are those who mourn, said Jesus, for they shall be comforted.

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They’re the ones who are going to discover the real joy.

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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

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They long to be more like Jesus Christ.

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For they’re the ones who are going to be satisfied.

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You see, when you know that your soul needs restoring, you feel that, you will ask God

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to restore your soul.

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And that is why sorrow is often God’s backdoor to joy.

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And that is why you see it is the barren woman and the deserted wife, and the folks in the

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ruined city who are the first to find it.

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Because others were very contented, and just happy, and comfortable in their own lives,

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never stopped to seek it.

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Why was it that there were many more prostitutes and tax collectors who came to Jesus and relatively

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few Pharisees who did?

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Thirst.

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Thirst.

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And sorrow can create a thirst for joy that you didn’t have before.

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I think the truth in our lives when they’re at their most comfortable is that it’s very

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easy, and even natural, for us to just sail on through without ever really asking the

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question, you know, well, what is my marriage for?

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What are my children for?

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What is this city for?

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Here’s the greatest question for a young couple.

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Is the end for which God created the world that you and your wife or your husband should

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snuggle up in your condo together for the next 50 years and just be happy?

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Or is there some greater happiness purpose for your marriage that you should be pursuing

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together?

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And is the purpose for which God gave children into the world that they should play soccer

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and ride horses in the suburbs, or however good and happy that is, is there something

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more that our family should be pursuing together that’s greater?

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Is the purpose of this great city in which we live simply that thousands of people should

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make millions of dollars or is there some greater purpose that God has for this city

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in which we want to be engaged?

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See, the default mode of the human heart is to seek our joy in children, in marriage and

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in money, and the Bible has a name for that, it’s called Idolatry.

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That’s what it’s called.

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And Idolatry always fails.

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Which is why there are millions of people around the world who are quietly disappointed

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in marriage.

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Many have found that their children brought them more grief than joy.

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Millions, millions live in poverty, carving out an existence in cities devastated by war

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or by flood.

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But in every generation and in every continent of the world, there are thousands who find

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that sorrow is God’s back door to joy.

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Because in your sorrow, you become aware of a thirst you never had before.

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It must be something more than this.

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You’re listening to Open The Bible with Pastor Colin Smith in our message today, Restore

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Joy.

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It’s originally a part of the series Restore My Soul.

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And it’s looking at how sorrow can sometimes be a back door to joy.

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If you miss any of the series this month or want to listen to the whole of Restore My

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Soul, you can do that by coming online to our website, openthebible.org.uk.

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Back to the message now, we’re in Isaiah 54 and 5.

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Here’s Colin.

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One man who knew about God creating thirst in his own soul through sorrow.

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A man whose name you know, John Newton.

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You know John Newton’s story?

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He was the master of a slave ship.

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He lived a wretched, wicked life, which was perhaps one reason why he could never quite

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get over God’s grace to save him.

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And he wrote that hymn that most of us know very well, Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound

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That Saved a Wretch Like Me.

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That’s John Newton’s great song about conversion.

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But he wrote some other hymns and there’s one in particular that I want to read to you

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that is not at all well known but it is profound and very helpful.

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I have gone back to this many times at key moments in my own life.

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Walk With the Lord.

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I think you’ll find it helpful.

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It talks about the reality of Christian experience as Newton knew it and I think many of us here

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know it.

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Let me just read these words to you, they’ve helped me so much.

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Newton’s, here’s his experience.

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He said, I asked the Lord that I might grow in faith and love and every grace.

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Might more of his salvation know and seek more earnestly his face.

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So here’s Newton, he’s a Christian now.

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And he really wants to grow in Christ and he asks the Lord to do it.

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And then he says, I hoped that in some favoured hour, at once he’d answer my request and

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by his love’s constraining power, subdue my sins and give me rest.

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I’d love God to work in my life like that and you would too.

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Then says Newton, instead of this he made me feel the hidden evils of my heart, and

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let the angry powers of hell assault my soul in every part.

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Yet more with his own hand he seemed intent to aggravate my woe.

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It seemed like God was making it worse.

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He crossed all of the fair designs I’d schemed, blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

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You know what the gourd is?

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Remember the story of Jonah?

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It was a hot day and a gourd grew up.

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It’s a big plant like a vine, and the gourd grew up, and remember God sent a worm that

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ate the gourd and it faded away, and so when the gourd was gone a Jonah was left exposed

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to the heat of the sun.

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Well that’s what Newton’s talking about when he says, blasted my gourds, he’s saying, taking

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away my comforts, like God took away the comfort from Jonah that was shading him from the sun.

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I love that phrase by the way, blasted my gourds.

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You love that?

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There’s feeling from this in Newton, you know I’m wanting to grow as a Christian.

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What’s God doing?

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He’s taken away every comfort in my life.

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Some of you know what that’s like.

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Now you’ll understand where Newton goes next.

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Lord, why is this?

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I trembling cried, are you going to pursue this worm to death?

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Here’s what God said.

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Tis in this way, the Lord replied that I answer prayer for grace and faith.

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These inward trials I employ from self and pride to set you free and break your schemes

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of earthly joy that you may seek your all in me.

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You see Newton discovered in painful places in his life that sorrow was God’s back door

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but he found a thrust within him that you may seek your all in me.

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And if you have this thirst within your own soul, and you’re wanting to know a greater

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joy in God’s people, a greater joy in God’s love and a greater joy in God’s city, you

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will be saying in your mind right now, yeah, now how can I get more of this because I do

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thirst for it.

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Now, God has brought me to the place where I long intensely to seek my all in him.

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I really do.

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I’m no longer sitting back comfortably tasting a sermon.

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I need this joy to be restored within my soul.

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How can I know more of it?

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Well, look at what Isaiah says in the part of the passage that most of us, I think, know

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well.

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There are just four key words.

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Come, listen, seek, and turn.

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I’ll just take them in two pairs, just very briefly.

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Let’s put come and seek together, because they go naturally together.

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Verse one and verse six of chapter 55, here’s how you cultivate the joy that leads to verse

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12, going out in joy, and being led forth with peace.

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Whatever sorrows you’ve known, you come, all you who are thirsty.

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You come to the waters, you come and buy and eat.

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You come buy wine and milk without money.

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That’s verse one.

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You seek the Lord while he may be found.

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And you’ll remember that our Lord Jesus, in John chapter 7 verse 37, he quotes this very

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passage from Isaiah, and says, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

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So this is Jesus speaking.

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We are to come to him and we are to seek him.

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Now I just want to emphasize this is something for you to do.

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You want your joy to be restored.

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You want your soul to be restored.

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You must come to him.

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We saw last week that restoring your soul begins with believing, but it doesn’t end

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with believing.

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You must come.

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And those who do believe will come if there is a great hunger and thirst in your soul.

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See, some of us will just listen to a sermon and go home.

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Some of us will listen to nine sermons in this series and be utterly unchanged.

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But others of us will embrace these cries and you will make it your cry to God.

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And you’ll be saying from last week, make me a person who really believes this, and

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not just someone who says I believe it.

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Now, make me someone God who really has joy in your people.

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Do that for me.

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And if you start praying that this week, you come to Jesus Christ and you seek him in this

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regard, you may want to ask him to forgive you for moaning and complaining and fault

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finding and criticizing your brothers and sisters in Christ.

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You may ask him to forgive you for loving the politics of church, more than the people

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of church.

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You may want to ask him to give you eyes, Lord give me eyes to see where you’re doing

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a redeeming, wonderful work in my brothers and sisters so that I can have a heart to

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rejoice in that.

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And then you’ll want to say, Lord Jesus, give me new joy in your love, restore to me the

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joy of your salvation, and Lord give me a clearer grasp of the hope that is mine in

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Jesus Christ, the city whose builder and maker is God.

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I don’t know my future in this city, but I do know my future in that city, and the more

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joy I have in that city, the more joy I will have in this city.

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These are prayers, these heart cries for revival, and I want you to imagine the impact and the

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life change of 2000 people in this church hammering the gates of heaven because these

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are passionate prayers and saying, Lord Jesus Christ, restore joy.

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There are too many unhappy Christians, and the reason is not circumstances, not when

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you look at Isaiah 54 and discover who it is that has found this joy.

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And if they can find this joy, why shouldn’t you?

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Come and seek, and then listen and turn.

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Verse 2 and 3, listen, listen to me God says, give ear, come to me, hear me, and then verse

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six and seven, let the wicked forsake his way and turn to the Lord.

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In other words, the people who go out with joy and are led forth with peace in verse

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12, they’re the folks who have developed not only the habit of coming to Christ and seeking

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but they have developed the pattern of life in which they hear the word and they receive

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it with faith and with repentance.

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And so, what Isaiah speaks about becomes true of them in verse 10 and 11, the purpose for

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which God sent His word into the world is accomplished in their lives.

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The change, the healing, the growth, the joy that comes by the Spirit of God, through the

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Word of God, is cultivated in their lives because they come and seek and because they

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listen and because they turn from what is wrong.

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That’s one reason, by the way, why it’s such a wonderful thing to be in a church where

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we receive the Word of God into our lives, get into a life group so that, that can happen

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for you in the week.

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Establish a pattern that the Word of God is keeping coming freshly into your life because

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says His word will accomplish the purpose for which He sends it.

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You can accomplish your purposes without the Word of God, but God’s purposes are always

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accomplished through the Word of God, which is why we want to build our lives and our

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ministry around the Word of God.

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And do not merely listen, it’s a wonderful privilege to hear the Word of God, but don’t

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merely listen.

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James says in the New Testament, do what it says.

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That’s why Isaiah here says, turn, listen, and turn.

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Because the person who just hears is like someone who looks in a mirror and then just

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goes away and nothing’s ever different, but, says James in the New Testament, the one who

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looks into the Word of God and continues doing this, not forgetting what he’s heard but doing

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it, well this person will be blessed, that word again, happy, joyful, in all that he

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does.

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So, come and seek.

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This is how the joy in God’s people and in God’s love and in God’s city grows.

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Listen and turn.

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And you know, this is not so much a decision to be made at the end of a service, it’s a

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way of life to be followed.

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But it is a way of life that can begin for you today.

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In feeling that thirst, Lord, restore faith.

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Lord, restore joy.

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You’ve been listening to Pastor Colin Smith on Open The Bible with a message called Restore

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Joy.

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It was originally a part of a series called Restore My Soul and it’s been a very popular

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broadcast which many people have asked for and downloaded from our website.

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So we’ve included it in a list of popular broadcasts under the title Listener Favorites

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and that’s what we’re broadcasting all this month.

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So I hope you’ll be able to join us in listening to those messages.

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Remember, if you ever miss one of the messages, or indeed if you want to go and listen to

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the whole of the series – Restore My Soul, Heart Cries for Revival – you can do that

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by coming onto our website openthebible.org.uk

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You can also find Open the Bible Messages as a podcast and those are available on all

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the regular podcasting sites or by following a link from our website.

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Open the Bible is supported entirely by our listeners, and that’s people just like you

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who generously give to keep Pastor Colin’s messages on this station and also on the internet.

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And if supporting Open the Bible is something you’ve been considering doing, if you’re

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able to set up a new donation in the amount of five pounds per month or more to the work

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of Open the Bible, we’d love to say thank you by sending you a free gift.

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It’s Pastor Colin’s new book, Flying Through the Bible.

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Colin, what do you hope that readers of this book will take away from it.

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Well, that people will see that the whole Bible is one story and that it all points

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to the Lord Jesus Christ.

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You know, I think many folks know some stories from the Bible.

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Yeah, we know David and Goliath, Jonah and the whale and so forth and so on.

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But I find that often people don’t realize that there really is an overall storyline

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to the Bible.

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It begins in a garden, it ends in a city, all the way through it’s about the Lord Jesus

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Christ.

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So when a person gets an overview of the Bible, that’s the best way to be introduced to the

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Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

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This is going to show you who He is, why we need Him, what He’s accomplished, what He

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to do in the life of any person who turns to Him in repentance and faith.

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It’s cookies on the bottom shelf and it’s going to be an introduction to the Lord Jesus

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Christ.

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Well if you’d like to begin supporting Open the Bible in the amount of £5 per month or

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more, we’d love to thank you by sending you a copy of Pastor Colin’s book.

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To give online or for further information about this offer, come to OpenTheBible.org.uk.

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There you’ll also find plenty of information about the work of Open the Bible.

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For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick and I hope you’ll be able

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to join us again very soon.

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A storm has blown up in your life and you feel that Jesus is far away from you.

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Your faith is being tested.

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Find out what that means next time, on Open the Bible.