O God Our Help

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: I got an email from a pastor's wife, who I believe is here today, who said, "I am so looking forward to this refreshing time."

She said, "We're a small church and the counseling battles are big, and I'm emotionally exhausted."

She said, "In our church, we have divorce, affairs, children that are bullies, poor parenting, temper tantrums, suicidal thoughts, single moms, working moms, recovering alcoholics, and more that we keep learning."

You say, "In the church?" Yep.

She said, "I have no doubt that God is sovereign and in control, but I grieve deeply for the pain of the women around me. I'm excited to be better equipped to come alongside these women that I love."

And thankfully we have a Savior who loves those women and us women, needy as we are.

We got a call on our office this week from a woman who was cancelling her two tickets for this weekend due to a family emergency, and our customer service representative asked her if there was a way we could pray for her. As I understand it, the woman broke down and just opened up her heart and shared that she has a son, a young adult son, who is on suicide watch for the second time this year, and she just didn't feel she could or should be away from home, that far, that long.

I would encourage you, by the way, if God prompts your heart, if God brings that woman and that son to mind, to just pray for them throughout this weekend.

But as I saw that email, I was just reminded that we do come with just life stuff. Right? Hard things. And we live in a broken world. We're here this weekend because we want to help others, but people's lives are messy. Did you ever notice that? They're complex. And did you ever feel like the needs of the people around me that I'm called to serve, they're just beyond my pay grade. I just can't handle that.

Or maybe you feel the way I often do—I can't help others. I need help myself! My own life's a mess. Am I the only one here who . . . thank you. (laughter) I can't see you. Can we get just a little more house lights in here, because I just want to know that you're really here. (laughter) That would be a blessing, thank you.

So here's where I felt prompted for us to start this weekend . . . thank you. That's much better . . . just to lay a foundation of God as our helper, to know Him as not only our helper, but the helper of those that we're called to help and serve.

So I want to make a few observations—nothing profound—just things to counsel our heart according to the truth of who God is as we then seek to help others in the name of Jesus.

First of all—and it's so simple—but I think we need to remind ourselves that we cannot truly help other women without God's help. We can't do it without God's help. We are so limited. Our understanding is limited—our understanding of their needs, our understanding of the solution.

Our compassion is limited—at least I'll speak for myself there. We've got a finite capacity to carry burdens, to carry other people's burdens. You just can't be deeply burdened about every circumstance, every situation that you become aware of, especially if you watch the news. It's like you start to short circuit. My compassion is limited. My understanding is limited.

My availability is limited. And so is yours. We can't be with people who need help all the time every time they need help. We just can't do that. But thankfully we have a God who has no limitations. He has infinite understanding, infinite wisdom, infinite compassion, infinite availability. "A very present help in trouble." And infinite grace to help in time of need.

So we can't truly help other women without God's help. And then we can't help other women until we have experienced God's grace in our own lives. We can't help others experience God's grace until we have experienced and are experiencing God's grace in our own lives. We can't take others or lead others where we haven't been. Now, a lot of people try, but we can't do it well.

Now, we may not have experienced all the same issues as those we're trying to help. For example, I'm a single woman; I've never had an argument with my husband. (laughter) I've never had a prodigal son or daughter. I'm not proud of that; I'm just telling you I don't have a son or daughter, so I've never had a prodigal. I've never miscarried a child. There are some experiences that women in this room have had that I have never had.

I have been blessed with good health. I've never experienced chronic, debilitating pain. I've not been through cancer, and some in this room have. But on the other hand, I've experienced some challenges and some difficulties and issues that you may never have experienced.

So that doesn't mean we can't help each other. What it does mean is that we've had to have experienced God's amazing grace to help us in our time of need so that we can share that grace and be instruments of that grace in the lives of other needy people. Because if we're trying to help people experience something we haven't experienced as far as God's grace goes, then it's really just textbook learning.

It's just theory. And a lot of so-called ministry today is just kind of putting theories on people, putting textbooks on people, putting Band-Aids on hemorrhaging wounds. Textbook learning is never going to provide the deep, lasting kind of help that people need and that God offers by His grace. And that's why we have to experience it ourselves. So that when others look at our messy, broken, complex lives and they see that we have found help in the Lord, what does that do for them? It creates hunger. It creates longing. It creates hope that they could find help in Him as well.

I have a friend, a very close friend, with a young, adult child who is living in the gay lifestyle, and not just one, but one that I'm thinking of at this moment, one friend in this situation—some in this room in that situation. For my friend, these past several years have been transformational for her and her husband as they have tenaciously laid hold of the grace of God to help them walk through this situation, to show them how to love well, how to connect well, how to speak truth . . . I mean, just to have mercy and truth and all that we think we understand until you get into a situation where you're just perplexed as to how to handle it, and God gives grace.

I've watched Him do that. I've watched Him transform this couple's lives. And I've watched this woman become a magnet to hurting, needy people. They're drawn to her because she's a channel of grace, and she just keeps humbly, graciously pointing them to where she is finding help for every day. God's grace has transformed her, and now she's becoming an instrument of transforming grace in other people's lives.

And then just another observation here: We and the women we want to help need help beyond ourselves. We are not self-sufficient. Now, we all know that theologically. You could have told me that. But that is a really important truth as we think about women helping women.

I think the first time the word "help" or "helper" appears in the Scripture has got to be in Genesis 2 where, you remember, that God says it was not good that the man should be alone, and God created a helper suitable to the man. The man was not designed to be independent or self-sufficient. And neither, by the way, was the woman. The woman needed help as much as the man needed help.

The Scripture says in Genesis 4:1, "Now, Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, 'I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.'"

You say, "Well, women just have babies. They just do that. They just do it."

No. She said, "I've gotten a man with the help of the LORD."

Eve could not do what God had called her to do in that situation. She could not fulfill the task He had entrusted to her apart from God's help. And we need God's help to fulfill what He's called us to do. We need God's help to make wise and good, godly decisions. We need God's help to battle temptation and sin.

We need God's help when we're suffering. And I'm thinking as I say that of two very dear friends who are right now in excruciating pain because of situations that have come into their lives just very recently. They need God's help. We need God's help to engage in spiritual warfare. We need God's help to serve our families and to serve the women in our churches that God has made a part of our lives.

We need God's help for everything, because Jesus said, "Apart from Me, you can do nothing." Now, we sure keep trying, but the fact is we are not self-sufficient, and we are not independent. We and the women we are trying to help need help beyond ourselves.

And that's why I'm so grateful that over and over and over again in the Scripture we read that the Lord is my help, the Lord is our help. He is my helper. He is our helper. And when you see one of those phrases, you're probably seeing a phrase that is translated from the Hebrew, Jehovah Ezer—E-z-e-r, or there's a group of words that are related to that. This would be the most common one—two words: Jehovah Ezer—E-z-e-r.

Now, the first word, Jehovah, you're familiar with that—the great I AM, the self-existent God who needs no one and nothing, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. That Jehovah is our Ezer—E-z-e-r—our Ezer. It's a word that means "to help, to support, someone who assists another with what is needed"—just what you think of help as being. So Jehovah Ezer—I AM—is our help. He comes to our aid. He rescues us in time of need.

Now, I've been pondering this for months leading up to this weekend and a lot over the last several weeks, and I just keep thinking, How amazing is it that this mighty God, this God who needs no one or nothing, who is self-sufficient, that He would stoop down to help us! Is that awesome? It's amazing grace.

He does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He supplies what we lack, what we need. It's really another word for grace. It's all that God is, all that He has, He gives to come and meet us at our point of need.

You see this concept all the way through the Scripture, and as I've been reading through the Bible over the last, I don't know, several months, maybe a year or so, I've just been making note of places where we see God as our helper.

Exodus 18 tells a story of Moses how, after he killed the Egyptian—you remember in Egypt—and then he fled to Midian to escape Pharaoh's wrath. When he got to Midian, he married a woman there, and he had two sons. And he named one of those sons Eliezer—Eli, short for Elohim, El, God the mighty one, Elohim—and Ezer—help.

He named his child, God is help, God is my help. For he said, Exodus 18:4, "The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh." So every time Moses said his son's name, Eliezer, he would be reminded "God has helped me; God is my help." And Moses was about to really need those reminders—right?—as he was going to be called by God back to Egypt to help redeem and rescue God's people out of slavery. There's no way he could do this.

You see, when Moses left Egypt, he thought of himself as self-sufficient and able and capable, and the Scripture says, "He was schooled in the learning of the Egyptians." He had a lot going for him. But he came to see that he was truly helpless apart from Jehovah-Ezer, the Lord is my help. So he named his son "God my help" to remind him of that.

And as he went back into Egypt, he was certainly being reminded, "God helped me; God helped me; God helped me. God will help me now. God is my helper."

Some of you are familiar with the term the Septuagint. You know that that's the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. And it's interesting that there's a word in the Greek language that often translates Ezer in the Old Testament Hebrew. And it's a word that comes, a Greek word, that comes from two words. One is the word "to cry" and the other is the word "to run." So when the Old Testament got translated into Greek, the word that was used to translate Ezer, help, means "to cry and to run," and it's a fabulous picture.

It's the concept of someone crying out because they're desperate, they're needy, they're helpless, and someone else coming running to the scene to help the one who is crying out. That's what God does for us. He is our helper. We cry out to Him. We say, "I can't do this. I need You. I'm helpless." And then God comes running to the scene to help us.

If you need an ambulance at your house, you're not going to get one by just sitting there thinking about ambulances. Right? You've got to pick up your phone and punch 9-1-1. You've got to call for the ambulance, but when you call, that ambulance is ready, and it comes racing to the scene of need.

And I sometimes just envision that when we recognize our need, we acknowledge our need, we cry out to the Lord—in our desperation we say, "Lord, I need You!"—I think sweeter words have never hit the heart of God. And I can just hear those kind of sirens going off in the grace avenue of heaven as God sends His Spirit, His Word, His presence, His grace—that grace ambulance to minister to us in our point of need. And this is a recurring rhythm all through the Scripture: God's people crying out and then God running to their aid to help.

I've been reading the Psalms with that in mind over the last few weeks and just notice how many times in the Psalms the psalmist cries out and says, "Oh, Lord, hasten to my help. Come quickly to help me." He cries out again and again and again and again, and Jehovah Ezer never gets tired of hearing us say, "Help!"

And again and again in those Psalms you see David thanking the Lord, blessing the Lord, praising the Lord that He has come to his assistance. He is his helper. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."

Let me invite you, if you have your Bible there with you, and if we have enough light for you to see, to turn in the Old Testament to the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 4, and let me give you another illustration of how we see God as helper.

First Samuel 4, and we're going to just walk quickly—too quickly—through parts of this passage. I'll let you go back to it and dig further into it after this session. First Samuel 4:1 tells us that "Israel went out to battle against the Philistines. They encamped at a place called Ebenezer." That's two words. Eben means "stone," and Ezer means—what?—"help." So this is a place that is called "stone of help." That's where the Israelites are encamped, and the Philistines encamped at Aphek.

Verse 2: "The Philistines drew up in line against Israel, and when the battle spread, Israel was defeated before the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men on the field of battle." Now, here they are at a place called "stone of help"—the Israelites—and yet they go to battle against the Philistines, and the Philistines defeat them decisively. This is a humiliating defeat, and from all appearances, God did not help.

Why didn't He help His people in that battle? Why did He allow them to be defeated by the Philistines? Well, as you dig into this whole passage, it becomes very clear that God wanted the hearts of His people. He wanted to get their attention so that they would humble themselves and cry out to Him for His help.

And then turn over just a few pages to chapter 7. I'm skipping over a very rich part of the passage here, but turn to chapter 7. Verse 2 tells us that a long time passed—some twenty years—and during this time, the intervening period of time, the Philistines are winning again and again and again. The Israelites are under the thumb of the Philistines for twenty-some years. And then the end of verse 2 tells us, "and all Israel lamented after the LORD." What starts to happen? Their hearts start to turn to the Lord.

Now, maybe you sit there and think as I might, Twenty years? Like, what took you so long? You know, get with it. But then that then begs the question: How long does it take us to get the idea that we need God's help? How long does it take us to cry out to Him, to humble ourselves?

You know what I see as I study this passage? Some people—and, sadly, myself at times—would rather live in defeat for a very long time than to do what it takes to get God's help. Now, we need to remember that as we're trying to help people, and we need to remember that as we're walking with the Lord ourselves.

Sometimes we'd rather live in defeat for a very long time than to do what it takes to get God's help. But God loves us enough to keep us in that place of distress until we have no alternative, no option but to cry out to Him.

And that's what finally happens. Verses 3–4 of chapter 7:

And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, "If you are returning to the LORD with all your heart, then [prove it!] put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the LORD and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines." So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and they served the LORD only.

You see, we have to be willing to get rid of those little-g gods that we're looking to and depending on to help us, and then we will be ready to turn to the Lord, big-G as our helper, to lean on Him.

So verses 5–6: "Samuel said, 'Gather all Israel at Mizpah, and I will pray to the LORD for you.' So they gathered at Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the LORD and fasted on that day and said there, 'We have sinned against the LORD.'" They humbled themselves. They confessed their sin. They confessed their idolatry. They sought the Lord.

Then we come to verse 7 where, once again, they find themselves under attack. Don't think that just because you're seeking the Lord that there will be no more problems, no more pressures. There's a test coming here.

Verses 7–8: "When the Philistines heard that the people of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines." Same story so far. "And the people of Israel said to Samuel, 'Do not cease to cry out to the LORD our God for us, that He may save us from the hand of the Philistines.'"

They're finally at a point of desperation, utter helpless dependence—no other means of help, no other means of deliverance except the Lord.

"So," verses 9–10, "Samuel took a nursing lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the LORD"—which doesn't that, you think, anticipate the sacrificial Lamb of God who one day would save all who cry out to Him? Old Testament hint here. Samuel offered up this offering, "and [he] cried out to the LORD for Israel, and the LORD answered him. As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But the LORD thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they [the Philistines] were defeated before Israel."

"Then," verse 12, "Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer."

Now, that had been the name of the place where they started out and gotten defeated, but it doesn't matter what the name of the place you are at is called if you're not looking to the Lord to be your help. Finally they had turned to the Lord as their help, and Samuel sets up this visible reminder that Jehovah was their source of victory—"stone of help"—for he said, "Till now the LORD has helped us."

It was an expression of gratitude for God's help and a perpetual reminder that God is our only help. He is the only one who can deliver us from the hand of our enemies.

I have a little visible reminder. I have different ones, but one in my house that came to mind as I was studying this passage—I think we can throw the picture up there on the screen—it's an ottoman. That doesn't look like an Ebenezer, but it's become an Ebenezer in my home because countless times over the years, as people have come into my home with different needs or burdens or concerns, we have knelt around that ottoman. And some of the kids have come to call it a "prayer rock, a prayer stone" because we've knelt there. We've bowed before the Lord.

We've wept there. I wept there with a woman and her husband whose marriage was being frayed by his adulterous affair, and we cried out to the Lord for help for that couple. We've sought the Lord. We've sought His help with so many people in so many different circumstances. And I look at that ottoman, and I think, Ebenezer—stone of help. Jehovah Ezer—the Lord is my help.

Remembering how God has helped us, how He has delivered us in the past gives us a heart of gratitude, and it gives us faith and hope and courage as we face our current needs or we think about future trials. To remember God as our help releases us from fear and from anxiety. We remember He has delivered us, He is delivering us, and He will deliver us again as we cry out to Him.

So why then with such an amazing Jehovah Ezer, helper God, why are we so often so slow to cry out to the Lord for help?

Well, there are probably a lot of answers to that question, but here are a few that have been on my mind.

I think, number one, we don't think we really need help. We've been trained in our culture to be self-sufficient and independent. This is the era of self-help industry and do-it-yourself books, and we don't want to be weak or needy or dependent. In fact, I think sometimes we're like this little girl in this short clip. Turn your eyes to the screen and see if you see yourself at all in this little girl.

"No, thank you. You drive. I'll do this myself." The Scripture has a word for that—P-R-I-D-E.

So we don't think we need help, or we think that someone or something other than God can help us. So we look to other sources. We see this again and again in the Scripture as the children of Israel spurned God's help and looked elsewhere for help. Look for that as you're reading through the Scripture.

And then we have this mantra in our era, maybe in every era, I don't know, but "God helps those who help themselves." You know, a lot of people think that's in the Bible. It isn't. No—an emphatic no—God helps those who cannot help themselves, those who know they can't help themselves, those who admit they can't help themselves, and those who cry out to Him for help.

And then sometimes I think we don't cry out because—we wouldn't say it this way, but we feel maybe that our need is so great or our circumstance is so dire that nothing and no one can help us, not even God. But the fact is it's our need that makes us a candidate for His help.

I've often said to women, if you've listened to Revive Our Hearts for any length of time, you've heard me say this: Anything that makes me need God is a blessing. It's a blessing. We want to be self-confident and strong and capable, but God wants us to realize how utterly inadequate and weak we are so that we will lean hard on Him and our confidence will be in Him.

So how do we get to that place where we cry out to Him?

Well, I am so thankful that God loves us enough that He creates and orchestrates circumstances to make us desperate for Him.

Anytime we have a conference like this, one of the things I pray in the days leading up to the event, I prayed it this week, is that God would create circumstances in the lives of those who will be attending that will make them come to this event realizing how desperately they need the Lord.

Now, some of you are thinking, Now that explains my week! Thanks a lot! (laughter)

But remember, anything that makes me need God is. . .(crowd responds). . ."a blessing." (You didn't sound real sure about that.) (laughter)

So I need it, and you need it, and Paul the apostle needed it. He said in 2 Corinthians 1, "We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia." Affliction. "For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength." You been there? Utterly burdened beyond your strength? So much so "that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death" (vv. 8–9).

We thought, God's done with us. Heaven's next. This is it. "But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead." So if we die, God raises the dead. He said, "We had to come to a place where we were utterly, absolutely, entirely helpless, and that was to make us rely on God who raises the dead." When we reach the end of our resources, our strength, our efforts, our abilities, and we cry out to Him for help, that's when His grace and His power are released in our lives.

I was always a good student when I was in school. School came easily for me plus I didn't take any hard courses, (laughter) so it wasn't really hard to be a good student. But a lot of things came easily for me, and as I got into vocational ministry, thirty-five years ago last month, I began praying, "Lord, don't let me ever get to the point where I can do what You've called me to do without You or where I think I can."

And you know, that is one prayer that God has been very faithful to answer. (laughter) He keeps this straight-A student in the past. He keeps me on my knees, dependent, feeling needy and desperate and unable to do what He's called me to do apart from Him. You see, our weakness showcases Jehovah Ezer, the Lord our help, His strengthness, His greatness, and His grace.

A couple months ago I did something I've never done before, and I actually don't know if I'd ever thought of doing it before. Physical fitness is something that has always been a challenge for me. I wrote the book on 101 ways to get out of P.E. class. My idea of exercise is reading a good book. And my picture is next to the word "sedentary" in the dictionary. So that's me.

I found . . . I turned fifty-five a week or two ago, and I found I was tired all the time. I didn't have stamina. I'd gained over thirty pounds in the last several years. And I just knew that I had to start to give some attention to my physical condition if I was going to continue serving the Lord and others in the way that I want to.

And so finally I got desperate. And I heard about a new little fitness center in our area, and I walked in one day, and I said, "I need help. Can you help me?" And they said, "Yes, we can help you." I joined. I handed them a credit card to charge monthly. I signed up to work with a personal trainer. This has all been extremely out of my comfort zone, if only you knew.

And yet I've watched how, in this area of my life, where I have been so weak and so needy of help and could not help myself, how this place and this trainer have been such a huge help. And I've thought so many times over these last weeks as I was preparing this message—a lot of it in the gym—thinking about God is our helper, and this trainer is just giving me some life illustrations. One day maybe we will do another message on that. But I needed instruction. I walked in there and saw these machines. I was clueless. I had no idea what to do with this stuff. I needed somebody who knew more than I did, someone who would tailor a workout to my need.

I needed instruction. I needed accountability—I can't tell you how many times the fact that I paid the money and made the appointment gets me there when I would have come up with any number of excuses not to. The motivation, the encouragement in this one single area of my life, the Lord brought me help, but first I had to say, "I need help; I need help."

And I'm thankful for that trainer. I'm thankful for that place. But I'll tell you what, I'm really super thankful for, after meditating on this over these last months, the fact that God is Jehovah Ezer. That trainer—he can help me, but the ways he can help are pretty limited, very limited, compared to what Jehovah can do and does do.

I'm thankful that God is our helper. I'm thankful that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. I'm thankful that Jesus helps us, that He is that great High Priest we read about in Hebrews: "For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham . . . because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. . . . Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy"—that's what we need first—and then "that we may find grace to help in time of need. . . . So we can confidently say, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?'" (Heb. 2:16, 18; 4:16; 13:6).

I want you to think about the most difficult circumstance or situation that you may be facing. It may be something you've written on that prayer card, something in your family, something in your church, something in the ministry where you serve, maybe some difficult circumstances in the lives of women that you're seeking to help. Let me just remind you that help is not just deliverance from problems, but help is God's deliverance through trouble.

I have been very moved to come back to this facility where we held the first True Woman Conference five years ago over in the Convention Center. I've had a lot of thoughts over the last few days since I got here. That was an amazing event. Some of you were there. God showed up in just such a great, great way. And we were all so thankful. And the ministry got propelled, and so many new opportunities and people connecting to the resources—just great new opportunities for ministry.

But as some of you have heard me share before, over the next two years after that, from '08 to '10, while the ministry was on this upward trajectory, I was on this downward trajectory in so many ways, just desperate in a lot of ways—crying out, needing the Lord, desperate for help.

Yesterday in my reading of the Scripture, I came to that wonderful passage in 2 Samuel 22, and I was sitting here in Schaumburg—same hotel, same room where I stayed at the '08 conference. Let me just read a few sentences from that passage that so ministered to me over these last forty-eight hours.

"The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
   my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation,
my stronghold and my refuge,
   my savior" (vv. 2–3).

"In my distress I called upon the LORD;
   to my God I called.
From his temple he heard my voice,
   and my cry came to his ears" (v. 7).

As I read that, I thought about how many times, not just in those two years but in every season of my life, I've cried out to the Lord and how He has heard my cry.

Verse 17 says, "He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters."

When I thought I was drowning, and sometimes going down for the last time, He drew me out. He sent His grace.

Verse 20: "He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me."

Now, by this time yesterday morning, I was in tears. "He delighted in me!" When there was nothing delightful about me, He was and is a God of grace. He sees us through Christ. He brings us out into a broad place.

"He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights" (v. 34).

"You equipped me with strength for the battle" (v. 40).

And he concludes his prayer: "For this I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations, and sing praises to your name" (v. 50).

The God who comes running when we cry. Deuteronomy 33 tells us, "There is none like God, O Jeshurun, who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty" (v. 26).

I want to just close with this excerpt from my friend Charles Spurgeon who has this to say about that verse—"The God who rides through the heavens to your help." Just listen.

Men can come to our help, but they travel slowly, creeping along the earth. Lo, our God comes riding on the heavens. Those who travel on the earth may be stopped by enemies, they certainly will be hindered; but he who rides upon the heavens cannot be stayed nor even delayed. When Jehovah's excellency comes flying upon the sky on the wings of the wind, how gloriously are displayed the swiftness, the certainty, and the all sufficiency of delivering grace. . .

Fall back upon yourselves, lean upon your fellow creatures, trust upon earth born confidences, and you fall upon a rotten foundation that shall give way beneath you; but rest upon your God and upon your God alone, and the stars in heaven shall fight for you . . . and things present and things to come, and heights, and depths, and all the creatures subservient to the will of the omnipotent Creator, shall work together for good for you, seeing that you love God and are depending upon his power.

Let's bow our hearts in prayer before the Lord. Would you just take a moment there in your heart to do two things? Just you and the Lord.

Number one: Acknowledge need. What is it you need God for? Tell Him.

And then number two: Cry out for help.

One of the shortest prayers in the Bible, found in Matthew 15—you remember that Canaanite woman who just said, "Lord, help me." Jesus heard that prayer. He answered it. He came to her help.

Acknowledge need; cry out for help.

(Singing)
I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;
Every hour I need Thee.
Oh, bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee.

Let's stand together, and if it expresses the desire of your heart, join me in singing that chorus just once again.

(Singing)
I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;
Every hour [Every hour—every minute!] I need Thee.
Oh, bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee.

Oh, thank You, Jehovah Ezer that You hear the cries of Your children and that You are the everlasting God who comes riding on the clouds, running to the scene of our need. So keep us, Lord, oh keep us clinging to Thyself and still believing to the hour of our receiving, promised joys with Thee. Thank You, thank You, Lord Jesus.