Ex 34:6, Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth
	We are in the midst of losing ourselves in this glorious revelation of The Lord God Almighty to Moses on Mount Sinai. We spent last week looking at it from the vantage point given throughout the Psalms. This morning, we will consider the manifestation that God made known through a variety of the Old Testament prophets. We can never spend too much time delighting ourselves in the truth of Who God is as He reveals Himself as …compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth. 
	The first Prophet of our consideration is Isaiah. He stands as one of the greatest and most profound of all the Old Testament Prophets because he saw the Lord God Almighty in such magnificent glory and honor and power and sovereignty. He did not hesitate to declare the full truth as God made it known unto him. Thus we have a treasury of the Word of God boldly proclaimed through this human instrument. 
    	Please open in your Bibles to Isa 30:18-21. We want to read together how the Prophet saw the goodness and the graciousness of the Lord. Isa 30:18-21, Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him. O people in Zion, inhabitant in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you. Although the Lord has given you bread of privation and water of oppression, He, your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. And your ears will hear a word behind you, "This is the way, walk in it," whenever you turn to the right or to the left. 
	In this passage we see the Lord, not only in His gracious provision and protection in answering us when we call upon Him, but also as our Teacher and Guide. He will teach us His ways and will direct us on those paths of His righteousness in the way in which we should go. Inherent in this is the manifold detail of our walk on this earth. It encompasses not only the manner in which we conduct our lives, including even the very pavement upon which we tread in the course of our physically moving from here to there, but it involves our deepest thoughts, behaviors and attitudes. Who we are, the employment we seek, the spouse we find, the way in which we teach our children, the every aspect of our deportment, where we live, what we do, and how we think and learn are all at the direction of God …your ears will hear a word behind you, "This is the way, walk in it," whenever you turn to the right or to the left. 
	The prophet continued this exciting revelation for us in Isa 33:5+6 as he announced that the reality of God is our treasure on this earth. Isa 33:5+6, The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high; He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness. And He shall be the stability of your times, A wealth of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; The fear of the Lord is his treasure. 
	Just ponder this single detail …He shall be the stability of your times… Truly, what greater treasure can we know than the stability that God is in our lives? This age is running amok, wavering, teetering, and seeking anything that will offer some constancy and permanence in such uncertain and disturbed times. Everything is in utmost chaos and flux all around us with no way to know from day to day how life will play itself out. People are frantically willing to do anything and everything in the futility of their minds to find some intransient meaning for their lives, and we are so blessed by the fact that God is our stability! He is our meaning and He is our life! He is …A wealth of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge… and He is our treasure, the rock of our salvation in the midst of all the storms and battering tsunamis of this age. 
	This peace and stability that is ours in God is again highlighted by the prophet as we can read together in verses 20-24 of this 33rd Chapter. Isa 33:20-24, Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts; Your eyes shall see Jerusalem an undisturbed habitation, A tent which shall not be folded, Its stakes shall never be pulled up Nor any of its cords be torn apart. But there the majestic One, the Lord, shall be for us A place of rivers and wide canals, On which no boat with oars shall go, And on which no mighty ship shall pass —  For the Lord is our judge, The Lord is our lawgiver, The Lord is our king; He will save us — Your tackle hangs slack; It cannot hold the base of its mast firmly, Nor spread out the sail. Then the prey of an abundant spoil will be divided; The lame will take the plunder. And no resident will say, "I am sick"; The people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity. 
	Do you know the peace that is ours in the Lord God Almighty as our Lord and Savior, Our King and Our refuge? The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth means that we are at peace with Him in Jesus Christ. As such, we have been forgiven our iniquities and we are freed from any judgment or punishment. He is our source of righteousness and holiness and security and abundant joy and provision. As a result, we do not have to frustrate and worry or despair about tomorrow because He is the One Who will make every proviso for what tomorrow brings. We can live in the reality as expressed by Isaiah, …undisturbed habitation, A tent which shall not be folded, Its stakes shall never be pulled up Nor any of its cords be torn apart… As we honor and obey Our Lord God Almighty, and flow according to the manner in which He guide, directs and teaches us to go, we will know the perfect peace and stability that He is as our life. 
	Again, read together the encouragement of the Prophet Isaiah, as recounted in Isa 55:6-11, in terms of the manner in which we are to look to the Lord to be our constancy and source of life in His essence of being…compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth. 
Isa 55:6-11, Seek the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the Lord, And He will have compassion on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth, And making it bear and sprout, And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. 
	The exceeding supremacy of God in all His dealings with mankind is detailed for us by the prophet. There is the full and abundant expression of the forgiveness of God to those who seek Him and who forsake their evil ways. There is the vast reality of the fact that God’s ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts. We revel in the reality of the effective manner in which His Word will accomplish everything for which He sends it forth. This shows the surpassing Omnipotence and Omniscience of God which works on our behalf as we seek Him with all our heart and mind and being. 
	Contrast that with what this world has to offer as the best that can be put forth through psychology and psychiatry. Everything becomes centered in us and in the power of our will and our thoughts and our strength and our determination. Even when we are at our best, we still fail to even begin to compare to the majesty and the strength and the wonder and the awesome stability of the Lord God Almighty. Everything we attempt to do eventually decays away to nothingness in the broad scheme and affairs of humanity. Consider the epic buildings and empires wrought by men from the most ancient of days to the current regimes and there will always be in evidence the decay of time into the dustbin of history. 
Anything that man does is subject to the laws of nature and the detrimental effects of time which are controlled and established by the Lord God, Himself. He rules and overrules according to His wisdom and His understanding and His foreknowledge. He is not subject to His creation. Rather, it is all subject to Him and to the power of His Word sent forth to do everything that He wills to be accomplished. 
    	Our next prophet to consider is Jeremiah. In Jer 10:10-13, he highlights the fact that the Lord God is the One and True and Living God Who created the entire universe. He is the One Who controls all that He has made and does so with wisdom and understanding beyond the grasp of humanity. 
Jer 10:10-13, But the Lord is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, And the nations cannot endure His indignation. Thus you shall say to them, "The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens." It is He who made the earth by His power, Who established the world by His wisdom; And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens. When He utters His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, And He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth; He makes lightning for the rain, And brings out the wind from His storehouses. 
	Jeremiah then makes a wondrous pronouncement and affirmation concerning the Omnipotent and Omniscient Lord God Creator and Sustainer of the heavens and the earth in Jer 33:10+11. Jer 33:10+11, "Thus says the Lord, 'Yet again there shall be heard in this place, of which you say," It is a waste, without man and without beast, "that is, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without beast, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say, "Give thanks to the Lord of hosts, For the Lord is good, For His lovingkindness is everlasting"; and of those who bring a thank offering into the house of the Lord. For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were at first, 'says the Lord. …"Give thanks to the Lord of hosts, For the Lord is good, For His lovingkindness is everlasting"…
	God is not only all-powerful and all-knowing and righteous and holy in the every aspect of His dealings with humanity, but He is so good and His lovingkindness is so everlasting, that mankind should always and forever be offering Him utmost and enduring thanksgiving for everything that He has done. When we consider God, we should do so with hearts of awe and wonder and amazement and gratitude that reaches to the heavens which He Alone has created. All the other gods of man’s imagination are as nothing and can do nothing, despite the inducements and fabrications and customs put forth in this age. Only the Living Lord God Almighty is good and compassionate and able to bring forth joy and thanksgiving from the ashes of our sorrow and shame. 
	 The next voice of Jeremiah’s pronouncement concerning the glorious nature of The Lord God Almighty is found in the poetry of Lam 3:21-26. In it, Jeremiah again asserts the full impact of Who God is and just how long and how frequently God will express His character of faithfulness and lovingkindness. Lam 3:21-26, This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him." The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the Lord. 
	The prophet highlights a great truth that should always be at the forefront of our thoughts, especially when things are getting to be too severe and too depressing and too hectic too stress-filled in our lives. Our hope is set in God, Alone. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness. 
If we would constantly remind ourselves of this in the midst of every storm and gale, we would not find ourselves either drifting aimlessly with the currents or being driven here and there with the ebb and flow of the swelling waves. Our hearts and our minds and our beings would be firmly set in the Divine reality that God does have us well in hand. His …lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness. 
	Let us ever acknowledge the fact that God is our refuge in every storm. We can count on Him to show forth the every aspect of His character and essential Being without fail in the full expression of His faithfulness and lovingkindness and compassion and truth every day of our lives. 
	We will continue forward with this consideration next time, Lord willing. We will look at more from the Old Testament prophets as well as seeing what the New Testament Apostles have to contribute to the fact that God is exactly Who He says He is. So be it!
Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; Amen. 

This morning’s benediction is 1 Cor 15:57+58. but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. Amen.