Josh 23:14, "Now behold, today I am going the way of all the earth, and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one word of all the good words which the Lord your God spoke concerning you has failed; all have been fulfilled for you, not one of them has failed. 
	Last week, we spent our time with the glorious and joy-filled encouragement to embed in our hearts the truth that the Lord will do everything that He says He will do. We are seeing this from the vantage point of one who spent his whole life honoring the Lord.
Joshua was witness to the unending faithfulness of the Lord in action in the course of dealing with this nation of Israel. God had taken a motley group of slaves and shepherds and turned them into a force to conquer and to inhabit the land of His Promise to them. 
	It would behoove us to follow this pattern as modeled by Joshua. A view back through the annuals of our lives is something that should serve to be a great encouragement to everyone of us. To recount the manifold times that the faithfulness of the Lord has made a way in our rescue and our blessing and our salvation and our habitation of His peace and His joy and His glory is not something to be missed. 
We would be well rewarded if we did as the chorus to that old hymn proclaims, “Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God has done. Count your blessings. Name them one by one. Count your many blessings, See what God has done.” 
It matters not how old we are! Children, teenagers, young adults, middle-aged, or our blessed elderly - God is faithful and He has fully made Himself known through the promises that He has kept in supplying our every need. 
We must recognize that this is day to day and moment by moment. It is not just in the grand scheme of our life-time. It is as each day unfolds, that God proves Himself Faithful and True through the very breath that we breathe and the life that He has given us to live. Some days seem to be more difficult, even impossible at time. However each moment is filled with the presence of the Lord indwelling and guiding each step, each conversation, and each interaction. We are forever lavishly covered by His Omnipresence, His Omnipotence, and His Omniscience. He is faithful and just to prove His plan and His purpose as we will honor and obey His direction and accept His provision.
Another, who was so content to look back at the wondrous and faithful Hand of the Lord in operation to fulfill His every promise was King David. We can see this as recounted in 2 Sam 7:18-29, if you would please turn to that account in your Bibles. He sat before the Lord and looked back at what the Lord had done for Israel to that point in manifesting the splendor of His Promises. David was asking the Lord to maintain the promise of putting one of his descendents upon the throne of Israel forever. We do not know exactly what David was envisioning, but we do know that God was faithful to that promise through the giving of His Only Begotten Son. Jesus is now seated upon the throne of Heaven and all of creation forever and forever. 
2 Sam 7:18-29, Then David the king went in and sat before the Lord, and he said, "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that Thou hast brought me this far? "And yet this was insignificant in Thine eyes, O Lord God, for Thou hast spoken also of the house of Thy servant concerning the distant future. And this is the custom of man, O Lord God. And again what more can David say to Thee? For Thou knowest Thy servant, O Lord God! "For the sake of Thy word, and according to Thine own heart, Thou hast done all this greatness to let Thy servant know. For this reason Thou art great, O Lord God; for there is none like Thee, and there is no God besides Thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears. And what one nation on the earth is like Thy people Israel, whom God went to redeem for Himself as a people and to make a name for Himself, and to do a great thing for Thee and awesome things for Thy land, before Thy people whom Thou hast redeemed for Thyself from Egypt, from nations and their gods? "For Thou hast established for Thyself Thy people Israel as Thine own people forever, and Thou, O Lord, hast become their God. Now therefore, O Lord God, the word that Thou hast spoken concerning Thy servant and his house, confirm it forever, and do as Thou hast spoken, that Thy name may be magnified forever, by saying,' The Lord of hosts is God over Israel'; and may the house of Thy servant David be established before Thee. For Thou, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, hast made a revelation to Thy servant, saying, 'I will build you a house'; therefore Thy servant has found courage to pray this prayer to Thee. And now, O Lord God, Thou art God, and Thy words are truth, and Thou hast promised this good thing to Thy servant. Now therefore, may it please Thee to bless the house of Thy servant, that it may continue forever before Thee. For Thou, O Lord God, hast spoken; and with Thy blessing may the house of Thy servant be blessed forever." 
	Now, please turn to 1 Kings 8:54-61. This is the declaration voiced by the next king of Israel, Solomon, the son of David. Solomon had the great honor of building the temple to the Lord that had been the in heart of his father to accomplish. At the dedication of the temple, Solomon proclaimed the faithfulness of God to all the people. Accordingly, there is to be all honor unto the Lord expressed in full devotion because God is faithful to do all that He promises.
1 Kings 8:54-61, And it came about that when Solomon had finished praying this entire prayer and supplication to the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread toward heaven.  And he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying, "Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel, according to all that He promised; not one word has failed of all His good promise, which He promised through Moses His servant. May the Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers; may He not leave us or forsake us, that He may incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances, which He commanded our fathers. And may these words of mine, with which I have made supplication before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, that He may maintain the cause of His servant and the cause of His people Israel, as each day requires, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no one else. Let your heart therefore be wholly devoted to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments, as at this day." 
	The prophet Isaiah, in Isa 42:5-13, is our next source of encouragement in the fact that the Lord will fully accomplish all that He says He will do. Be that for the nation of Israel, or for all those whom the Lord will gather into His flock as His chosen people from the nations of the Gentiles, He will be faithful and just. He will break apart the fetters of slavery and darkness and will show Himself as the Redeemer in whom all those bound by those chains of sin and grief and despair will find relief and freedom. Please open to this wondrous passage of God’s promise that is now ours in Jesus Christ as He has accomplished this tremendous release from sin and the shame of our guilt.
	Isa 42:5-13, Thus says God the Lord, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it, And spirit to those who walk in it, "I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you, And I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, As a light to the nations, To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the dungeon, And those who dwell in darkness from the prison. "I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images. "Behold, the former things have come to pass, Now I declare new things; Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you." Sing to the Lord a new song, Sing His praise from the end of the earth! You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it. You islands and those who dwell on them. Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voices, The settlements where Kedar inhabits. Let the inhabitants of Sela sing aloud, Let them shout for joy from the tops of the mountains. Let them give glory to the Lord, And declare His praise in the coastlands. The Lord will go forth like a warrior, He will arouse His zeal like a man of war. He will utter a shout, yes, He will raise a war cry. He will prevail against His enemies. 
    	Then the Prophet, in Isa 48:1-6, recounts the manifest promise that the Lord made known to those who would pay attention. The Children of Israel had turned the redemption of God into something that they were lording over all the peoples of the earth. They were declaring that they were the end all of what God was going to do. There was no recognition that the Promises of God were to all the people who would turn to Him and be saved by calling upon the name of the Messiah to come, the Lord Jesus Christ. This inclusion of the Gentile nations would be considered, by historians, as a new epoch in the record of humanity, the rise of the Christian nations. 
However, God had always made Himself available, by His grace and mercy, to any who would but seek Him. Consider the fact that any of the Egyptians, who wanted to join His people on their march out of slavery, were welcome and had a place. Throughout the course of the Old Testament, there was that open invitation to the heart of the Lord as His people were to be a light to the nations of the truth of God in all His faithfulness.
	Isa 48:1-6, "Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are named Israel And who came forth from the loins of Judah, Who swear by the name of the Lord And invoke the God of Israel, But not in truth nor in righteousness. "For they call themselves after the holy city, And lean on the God of Israel; The Lord of hosts is His name. "I declared the former things long ago And they went forth from My mouth, and I proclaimed them. Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass. "Because I know that you are obstinate, And your neck is an iron sinew, And your forehead bronze, Therefore I declared them to you long ago, Before they took place I proclaimed them to you, Lest you should say, 'My idol has done them, And my graven image and my molten image have commanded them.' "You have heard; look at all this. And you, will you not declare it? I proclaim to you new things from this time, Even hidden things which you have not known. 
	The nation of Israel felt that they were going to be the only ones who would benefit from their Messiah. They glossed over all the times that the Lord made it evident that they were to be a witness of His glory and His righteousness and His manifold salvation. They hoarded away the promises of the Lord in selfish neglect of how God had blessed them even in their poverty and want and need. 
Rather than seeing themselves and their Promised Messiah as the conduit through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed, they tried to insulate themselves from having to deal with anyone else. They tried to stockpile all the goodness of the Lord and His promises as solely for their own use and benefit and stubbornly refused to open their hearts to what the Lord fully intended through them. 
	As a direct result, when the Messiah, Jesus, was born in the Tribe of Judah, to the House of David, as the free gift of God to any who would but believe upon Him as the Only Begotten Son of God, the leaders of the nation of Israel rejected Him. He was made the suffering servant that was so promised through the Prophet Isaiah, and as a result was the exact fulfillment of the so great salvation of God. 
Please open to Isa 52:13-54:3. We want to read this wondrous and gracious promise of God that has been absolutely set into place only by the love and the mercy of God, Himself.
	Isa 52:13-54:3, Behold, My servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up, and greatly exalted. Just as many were astonished at you, My people, So His appearance was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men. Thus He will sprinkle many nations, Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him; For what had not been told them they will see, And what they had not heard they will understand. Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living, For the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth. But the Lord was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors. "Shout for joy, O barren one, you who have borne no child; Break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not travailed; For the sons of the desolate one will be more numerous Than the sons of the married woman," says the Lord. "Enlarge the place of your tent; Stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, spare not; Lengthen your cords, And strengthen your pegs. "For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left. And your descendants will possess nations, And they will resettle the desolate cities.  
	We conclude with the very words of our Lord Jesus Christ in Luke 21:33-36. He is the Messiah, the Suffering Servant, the Great Shepherd, Our Savior and Our Lord. When He speaks, all heaven and earth pay attention. He is the Creator of the Universe and by His Word have all things come into existence. He holds it all in place and His Word stands for all humanity as Truth and Righteous and Sure and Eternal.
Luke 21:33-36, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. "Be on guard, that your hearts may not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day come on you suddenly like a trap; for it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth. "But keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." So be it!
"Now behold, today I am going the way of all the earth, and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one word of all the good words which the Lord your God spoke concerning you has failed; all have been fulfilled for you, not one of them has failed. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Isa 48:20. Go forth from Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare with the sound of joyful shouting, proclaim this, Send it out to the end of the earth; Say, "The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob." Amen.