This sermon emphasizes the importance of viewing the Old Testament not just as history but as the Word of God meant to speak to our hearts. It highlights how every incident and warning in the Old Testament is relevant to us today, revealing the heart and mind of God. The message encourages surrender and resignation to God's will, trusting in His promises and sovereignty even in times of weakness and distress.

In persecutions and distresses, for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, I am strong. Do you notice that the Old Testament was never written as history? People think it's history, but it's not. It is the history of the people of God and the dealings of God with His people, but it wasn't meant to be looked upon or read as history. It is meant to be looked upon as the Word of God, as much as the New Testament, to your heart and mine. It was written for us, everything, every single incident dealing with God. There's something of a spiritual significance in the names and the genealogies. When you've been through the book a few hundred times, you'll just see, you don't stop at the story of David and Goliath and get excited as you did the first time through the Bible. When you get through the Bible many times, you come to the genealogies of the first couple of times where it's just agony to get through. Suddenly you want to just stop. Nothing is in the Old Testament that wasn't written to excite you, to thrill you, to give you some idea of the heart of God, of the mind of Christ. We'd be in poverty without the Old Testament. It's not meant history. Every warning He gave to the people was the warning to us. Every dealing with the people was how He deals with us. If we murmur His grief, though He's great, He's chasing everything. It's just God's cry to you as an individual and sometimes to a nation, to the Christians of a nation. But the majority of every dealing of God to His people in the Old Testament was meant for you and I to get a grasp, a glimpse of the heart of God, of the pulse of God's heart, of something of the depth of what He's doing, of what He's allowing. We get something of a glimpse as to God's dealing with us, what He's actually accomplishing. And trust me about this. Every promise that He gave His people is mine. I found God honoring His promises. God had me in mind when He let those words be said through prophets to a nation. He had me. He had my name. He had my weaknesses. He had me in His sovereignty, in His greatness, and He wrote it down for me to survive and to understand and not to lose heart. Now, Jeremiah was sent down to the potter's house. He was doing something with some work. He was working on the wheels in the pottery. And God said, I'll let you hear my voice as you watch that man. I'll give you a message to take to this nation, Jeremiah. And there was the potter, and suddenly that which he was trying to do lay ruined in the hand of the potter. It was ruined. What he wanted to do was destroy it, and that really wasn't easy. Jeremiah watched. What is God saying about this? So the potter made it again, another vessel. It seemed good to the potter to make it. The man that I do with you is this potter, saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand. How many of you sitting here? You're lying in God's hands, and what He was doing you have just made a mess of because you didn't have resignation. You just carried on in desperation. And you're like Jeremiah. And God says to you tonight, listen. I can make you again in as much of a mess as you've made, though it could have brought greatness in you, your unbelief, your fear of me and my will and my ways and my losing control and my wrongness and shooting you, my letting you down. Oh, Jeremiah, cannot I be with you now? Jeremiah, cannot I be with you? And I said I could do two nations. Listen, Jeremiah, if thou give up this mistaken, wrong tone of distrust and despair, cleansing your own heart from unworthy suspicions concerning God's faithfulness, if you do that, child, you shall be as my mother. That which I wanted in your life, I will do. Glorifying my name through you, you'll be like the mouth of God. What preacher could ask for more for the will of God to be fulfilled? But, Jeremiah, if you don't, even I is gone. God says to you, even I, Jeremiah, I don't know what to do. Don't give up the things I allow in your life. And I don't allow them in your life just for you to reach Israel, Jeremiah. There's no such a thing in God's sovereignty as the preacher being destroyed. The preacher gets made by what he allows. In his sovereignty, everybody is in the school of God, if they're his people. Desperations of what's going on about the thorn in the flesh that God is never going to take out of your life. Revelation tonight. Is that what's happening? One thing, one thing left. Resignation. Every single one of you sitting here tonight can say to God, from this moment, resignation, God. No more despair. I trust you with this. Every one of you sitting here that God knows he brought that's been going on because of that thing in your life that you despaired about and wanted God to get out and haven't believed and distrusted. Come on, you're confused. Your faith is staggering about God. This desperation ends now, child. I give you a revelation. And I expect one thing now, a resignation. I want those of you that need to say God tonight. Resignation. And from this night, most gladly, therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities of the power of Christ be rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure from this night, God. I'm glad for the things that come on me. From this night, God, I take pleasure in infirmities and weaknesses and approaches, in necessities and persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong. Those of you that need to have resignation by saying those words for the first time from your heart till the day you die, from tonight, I want you who desperately need to say to God in resignation about the things you've despaired of through this revelation to stand and say, it's me, God. And I'm going to pray for those that stand. No one else knows, the devil knows, what the thorn in the flesh is. Come, all of you standing, come stand in the front here. Let's make something sacred of this. Don't trip on the wires of this machine, please. Just forgive me saying it, but I see they're a bit hanging out. Just be careful as you come, but come, let's make something sacred before God. If this is the turning point of what the devil thought he would destroy you, God's going to be able to make you as never before. Just come. Can you stand in the middle, please? Just keep coming toward the center and let people come and be part of this prayer. Oh, God doesn't despise you. God loves you. You know, I often wish that God would just stand for one moment in my place and just move me aside and not say anything, just look at you. If you could just see his eyes when you yield to his will like this, just look at his eyes, all fear would flee from your heart forever if you could just see Jesus' eyes, no words. If only God could just look at you as you yield like this, you'd never doubt again in your life. God expects you just to look in his eyes from what you see in the Word. Every one of you pray these words with me. Father, forgive me.