God chooses the ones He calls

Yeah, welcome to treasures in the storm. My name is Cindy schmidle er Today we’re gonna be looking at Isaiah 45 I’ve titled this God chooses God calls, it’s all about him and so will you get your bibles pen and paper because again, like we always say we’re expecting as we open up the word that God’s gonna speak to us and this is a very important lesson. It’s a foundational lesson for our faith. So I want you to be able to take notes on things that the Lord is giving you. I’m gonna pray for us. We’ll get started and I will share some testimony on what it looks like. So dear, Heavenly father Lord. Um this is a hard lesson as I read and study it Lord, but you want us to know you want us to know so much more about who you are in our lives than what we want. We want you to be just squishy and lovey but you God, you are an almighty warrior God who loves us with an everlasting love, a deep abiding love that our minds can barely get around Lord. So when you speak to your audience today, Lord, will you use me as your vessel for your people today. Lord God And give us a great feeding myself and them also a great feeding today. And we trust you God as we always do, we proclaim our trust to you knowing you have to put it in us and we pray that in jesus name. So today we’re gonna look at God’s Supreme Nous Through Isaiah chapter 45 and I’m going to begin By Reading vs 1-6, So Isaiah 45 versus 1 to 6. This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of, to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armor to open doors before him. So that gates will not be shut. I will go before you and will level the mountains. I will break down the gates of bronze and cut through the bars of iron. I will give you hidden treasures riches stored in secret places so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel who summons you by name for the sake of Jacob, my servant of Israel, my chosen. I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor though you don’t even acknowledge me, I am the Lord and there is no other apart from me, there is no god. I will strengthen the view though you have not acknowledged me so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting, people may know that there is none beside me. I am the Lord and there is no other god. And so as I read this and I think about all the things that the Lord does for us. So let’s look at some of the things that he does, He subdues nations, he strips kings of their armor. He opens doors before him that he opens them so that the gates cannot be shot. He goes before us. He levels mountains. He breaks down the gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron. He says, I want to give you hidden treasures riches stored in secret places so that you may know that I am the Lord. Think about that. Just those versus all the things. And I wonder what gates need to be broken down. What what iron needs to be cut up so that you may walk on level ground. What mountains need to be smashed so that you can walk over that thing that’s been so difficult for you in your life. He is the Lord. He’s the one who subdues nations. He is april and yet in all of that, in and through that difficult witness, he wants to give you treasures hidden treasures. He says, riches. He wants to give you riches stored in secret places. I don’t know about you. But I want that too. Especially for those difficult things that I’m walking through. I want those walls and those mountains to be smashed. And I want to get to the secret things. I want to get to the treasures at the end of that. And this is the way to do that. He tells us that he gives us honor. Even when we don’t acknowledge him, he does this, he strengthens us. He goes on and on about this. So We need to put that into our minds today. And then verse seven I put that alone because I want you to read that. I want you to highlight it and I want you to think about it Verse seven I form the light and I create darkness. I bring prosperity and I create disaster. I the Lord do all these things and I have in my bible, the word all is circled. Sometimes he’s giving prosperity. Sometimes he’s creating disaster. I think back in moses is life when God brought the plagues? Look, he he hardened pharaoh’s heart specifically so that he could bring those plagues to the people and he brought those plagues. The bible says so that people would know that he is God and that we are to tell them to our Children and to our grandchildren. So his purpose in this, as hard as that is to hear, he knows what he’s doing. And I always remind myself Lord for me, you love me and any disaster that comes on me by your creating is something that I needed in my life to bring me closer to you to get to that joy. And if you read my book, tragedy turned upside down, you’ll see a lot of that. You’ll see through those disasters, all the good things that the Lord was doing not that I ever ever want to go through any of that again. And then we go to verse nine woe to those who quarrel with their maker And we know a lot of people like that, don’t we, who you know, they just will not bow their head to God, will they? Those who are nothing but pot shares among the pot shared on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter? What are you making? Does your work? Say the potter has no hands. Go to the one who says to a father, what have you begotten or to a mother, what have you brought to birth? This is what the Lord says, the holy one of Israel and its maker concerning the things to come. Do you question me about my Children or do you give me orders about the work of my hands? Is it not I who made the earth and created mankind on it my own hands stretched out the heavens. I marshaled the stair, starry host and he goes on about that, you know, it makes me realize that he’s reminding us as he often does, that you are clay and that he is the potter and he’s not going to tell the clay everything that he’s doing. He’s just not gonna do it his ways and his plans. They’re outside always of our understanding. But yet he is so compassionate with us to bring us uh some encouragement in the midst of the hard things that we are dealing with. I find that he is doing that especially. And I asked, I don’t know about you, but I’m always asking about that and then I want to read this, I’m going to share a story. Um we’re gonna go to verse 18, Come with me to verse 18 for this is what the Lord says. He who created the heavens, he is God, he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it. He did not create it to be empty but formed it to be inhabited. He says I am the Lord and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret for somewhere in the Land of Darkness. I have not said to Jacob’s descendants, seek me in vain. I the Lord speak the truth. I declare what is right, gather together and come assemble, you fugitives from the nation’s ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood who pray to gods that cannot save. Do you know Jesus and God the father are the only living gods. All the other gods that are worshiped are dead. I find that very interesting. 21 declare what is to be present. It, let them take counsel together who foretold this long ago, who declared it from the distant past, was it not I the Lord again, he’s telling us everything he does and who he is and there is no god apart from me a righteous god and a savior. There is none but me turn to me and be saved. All you ends of the earth for I am God and there is no other And that’s a great place to stop right now as we think of his supreme nous and all things he he creating all things he giving us each breath and then he take away our breath when it’s time for us to go home to be with him because that’s who he is, he does all of that. It’s not done by our our cleverness or anything that we can do, he takes care of that. I have a good friend who we would walk all the time and when I met her husband had cancer, really severe cancer and she was caring for him in the home and we would walk often and we did bible study together and we prayed all the time together and she had a really tough road and we would pray and we would ask God for help. And eventually after many months her husband passed away And her Children were came back home, they’re older, but they came back home like in their 30s, early 30’s and they came back home to be there at the end to be with dad. And so they got to be with him as hard as that was when he passed away and then after you know I would come and just encourage or as the Lord would give me opportunity I would beg him and he would give me opportunity to encourage her and we would walk and talk and share and I remember maybe about seven months later we were on a walk one morning and we were sharing about her husband’s funeral and she was remembering what it was like and you know the songs they sang and how God was present and just the whole memorial we talked about it was we talked a lot about heaven that morning on our walk just what it must be like in heaven what it must be like for her husband right now in the streets of Gold and no more suffering. It just we just it was almost a happy type memory or looking forward that we had and we went home that day she said I have a busy day today and she told me all the things that she was going to be doing and we separated and went each to our home we both lived together lived not together but in the same community and I got a call later in the evening well maybe around five o’clock from another gal who knew that I was friends with this gal and she said is you know is susie alright? And I said well yes I was with her today and she said um I said she had a lot to do this afternoon but we left around you know noon or something and she went off to do her errands and she said well there’s crime tape up around her house right now and there’s um like um ambulance type people there I don’t remember who the vehicles were. But people like that. And I said what are you talking about? And I thought oh my gosh! And so I tried to call her, tried to call her, couldn’t get through. So I quickly ran over to her house and she has a big glass door and I got to her house and I went up to the door and I could see her inside and she was on the phone and she came up to the door and she opened the door and she when she opened the door she said Cindy my son Bill died. I said what? He died. Her other son just died. And I came in the house just there’s just no words. You just that you don’t have words at those moments do you? And I gave her a hug and we sat at the kitchen table and she shared, you know, a little, it was a sudden thing she had come back home. He hadn’t woken up. So she went in and she found him and I thought to myself, Lord, God why why why why? You know I just want to just uh I’m just why would you do this? Why? Lord I know you bring life and you take life. I just don’t understand. And we sat at the kitchen table her and I and we talked for a couple of hours and there were people coming in and having to deal with whatever they needed to do, you know. Um I don’t even know who the people were, but healthcare professionals probably and and in between that we sat and shared and we remembered what we had talked about on the walk that day and she is such a grounded believer lover of jesus. She said, you know, Cindy, I don’t have words for this, but I do know God and I know that he loves me and I know that it was time for this son to go home, but I don’t know why. And when we cried and we shared something about these verses, the truth of who God is that this wasn’t just a random, horrible act, this was under our loving God’s care and that helped her so much in what she was feeling that day. Because just imagine what you could be thinking about. If you didn’t, if you didn’t know that your God was involved, you could be thinking I I should have went in, if I would have went in, he would have been here, you know, many things like that started coming to your mind yet. But God and you know, God has, it’s been less than a year now and and God has sustained that friend of mine and he has grown her faith catapulted her and not that she ever wanted that when you’re grieving so bad, but God give it to you and he continues to sustain her because that’s who he is, he says, that’s who I am. And so I don’t want to be afraid to tell my friends that God’s involved when that’s the greatest hope that they can have in their circumstances. Just like job Job knew all along that it was God who was doing this to him. You can read about that in chapter 42 of job Or Joseph, Joseph knew that God was involved. You can read that in chapter 50 of Genesis. So it’s important for us to know, to be able to put him in the center because there’s hope in that if we didn’t have him in the center, if I didn’t know that God was involved in taking Jonathan, my young son of five days home to Heaven, I would be devastated. But the fact is that I do know that and I do know that that’s the best thing for my son and I want the best thing for my son, don’t you? And so today, this is a difficult lesson. I want you to think about this. I want you to go back through these verses. I want God to massage your soul to help you through this as you trust in him, as you bow your head like my friend did and you trust in him, let me pray for us. Oh Lord. Um this is such a difficult lesson father. And it isn’t a lesson. This is your living word, you’re speaking to us Lord, you have something to say to us Lord. And I want my audience to to be able to receive what you just what you have for them. Lord God in this show yourself so real Lord God show them your love, your lavish love in this. So you have to do it. Lord, I can’t do it. I don’t even have ability to do it. But you will do it Lord. And I’m asking you to do it and I’m trusting you God that you will do that today for my audience. I pray that in jesus name. Thank you so much for joining me today. Hello, my name is Cindy schmidle er and I have something very special that I want to share with you today. This is a book that I’ve written called tragedy turned upside down. This is a book full of hope and help if you need some strength today, I call it God vitamins. If you need some real uh inoculation of the Lord and faith and belief in your life. This book is for you. My readers have said they devour it. They sit in one sitting to finish it. They have laughed, they have cried. Most of them have taken notes on it because there’s so many good foundational truths in it that you will want to write down and keep for the storms of your life mostly you’re gonna take this book and you’ll want to share it with others that are struggling to. So at your earliest convenience, I’d say pick it up, read it, You will be blessed, blessed, blessed when you read this and share it with those that are struggling right now. Maybe even if they’re not struggling, somebody who needs to know, maybe they don’t have faith and you want them to have faith, You want them to know who jesus is. This book is for you those words that you you just can’t bring to say to a friend or relative. This book is full of all the things that you had hoped to say to them. So pick it up at your earliest convenience.