Isn't Yahweh your God with you? Hasn't he given you rest on every side? for he has delivered the inhabitants of the land into my hand; and the land is subdued before Yahweh, and before his people.
We believe that God is as much present beneath the blue sky, and out there in the street, as he is in any kind of building that we can erect for Him. It is very singular that, as soon as ever the temple was built, true religion began to decline; the day when Solomon opened it was the culmination of the glory of true godliness in Israel, and from that hour it began to darken down into an awful night. Yet it was proper that there should be a temple which, in its magnificence, should call for the respect of men towards God, being typical of that far greater temple, not made with hands, even the glorious person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We, however, are engaged in the building of a temple, in a spiritual sense. God has sent his servants into the world, to gather together for his beautiful house, stones hewn out of the quarry of nature, to be shaped, polished, and prepared for building into the temple of his grace. The Church is the living temple of God, "exceeding magnifical." It is a wondrous idea that men's hearts and souls can be blended together, and built up into a spiritual temple wherein God will dwell. This temple is to be builded of stones taken from the quarry of nature, and, God being with us, you and I are to go forth, and to hew out and shape and prepare the stones for the building of this house of the Lord which shall endure for over. In order to do this, we certainly need the presence and the help of God; for what can we do without him? In the work of conversion, what can be done without the Spirit of God? I would like anybody who thinks he can convert another person without divine help, to try and do it, and see what a wretched failure he will make of it, or what a dire hypocrisy he will produce by his apparent success. We must have God with us for this work; we cannot create a spark of grace, how then can we create a new heart and a right spirit? Conversion is an absolute creation, regeneration is a miracle of divine grace, the work of the Spirit of God; and this is altogether beyond our power. We need the Spirit of God to aid us in the building of a temple for God; but, brethren, with the Lord's presence we can do it. The text says, "Is not the Lord your God with you?" I will go any length with the brother who likes to preach upon the incapacity of man, the utter and entire weakness of the creature apart from the Creator. You cannot, I think, exaggerate there; but do not always keep dwelling upon your own weakness, recollect that, when you are weak, thou you are strong, if you do but fall back upon the omnipotence of God. "Is not the Lord your God with you?" Has he sent us into the world will the gospel, and will he not be with us in the preaching of it? Has he sent us to be the means of seeking souls, and made our hearts to ache because of the sins that men have committed against him, and will he not be with us? Do not let us talk as if we had to live and labor without our God. We have been brought to know him, we have been made members of the mystical body of Christ the Holy Spirit dwells in us, if we are what we profess to be, the Church of the living God; will he not occupy the house that he has built? "Is not the Lord your God with you?" Then, what can be too difficult for you? Now, dear friends, I shall treat our text, first, as  an assertion; for, oftentimes, in Scripture, a question is one of the strongest modes of assertion when it is anticipated that to that question there can be no other reply than "Yes." Secondly, I shall treat it as a  question, for there are some here to whom it is a question, some doubting, trembling ones to whom we must say, "Is not the Lord your God with you?" When I have handled it first as an assertion and then as a question, I will briefly use it as  an argument: "Is not the Lord your God with you?" Therefore, arise and be doing. Something great and glorious ought to be done by men who have so divine a Helper with them. I. First, then, this is AN ASSERTION. Brethren and sisters in Christ, the Lord our God is with us. I do not entertain any doubt upon that point, and I hope you do not. Is the Lord your God? Is he your God by a holy covenant? Have you entered into bonds of fellowship with him? Have you taken him to be your God by trust, by love, and by the consecration of your body, soul, and spirit to him? Can you say of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, "This God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our Guide even unto death"? Very well, then, if he be your God, he is with you. Do you ask how I know that? Well, I know it, first, because  he has pledged himself to be with his people. "He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Is not the Lord your God with you, then? Assuredly he is, if he keeps his promise; and you do not doubt his fidelity, do you? Can he forget his promise, or, remembering it, will he treat it as if it were more verbiage, words without moaning? There are men who can do that, we know; but coos God act so? Can you suppose it possible? No, not for an instant; then, as he hath said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee," he will keep his word. We say, "Never is a long day," and so it is, for it covers all time; and the Lord hath said, "I will  never leave thee," in poverty, in sickness, in slander and reproach, in depression of spirit, in the hour of death, in the day of judgment, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." He has pledged himself to this, and God forbid that we should, for even a moment, doubt that he will keep his word! To believers in their church capacity, there is a pledge given by the blessed Lord Jesus himself which refers especially to his work: "And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen." "Lo, I  am with you," says Christ, as much as to say, "Not only do I promise to be with you, but I  am with you, I am already fulfilling my promise to you. For the past, for the present, and for the future, 'Lo, I am with you alway.'" Let not any Church of God hesitate to answer this question, "Is not the Lord your God with you?" If he be your God, he is with you as individuals, and he is especially with you as a Christian community going forth to preach his gospel to every creature. That ought to be enough, surely? He has pledged himself to be with us. Next,  he is pleased to be with us. It is the good pleasure of God to be with his people. He is our Father; and do not fathers love to be with their children? The loving father says, when he has little ones at home, "I will get back from my business early, that I may spend my evening in the family." We feel ourselves happiest when, laying aside external cares, we leave the world, and rest with our loved ones at home; so God is at home with his people, as a Father he delights in his children. Remember how Divine Wisdom said, "My delights were with the sons of men." It in a wonderful thing to be able to say, but God takes a great deal more pleasure in us than we do in him; yet there seems in us nothing that can give him pleasure, while in him there is everything that can afford us delight. The Lord so loves his people that he is never long away from them. You know that dear relationship into which our Lord has entered with his Church; she is his bride, he loves her as he loves his own soul. In some respects, he loves her better than he loves himself, for he gave himself for her; and do you think that he is happy away from his bride, his spouse? It is not so; he saith to her, "Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely;" and whenever she calls for him, saying, "Let my Beloved come into his garden," his quick answer is, "I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse." He so loves us that, when we shut the door against him, he stands and knocks, and cries to us, "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled; for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night." Do not think that he has gone from you when he loves you so as your Father, and as the Husband of your soul. Moreover, he will be with his Church in her work, because her work is his work; and wherever there is a heart on the earth, sanctified by the Holy Ghost, in sympathy and harmony with the heart of Christ, depend upon it he is assuredly there, for that sympathy and that harmony are created by his very presence. Well, then, as he has pledged himself, and he is himself pleased to be with his people, we believe the assertion which is implied in the enquiry, "Is not the Lord your God with you?" I hope also, brethren beloved, we can say that  we have had proofs that God is with us. In this house we have had many plain proofs of the Lord's presence. If you could have been with me last Tuesday week, and the Tuesday before that, it might have made your hearts ring for joy, all the bells of your soul would have given forth blessed chimes as you heard how God had saved one and another who had strolled in here as if by accident, and others who had come in great heaviness of heart, but who here found the Lord. Our ministry is nothing, but the Lord makes it something, he makes it everything to many souls; and blessed be his name for that! And you, brethren and sisters, in your labor and service for the Master, have brought many souls to Christ; therefore I say to you, "Is not the Lord your God with you?" Assuredly he is, or you would not have beheld all this blessedness. The Lord has proved his presence with us by preserving us in the hour of temptation. Some of you who have been lately converted to God have had very fierce temptations since then. In this wicked city, our young people yet I do not know that I need say our young people alone, have been exposed to a furnace of temptation which has been seven times heated. The days in which we live are grievous to the last degree; and if the Lord had not been with us, our soul would not have escaped like a bird out of the snare of the fowler. Often our feet have well-nigh slipped, and we should have fallen if the Lord had not been with us to preserve us. "Is not the Lord your God with you" when you have boon kept alive with death so near? Assuredly, he is. Some of you also know that the Lord is with you because you have been so greatly comforted in time of trouble. A sister said to me, the other day, "I could not have thought that I could have lived through the bereavements I have lately endured. When I used to think of the possibility of my husband's death, it seemed to me that I must die with him." Yet she is not dead; and she does not despair; though she had to endure that bereavement, and another as well, she said, "Oh, how good God was to me to sustain me as he did!" "Is not the Lord your God with you?" I know some dear friends who have experienced very great temporal trouble through heavy losses in these trying times; yet they are as happy as when they had ten times as much. The little bird still sings at the window, the blue sky hovers overhead, and the heart's-ease still grows in their garden, and they love it well. Yes, dear friends, the comforts that God gives us in times of deep trouble are a sufficient proof that he is with us. Beside that, there have been times when we have been in the house of prayer, or when we have been alone in our chamber, ay, in the middle of the night sometimes, when pain has kept us from sleeping when we have felt that we did not want to sleep; for we have been flooded with delight. Did you ever feel that deep calm which sometimes comes over a believer, when there seems to be no evil in the world, when we could not invent a doubt if we tried, when we could not have a dark thought concerning our Lord? After our Savior had been tempted in the wilderness, angels came and ministered unto him. Do you know what that experience is when there seem to be angels upstairs, and downstairs, and all through the house, ministering to you, and your life seems set to a gentle psalm tune, and instead of the sound of the trumpet calling you to battle, there is only the dulcet music of an instrument of ten strings praising the God who has given you rest? So, when the question is put, "Is not the Lord your God with you?" you can answer, "Ay, that he is, and blessed be his holy name!" Oh, what a blessing it is to live with a present God! If anyone says to me that there is no God, he might as well tell me that there is no air. I cannot we it, but I know that I am living in it, and that I could not live without it; so, "in him we live, and move, and have our being." The Lord is life, and light, and love, and liberty, and all in all to some of us. "Is not the Lord your God with you?" is no question to us, for we know that he is with us, and we glorify his holy name that so it is. II. Now, secondly, we must devote a few minutes to those poor weary souls to whom this is A QUESTION: "Is not the Lord your God with you?" "Oh!" says one, "I have no joy; I have very little rest; I nave nothing but trouble; deep calleth unto deep at the noise of his waterspouts, and I am so weak, so feeble, so faint, I cannot imagine that the Lord is with me. I see no signs of his presence, neither do I perceive even a star of hope amid the dense darkness of the night." Listen, dear friend; have you taken him to be your God? Are you trusting him? Are you determined to rely on nothing but the finished work of Christ? Then, he is with you; though you do not perceive his Holy Spirit, in the deepest darkness he is with you. If the Lord had not been with you,  your despondency might have become despair. If he had not been with you, your despair might have gone further still. You are yet alive, remember, you have not laid violent hands upon yourself, as you might have done if you had been left to yourself. God is with you, keeping you, even while you live on the very brink of despair. I know that there are some here who were sure God was with them in their darkness because it did not grow any darker. It was a black night, but still it was not altogether dark, there was a gleam of light left. Ah, yes! it was your gracious Lord who gave you that little ray of hope. Tell me, sad heart, what is it that causes you to hate sin, and makes you so wretched without the presence of the Savior? It is because  you have his presence though you do not know it. You have, perhaps, seen your boy play with a magnet and a needle; the needle is above the table, and the magnet, though out of sight, acts upon it, the needle feels the attraction of the magnet, and moves after it; and those desires, those groans, those cries, that inward anguish, that self-despair, that horror of great darkness, all these prove that God is secretly working with you, and drawing you to himself. He is with you; and if you take him afresh to be your God, if you come and trust in his promises, I should not wonder but that, even now, your midnight shall burst into a glorious meridian. The Lord send it to you right speedily! Only, do rest in him.  The Lord is not far from any one of us; a cry will fetch him, he will hear even a groan, and he will quickly come to the rescue of those who call upon him. Do but trust him, do but take him to be yours, and then he cannot leave you. "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." There is such love in God's heart towards the very feeblest of his people, that he cannot turn away from them. Mother, is it not so in your family, that the child who is most ill, most weak, most full of pain, is the one who is best remembered by you? While you have been sitting here, this evening, you have not thought of John and Thomas, who have grown up, and gone out into the world, and are strong and healthy, but you have thought of poor little Jane, whose spine is injured, or of the little boy who has to lie still so many hours a day, and who suffers so much. I am sure that, while I have been preaching, your thoughts have been trotting home to that dear child, and you have been thinking much of him. Well, remember that, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him;" and remember also how the Lord takes the mother's part as well as the father's, and says, "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem." These are cheering truths for those who do raise the question; I wish they could enable you to get rid of that question, and to know assuredly that the Lord is with you. I recollect how Mr. Joseph Irons used to say of some who were always hoping, "It is all very well to have hope, but do not keep on hoping and hoping, or hopping and hopping, but put both feet down, and begin to run." I trust you may do the same, and get beyond the "hoping" and the "hopping" to the full assurance of faith.
