Taking Comfort in God's Love For the Faithful

INTRODUCTION

When I was in 12th grade Government, I had to watch the 1957 classic, 12 Angry Men.

In the movie, the jury is ready to convict the man right away because 11 of the 12 jurors are swayed by laziness or prejudice or impatience.

But then there is Juror #8--Henry Fonda’s character.

He is completely alone in his principles.

He is going one way and everyone else is going another.

And yet, he can’t back down because he knows what is right and he doesn’t want to see an innocent person end up in jail.

Maybe you feel that way sometimes--completely alone in your convictions and your principles.

Maybe you feel like the only one trying to live righteously in world of wickedness...

...The one employee trying to honor Christ in a workplace of wickedness.

...The one relative trying to obey God in a family of wickedness.

...The one student trying to live a holy life in a school of wickedness.

Loneliness in convictions may be right, but that doesn’t mean it is easy.

If it were easy to live holy and stand for what is right and honor Christ, then everyone would do it.

Well this morning, as we turn to the book of Micah, we find words of comfort.

God sees His faithful remnant.

God sees His holy minority.

God sees His people who truly seek after His heart.

He makes promises to them and those promises will leave us with one big encouragement this morning.

CONTEXT

The book of Micah is written during the last half of the 8th century BC.

Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah.

As Micah performs his ministry, he does it in the aftermath of the Northern Kingdom of Israel being taken away into Exile by the Assyrians.

The social and political collapse of the Northern Kingdom came about because they transgressed the Mosaic covenant at Sinai.

They committed idolatry by worshipping false gods.

They committed social sin by mistreating the people around them.

Micah is warning the people of the southern kingdom of Judah that the same thing will happen to them if they do not repent of their own sin.

The prophecy essentially has three sections and it is structured in this rhythm of doom and salvation.

God will tell the people to listen, He will warn them and then each section ends with a promise of comfort for the faithful remnant in Judah who were still trying to honor the Lord.

So here is what we will do this morning--

We are going to look at the spiritual state of Judah as a whole

And then We are going to look at each of these passages of comfort for God’s faithful remnant

2:12-13; 5:7-15; 7:18-20

And then we will gather up the messages of each passage and come up with one big encouragement for those who are God’s faithful people in this world

OUTLINE

Today will be a bit different than usual because we have three passages we will look at and not just one, so we will read them as we get to them.

But here is the roadmap for this morning:

3 Questions About the Spiritual State of Judah

3 Messages of Comfort to God’s Faithful Remnant

1 Big Encouragement for the Faithful

THREE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SPIRITUAL STATE OF JUDAH

Before we look at the three passages of hope and comfort, let’s make sure we understand the spiritual state of the Southern Kingdom at Micah prophesies.

And to do that, we will ask three questions.

1. How had Israel broken covenant with God?

To answer this question, we need to understand the nature of the Mosaic Covenant.

We need to understand that it is the bedrock covenant of the Old Testament when it comes to God’s relationship with His people.

The Mosaic Covenant that God made with His people at Mt. Sinai is not the only covenant.

Before the Mosaic Covenant there was the Abrahamic Covenant.

After the Mosaic Covenant, there is the covenant that God made with David, promising to establish His throne forever.

And while the Abrahamic Covenant lays the foundation for the Mosaic Covenant and the Davidic Covenant is an extension of the Mosaic Covenant--what happens at Sinai is really the star of the show.

At Sinai God gave His people the Law, telling them how they should worship and how they should live amongst one another.

If they would keep these commandments, then the Lord would bless His people.

Deuteronomy 28:9–12 ESV

The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.

But if they will not express love to Him through keeping His commandments, then curses would come upon them.

Deuteronomy 28:36–37 ESV

“The Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away.

So do you see the options in front of Judah?

Obey God--you are blessed in the land.

Disobey God--you are cursed in Exile.

Well, as we open to the book of Micah, the people are being warned that if they will not repent of their disobedience, they will be cursed.

In fact, this is really the message of the prophets in the Old Testament.

And prophets like Micah were sent by God to preach that message because the people have broken covenant with God.

They had broken the law by worshipping false gods--this is idolatry.

They had broken the law by committing sin against the people around them--this is injustice.

Therefore, at the time of Micah, the spiritual state of Judah is one of being backslidden.

They had drifted from the Lord by breaking God’s laws as a nation.

Throughout Micah, the prophet indicts Judah for this sin.

The indictments begin with a call to listen.

Micah 1:2 ESV

Hear, you peoples, all of you; pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

Micah 3:1 ESV

And I said: Hear, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Is it not for you to know justice?—

Micah 6:1 ESV

Hear what the Lord says: Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.

And if you study those sections, here are the national sins that you will see Judah called to account for:

SECTION 1

Idolatry (1:7; 6:16)

Covetousness (2:2)

Oppression (2:2)

Violence (2:2)

SECTION 2

Corrupt national leaders (3:1-3)

Violence (3:10)

Corrupt False Prophets (3:5-7)

Crookedness (3:9)

Corrupt Priests (3:11)

Bribery (3:11)

SECTION 3

Dishonesty (6:10-11)

Violence (6:12; 7:2)

Idolatry (6:16)

Bribery (7:3)

This was the state of the nation.

This was the level of backsliding that had taken place.

This is God’s spiritual diagnosis of Judah.

2. What were the consequences of their sin?

We have already answered this question, right?

Deuteronomy 28 told us--the consequences of their sin is the curse of living in Exile.

The warning is repeated by Micah:

Micah 1:16 ESV

Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair, for the children of your delight; make yourselves as bald as the eagle, for they shall go from you into exile.

In the days of Micah, the future threat of Babylon wasn’t even the immediate threat--that was still a couple of centuries off.

The Assyrians were about to be at the door of Jerusalem--the same nation that had crushed the Northern Kingdom and carried Israel off into Exile.

The Assyrians would ultimately be turned back by God and would not crush the Southern Kingdom--that would be Babylon in 586 BC.

But still--we know Assyria would not crush Judah, but Judah did not know that at the time.

This warning about Exile would have weighed heavy with a foreign threat like Assyria knocking at the door.

3. What is their only hope of surviving the curses for their sin?

The only hope is that God would be merciful and that though the nation as a whole was idolatrous and unjust, God would keep covenant with His faithful remnant.

And that is just what our three comfort passages will show us this morning:

They will show us how God is merciful to His faithful remnant, even though they are holding fast to Him in the midst of disobedience.

So let’s look at each one of these passages separately and draw three messages of comfort from them and then bring those messages together for one big encouragement for the faithful.

THREE MESSAGES OF COMFORT FOR GOD’S FAITHFUL REMNANT (2:12-13; 5:7-15; 7:18-20)

THE POWERFUL KING (2:12-13)

We start with Micah 2:12-13 this morning. These are the very words of God:

Micah 2:12–13 ESV

I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob; I will gather the remnant of Israel; I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men. He who opens the breach goes up before them; they break through and pass the gate, going out by it. Their king passes on before them, the Lord at their head.

So what we are seeing here is that even though there is calamity in the land, God is not a Judge without nuance.

He doesn’t look at Judah and paint it with one broad stroke of His brush of justice.

He sees His faithful remnant who have not gone along with the sins of the nation.

And He is making a promise to them.

Most of the people had wandered.

They were greedy and selfish.

Micah 2:2 ESV

They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.

But not everyone.

Not everyone had left God’s path.

And God will take this remnant and unite them and assemble them together like a Gentle Shepherd.

The question is how?

Verse 13 tells us--it is by the hand of their strong King who goes before them.

So then we have two pictures.

God’s promise to collect His remnant like a Gentle Shepherd

God’s promise to give victory to His remnant through the power of their King

Message #1: The Lord will keep a people for Himself to shepherd through a powerful King.

God has a shepherding heart.

It is not something that He learned. It is who He is.

And He tells us to see Him this way.

Psalm 23:1 ESV

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Notice that His shepherding is so good and so perfect that it leaves the one who is in His care with no wants.

Totally satisfied.

And God desires to have a people for Himself who are satisfied in this way.

And He will win that people for Himself by the hand of His King.

Micah 5:2-4 draws us a picture of the identity of this Powerful Sovereign:

Micah 5:2–4 ESV

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.

There is a ruler that will be born in Bethlehem, and yet His coming forth is from old--ancient days.

And I want you to notice something...

He is going to rule Israel.

As Micah is prophesying, God’s people are divided.

There is a Northern Kingdom and a Southern Kingdom.

The Northern Kingdom is dispersed in Exile already.

The Southern Kingdom is steeped in sin and only has a faithful remnant in it.

They are on the verge of being Exiled into Gentile nations themselves.

But as we look at Micah’s words, what we see is that Ruler is reigning over Israel--a united Kingdom.

The hope of that Kingdom seems bleak when God’s faithful has dwindled to a remnant and they are oppressed and dispersed.

But there is indeed hope because of this Ruler that is to come.

And here is what you can’t miss. In Micah 5--this Ruler who is from Ancient Days that reigns over Israel will do what?

Stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord.

So then--the King will rule over united Israel like a Shepherd tending to a flock.

Is this not what is promised back in Micah 2:12-13?

So then--how is it that such a tried and oppressed remnant could take comfort in the dark days of disobedience all around them?

They could take comfort because God had promised to send them a Ruler who would assemble all of God’s people back together and He will rule over them as one flock.

They looked forward in faith to the Royal Messiah to come and that strengthened their hearts and hands to hold on in the present as God’s faithful remnant.

THE GOSPEL

But what they did not know is that in order for the King to open the breach and make a way for God’s people to enter into His promised blessings, the King would have to die.

Before there would be the glory of resurrection and ascension and eventually, His return--there would be the humiliation of taking on the form of a servant and becoming obedient to the point of death on a Cross.

Peter captures this his first letter:

1 Peter 1:10–11 ESV

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.

They searched and inquired carefully.

And as God spoke through them, the people trusted in the Lord’s Word and in His Messiah to come.

But we stand on the other side of the Cross and we have the great privilege of knowing what the angels longed to look into themselves.

1 Peter 1:12 ESV

It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

If they could look forward in faith and take comfort in God’s promise to gather a flock through a powerful King, how much more can we look backward in belief and take comfort in that same promise?

In fact, we should be even more comforted brothers and sisters, for we know His name.

It is Jesus.

He is the Ruler from old, born in Bethlehem.

And one day, He will return, just as He left.

And when He does, He will finally gather the true Israel, the flock of God that trusts in the Son of God and He will shepherd them forever as the powerful King of Glory.

THE HOLY WITNESS (5:7-15)

So that is comforting message number 1.

God will keep a people for Himself to shepherd through a powerful King.

Let’s look at the send comforting message which comes after the Messianic promise in chapter 5. These are the very words of God.

Micah 5:7–15 ESV

Then the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples like dew from the Lord, like showers on the grass, which delay not for a man nor wait for the children of man. And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the forest, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep, which, when it goes through, treads down and tears in pieces, and there is none to deliver. Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries, and all your enemies shall be cut off. And in that day, declares the Lord, I will cut off your horses from among you and will destroy your chariots; and I will cut off the cities of your land and throw down all your strongholds; and I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no more tellers of fortunes; and I will cut off your carved images and your pillars from among you, and you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands; and I will root out your Asherah images from among you and destroy your cities. And in anger and wrath I will execute vengeance on the nations that did not obey.

We do not have the time to do a deep dive on these verses.

But in terms of an overview, there are two oracles in these verses.

THE TWO ORACLES

The first oracle is in v. 7-9.

REFRESHMENT (v. 7)

The Remnant of Jacob will be in the midst of nations and they will be like dew from the Lord that is on the grass in the morning.

Now for me, dew is annoying. It gets all over my shoes and makes the yard un-walkable on summer mornings.

But in ancient Israel, dew was key. In a dry climate, it was natural refreshment that was provided by God for a parched land.

Well what we are seeing in 5:7 is that God’s faithful remnant will be like dew on the grass.

They will be a refreshment to the parched nations.

This is a picture of who Israel was supposed to be--a light to the Gentile nations.

And this is a picture who God’s faithful remnant will be after the Ruler from old has come.

Once Christ has come and freed the captives through His death and resurrection and He ascends and pours out His Spirit, He sends His faithful remnant out into the world to be His witnesses from Jerusalem to the end of the earth.

And as they do it, they are a refreshment.

JUDGMENT (v. 8-9)

But that is only one part of the first oracle.

The second part says that they will be like a lion tearing apart beasts in the forests and conquering enemies.

This sounds ferocious, not refreshing.

But what the image does is remind us that the Gospel preached by God’s faithful remnant is only refreshing if it is received.

If it is not received, it becomes a message of judgment that treads down and tears in pieces.

Christ is the Hope of the Nations for those who receive His message.

But Christ is the Judge of the Nations for those who reject Him.

And that is why the faithful people of God are depicted as this ferocious lion.

The message from their mouth is like sharp teeth to a soul unwilling to receive it.

And the fruit of their unbelief will be brought to bear on the day when God’s people have their hand lifted up over their adversaries and all of God’s enemies are cut off forever in judgment (v. 9).

The second oracle is in v. 10-15.

What we are seeing in these verses is that God is going to cleanse His people and purge from them every idol they have been relying on.

They have made an idol of military might, therefore the horses and chariots will be cut off and destroyed (v. 10)

They have made an idol out of the ingenuity to fortify a city, therefore the cities will be cut off and the strongholds will be thrown down (v. 11)

They have trusted in sorcerers and divination, therefore the sorceries will be cut off and there will be no more fortune tellers (v. 12)

They have bowed down to carved imaged, therefore the false idols and pillars and carved trinkets will be cut off (v. 13-14)

And then, after the Lord has purged His own people of these things, He will deal with the pagan nations (v. 15)

Judgment begins at the house of God

This purging of the idols is a reminder to us that what Vance Havner loved to say is true:

God saved us to make us holy not happy.

Vance Havner

When God saves, He saves to sanctify.

He gives the soul life and purifies it through the power of His Spirit.

He conforms it to the image of His Son.

And that saved, sanctified, purified, conformed soul, is sent out in the power of the same Spirit and they become a holy witness.

And this is exactly what we are seeing in these verses.

Message #2: The Lord will keep a people for Himself to as a holy witness to the nations.

THE CHURCH AS A WITNESS

The Ruler from Bethlehem has a mandate from the One who sent Him.

He is to gather the people of God to Himself from the nations.

He has sheep from ethnic Israel.

He has sheep from Gentile nations.

And He is gathering them up into one flock and He will be the One Shepherd over that flock:

John 10:16 ESV

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

So according to Jesus in John 10, how do sheep come into the fold?

By listening to His voice.

And how do we hear His voice today?

Hebrews 1:1–2 ESV

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

We hear Him through His Word.

His Speech.

And who has been sent with His Word?

2 Corinthians 5:18–20 ESV

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

You have.

We have.

See--God is assembling His flock from the nations, just as He promised He would.

And as He does it, He has chosen to make us His witnesses in the world.

We are the ambassadors taking the word of the King to the nations.

But as we go, we do not remain as we are.

He is sanctifying us.

He is driving out all of those idols we have relied upon.

He is purging us of all the inferior trusts so that we will just trust in Him.

And then He sends out our sanctified lives into the world as holy witnesses for Him.

What this means is that our lives have incredible purpose.

We are not saved to be hidden away in a temple somewhere chanting and contemplating.

The King has rescued us in order to raise us up as His heralds.

He is purging our idols, which is painful at times, but it is all working to make us more effective ambassadors for His Kingdom.

These words are a comfort to a faithful remnant.

Sometimes doing the right thing is hard when no one else is doing it and you can feel like you are not making a difference.

But here is the Lord saying to the minority who sought His heart— “I am making you holy so that you can be a gentle dew and a ferocious lion. I have a purpose for you in the midst of these nations.”

And He is still saying that to His faithful people today.

FORGIVING SIN AND FULFILLING PROMISES (7:18-20)

And then we have our final comforting message of Micah. It is found in Micah 7:18-20. These are the very words of God.

Micah 7:18–20 ESV

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.

FORGIVENESS OF SIN

When we are reading the prophets and we see the phrase, Who is a God like you, it should always draw our attention back to Exodus 15.

This was where Moses and the Israelites sing on the shore of the Red Sea after Pharaoh’s army is swallowed up by the waters crashing down on them.

Well here in Micah 7, those words are alluded to because there is another victory being described, but it is greater than God’s victory over Pharaoh and his army.

This is about victory over His people’s sin.

He will cast our sins into the depths of the sea like he cast the Egyptian enemies into the depths of the sea (v. 19)

And His victory over sin results in total forgiveness for His people:

Iniquity pardoned (v. 18)

Transgression passed over (v. 18)

Anger is not retained (v. 18)

Iniquities are tread underfoot (v. 19)

But how can this be?

If God is just and holy, how can He forgive sin?

There can only be one answer.

Once again we turn our hearts to the Ruler from old.

We turn to the King born in Bethlehem.

He is the Vessel of Victory that God purposes to obtain our forgiveness and His inheritance.

God can pardon iniquity because Jesus died as if He committed it.

God can pass over transgression because Jesus died as if He was a transgressor.

God can relent His anger because it was poured on His Son.

God can tread our iniquity underfoot because Christ was tread under feet of God’s justice and wrath.

In order to forgive us and remain just, His Son--God in the flesh--had to be the Justifier.

Romans 3:25–26 ESV

(Christ) whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

HIS INHERITANCE

And in justifying all of His saints through His Son, He is forming that people for Himself.

He is calling them out of the world and reconciling them to Himself through the blood of Jesus the Justifier.

And that people are finding out that in Christ, all of the promises of God are finding their YES and AMEN.

Notice the use of Jacob and Abraham’s names in v. 20.

By calling to mind the patriarchs, Micah is making a point:

By redeeming His people from their sin and creating a holy nation for Himself, the Lord is keeping all of the promises that he made to Abraham and his sons and grandsons.

See, the New Testament is very clear on who the children of Abraham are. I’m not sure why we get fuzzy on this.

It has nothing to do with blood or sovereign borders.

It has everything to do with faith.

Galatians 3:28–29 ESV

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Who are the heirs according to the promises made to Abraham?

Those who belong to Christ and who are one in Christ Jesus.

Why? Because they believe like Abraham.

They are sons of God and part of Abraham’s offspring, the true Israel, because they believe:

Galatians 3:26 ESV

for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

So in Micah 7:20, when Micah promises that God will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, what is being said is this:

Those who are children of Abraham by faith are still going to have every promise made to Abraham kept.

He was promised that a great nation would come from him and this is happening as God assembles a faithful flock through the powerful King.

He was promised that through him all the nations would be blessed and this is happening as God’s remnant is like the refreshing morning dew, bringing the message of salvation to the world.

Those who are in Christ and who are sons of God by believing like Abraham are the remnant of God’s inheritance (v. 18)

They are the faithful flock that God promises to His own Son as an inheritance of nations in Psalm 2.

And they are the ones that God is keeping His promises to in faithfulness and love (v. 20).

Message #3: The Lord will keep a people for Himself by forgiving their sin and keeping His promises.

God has not forgotten a single one of His Words.

They are all being fulfilled in THE WORD--Christ the King.

And all who trust in Him will find their sin is removed and every promised blessing is added unto them.

CONCLUSION

Now let’s bring it all together for one final encouragement for those of you who might feel like Juror #8 today.

Those of you who are struggling to keep doing what is right.

Those of you who are weary from feeling like a minority of faithfulness in a sea of unfaithfulness.

I have found that when you are just trying to do what is right and you feel like you are hitting your head against a wall, it feels like a storm.

During a bad storm, it is one catastrophe to the next.

There is fear and frustration and frantic behavior.

And I think that is exactly how we tend to act when we are at the end of our rope and we feel like faithfulness is becoming too hard to bear.

We get scared and want to retreat.

Or we get frustrated and want to lash out.

Or we get frantic and do things that are out of our character.

And none of those responses honor the Lord.

So how do we?

Well, we have had three messages to the faithful remnant of Judah this morning:

Message #1: The Lord will keep a people for Himself to shepherd through a powerful King.

Message #2: The Lord will keep a people for Himself to as a holy witness to the nations.

Message #3: The Lord will keep a people for Himself by forgiving their sin and keeping His promises.

If we boiled them all down to One Big Comforting Encouragement for the Faithful it would look something like this:

Hold fast. God keeps you as His forgiven flock, led by a mighty King, shining before the nations.

Hold fast is a maritime term.

It is something sailors yell to one another in a storm.

Don’t get scared. Don’t get frustrated. Don’t get frantic.

Hold fast. Do what you have been trained to do.

Well as we close this morning, I won’t say do what you are trained to do.

For us as Christians, in many ways, holding fast is more about knowing what we are trained to know.

We know that our sins have been cast into the sea and trampled underfoot.

We know that this has been accomplished by Micah’s promised King--Jesus, the Christ of God.

And we know that we are His ambassadors in the nations--a morning dew to those who believe...a ferocious lion to those who do not.

And we know that He will not let one promise fall to the ground unkempt.

So tomorrow, wake up and whether you stand alone or with a few--stand.

Read your Bible.

Pray to your Savior.

Go into the world.

Seek to obey Him.

Seek to teach others to obey Him.

Come home.

Eat a dinner.

Take a long nap.

And get up tomorrow and do it again.

And when the storms inevitably swell...

Remember what you know.

Remember who you know.

Hold fast.

God is faithful to His remnant.