Acts chapter 20, and we'll read
verses 7 through 12. Paul is at Troas, and he stayed
there for seven days, and he's about to leave there. He won't
see them for quite a long time, and he might not see them ever
again. He doesn't know, but let's read
this together. Acts 20 verse 7, And upon the
first day of the week, When the disciples came together to break
bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow,
and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many
lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together.
And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being
fallen into a deep sleep. And as Paul was long preaching,
he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft,
and was taken up dead. And Paul went down and fell on
him, and embracing him, said, Trouble not yourselves, for his
life is in him. For it had come into him again.
This boy was dead. When he therefore was come up
again, and had broken bread and eaten and talked a long while,
even to a break of day, so he departed. And they brought the
young man alive and were not a little comforted." We want
to look at this story tonight as an example and as an allegory
of the danger and the cares of this world which believers face. I want to show you three points
here. First of all, we'll see the watchfulness
of the believer. And then secondly, we'll see
the danger that we face as believers. And then thirdly, we'll see the
cure for this danger. I've titled this, The Danger
of Falling Asleep. First of all, we see something
here about the watchfulness of believers. It says there in verse
7, Now this is a happy picture here
of a family of believers who are spiritually healthy. They're
walking in the light of Christ. They're feeding upon the gospel.
They're watching. They're waiting for the day of
our Lord's return. That's what believers do. This
is our life. What we see in that verse right
there that they're doing is really our life. That is our life. They
met there on the first day of the week. Our Lord Jesus arose
from the dead on the first day of the week, on a Sunday. And
Christ is first in the heart of the believer. That's why we
worship. We don't have to be yoked by law to worship God. We don't have to be compelled
and prodded by men to worship God. If you have a heart to worship
God, you want to be where His people are, where the gospel
is. He's first in your heart. He has preeminence in the heart
of the believer. And we seek, in all things, we
seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. We seek
to, in all our worldly concerns, Christ is first. The gospel of
our Redeemer and His brethren is what's first. We seek to honor
Him in everything we do. We want to walk after His will.
And we want to be where the gospel is preached and where brethren
are. That's the believer's life. We give him of the first fruits. We give him first of the first
fruits of all that he's blessed us with. Christ is first. Look
over at Colossians 1.18. This is what Scripture teaches. And this is what is so in the
heart of the believer. Colossians 1.18. He's the head of the body, the
church, who is the beginning. This is talking about Christ.
He's the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have
the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that
in Him should all fullness dwell. And He has preeminence with God
the Father, and He has preeminence in the hearts of His children,
because He's made Himself so in our hearts. So they came together. Here they all are, first day
of the week, And they come there and they broke bread and Paul
preached to them. I want you to note who came together
there. Look back at our text in Acts 20 and notice there who
it is that came together. It says, verse 7, upon the first
day of the week when the disciples came together. That's what believers
are. Paul preached to them. Believers
are disciples. That's what we are. We're disciples
of Christ. Disciples means a student. A disciple is a student. He's
a pupil. He's a learner. It comes from a word that means
to increase one's knowledge. It comes from a word that means
to hear, to be informed, to learn. We don't have any wisdom of heavenly
things by nature. We don't know anything of God.
We have to have the Spirit of God teach us and guide us into
all truth and teach us these things. Christ is our teacher.
Christ is the prophet, priest, and king of his people. As the
king, he has dominion over the whole kingdom and he operates
and moves all things. He has all power in heaven and
earth. And as our high priest, he's there. He's reconciled us
and he's there and he makes intercession for his people. And he's the
prophet. He teaches his people through the gospel as real today
as he did when he stood on this earth. Christ Jesus the Lord
does. He is the prophet and we must
learn of him. Y'all, we got a bunch of kids. Most everybody here are students.
You go to school every day to be taught by your teacher And
you are a disciple of your teacher. It's not a big word. That's what
you are. You're a disciple of your teacher.
You're a student of your teacher. A learner of your teacher. And
that's what believers are. We come together just like we
do here tonight. to be taught of Christ through
the Holy Spirit, through his scriptures, through the preaching
of his gospel. That's what they came for. And
that's why Paul preached the gospel to them. The last thing
that Paul wanted, and the last thing they wanted before Paul
departed, was they wanted to hear the gospel of Christ to
be crucified. If we live right up until they
take us to the mortuary, that's what we want. We want to be hearing
the gospel of our Redeemer, this glorious good news. Look over
at 1 Corinthians 1. What's so important about the
gospel? Look at 1 Corinthians 1. You ever wonder, why do we do
this? Why do we come here and do this? Well, this is what Paul
said. He said, verse 21, after that
in the wisdom of God, this wasn't by accident, this was the wisdom
of God. After that in the wisdom of God,
the world by wisdom, by the world's own wisdom, by man's own wisdom,
knew not God. He didn't know God. after that
in the wisdom of God. It pleased God. You see that? It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching. To do what? To save them that
believe. Why did God choose something
that this world regards as foolish and a natural man won't receive? He thinks this is a foolish,
ignorant, silly thing. Why did God choose this means
to save them that believe? Christ is the Word. Christ is
the Word. The Word we preach is Christ
in whom crucified. And it's through this Word that
the incorruptible seed, the Word which by the Gospel is preached
unto you, is planted in the heart of a man. So that we behold the
Word, Christ, our grace and truth communicated into our hearts
through God in heaven's glory. And we lay hold of Him who is
the Word, and we eat that roll, and it becomes bitter at first,
but it's a sweet taste once we eat it by His grace. And so the
Word gets all the glory. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He created
all things by the Word, and He creates this new creation by
the Word. And look down the page there.
Verse 25, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men. See,
by this means of God using, He makes men to see that their wisdom
is not, it doesn't even measure up to God's foolishness. The
foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God
is stronger than men. For you see your calling brethren,
there's not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called." There wasn't in Paul's day and there
aren't in our day. Really, they aren't. Why? God,
but God, verse 20, have chosen the foolish things of the world. Who are the foolish things of
the world God's chosen? You're looking at one, there's
one right back there, there's one right there, there's one
right there. The foolish things are believers. He's chosen the
foolish things of this world to confound the wise. And God
has chosen the weak things, that's me and you brethren, of the world
to confound the things which are mighty. And base things of
the world, that's me and you brethren. And things which are
despised hath God chosen, yea, things which are not, to bring
to nothing things that are. Here's the reason. That no flesh
should glory in his presence. You see, if you're going to know
this gospel, it's what comes in the next verse. It's of him
that you're in Christ Jesus. That verse 37. But of him are
you in Christ Jesus. who of God is made unto us, who
of God. If we're going to hear this word,
it's going to be, me preaching won't help you. The Word's got
to come into your heart by the Spirit of God, and it's He that
gets the glory, because herein of God is Christ made unto us. Wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption. You know what we need to enter
into God's presence, into the presence of holy God? We need
wisdom to have wrought wrought what we never could have wrought.
We need righteousness to enter in. We need to be sanctified
to enter in. We need to be completely redeemed
from all sin and be redeemed in our body, soul and spirit
to enter into His presence. You know who that one is? It's
Christ Jesus, our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification
and redemption. That according as it's written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Look over at Romans
10. Romans 10. Romans 10, 12. Paul says there's
no difference between the Jew and the Greek. We've all sinned
and come short of the glory of God. There's absolutely no difference
in us. The same Lord over all is rich
unto all that call upon Him. They're all that call upon Him.
And when you call upon somebody, you call upon them because you
know them, You call upon them because you believe on them.
You call upon them because you trust them. You call upon them
because you've been persuaded that they're able to save you.
Can any of you call upon my dad? Call upon my dad. You don't know
him, do you? You've never heard of him. Some
of you do. You've got Facebook and stuff. But most of you don't know him.
You've never heard of him. You've never seen him. You don't
know a thing about him. Well, look at what Paul said. Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then
shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? Now let's
go down how we're going to be brought to believe. How they
should believe in him of whom they've not heard. You can't
believe on somebody you've never heard of. And how shall they
hear without a preacher? And there's a bunch of preachers
that run that hadn't been sent. That was throughout the Old Testament
Scriptures. How shall they preach except
they be sent? Who's doing the sending? The
same one that descended is he that ascended to the right hand
of God. And he gave ascension gifts when
he rose. He gave some apostles and some
prophets and some pastor teachers and some evangelists. Christ
sent them. He's been given the reign over
the whole operation. And he said from the beginning,
I'll give you pastors after my own heart which shall feed you
with knowledge and understanding. He sends them. If a man preaches
the truth, the gospel. And in spirit and in truth, called
by God and sent by God, God gets all the glory for that. He did
it. He sent them. For it's written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. Now look down at verse 17. So
then faith come up by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
That's why we come here. That's why we come to hear the
gospel. That's why we read this word. That's why we go home and
search these scriptures. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the word of God. And I've said this to you time
and again, that doesn't, when faith comes, the whole, the whole
substance that faith is, and what faith is, it doesn't make
a man just want to say, all right, I got faith, I got saved, I got
that out of the way, and then run off after his lust. That's
not even faith. Faith comes by hearing this Word,
and faith continues wanting to hear, as a disciple of Christ,
the Word of the Gospel, because that faith comes that way, and
it keeps coming that way. We keep growing that way. Look
at Romans 1. Romans 1 and verse 16. It comes that way and it's increased
that way. Romans 1, 16. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein
is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith." The righteousness
of God is how God can save a sinner. and be just, and yet at the same
time be merciful. How can He be a just God and
a Savior? That is the righteousness of
God. It's by God giving a people to His Son. It's by His Son coming
and His Son bringing in an everlasting righteousness for them, being
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, being made
sin for them and putting away their sin, purging them of all
their sin, justifying them before the holy law of God. and bringing
them into a reconciled state of being friends with God. And all that was done, Romans
5 said, while as yet we were enemies. God reconciled us to
Himself by the death of His Son. And this is the righteousness
of God. Wherever the man is put as being
the one who is the end-all and be-all of whether or not Christ
accomplished what he came to accomplish. When men are positioned
and exalted to a level to where their decision makes Christ's
work effectual, that's not the righteousness of God. There's
no righteousness in that. I keep saying that to you. I'm
going to preach a message on that soon, I think. But there's
no righteousness in that. The righteousness of God is God
did the choosing, Christ did the redeeming, the Holy Spirit
does the regenerating, God does the drawing, he brings his people
to himself. Nothing is ever left in the hand
of somebody that's not trustworthy. And those that God saves, we
couldn't be trusted. God had to do it himself. It's
the honor of his name and the glory of his name that's here.
So it's through this gospel that we preach. What I just tried
to say to you is the righteousness of God. How God is right and
how he sends forth his word in righteousness and saves his people
through the righteousness of his son, who is our righteousness.
And then look, it says here, everyone that believeth to the
Jew first and the Greek, therein is the righteousness of God revealed.
It's by revelation, by the revelation of God the Holy Spirit. It's
from faith to faith. First of all, that means it's
from Christ who is called the faithful and true witness to
those to whom He gives faith. And secondly, that means we grow
in faith through this same gospel. It's from faith to faith as we
grow in faith. The just shall live one way.
We don't live by the law. We don't live by our own will
and our own way and our own works. We live by faith. We walk trusting
Him who has the rule and reign in our hearts and who has promised
us that sin shall no more have dominion over you because you're
not under the law, you're under grace. We trust Him. Look over
at 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians chapter 3. 1 Thessalonians 3. Believers are
established and comforted in the faith through the gospel.
1 Thessalonians 3 verse 2. I'm sorry, I had you turn to
the wrong scripture. While you're there though, go
to 1 Thessalonians 1 and look at verse 5. Our gospel came not
unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost,
and in much assurance. That's how the gospel comes when
it's effectual. It comes not in word only, but
in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. Look at
1 Thessalonians 2 and verse 13. For this cause also we thank
God without ceasing. He's the one we glory in. He's
the one we boast in. He's the one we applaud for this
work. Because when you receive the
word of God, which you heard of us, when you receive the word
of God, which you heard of us, you received it not as the word
of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually
worketh also in you that believe. You see, God's word never returns
to him void. It always accomplishes that thing
where into he sends it. And this is one case here where
it effectually worked in them that believed. I think the scripture
I was quoting to you is out of Timothy. Let me just tell you
this. When I said that believers are
established and comforted in the faith through the gospel,
Paul said, I sent Timotheus, our brother and minister of God
and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ to establish
you and to comfort you concerning your faith. How in the world
is Timothy going to do that? Is He going to go over there
and start telling them what good things they've been doing and
how good they are? No. He's going to go over there
and He's going to preach the gospel to them. He's going to
go there and He's going to do what we do here week in and week
out. He's going to go there and preach the gospel of Christ to
them. And through that Word, God effectually works in the
heart and He establishes and He accomplishes His children.
That's why we preach this gospel. I use this illustration to you
all the time, but it means just Paul called David call this more
net more needful than my necessary food Let me ask you this We come
in here. It's like coming to and sitting
down at a feast that our Lord Jesus Christ has prepared. Prepared
by God the Father who chose him, who sent him forth, who gave
his only begotten son. Prepared by Christ who gave his
life for his people. This bread of life, which is
his body and his His blood that we come and we feast upon through
this gospel. We come and we eat and we feast
upon Him through the Spirit of God. When you sit down at your
dinner table and you eat, do you get up then and say, well,
I'm done with that. I don't have to eat for another
two or three days or a week or a month. or a year or whatever.
You don't do. You've got to go back and eat.
If you don't, you're going to die. You're going to starve down
and wither down and die. Well, that's why we come and
we hear this Gospel. And don't just come and hear
the words of a man. Go home and search these Scriptures.
Go home. Don't let a week go by without
reading the Scriptures. Go home and pick up the Word
and read it daily. And seek this Word daily to see
if these things be so. Truly that night when Paul was
there preaching to them, Christ was there in their midst. Christ
Jesus was there in the Spirit preaching to them. Our omnipresent
God, He was there with them preaching that gospel. That's what I pray
every time I come here. Lord, meet with us. Meet with
us. Bless this word. Make it go forth
in power. Make it go forth. I've told you
this before too. The power don't have so much
to do with how the message is preached. There's been times
when I've preached and me personally felt as dead and as cold as a
stone and thought I didn't have any liberty with that at all.
And somebody come running up after the message with tears
in their eyes and tell me how Christ just overjoyed their heart
in the message. It has to do with how it goes
forth by the Spirit of God into our hearts. That's the difference.
Well, let's go back to our text now, to Acts 20. They observed
the ordinance of the Lord's table. They broke bread. That broken
bread symbolizes His broken body, and it symbolizes His shed blood.
Paul said, as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup,
you shall know the Lord's death till it comes. Now, I like this
part right here, Acts 20, verse 7. It says, they did this ready
to depart on the morrow, and Paul continued his speech until
midnight. You see it there in verse 7?
They got there the first day of the week. The disciples came
together to break bread. Paul preached to them, and they
were ready to depart on the morrow. He was, and continued his speech
until midnight." I see in that just a beautiful allegory that
goes along with this watchfulness. This is the watchfulness of a
believer. We watch. Paul was going to another
place that next day, and then he was going on to Jerusalem,
and he didn't know if he was going to ever see them again.
And so he preached until midnight, and he visited with them until
the breaking of the day. Isn't that a picture of the believer's
life? We're ready to depart and to go be with our Redeemer. at
any time. And we're like those who ate
the Passover that night when the Lord came through. He said,
you eat this with your loins girded, with shoes on your feet,
and your staff in your hand, and you eat it in haste. It's
the Lord's Passover. Be ready to leave this land.
You're leaving this place. This is not our We look for a
city whose builder and maker is God. This is not our abode. We're looking for a new heavens
and a new earth. And so we eat this watching for
the Lord's return. We're ever watching. And he says
here, he preached till midnight. I want you to see Matthew 25,
turn over there with me. Several places in Scripture midnight
is used, and this is what made me think of this as a beautiful
picture of us waiting until that day when Christ returns. Midnight
is pictured that way very often. We're talking here about the
watchfulness of a believer, being watchful. Look at this parable
the Lord gave. It says Verse 25, verse 1, he
says, then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten
virgins which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
Christ is the bridegroom. His children are his virgins,
his bride. And five of them were wise and
five were foolish. And they that were foolish took
their lamps and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in
their vessels with their lamps. And while the bridegroom tarried,
they all slumbered and slept. They slumbered and slept, and
at midnight there was a cry made. At midnight, behold, the bridegroom
cometh. Go you out to meet him. And then
all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish
said unto the wise, Give us your oil, for our lamps are gone out. They weren't prepared. They hadn't
been diligent. And the foolish said unto the
wise, Give us your oil, for our lamps are gone out. But the wise
answered, saying, Not so, lest there be not enough for us and
you. But go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves."
We're going to see something about that in a minute. Go to
them that sell and buy for yourselves. Where are you going to get this
oil for your lamp? And while they went to buy, the
bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to
the marriage, and the door was shut. And afterward came also
the other virgin, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered
and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Now here's the
lesson. Watch therefore. Watch therefore. Be watchful. For you know not
neither the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh. He's
coming again. Christ is coming again. Look
at Mark 13. to your right there, just a few
pages, Mark 13. Verse 32, Of the day and that
hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven,
neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye he Watch and pray, for
you know not when the time is. For the son of man is as a man
taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority
to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the
porter to watch. Watch ye therefore, for you know
not when the master of the house cometh, at even or at midnight,
or at the cock crowing, or in the morning, lest come and suddenly
he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say
unto all, watch. You see these things, I'm trying
to show you here under this heading of watchfulness. This is the
believer's life. We are disciples taught of the
Lord, taught of Christ, our prophet, through his gospel. We gather
to remember his broken body and his shed blood. We're ready to
depart to be with Christ at any time. We're watching, for we
know not when he shall return. We're watching, so watchful.
Now, here's the second thing I want us to see in this. Back
at our text, Acts 20. Here's the danger that believers
face. The danger that we face is falling
asleep. Falling asleep. Look at verse
8. And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they
were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain
young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep. And
as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell
down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. As far as
the literal conditions in that place, they're up in a loft,
up in a high place, and there's a bunch of lights up there, and
probably gas oil, you know, old lamps, and there's probably fumes
up there, and that may have been what caused this boy to get sleepy
and to fall asleep. It was probably crowded, it was
hot, you know. But I want you to see something. There was a bunch of lights there.
Our slumbering is always our fault. It's not God's fault.
Christ is the light. Christ was there. There was many
lights there. His brethren were there. You
shine as lights in the world. This gospel of the glorious gospel
of Christ, that glorious light of the gospel of Christ was there.
All three of these were present in that place. But even with
all these lights, the danger is growing lukewarm. Growing
lukewarm. Look where he was sitting. Verse
9 says, he sat in a window. The window is a place in between. When you're sitting in a window,
you're not in the light of the inside, and you're not in the
darkness of the outside. When you're sitting in a window,
you're between the hot of the inside and the cool of the outside. You're not really in and you're
not really out. You're just somewhere in between
when you're sitting in a window. I've said this several times,
but we're going to look at it again. Revelation 3, 314. I think this is another one of
those scriptures that might have a message coming soon too. Revelation
3. Revelation 3. This window here, we see an example
of being in a seat that's neither cold nor hot. It's neither light
nor dark. It's somewhere in the middle.
It's just lukewarm. And that's one of the greatest
dangers a believer faces, is to lose our zeal. And we do that
by thinking we don't have need of anything. Look at Revelation
3.15. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.
I would that thou wert cold or hot. So then, because thou art
lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of
my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich,
and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. And knowest
not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind,
and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold
tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich." You remember what the
parable said? Those wise virgins, they said, go to them that sell
and buy. This is where you come sell and
buy. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking. He says, I counsel you to buy of me. come without
money without price come by of me gold tried in the fire come
by this this faithful never failing gold it's more precious than
the gold and silver that perishes the precious blood of christ
jesus the lord come by of me come be washed in this blood
he says he says and white raiment that you may be clothed the righteousness
of Christ that the shame of our nakedness does not appear and
anoint thine eyes with eye salve that they may see with the gospel
that that just like when he took that blind man out of the town
and he spit in his eyes and he this is this eye salve of the
gospel he says as many as i love i rebuke and chasten be zealous
therefore and repent be zealous therefore You don't like to drink anything
that's lukewarm. We don't really like this water
right here is lukewarm and I'm drinking and it's not very good. It's just lukewarm. I like cold
water, either cold, something cold or something hot, but not
lukewarm. That's what he's saying here.
How do we get that way? Go back to our text. This man
was a certain young man. Remember we saw in John, he warned
the fathers and he warned the young men to love not the world. Remember that? We saw that in
1 John. My friends that are in their
60s, you know what they always say about me when I start complaining
about stuff? They say, you're just a young
man. You're just a young man. And that's who this stomach,
this wasn't a babe in Christ. This wasn't a young teenage,
you know, young fellow. This was a middle-aged man. Young
man is always described that way in scriptures. He was a young
man. He had a bunch of irons in the
fire. He had a lot going on. He was busy. He was working.
He had lots of responsibilities. His name was Eutychus, and that
name means prosperous. It means prosperous. We don't
necessarily have to be rich. Let's look at Matthew 6. We don't
necessarily have to be rich, richer than others, or prosperous
above others. The problem comes when we think
ourselves rich and in need of nothing. Matthew 6, 21. The Lord
said this. He says, where your treasure
is, there will your heart be also. When we get so much responsibility
and so many cares of this world, this is what the Lord said. The
light of the body is the eye. Now this boy was sitting in a
room full of light, wasn't he? But he couldn't see the light.
He still fell asleep in the middle of all that light. The Lord said,
the light of the body is the eye. Therefore, let an eye be
single. If your eye is set on the singleness,
the simplicity of Christ Jesus and Him crucified, and you're
hungering and thirsting after Christ, your righteousness, and
He's preeminent in your heart, preeminent in our thoughts, we're
looking for Him. If your eye is single, your whole body will
be full of light. But if your eye be evil, I hope
that means if it's set on something other than Christ, the whole
body should be full of darkness. sleep. And therefore the light
that is in thee be darkness. How great is that darkness? The
Lord says no man can serve two masters. You just can't do it. You can't serve God and mammon.
Now look what he says, verse 25. Therefore I say unto you,
take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, what you
shall drink, nor yet for your body, what you shall put on.
Is not the life more than meat and the body more than raiment?
That is, don't give anxious thought. Don't have your eyes so set on
those things that that evil of those things fill you with darkness
in not being able to see Christ, not believing on Christ. Behold
the fowls of the air. I love this example. They don't
sow. They don't reap, they don't gather in the barns, and your
heavenly Father feeds them. He feeds them. Are you not much
better than they? Which of you, by taking thought,
can add one cubit to his stature? Why take you thought for raiment?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don't toil,
neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even
Solomon in all his glory wasn't arrayed like one of these. Wherefore,
if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is, and
tomorrow is cast in an oven. Shall he not clothe you of little
faith?" We were sitting in the living room the other day, looking
out in our backyard, and I told the kids, I said, kids, y'all
look around, all these yards all around us out here. And they
looked around, you know, and I said, ain't nobody out here
can grow those yellow flowers like your daddy can. Just full
of dandelions, everywhere out there. If those dandelions were
regarded by men as being beautiful and sought after, they would
think I had a green thumb. But God grew those. They're pretty
when they first come up, aren't they? That's just grass in the
field. And you pass by a field sometimes,
you see wildflowers in a field, they're so beautiful. God did
that. He says he'll clothe us, he'll
close us. So he says here, Verse 31, therefore
take no thought, what shall we eat or what shall we drink, wherewithal
shall we be clothed. For all those things the Gentiles
have their hearts set on, the world being, to enter up the
world that don't have anything to do with Christ. But seek ye
first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness and all these
things will be added unto you as you need them. Don't be worrying
about tomorrow because tomorrow it will take thought for the
things of itself. It's sufficient until this day.
If there's enough evil on this day right here, we just need
grace for this day. We don't have to worry about the evil
of tomorrow. I'm so bad about that. You know, Linda's always
saying that to me. If you don't have something to
worry about, you look for something a week or two or a year down
the road to worry about. Well, there's enough evil in
this day. I need God's grace just to get me through this day.
And He's promised that. When He gave that bread over
there in the wilderness, He gave them plenty of bread and kept
giving them for 40 years, plenty of bread, plenty of bread. It
never ran out, but he just gave it to them for the day. He said,
if you put it up and lay it up, it's going to stink and breed
worms. You know what he's going to make us do? He's going to
make us depend on him. He's going to make us walk through
this life depending upon Christ Jesus, our bread, our life. Because I live, you shall live.
And He's going to make us to rest in Him who is our Sabbath
rest and rest in Him. Well, back to our text now. I'm going to have to hurry here.
Alright, this is what happens. when we do that. This boy looks
like to me he fell asleep twice that early. At least that's just
how it's kind of described. Look there at verse 9. Being
fallen into a deep sleep. That's what happens first when
these carriers of the world come in. We don't realize we've fallen
into a deep sleep. And as Paul was long preaching,
he sunk down with sleep. You see that? There's two, two,
two sleeps there. He fell into a deep sleep and
then he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third
loft and was taken up dead. The cares of the world just lull
us into a deep sleep at first. We don't even know it. And then
the gospel is not light to us. The gospel becomes long preaching. Long preaching. I'm preaching
a little long right now. But the gospel becomes, all preaching
becomes long preaching to us. We get, we got other things on
our mind. And then we sink down, weighted
down with sleep and darkness. And that's when the fall comes.
That's when the fall comes. How are we gonna be safe for
it? Here's the cure. We'll be brief here. Our cure is the miracle
of God's grace. Look at verse 10. And Paul went
down and fell on him, and embracing him, said, Trouble not yourselves,
for his life is in him. You see, Paul was an apostle,
and at this time, this boy fell, he was dead. And Paul went down,
and he fell on him, and he embraced him, and he said to them, Trouble
not yourselves, his life's in him. His life's come back into
him. I think we can see three things here. We see an example
of the intercession of Christ for his redeemed children. We
see an example of the Spirit of God entering in through that
intercession of Christ. And the third thing is we see
an example of what this gospel does and the intercession of
believers to God for one another. Because Christ came down, Because
He came down from heaven's glory and He took our human nature
with His divine nature. And because He fulfilled the
law for us and because He went to the cross and He was made
sin in the place of all His elect as their substitute. And God
poured out wrath upon Him. They said, you saved others,
Himself became. So they said, come down. He came
down in every other way. But because he had to die in
the place of his people, that God might be just and the justifier,
he wouldn't come down off that cross. He poured out his life's
blood and answered the wages of sin, which is death. And when
he did that, he purged his elect children of all our sin. We've
been accepted in the beloved since. God put us in the beloved. That was when he effectually
did the work there at the cross. And he reconciled us to himself.
I preached that message on Sunday about Romans 5.10. If when we
were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son,
much more than being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
And on the way home I was asking Melinda and the kids, you know,
what did you get out of the message? And we was talking about it. And they said, what's reconciliation?
So I will tell you what reconciliation is. It means that we were enemies
in our minds by wicked works. We were dead in trespasses and
in sin. And God, when we were enemies,
We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. God did
everything by that death of His Son to bring us, to justify us,
to reconcile His people, to bring us into a state of friendship
with God, where in a holy manner He could befriend us and regard
us as His friends, not His enemies. That's what He did. He did all
that before we knew anything about it, before His elect children
knew anything about it. And so the hard part's done.
He did that by the death of His Son. And if He did that by the
death of His Son, much more than being reconciled, He'll save
us by His life because He's risen. He's risen. And so He's able,
through this Word, to come down and fall. The Spirit of God falls
upon His children, and that enters into the heart, to the hidden
man of the heart, and creates something that wasn't even there,
a new man. And when He does that, Life is there. And he says, comfort
ye, comfort ye my people. The trouble that is so troubling
to all your loved ones around you is gone because he's made
you a new creature and he's made you know Christ and rejoice in
him. And that's what he does. He keeps
doing that through this word. He keeps falling on us. He keeps
sustaining us. He keeps reviving us and keeping
us from that deep sleep to where we fall down and dead. And then
when Paul went down there and did that, it's a manifestation
there. As one of the writers said, the
Lord did, as it were, seal up and establish that last sermon,
which Paul made it so as the young man's life restored through
the grace of God. He showed, Elijah did this, something
similar. And after he did it and the boy
was healed, the woman said, now I know the truth that you are
a man of God. And the words in your mouth are
the truth of God. And that's what the Lord showed
right here, that what Paul was preaching was the truth. And
this is what he does through that truth. It's what he does.
So let's come down. Christ is our life. Christ in
you, the hope of glory. Come down to His feet. Just ask
Him, Lord, to help me, strengthen me, give me grace for today.
Turn me from all the thoughts and cares and things that are
weighting me down in sleep and make my eyes single for You.
He'll do that. He delights to show mercy. He
delights to show mercy. We need His gospel. We need our
brethren. Let us come down and sit like
Mary at His feet and hear this one thing needful of Him. And
we need to come down and watch and pray for one another lest
we enter into temptation. Keep our eye on Christ and pray
for one another. And that's how God's going to
keep us and comfort us until that day when we depart and we're
raised with Him. Look at this last verse. This
is a When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread,
and eaten, and talked a long while, even to the break of day,
so he departed. And they brought the young man
alive, and were not a little comforted. When God takes one
of his saints away, he always comforts you with another one.
You know that? With another child. This week,
a friend of mine, Brother David Edmondson, his brother Jack died
on Saturday, I believe, and I think David preached his funeral on
Monday. And on Tuesday morning, or maybe it was late Monday night,
I think it was Tuesday, David had his first grandchild. So,
but in grace, that's what the Lord does. When he takes one of his departed, if
he blesses us with another one, that he's saved by his grace
and called by his grace, he's always comforting his people.
He's always leaving us comforted. That's what we see here. Amen.