Thank you, Robert. Go back to
2 Corinthians 4 now. I fully intended to preach for
us to look at Psalm 133 together. I always prepare Wednesday night
messages on Monday or Tuesday. I dare not wait until Wednesday.
Anything could happen. But this scripture, these words,
this message was born out of trouble. Woke up in the middle
of the night last night, troubled, couldn't hardly sleep, got back
to sleep, woke up again, the same troubles. Not my own, but
others. And other people's troubles are
our troubles. We're told to bear one another's
burdens. So I was feeling very low, very
sorrowful, and this scripture came to mind. I sat in the study
today and began to read it, and it wouldn't go away. I hope you'll be glad. I hope
this will bless everyone in general. I hope it will really bless someone
in particular. Paul just wrote in verse 4 of
the glorious gospel of Christ. The glorious gospel, the ministry,
he preached the gospel and he was not ashamed of it, he gloried
in the gospel. Glorious gospel, glorious good
news, that's what gospel meant, good news. Our message is not
gloom and doom, it's good news. It all ends gloriously. Joy unspeakable, the scripture
says, unspeakable and full of glory. Paul did have an advantage
on us. He died briefly and went to glory,
and he said, I heard things. And he came back, and from then
on, he said, I'm ready to depart. Glorious. Those in Christ who
have seen something of His glory, and you have, and we have, will
soon end up in glory. with Him. That's what He prayed,
didn't He? Father, I will that they be with
Me where I am, that they may behold My glory. And that's about all I can say
about that. We have to wait and see on it. Verse 6 says, He hath
shined. God who commanded the light to
shine out of darkness, who said let there be light, He hath shined
in our hearts, hasn't He? He has. We were in darkness even
as others. So many in here, if not most,
were in darkness even as others. But God said one day, during
the preaching of the gospel, said, let her see light. You remember Paul was on the
road to Damascus. He was in religion, but he was
in darkness. He was lost. But God, rich in mercy, Suddenly a light shone round
about him. Paul said, I was apprehended.
Christ, the light of the world, apprehended him, laid hold of
him, said, you're mine. And Paul, after seeing Christ,
he saw Christ, he heard him, and he was called by him, he
was commanded by him, he revealed himself to Paul. After seeing
Christ, after beholding His glory, the face of the Lord Jesus Christ,
Paul said, I don't want glory in anything else from here on
out. Remember that? He said, God forbid that I should
glory. It's like if you ever looked into the sun briefly,
just looked at it briefly, and you look away, what do you see?
Sunspots. You have a sunspot in everything. If we ever see Christ's glory,
we won't see any glory in anybody or anything, or at least it will
be far less. God's creation is glorious. Yes,
it is, but it's all a picture of Christ. So He's shined in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels. The treasure, the gospel treasure,
Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Hidden treasure. Kingdom of God is hidden in Christ. Hidden. He said up there in verse
4, 3, if our gospel is hid, it's hid to them that are locked.
God of this world blinded their mind. But He's opened our eyes
and our mind. We see Christ, don't we? With
the eye of faith. We don't see Him with physical
eyes. Things that are unseen are eternal. But that's who we're
looking to and looking for and trusting in. The world says that's
foolish. Well, fine. Paul said, we're
fools, for Christ's sake. But here's the fool that said,
no, God. Here's the fool that's invested
everything he has, his whole life, in perishing things of
clay, born but for one brief day. like asleep. That's foolish. Here's wisdom. Set your affection
on things above, where Christ, the eternal one, sits. And we'll
someday sit with him. So we have this treasure in earthen
vessels. Back in 1 Corinthians 15, it
says this, as is the earthy. 1 Corinthians 15. It says, first
man is of the earth, earthy. Second man is the Lord from heaven,
as is the earthy, as such are they also that are earthy. That's
us. We're made out of clay. We're made from the dirt. We're
going to go back to the dirt. As soon as our bodies hit the
ground, they start going back to the dirt, the dust in which
they're made. But as we've borne the image
of the earthy, verse 49, we should also bear the image of the heavenly. And he goes on to say, that's
going to happen, twinkle in your eye, Trump's going to sound.
And it shall sound, he said, shortly, any day now. We have
this treasure in earthen vessels. This treasure, you know, we can't
take it in. We're earthen. Our minds, our
hearts can't take it in. Our Lord said, I have many things
to say unto you, but you can't bear them. You can't take them
in. If we really were completely
engulfed by the glory of God, we couldn't live here. We wouldn't
want to live here. We've got just enough to whet
our appetite and to make us long for it. We can't retain it, we
can't fully realize it, we can't perfectly believe. We've got
this thing called flesh that gets in the way. We can't see. The Lord knows it. He knows our
Frank, what our flesh. He took flesh. He, can I say
this, limited himself to flesh and lived by faith just like
us. But he was a happy man. He only lived 33 years. Most of you are double that and
more, aren't you? That's all he lived. That's a short life
then. That's very young then. Did he live life to its fullest?
Did he live life more abundantly? But we want to see, he came to
die. Now what do we know about that?
That's why he came, that we might live. He wasn't born to live,
he was born to die. We're born to die. And yet, we're
going to live because of Christ. With Clay Potts, and he's referring
to preachers, Paul, Timothy says we, we, we, we all through this.
He's talking about Paul, he's talking about himself, talking
about Silas, Timothy, Titus, Luke, the physician, don't think
he wasn't a preacher. But those four men traveled everywhere
together, were put in jail together, were beaten together. for the
gospel's sake." And they said, fine. If you just want to go
back and read for yourself, 1 Corinthians 4, 6, on and on it goes, 2 Corinthians,
all the troubles that they went through. And God brought them
through. I love them. I love them. And in a minute we're going to
see, he says, there's a slight affliction. But he says, we're
just clay pots. We have this excellent, that
the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. Isn't
it true that sometimes you're so blessed by the preaching from
a sinner, an old railroader? There's a railroader. Railroaders are about as common
as dirt, aren't they? And if you work on it, you're
going to be dirty. Cinder, smoke all over you. Has
there ever been a time where you've been blessed by the preaching
of this clay pot? And you know that it's not that
man, it's the Lord speaking to us in this room. That's how you
know. That's how I know. The way we hear him preach. We
talked about that Sunday, that he's going to clear everything
up. We're going to hear him preach messages and we're going to say,
I never heard that before. Or not like that. The half wasn't
told. Just earthen vessels. And verse
7, because we're earthen vessels, we're troubled on every side. Bound. to this earth, to this
flesh, and we've got troubles on every side, before us, behind
us, to the right, to the left. Man that is born of woman is
a few days and full of trouble. Trouble-filled days. Troubles
without. Wherever you go, with everybody.
Troubles within. Troubles in the world. Troubles
in your home. Troubles in your family. Troubles.
Troubles of body. pain, sickness, suffering, by
troubles of your mind, age, troubles of your mind, doubts, fears,
worries. Wake up worrying. Troubles of
heart and spirit. John Newton wrote this beloved
poem. He says, "'Tis a point I long
to know. Oft it gives me anxious thought. Do I love the Lord or
no? Am I His or am I not?" Do you ever think that? Troubles
of heart, unbelief, our greatest trouble, isn't it? But he says
we're not distressed. And Paul's speaking on behalf
of himself and Silas and Timothy, but he has the same source, way
of escape that we do, doesn't he? Same God, same spirit, same
word, same promises. He had to live by faith, didn't
he? And all they went through, we
probably won't go through the troubles they went through, but
they said, we're not in distress. Ships, now and years ago, whenever
they got, they lost power or mast broke, sailed, and they
floundered in high seas, they would send out an SOS, a distress
signal. You know what that means? Save
our souls. Save our soul. You remember the
story of Paul, shipwrecked with all those men, he said, there's
not going to be one soul lost. Believe me that. Brothers and
sisters, we are in the ark of Christ Jesus. And like the ark
of Noah, if this world is shaking and trouble full of trouble and
the winds blowing and the storms of life, we're going to reach
that land safe and sound. As soon as the Lord came in their
ship, remember they were tossed on that sea? As soon as the Lord
got in their ship, they got to land. Not distress. Don't be distressed. Trust the Lord. We're perplexed. Paul said this, he said, we preach
in part, we know in part. Paul had special revelations.
He did. John, just right bosom close
to our Lord, special revelation about it. He said, but we're
perplexed. We often ask, why? Why? Why is this happening? Why? Well, why? Often the only answer we can
give is it's the Lord. He doesn't give an account of
his matters. David, though, said this, and
I love Psalm 73, like Psalm 37, the inverted number. But David said, I was in such
trouble. He said, I was ready to slip.
I was envious at the prosperity of the foolish. He said, God's
people are in trouble. They're not in trouble like we
are. We're all in trouble. He said, is this all in vain?
He says, it's just painful to me.
He said, until I went into the sanctuary. Because God will send
you help on the sanctuary. Right here. Where the truth,
not lies. The truth is prayer. Christ is
true. And he said, I said, foolish? He said, then I understood their
end, that it all ends for the world, that this is their portion. And the Lord showed me through
a preacher, probably Nathan, that he's my portion. And if God is my portion, he
said, my flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my
heart and my portion forever. They're going to perish. And not me. In another place,
he said, he's going to call. I'm Joe. He's going to call,
and I'm going to answer. He's going to redeem my body,
he said, from the grave. They're not in despair. In despair,
the margin says altogether without help or means. You ever felt
like you're in despair? Despair means nowhere to turn.
Oh, brothers and sisters, we've always got a place to turn, don't
we? Brother Ron read from Hebrews 4 tonight. It says, you come
boldly to the throne of grace to find help in time of need.
When is that? Every day. He says, come boldly. You don't need to be in despair.
You're not without help. He's an ever-present help in
time of need. Verse 9, persecuted. Persecuted. That roaring lion. Peter said,
Satan is a roaring lion, seeketh whom he may devour. Our Lord
told Peter that. Peter, Satan, that was our Jew.
Now I'm going to let him have you a little bit. Teach you a
lesson. He did, didn't he? And Peter
wrote in turn. He's a roaring lion, seeking
whom he may devour. Our Lord, in Psalm 22, it's the
Psalm of the Cross, it said, lions compassed me about. He
prayed for deliverance from the mouth of the lion. And I was
watching a video the other day. It broke my heart. One of these
water buffalo, a pack of lions jumped on it. And they were literally
eating him alive. And he laid down finally, and
all those lions were just eating him. And he was bellowing for
help. It broke my heart. Well, our Lord cried on that
cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And God didn't
answer him. Why? So that we will never be
forsaken. It says here we're persecuted,
but he's not going to let the lion have us. Why? Because he
had Christ on Calvary's tree. And now, Christ has him on chains
because of Calvary. We're not forsaken. We're persecuted, but not forsaken.
Christ was forsaken, that we will never be forsaken. Never.
Cast down, verse 9. Cast down, but not destroyed.
Cast down. Oh, we all get so downcast, don't
we? One of my favorite Psalms, again,
is Psalm 42. David throughout the psalm, he
was troubled, he was so troubled. Now he said to himself, he said,
well he said, I pour out my soul in me. I went with the multitude,
I went with him to the house of God, the voice of joy and
praise with the multitude that kept the holy day, but I was
cast down. He said, why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why are
you disquieted in me? Hope thou in God. You yet, he
said, I'll yet praise him for the help of his countenance. One time he said, why aren't
thou so far from my groaning? Is your mercy clean gone? Why
don't you hide your face, O God? He said, He'll help me. He'll
be with me. Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water
spouts, all thy waves and billows going over me. Yet the Lord will
command His loving kind. He said, why art thou cast out?
He kept saying that in chapter 42 and chapter 43. He said, I will yet praise him.
He's the health of my countenance. He's my God. We're cast down, but we're not
destroyed. Nothing is going to destroy us.
Troubles won't destroy us. Tribulation, persecution, trials
won't destroy us. They'll strengthen us. Strengthen
what? Our faith in Christ. Our hope. Patience. Experience. Experience
hope. These trials. Work these things. Let patience have her perfect
work. We're troubled and perplexed
and persecuted, cast down but we're not destroyed. We're more
than conquerors through Him that love death. Now, verse 10, he
says, we're always buried about in the body of the dying of the
Lord. Do you remember the message on Death, always delivered unto
death, we're always ready to die. Remember that? We have the
sentence of death in ourselves. All of us need it. Paul, Silas,
they said we're always bearing about in the body the dying of
the Lord Jesus. Paul said he literally had scars
for Christ's sake. He did. And he was thankful for
everyone of knowing for what Christ did for such a wretch,
you see. He persecuted Christ. He persecuted his people. He
put his people in jail. Christ who boils scars for him. So when the time came for him,
he was more than glad. He said, put scars all over me. I deserve hell. So he said, always bear about
in our body the dying of the Lord, that the life, verse 10,
that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. Christ Jesus, he's called Jesus
here several times because he's talking about his humanity, how
he lived on this earth, testimony, how Jesus witnessed a good profession
before Pilate and everybody and everything. He opened up his
mouth, took it patiently. It's God's will. Scriptures even
says, for the joy set before Him. To suffer? Yeah. That's what He said. He says,
give it unto us, not only to believe, but to suffer. And verse 11, He said, we which
live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake. That the
life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal body revealed,
that is, this eternal life. And Hebrews 11 is so, a great
cloud of witnesses. A great cloud of witnesses who
went through, saw in the sun or stoned, burned, lions' den,
women not accepting deliverance. Now that's not humanly possible. That's superhuman. That's of
God. Only God can make, I told you
about Bunyan, forsake his flesh for an unseen God. That's real. That's evidence of things not
seen. Faith. Willing to lay down life for
one you don't see. That's because he's a real person. He's not a doctrine. He's a person. We believe in
a person, a real Lord. He's called our Father. You can't
see Him. I see His hand everywhere, don't
you? I see His handiwork, don't you? Christ is called our husband. He's called our brother. He's
called our friend. Listen to this. A lady, a sister
down in Bethel, Baptist Spring Lake sent this to me from somebody's
bulletin on the story of the disciples in the storm, you know,
and the Lord came walking and said, be of good courage, it
is I. Be not afraid. Remember that? They all thought they were going
to die in that storm, all of them. They were all scared to
death. And then the Lord appeared and
then they thought they saw a spirit. He said, be of good courage.
It is I. Listen to this. Octavius Winslow,
a long time ago, said, listen to the voice of our Lord in the
storm. It is I who raised this storm, this tempest in your soul. I will control it. It is I who
sent your affliction. I'll be with you in it. It is
I who kindled the furnace. I watched the flames. I'll be
in there with you. I'll bring you through it. It
is I who formed your burden. And I will strengthen you to
bear it. It is I who mixed your cup of grief and will enable
you to drink it with meek submission to your father's will. It is
I who took from you all this worldly substance, who took from
you your child, the wife of your bosom, the husband of your youth.
It is I who took them. And I will be infinitely better
to you than husband, wife, or child. It is I. who have done
it all. Take courage. It is I. Don't
be afraid. It is I, your friend, your Lord,
your brother, your Savior. I'm causing all the circumstances
in your life to work together for your good. It is I. It is
I, whatever it is. It is I. Be of good courage. Isn't that good? I'll put that
in our book. And Paul said this in verse,
let me go on down here. He said in verse 13, we have
the same spirit of faith that David had. David said, I believe
and therefore have I spoken. You know how many battles David
went through? How many scars he bore? How many fights? How much trouble he went through?
Everywhere. And Paul said, we believe too
and we've spoken. I believe. Do you? If you stood
up right now, if I asked you to stand up, tell me, what do
you believe? Could you? Could you speak? Testify? What would you say?
In one word, your hope of glory. Christ. Every one of us. That's a good hope. It's a sure
hope. The only reason it's called hope
is because we're not there yet. But he's there, and he said we're
in it. Trust him. How are we not going
to be cast down or destroyed? Trust. Trust. What does trust mean?
It means what it means. Just trust him, okay? And just
wait. Submit, wait, and you'll see.
You'll see. You'll see him. Coming forth. So, verse 14, knowing that he
that raised up which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up
us also by Jesus and shall present us with you. With you, all things. See, he's telling them, Corinthians,
they had all kinds of trouble. That church had all kinds of
trouble. All sorts of sin in that church. Read it. But Paul said, we're saved the
same way you are. By grace. We're not saved because
we're apostles. We're not saved because we're
good people. Paul said, I'm the chief of sinners. We're saved
by the grace of God. Peter said, we're kept by the
power of God. And so are you. He's going to raise us up with
you. Don't think of them as super
Christian. They're just saved sinners. OK? Yeah, maybe their
faith was stronger than that. But the object of their faith
is not stronger now. Maybe they had more assurance
of that. They didn't have a better hope than we did. Can you hear
me? Alright, he said in verse 15,
all things are for your sakes. Everything. That wasn't Romans
8.28, see? All things. Didn't Paul write
to us? In everything give thanks. While
he was in jail he said that. Boy, he and Silas proved it then. Let's give thanks, Brother Silas,
for these stripes. Hmm. Well, they gave thanks after
that, didn't they? All things for your sake, that
the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound
to the glory of God. Hmm. So many peoples, so much
trouble. It's all been for the glory of
God by then. Now, verse 16. For this cause,
the cause of Christ, we faint not. We're not going to quit.
Oh, brothers and sisters, most of us are right on the brink
of Jordan. 70s and 80s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 50s,
60s, 70s, and 80s. We're on the brink. Do you remember
that message? People on the brink? Joshua 3?
We're going to go in single file, not alone, but single file. And like the first man that died,
Abel, who stepped in that river, raging river of death, if we could hear him, he'd say,
it's OK. It's dry ground. It's solid rock. It's glorious. Come on. Follow
me. We're going to. We're going to. Our outward man is perishing. Look in the mirror. Yet the inward man is renewed
day by day. How? What you're doing right
now. For our light affliction. Now Paul said this, and Silas,
that's all they went through. Works are light affliction. How
could he call that light? How could anything we go through
be called light? It's deep sorrows, deep waters,
deep trouble. Well, light and this sin, compared
to what we deserve. I was thinking today, something
came to my mind, hadn't come to my mind in years, something
I did to hurt somebody when I was just a teenager. I thought, Lord, why didn't you
open the floor and send me to hell? And that's just one of many things
I've done. Light compared to what we deserve.
It's light compared to our blessings. Oh, the Lord blessed us. He sends
just enough. to make us not want to stay here. Just enough troubles that
is. Not that we can't bear them,
but our light affliction compared to our blessings, they're light
compared to the afflictions of some, some others, like Paul. Like a great cloud of witnesses.
And they're light, oh so light, compared to what our Lord went
through. From his birth till his death,
he was despised and rejected and hated and pursued and persecuted
and afflicted. Everybody wanted him gone. So why did he do that? So their light. But here's their
light compared to the far more exceeding an eternal weight of
glory. Why is it called a weight? I
don't know. But it's just so great, so glorious. You know, he said he wouldn't
send on us trials more than we could bear, a burden that we
could not bear. And by the way, we're all told
to help one another with these burdens. But our Lord is the
one we cast all our care upon. our burdens upon. He's able to
bear them for us, away from us, and one another. But it's such
a great weight that bears upon us. Well, the opposite of that
is the glory is going to be so great, so glorious, that in Isaiah
65, it says, the former troubles will never even come to mind. So totally forgotten, it's like
they never happened. We're all going to say, what
troubles? Seriously, that's what it said.
That's what we're all going to say. And He said all things are
for your sake. Our Lord said that in Isaiah
43. He said, I gave Ethiopia I gave Egypt for your ransom,
Ethiopia and Cebu. You're precious in my sight.
I've loved you. I've given men for your, people for your life. The whole world serves God's
purpose and for God's people. You're kidding me. No, I'm not
kidding you. That's the truth. It's all, all things here to
bring us to Christ. I mean, I love quoting Brother
David. Brother David, are you hearing
this? I love what you said. God's out to do us good. Whatever
God's out to do, He gets done, doesn't He? I'm going to do you
good. And He may not appear that way
at the time, but believe Him, trust Him, and we'll see the
eternal glory. So, verse 18, we look not at
things that are seen, things that are not seen, but the things
that are not seen. Things that are seen are temporal.
The things that are not seen are eternal. We put our beloved
sister's husband in the ground the other day. It's been two
months now. We all looked down into that
grave. No one. We put a bunch of bodies in the
grave, haven't we? You remember when the ladies
came to our Lord's tomb, when they were looking in the tomb,
and the angel said, why are you looking in here? Don't look down, look up. He's not here. You miss Him, yeah. He doesn't
miss you. And soon, you won't miss this.
He won't miss anything. Don't look down. Look up. Your redemption draws nigh. Things
that are sane are temporal. Dirt, we're looking into a grave. Oh, grave, we're going to say
someday, where is your stake? Thy stake, thy victory. So he goes on, that's why we
kept reading, verse chapter 5, we know this, this earthly house,
this tent is dissolved, we have a building, we have a temple,
a house, not made with hands, eternal, a glorious body. And
we groan, earnestly desire and be rid of this body of death.
Now he did say in verse 4, we're not just want out of our troubles.
But we want mortality to be swallowed up in life. I'm ready to start
living, aren't you? I'm tired of this death. Let
me say this to young people. Please, don't be discouraged. God gives us all things richly
to enjoy. There's nothing evil or wrong
with things in themselves. Marrying, he's given us wives
and husbands. It's a wonderful thing and we
can't keep them. We won't keep them. Children,
may give us children, may not. We can't keep them. Houses, land,
it's fine. There's nothing wrong with it.
But eating and drinking goes out in the draft. It's all temporary. And don't set your affection
on things that don't last. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and all these things will be added to you. And when He
takes them from you, He hasn't taken everything from
you. Christ is your all. You won't need anything else
at all. So he says in verse 5 of chapter 5, now he that wrought
us for this thing, made us preachers of the gospel, he's given us
unto us the earnest of his spirit, and we're always confident, knowing
that while we're at home in the body, we're absent from the Lord. We walk by faith. Even the apostles
walked by faith, not by sight. Like our Lord did. But we're
confident. Verse 8, I'm confident, Paul
says, and you should be too. And willing, rather. Ready to
be absent from the body and present with the Lord. My dad picked
his funeral text years ago, hoping that it would be preached sooner
than later. He was earnestly desiring to
be clothed on with immortality. And his text was, I'm ready to
depart. The time of my departure is hand.
I'm ready to depart. Fought a good fight. Kept the
faith. Now I'm ready to depart. Ready to go. Got my bags packed. Treasures in heaven. Stand with me. I hope it gave
some peace and comfort to somebody. Lord Jesus, thank you for your
blessed word, your truth, your promises. Oh my. Only we partake of them. Our brother said, open our ears
and our hearts to receive it. Plant these things. Let these
sayings sink down deep in our ears and plant them in our hearts
like a well of water springing up when we need them, when we're
in trouble. perplexed and cast down, your
word, like a spring of life, water in a thirsty land, will
come up from our hearts and nourish us and comfort us and soothe
us and console us. Thy word is our comfort. Your
word has been our comfort in all our affliction. It's good
that we're afflicted. We might learn your statute.
Before we were afflicted, we went astray. Thank you, Lord,
for trials and troubles and afflictions as you're taking your people
out of this place to a glorious, eternal home. Let us look forward
to that day. Oh, what a matter of people we
ought to be looking for, hasting the coming of our Lord Jesus.
Make it so with us, we pray. Let us walk by faith, not by
sight. Give us faith. Trust. You're trustworthy. In Christ's name, amen. You're
dismissed.