There you go. Thank you. Thank
you. Friend and pastor. Oh, God loves
me to be my pastor. I know you love him as yours. Revelation chapter 1. Let's just
take a Bible and look at the scripture for a few minutes. Revelation chapter 1 and verse
17. Revelation chapter 1 and verse
17. This is John leaned on the Lord
Jesus' breast, loved of the Lord. He saw Christ, saw Him in a special
way. And he said here in verse 17,
When I saw Him, I fell at his feet as dead, and
he laid his hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not, I am the first
and the last. I am he that liveth and was dead,
and behold, I am alive for evermore. Amen. And have the keys of hell
and of death. Two little words I want us to
look at this morning in a different text of scripture. Phrase, fear
not. Fear not. And sometimes at your
leisure, if you have your concordance, you can take concordance and
look at the places, many, many places in the Old and New Testament
where this phrase is used, fear not. It's written from Genesis
to Revelation. Fear not. And the Lord knows
his people. He knows his saints. And he knows
that often they're overwhelmed with this slavish fear. And he
often has to speak to them and say, fear not. And it's just
not the weak saints, it's just not us who are weak in faith
and understanding. He has said it to patriarchs.
He said this word, fear not, to Abraham. What in the world
would a man like Abraham have to fear? Isaac, he said it to
Isaac and he said it to Jacob. Remember what a mess Lot got
Abraham into? And Lot had to arm his family
and go out to fight a nation to deliver Lot and his wife and
their children. Abraham whipped that bunch of
people and came back home and he got scared to death. I imagine
you thought, man, what have I done? Here I am, I've become a man
of war, and now the rest of my life these nations are going
to be coming against me. And here's what God spoke to
Abraham and said, fear not Abraham, I am your shield. Now brothers
and sisters, if God is your shield, what and who do you fear to face?
And I am your exceeding great reward. If God is your reward,
if He's your portion, He's more than enough, is He not? Isaac,
he was afraid, the Lord spoke that to him, comes down to Jacob,
and he found out that Joseph was alive in Egypt, but he didn't
want to go to Egypt. He said, my father went to Egypt,
my grandfather went to Egypt, and both of them got themselves
into trouble. He said, I'm scared to death to go down to Egypt.
And the Lord spoke to him and said, fear not, Jacob. Don't
be afraid to go down to Egypt. Listen, for I will go with you. Now where is it you'd be afraid
to go if God kept company with you? Fear not. Fear not, little
flock. It's the Father's good pleasure
to give you the kingdom. And we come here to the very
last book in the Bible, and the Lord's still patiently dispelling
these fears of His poor saints. And he does it here to John.
And the first fear I want to look at, it's a strange fear,
but all of us have had it. John was overwhelmed here at
the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look here in verse 13. Here's the way he saw Him. In verse 12. And I turned to
see the voice that spake with me, and being turned I saw seven
lampstands, seven candlesticks. And in the midst of the seven
candlesticks one likened to the Son of Man. He was clothed with
a garment down to the foot, gird about his chest, his pouch with
a golden girdle. His head and his hair were white
like silk, as white as snow. His eyes were as a flame of fire,
searching eyes. And his feet likened to fine
brass, as if they burned in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of
many waters. He had in his right hand seven
stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and
his countenance was as the sun shining in his strength." Can
you imagine seeing that? And John said, "...when I saw
him I was overwhelmed, and I fell at his feet as death." There
was no breath left in him. He fainted with his slavish fear. Why? Because he saw the majesty. of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
know down through the Bible, through the Old and New Testament,
people have saw the glory of the Lord, and it's caused them
to be overwhelmed. Don't you and I sometimes see
Him in such a way that we're overwhelmed by Him? I tell you, sometimes we don't
understand our Lord, and sometimes He appears to us in such a way.
How would you have liked to have been standing at the foot of
Mount Sinai when God came down upon that mountain? And it began
to tremble and shake, and there was a fire, and voices and words,
and even Moses himself said, I exceedingly fear and quake.
But you know who was up on top of that mountain? The Lord Jesus
Christ. You say, Bruce, that was God.
Yes. Yes. But boy, how He appeared. And they said, don't let Him
speak with us. will die. Remember Manoah, Samson's dad? They saw this angel and he was
in this flame of fire and consumed the sacrifice that offered and
was going up in the air and they said, oh no, we've seen the Lord.
We're going to die. We're going to die. Ezekiel kept
seeing Christ and he saw him as a man. And he said he had
the appearance of the fire from his waist up where he looked
like fire. And from his waist downward, the likeness of the
glory of the Lord. And every time Ezekiel saw him,
he kept falling on his face. Glorious. He's glorious. Daniel saw him something like
John saw him. And he says he looked like this
burl stone, this colorful stone. And Daniel said his face was
as the appearance of lightning. His eyes were as lamps of fire,
and His feet and His hands were as polished brass. He had this
voice as of the multitude, and when I saw Him, my comeliness,
my beauty, was turned into corruption." And what did He do? He fell on
His face. Isaiah saw Him in Isaiah 6 and
how He saw Him. High and lifted up. We often
quote those scriptures, don't we? Angels, those cherubim flying,
saying, holy, holy, holy. And what did Isaiah say? Oh, woe is me. Woe is finished
with me. I'm coming apart. Woe is me,
for I'm undone. Why were they overwhelmed? This
was the Son of God. Here was Jesus Christ, the Savior. John had leaned upon His breast. He felt so welcomed approaching
Him. But I tell you, he got such a
sight of His glory that he was overwhelmed. And this slavish
fear got such a hold upon him. And the Lord Jesus had to speak
to him and say, Fear not, John. Fear not. Brothers and sisters,
Jesus Christ is incomprehensibly glorious. He is indeed full of
majesty and honor. He's the King of kings, and He's
the Lord of lords. He's all of that. But listen
to this. Fear not, O Zion, for thy King
cometh unto thee, not upon thee, But he's coming unto thee, and
listen to the kind of king he is. He has salvation. And he's
lowly, riding upon man's ass. He is glorious, isn't he? The
Bible says he's higher than the heavens. that he has to humble
himself to behold the things that's in heaven. David said
it like this, Great is the glory of the Lord, but though he be
high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly. It seems so contrary,
doesn't it? Why do they call that oxymoron
or something? Here you have this glorious Lord
that's so high, and yet the needy, And the broken are welcome to
approach unto him. He receiveth sinners, and eats
with them. Come unto me, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden. I'll give you rest. Take my yoke
upon you, and learn of me, and learn this, I am meek and lowly
in my heart." Oh, you come as a Pharisee, you won't find him
this way. You come with anything to bring
with you, to offer, to make yourself accepted, you won't find Him
meek and lowly. You'll find a stern look. And
He'll say to you, one thing you lack. One thing you lack. It's
always lacking, isn't it? But you come to the Lord Jesus
Christ, this glorious Lord, as a poor, broken, needy sinner.
And you can lean upon His breast. He's never turned to want away,
has He? No. That's come to Him. Horatious Bonar wrote that wonderful
song, I heard the voice of Jesus say, Come unto me and rest. Lay down, you weary one, lay
down your head upon my breast. What did you do? I came to Jesus. How did you come? Just as I was. How was she? Weary and worn and
sad. Well, how did it turn out for
you? I found in Him a resting place, and He has made me glad. Don't you love to think about
it? When the Lord Jesus was here upon this earth, and our humanity
so meek and lowly in His heart, and they brought those little
children to Him, and He took them up in His arms and blessed
them. That's the Savior we have. And
though sometimes we see Him in this glory, the slavish fear
says, I can't approach Him. Boy, I tell you, I tell you,
Peter, the Lord got the pan of water and stooped down to wash
Peter's feet, and he said, No, Lord, you can't do that. Why
did Peter think that way? He had been with the Lord on
the Mount of Transfiguration. He saw his countenance outshining
the sun, and his raiment became as light. And a voice from heaven
said, This is my son. He knew this Lord was glorious
and now he takes a pound of water and he bows towards Peter's feet? No, Lord, you can't do that.
Yes, He can. Yes, He can. Catholicism came
up with this thing a few hundred years ago that we need a mediator
between us and Christ. And you know why they came up
with that? For the very thing that I've been talking about
to you here this morning. They said, this Christ is so glorious,
you can't approach Him. You need a mediator between you
and Christ. So they came up with Mary. We
need a mediator. We must have a mediator between
us and God. But brothers and sisters, we
need no mediator between us and Jesus Christ. He's approachable. Come to Him as guilty and as
sinful and as needy and broken as you are. And He'll never turn
you away. Fear not. Turn over to the book
of Luke with me and look at another fear not. Look in Luke chapter
12. Here's another fear. Here's a
fear that sometimes we have of confessing Christ. You ever have
any problem confessing to the Lord Jesus? It's easy to get
up here. I mean, you know you have to
be prepared. But it's easy to get up here and preach. You can
get so bold and catch it. Everybody's behind you. Go out
to the shop and face a boss that hates Christ. And have a door of opportunity
open to you to witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not too
easy then, is it? Have a neighbor lady that hates
the Lord Jesus. Have some relatives at Thanksgiving
dinner that hates the Lord. People think because you're a
preacher, it's so easy for you to go out there and witness the
people. It's not easy for me. Sometimes, to be honest with
you, I'm very intimidated. And so was the Apostle Peter.
It didn't take much for him to deny Christ, just a little maid.
Opened her mouth and it looked like a lion ready to swallow
him up. It's not easy, is it? We've got
this flesh to contend with. And this is what this text here
is about. He says here in verse 8 and 9,
and I say unto you, in Luke 12, 9, 12, 8, I say unto you, whosoever
shall confess me before man, before wicked, ungodly, rebellious
man, Him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels
of God. But he that denieth me before
men shall be denied before the angels of God. And this whole
context here, and you can read it, is about these wicked Pharisees
and scribes and how they hated the Lord Jesus. Look in verse
53 of chapter 11. And as he said these things unto
them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently,
and to provoke him to speak of many things, laying a weight
for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth that
they might accuse him. And look in chapter 12 and verse
1. In the meantime, when there were
gathered together in an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch
that they trove one upon another, they began to say, he began to
say unto his disciples, first of all, Beware of the leaven,
the teaching, the doctrine of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered
that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known.
Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard
in the light, and that which hath been spoken in the ear,
in the closet, shall be proclaimed upon the house top. And I say
unto you, my friends, be not afraid of them which kill the
body. And after that they have no more that they can do, but
I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear. Fear him which after he
hath killed hath power, I say, unto you to cast into hell. Are
not five sparrows sold for two furlings, and not one of them
is forgotten before God? But even the very hair of your
head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore, you are
of more value than many sparrows. But what's this in the context
of? Confessing Christ. Fear not. Fear not. Don't fear to confess Me before
men, before these scribes and these self-righteous Pharisees.
Don't fear what they can do unto you. Fear God. Fear God. He's the only one that
has power to cast into hell. Fear Him. I've read Foxe's Book of Martyrs
so many times. Some of you have too. Can you
imagine how those people felt, those martyrs? The world hated
those people. Catholicism would turn them over
to the legal authority. They took some of them in the
basement and grounded them. Some of them they'd throw into
tubs of boiling oil, scratch them, lay them from limb, burn
them. And those dear saints of God
felt themselves so unworthy. They cast contempt upon themselves. Can you imagine, brothers and
sisters, being taken by a bunch of brutes or soldiers and set
on a bunch of sticks and set on fire? Can you imagine how
you would feel? And everybody there smirking
at you? Good enough for you, you rascal. What's the matter with you anyway?
And there you sat and you felt unworthy before God and before
man. Imagine how tempting it was just
to fear and tremble and recant. Boy, how many times, no doubt,
this Word has helped some poor martyr to fear not. Fear not. The world hates you, but you
have great value to God. That's what He said, isn't it?
You have much more value than many spirals, He said. The very
hearse of your head is numbered. The world don't know you. The
world casts out your name. The world hates you. But the
Father in heaven is numbered. The very hearse of your head. Fear not. Fear not. Next time you get an opportunity
to confess Christ, fear not. Fear not. Confess Him. Confess
His grace. Remember, you're not the first
person to have trouble confessing the Lord Jesus Christ. Look in Luke chapter 12. Here's
another fear not in verses 22 and 23. Here's a fear not that
dispels fear and anxiety. and the worry of self-preservation. Look what he said in verse 22. And he said unto his disciples,
Therefore I say unto you, take no thought, take no anxious thought
for your life. What shall we eat? Neither for
the body, what shall we put on? The life is more than meat, and
the body is more than raiment. Now consider this, he said. Consider
the raven. For they neither sow nor reap,
neither have storehouses nor barns, and God feedeth them.
How much more are you better than the fowls? And which of
you, with taken thought, can add to his stature one cubic? If you be not able then to do
that which is least, why are you taking these anxious thoughts
for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they
grow. They don't toil. They don't spin, and yet I say
unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arranged like
one of these. If then God so clothed the grass
which today is in the field, and tomorrow is cast into the
oven, how much more will He clothe you, O ye of little faith? And seek not ye what we shall
eat, or what we shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful minds. For all these things do the nations
of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you have
need of these things. But rather seek ye the kingdom
of God, and all of these things shall be added unto you. And
look what he says in verse 32, Fear not, you little flock, It
is your Father's good pleasure to give unto you the kingdom. Brothers and sisters, how often
are we so anxious about this life? And how often does it interfere
with our worship and our service to our Lord? We're so anxious
as though our anxiety is going to keep things from going bad.
If I worry enough about this economy, surely it won't go bad. Well, you're going to lose your
social security unless you're awful anxious about it. All of
these bad things are going to happen to me tomorrow unless
I get sick tonight worrying about it. One time we went down to
Mexico and stayed all week. And I didn't see a TV and didn't
hear a radio and never read a newspaper. And I came back from that place
and nothing had changed. The Lord has upheld everything
without my worrying about it. And get it said. Isn't that amazing? That's amazing to me. And he
says here, what has the Father done for you? He has laid up
for you this kingdom. Why should we be so anxious about
muckraking in this life, and what little we can, and I'm not
advocating being loose with things, but you know what I'm saying.
Why should we get sick with anxiety and fretting about tomorrow and
anything that concerns tomorrow when our Father in Heaven has
laid out for us now a kingdom that is full of unsearchable
riches in the Lord Jesus Christ. Hold it with a loose hand, brothers
and sisters. Stop being anxious about it.
Give alms. Don't get so sick about curing
and preserving yourself, you forget the poor family that needs
a phone call or a visit or some money. Peter went up to that gate and
there laid that poor man sick. And what did Peter say? Silver
and gold have I none. None? He didn't have a dime to
his name, did he? How did that poor man get by?
Oh, there's a God in heaven. That's how he got by. I wonder
what Peter has now. John Bunyan talked about a muck
wrecker. He called him a muckraker. If
you've read Bunyan's work, you'll remember the muckraker. And he
said he was always bent over and had no wooden rake in his
hand. He was raking around in muck. That's all he did. Raked
in muck. The muckraker. And over his head
was a crown of gold. And he never did see it because
he was always bent over. Muckraking around. Oh, children
of God, look to your Father in heaven. who sent his son into
this world to tell us, your father has laid up for you, he has reserved
for you a kingdom. And someday that kingdom that's
reserved now will be given to you in its entirety. Come ye
blessed of my father. Fear not then. Don't fear. Don't fear about anything about
tomorrow. Your circumstances. Oh, Bruce, if you knew my circumstances,
I've got circumstances of my own. But I tell you what we need
to do. Give all of this worry and anxiety
right back to the Father, who controls all of these things
anyway. Look at chapter 8 right quick here, Bruce. Stay here
and look just for a minute. Look at chapter 8. You're not. And I tell you, this seems easy. I can get up here and read these
passages if you're not. But I tell you, it's not easy
to dispel yourselves of these fears. We're going to have to
come here and look at them and grasp these things by faith. And the only way we can dispel
these slavish fears is by the grace of God through believing
His Word. You can't just dispel these fears.
They'll get you down. They'll get the best of you.
Fear not. Look here in Luke chapter 8.
This is a fear that dispels... Oh, a fear that dispels a grace
of fear not that dispels those fears of things going from bad
to worse. You ever thought, boy, things
can't get any worse than they do? Been there, ain't you? Things can't get any worse, and
then they do. I can't bear any more, but you
have to. Here's a fear that dispels this fear, this slavish fear
that we get into that I'm scared to death things are going to
go from bad to worse. Look here what he says in verse
41 of Luke chapter 8. And behold, there came a man
named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue, and he fell
down at Jesus' feet, and besought him that he would come into his
house. For he had only one daughter, about twelve years of age. Can
you imagine how he loved his child? And she lay dying. But as he went, the people thronged
him. He said, Lord Jesus, My daughter's
dying. Can you imagine? Oh, the heaviness
of his soul. My only love. She's dying. He was down. He got down. Then he comes here to the Lord
Jesus, and the Lord says, I'll come and heal her. And he got
so high. Oh, he felt so good. Isn't our
life like a roller coaster sometimes? You're just down, and then you're
up, and you're down, and you're up. The Lord said, I'll come
and heal her. But while he was going to heal
her, This woman with an issue of blood interrupted him. He
took all the time to heal her. And then finally, look here in
verse 49. While he is spake, there come
one from the rule of the synagogue's house, saying to him, Thy daughter
is dead. Trouble not the master. Boy, she's sick. Can't get any
worse than this, yes. Yes, she can. She can die. And
that's what she did. But look here in verse 50, And
when Jesus heard it, he answered, saying, Fear not, only believe. Only believe, and she shall be
made whole. Have you ever prayed for somebody?
Maybe a child, a lost child. You prayed for them, Lord, please
save them. And instead of saving them, He
removed his hand seemingly and they went off into sin, into
immorality, brought shame on themselves, brought shame on
you. And they went from bad to worse after you had prayed for
them. And sometimes you just want to despair and say, there's
no hope for my child no more. I think my child's a reprobate.
I've got a son. I think sometimes my son is a
reprobate. I think sometimes there's no
hope for him. And I've got this awful fear sometimes. But here
is the way my fear is dispelled. We have such a sovereign Lord
that as long as there's breath, there is hope. And He's there to help and deliver
when things are bad. But He's there to help and deliver
when things get worse. And they're bad in our eyes.
And they've grown so bad that somebody comes up and says, don't
trouble the master anymore. He can't do anything. Oh, he
can. He can. Someone said our extremity is
his opportunity. And that's what he proves here,
wasn't it? Fear not. Fear not. I wish I could get a hold of
this little fear knot, no matter how bad things get, to realize
our Lord's in control of all things when they're good, and
He's in control of all things when they're bad. And He's still
in control when things go from bad to worse. Brother Donnie
said yesterday, and it just blessed my heart, what a planner Mary
was. Planned everything. But she didn't
plan to get sick. And she didn't plan to die, but
God planned it that way. And you're content with that.
In all your heaviness, all your sorrow, you're content with that.
One more place, and I'll have to hurry. I've got two or three
more right quickly. Look over at 1 Samuel chapter 12. Here's
another if you're not. I like this one. This is applicable
to us, I think. When the Lord first comes to
His people, finds them dead in sins, He makes them feel the guilt
of their sins. And not long after He saves them,
He makes them begin to feel something else about sin. Sin is corruption. When the Lord first saves His
people, they usually don't know very much about sin. Just that
they're guilty. Before God, they're guilty. Boy,
it's not long. They have revelations. The Lord brings them into a place
that He begins to give them a deeper knowledge of their sin. And sometimes
when they see this, they fear. I remember when the Lord saved
me, it was probably two months or so after that. He opened my
heart, and I'm telling you what, I began to see sin in me. I began
to feel the workings of it and the corruptions of it. And I
began to seek somebody to help me. I need some help here. I
began to seek out an old deacon. Is this your experience? How
can I be saved? And he's cured me. That's what
this text here is about. Look here what he says. This
is where Israel wanted a king. They rejected the Lord and wanted
a king. And look in 1 Samuel chapter 12 and look in verse
16. Here's where Samuel the prophet confronted them about. Now therefore
stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before
your eyes. Is it not we harvest today and
I will call upon the Lord and He will send thunder and rain
that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great? which ye have done in the sight
of the Lord, and asking you a king. So Samuel called upon the Lord,
and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people
greatly feared the Lord in Samuel. And all the people said unto
Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God, that we
die not. Why? What makes you afraid to
make your dying? But we have added unto all our
sins this evil to ask us a king. And Samuel said unto the people,
look at this, fear not. You have done all of this wickedness
and yet fear not? You better fear you are going
to hell you rascals. No. Fear not. You have heaped one sin upon
another. Fear not. That sounds strange, doesn't
it, coming from a prophet of God? And look at what he says. You have done all of this wickedness,
yet turn not aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord
with all your heart, and turn ye not aside, for then shall
ye go after vain things which cannot profit nor deliver, for
they are vain. For the Lord will not forsake
His people, For His great name's sake, behold, it hath pleased
the Lord to make you His people." Now isn't this amazing? And here's what's amazing about
this. When you begin to see yourself as you still are, and you begin
to see that you can't do anything, except their sin involved in
it. You can't worship because of your sin. You can't pray.
You can't repent unless you see sin mixed in everything you do. And you begin to think sometimes,
how could I be a child of God? And here's what he says, fear
not. Fear not. Don't stop cleaving
to the Lord Jesus Christ as your salvation. Don't turn from Him
to try in some other way to save yourself and feel better about
yourself. You're a miserable sinner now,
and you will be to the day of your death. There's one way of
salvation, and that's through the merit of another. And there's
more merit in Him to save you than there is sin in you to damn
you. Don't leave the Lord Jesus Christ. And when He begins to show you,
and if He ain't yet, dear child of God, He will. And sometimes
your sin and this corruption and the working of evil in you
will almost drive you to despair. Fear not. Cleave closer to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Don't leave Him. Nobody else
can save such a person as you but Him. And you dare not leave
Him for the pleasures of this world. Cleave to Him. James, where are you going if
you leave Him? Everything else is vain,
is it not? Oh, there's people in this world, they know they're
sinners. They'd never deny that. But they
won't profess this, everything I do is sin. And I need to be
saved wholly by the merits of another. And He brings us to
this place, not only that we can cast our souls upon Him to
be all our salvation, but He gets glory from that. Somebody
told me last night, Gary Bore told me last night, first time
he ever met Mary Bell, was at a conference there at 13th Street,
years and years ago. He didn't know her. But he went
by her and she was outside smoking a cigarette, talking to a guy
smoking a cigarette. And he said he heard Mary Beth
say, What's wrong with giving God all the glory for our salvation? That's his first encounter with
Mary Beth. What's wrong with that? And I tell you, when the
Lord begins to show us what we are, Added one sin upon another. Don't
you do that? Be honest. Your motives. You
say, Bruce, I just don't see it. You will when He shows you.
It ain't raining yet. It ain't thundering. When He
sends a storm, then you'll see it. In your motives, in your
attitude, in your actions, what you omit, what you commit. When
I would do good, evil is present with me. I love that passage,
it says, if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have
fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ,
God's Son, cleanses us. If we're walking in the light,
why do we have to be cleansed? Because we're sinners. At our
best state, we're sinners. And God has provided for us.
Added one sin upon another sin, and yes, he's added one intercession
upon another. You think your sinning is going
to outdo his interceding? It'll never happen. Bless God,
it'll never happen. Your sin abounded grace. And you put Christ in there if
you want to. Christ does much more abound. Dear brothers and
sisters, children of God, fear not. When you feel your sins,
take an extra, oh, hug Him, hold Him, praise Him that He's the
Savior of such as you are. Look in chapter 5 of Luke. Let's
go back to chapter 5. I've got this one and one more,
and we'll quit. Luke chapter 5. This is amazing here, but it's
true, and I think you can relate to it. There's a slavish fear. There's
a good fear that we have of the goodness of the Lord, a ravenous
fear of His goodness, but there's also a slavish fear we have.
When He's so good and we comprehend His goodness, we see His goodness,
sometimes it brings a slavish fear about it. Can He be that
good? He's not that good surely. I
just can't understand how the Lord could be so good to me.
Look what He says here in Luke chapter 5 and look in verse 3. Now when he left speaking, preaching
to these people, he said unto Peter, Simon Peter, launch out
into the deep and let down your nets for a draught. Go catch
some fish. And Peter answered and said,
Master, we have poiled all the night, and we've taken nothing.
We've not caught one fish. You fellows here that are fishermen,
you know how disappointing that is. Ready to go up the house.
Nevertheless, at your word, I will let down the net. And when they
have thus done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes,
and their nets break. And they beckoned unto their
partners which were in the other ship, that they would come and
help them. And they came and filled both their ships, so that
they began to sink. And when Simon Peter saw it,
he fell down at Jesus' feet, saying, Depart from me, for I
am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished at the
goodness of the Lord. He was astonished at all the
fishes, and they that were with him, at the great draught of
fishes. And so was James and John, the sons of Zebedee. And
Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not. Fear not. What we see fear in? Well, the goodness of the Lord.
We've toiled all night and we've taken nothing. But you're so
good. You come here and you fill both
of our boats with fishes. How good is the Lord? I can believe
He's good to you. But it's difficult sometimes
for me to believe He's good to me. Sorry me. You ever have any trouble believing?
Getting a hold of this business that He chose you to salvation
before you ever had a being? I can see why He would reject
me. But to choose me to salvation? Don't you have difficulty sometimes
thinking that Jesus Christ, when He hung upon that cross, He was
doing all of that just for me? Me, who caused His pain? Me,
who Him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be that
Thou, my God, is not for me? For me? That you would be so
careful to watch over me? That you rule this world and
you work everything for my good? You have trouble with that? I'll
tell you what I'd have trouble with. I'd have trouble if I didn't
think that way. If I thought this was so common that it didn't provoke any thought,
me, that's what would worry me. But to thank the Lord of Glory
would be so careful to abide with me and uphold me, James,
and bring me through my trials, and keep me, and preserve me
to His kingdom. Oh, I believe not for joy. He is so good. The Lord is so
good. Depart from me? No, no. I'm not
going to depart from you. I'm going to be good to you.
I'm going to amaze you with my goodness. And you ain't seen
anything yet. When I get you up to heaven,
I'm going to show you my goodness. When I kiss you right in the
mouth, you're going to kiss me in the mouth? Yes. We talked
about Mary, how she was rejoicing. We forget about how the Lord
rejoices. You think Maryville is happy that she's with the
Lord? Oh, the Lord is happy she's there.
He's rejoicing over her with sin. Oh my goodness. The Lord in His great goodness.
One more and I'll close with this. Look at Acts chapter 27
and look in verse 14. This is the last one. This is
that familiar storm the Apostle Paul and the men were with him
encountered. And you look at this fear not
and it's dispelled. that awful feeling of hopelessness over some storm that you've encountered
in your life. And I'm not talking about a little
flower up in the weather. Sometimes, probably one time
in our lifetime, we face a storm, and it's so
bad, that we really think, I'm not going to make it through
this one. This one's done me in. Job said, that which I feared
has come upon me. He had been thinking, man, there's
a storm coming, and it's going to be so bad. I don't know if
I can get through it. And then it came. Lost all of
his children, his servants, his cattle. Lost it all. set in ashes,
boils all over his body. That's a storm, ain't it? And
look at this one, the Apostle Paul and those men with him faced. Look in verse 14. They were out
on the sea. Not long after that, there arose
against it a tempestuous wind called Uroculum. And when the
ship was caught and could not bear up in the wind, we let her
drive. And running under a certain island,
which is called Claudae, we had much work to come by the ship,
by the boat. Which when they had taken up,
they used helps, undergirding the ship, and fearing lest they
should fall into the quicksand, strike sail, and so were driven.
And we being exceeding tossed with the tempest, the next day
they lightened the ship, and the third day we cast out with
our own hands the tackling of the ship. And when neither sun
nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us,
all hope that we should be saved was taken away." You ever been
there? You ever been there? I see no way, brothers, out of
this one. I'll never get over this hill. I'll never get through
this valley. That's where they found themselves. All hope. All human help. We've tried everything.
We've tried to help each other. We've shored the ship up as best
as we can, and it's coming apart, and we know it's going to come
apart, and there's nothing anybody can do about it. And we look
outside, and the waves are high, and the wind's burning our face,
and we look into the deep waters. There's no hope. We'll never
get through this. We'll never get out of this.
All hope that we should be saved is taken away. But after a long abstinence,
Paul stood forth in the midst of them and said, Sirs, you should
have hearkened to me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to
gain this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of
good cheer, for there shall be no loss of any man's life among
you but of the ship. For there stood by me this night
the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear
not, Paul. Thou must be brought before Caesar,
and, lo, God is giving you them that are with you." Isn't that
wonderful? Fear not. John Bunyan reached a place in
his life and got under such trials and darkness. He was walking
down the road one day and saw a frog. And he said, I wish I
was a frog. Have you ever been Oh, I wish
I slept beside what I am. I wish I was in some circumstances
than the one I found myself in one time in my life. Brothers
and sisters, you may be in a place, you may find yourself in a place,
if not today, tomorrow, that you really think all hope is
gone. But our Lord has been known to
walk on such waters. Has He not? He's been seen skipping
across these waves of trouble and despair. And He's been known
to help those that are sinking out and to get a firmer hold
on them than they had before. There's been many a dear saint
that said, there's no hope for me, only to be raised up and
blessed more than they were ever blessed in their lives. You know what I look for and
what I pray for and hope for? I have no idea what your dear
pastor went through. I begin to imagine the week I
spent with him and Mary, what he's went through. He inverted
the floor up, sat down, five minutes later he backed up, checking
on Mary. Medicines, trying to help her
and comfort her. I can't imagine that. But out
of this trouble, Here is God. Here is how He often works. Out
of this sorrow and the depths of this trouble, it wouldn't
surprise me if from here on out, your pastor does the best preaching
he's ever did in his life. The Lord, to clear his mind,
get him back in the Word, back in his study, to preach to you,
dear families, the unsearchable riches of Christ. And you say, out of this evil.
Out of this awful trial, this storm, God has given him more
than he's ever given anyone. Fear not. Fear not. One thing I don't fear, I never
feared when I come down here, and that's with not having enough
food back there. And I've never had the first
thought, wondering if it's going to be good or not. Next to the
dear ladies up home, you ladies are the best. Pastor, bless you dear friend.