For our scripture reading this
morning, turn with me to 1 Peter 1. This will also serve as my text
for the message this morning. 1 Peter 1, beginning with verse 1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia, and Bithynia. Elect, according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience
and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you. and peace be multiplied. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according
to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance
incorruptible and undefiled, and it fadeth not away, reserved
in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith
unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye
greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are
in heaviness through manifold troubles, temptations, that the
trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that
perishes, though he be tried with fire, might be found under
praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ,
whom having not seen ye love, in whom though now ye see him
not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation
of your soul. Of which salvation the prophets
have inquired, searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that
should come unto you? Searching what, or what manner
of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify,
when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and
the glory that should follow, unto whom it was revealed, that
not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things
which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the
gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,
which things the angels desire to look into. Wherefore, gird
up the loins of your mind, be sober, hope to the end for the
grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus
Christ. As obedient children, not fashioning
yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but
as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner
of conversation. Because it's written, be ye holy,
for I am holy. And if you call on the Father,
who without respect to persons judgeth according to every man's
Past the time of your sojourning here in fear, for as much as
you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your
fathers, but with the freshest blood of Christ as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot, who barely was foreordained before
the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last
times for you, who by him do believe in God that raised him
from the dead and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might
be in God. Seeing you have purified your
souls and obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love
of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure
heart, fervently. Being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and
all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withereth,
and the flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord
endureth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel
is preached unto you. I invite you to turn back with
me now to 1 Peter chapter 1. Preached from this chapter many
times. This morning I want to ask you a question. I want to
ask myself a question. And I hope, before I'm done,
I can answer this question truly from my heart before God. And
here's the question. Am I an heir of God? The book that we're reading from
this morning is titled the First Epistle General of Peter. The Epistle of James, 1st John,
Jude, and 1st and 2nd Peter are all titled Epistles General. 2nd John and 3rd John were written
to individuals, but these were written to multiple folks. And although all the books apply
to all believers, these were written, that was the purpose
behind them. They were written for many people
out there, a lot of which even the apostles whose writing didn't
know, called them strangers. Strangers. They were written not to a specific
person or a particular church, but churches in general, wherever
they were. James opens his letter saying
to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, they were dispersed
Jews living all over. And called of God to faith in
Christ. And then Peter, he writes to
the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia, Bithynia, And I thought about this, and
I thought, you know what? Our messages here are live streamed. They're live streamed. They go
out, as did this letter of Peter, to men and women all over the
world. Anybody anywhere in the world who has a computer and
goes on this site can hear what I have to say this morning. And
I'm absolutely fascinated when I go on Sermon Audio and look
at the end of the month to see where all our messages reply.
Last month, 40 different states in the United States downloaded
messages from here. That's amazing, isn't it? This little church out here in
the middle of nowhere, and it's being listened to by 40 different
states, including Hawaii and Alaska. Canada, downloads in
Canada. I had to look up two of them.
I didn't know where the Faroe Islands were. They're downloads
from the Faroe Islands. And if you go up to Norway, and
if you were to look northwest toward Iceland, the Faroe Islands
are up there halfway to Iceland. out in the middle of the North
Atlantic, Russia. And somebody out there has a phone or a computer,
and they went on the sermon audio download, listening to the gospel. Moldova. Anybody know where Moldova
is? I did not look it up on the computer.
Over next to Romania. With Peter, I must say, These
are strangers scattered all over the world. Why was Peter writing
these letters? I know he was inspired by God
to do this, but why, in his own mind and heart, why did he write
these letters? Well, he wrote these letters
because he was an apostle, and as an apostle, he had a concern
for all churches. But I believe also because these
folks, just as we are, and many who listen to us abroad, are
going through severe trials. He talks a lot in these books
about trials in his letter. He just keeps on talking about
trials. And from his writings, I fear
also he wrote these things because of persecutions, severe persecutions
that believers we're going through. So the object of this letter
is to comfort them who are being tried, to suggest certain considerations,
to help them pass through these things, to go through these trials,
and to go through there with a right spirit and a right attitude. But what about you and I? Are
we being tried? It's my experience that every
day in this world is a trial. I'm on a trial as soon as I open
my eyes. I'm on a trial. There's not a single day that
goes by that my faith and interest in Christ is not challenged and
put to the test. And beloved, whether we know
it or not, we need comforted. We need assurance. I don't need
to be scolded like a little child all the time. I don't need to
be corrected all the time. Sometimes I need assurance. As the apostle said, provoke
one another to love. Don't let them off. Don't let
them out of your sight. Provoke them to love. We need
such things as God has given to deal with these trials and
persecutions and daily troubles. I don't know, it's been a while
since our study in Revelation, but over in Revelation chapter
7, John looks and sees all the elect of God. The Spirit's carried
him into glory and he looks through this open window and he sees
all these things that must be and he looks over here and he
keeps seeing these different things. He sees the beginning
when the Lord goes over and takes the book of God's decrees. He's
the only one who could, took God's decree to save a people
for his glory. Nobody could even look on it,
but he did and he took it. And he made it his own and he
fulfilled it. And because he did, he said,
blessing and honor, that's what's going on in glory. And he keeps
looking and he sees the four horsemen. He sees all these things. And then all of a sudden he looks
over here and he sees a throne. And there was a lamb seated on
the throne and it was surrounded by people with white robes. And
John's just taking all this in. He don't know what to say. He's
just quiet. And there's an elder, whoever that was. I don't know
who the elder was. But here's the elder. And he
said, who are these people around the throne? This multitude that
nobody can number. These ones dressed in these white
linen robes. Who are they? Who are they? Jews and Gentiles, a great multitude,
which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and
people, and tongues. And they were standing before
the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and had palms in their
hands." What's significant about a palm
tree? They threw palm branches down in front of the wild ass's
coat when he come through Jerusalem. What's so significant about a
palm tree? Well, I was reading about it this week, and they
said the most significant thing about a palm tree is the more
weight you hang on it, the taller and straighter it grows. If you
leave it alone, it'll lean over a little bit, but if you hang
weight on it, that tree will take that weight no matter how
much it is, and it'll straighten itself out and support that one. Picture Christ in it. And oh,
here they are. They're dressed in white robes.
I suspect they're glistering. That's the way they saw the Lord
on the mount glorified and John seeing them glorified. And they're
white and they're glistering and they're all standing around
the throne. And they're all crying, salvation to our God which sitteth
upon the throne and unto the Lamb. And one of the elders said,
what are these which are arrayed in these white robes and whence
came they? He said, these are they that
come up out of great tribulation. and washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb. This great tribulation,
not some religious holocaust that's coming up on the church.
It's not some final dispensation of time when men and women are
left behind in the rapture for one more chance. That's foolishness. That's religious imaginations
is all that is. And he's not talking about some
particular era in time, some severe circumstances in time.
The Great Tribulation is what believers experience every day
of their lives. That's the Great Tribulation. Why is it called great? Because
it's universal. It don't matter where you go,
it's the same. Huh? The whole world's cursed,
ain't it? It's called Great Tribulation
because it's found not only in the world, but in our very nature. What could be greater than that?
If it was among men, I could leave. I could go, geographically,
I'd move. I'd go somewhere else. Oh, it's in our very nature.
Beloved salvation is from the dead. Did you know that? It's
from the dead. It begins in the cemetery of
our nature. Children of wrath, even as others. Oh, the nature of man. Paul said
in Romans 7, verse 18, I know. I know. I wonder if we do. He
said, I know. What do you know, Pop? I know
that in me, not around me, in me dwelleth no good thing. Boy, I tell you, that'll change
the way you walk and talk when you know that. I find then a law, he said, a
fixed principle when I would do good evils present with me. It's not the evil that comes
in from the outside, it's the evil that comes from the inside
out. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the
body of this dead? I'm talking about great tribulation, not something you can Clench
your fist and say, well, I ain't going to do that. Well, I hope
you don't, whatever it is. But you will. The good that I would, I don't
do. The evil that I wouldn't do,
that's what I do. Oh, rich, who shall deliver me
from the body of this death? It's our nature, the world. He said, if you were of the world,
the world would hear its own. But you're not of the world,
therefore the world hateth you. The world will hear it. You stand
up and preach junk, you can build this place up. You just have
to put an addition on here. I don't care what you do. You
could hire an entertainer to come in here and dance and play
on his banjo or whatever. You can build a house up. But
not if you preach Christ. The ones you thought would stay,
even they leave. John warns us that many false
prophets have gone out into the world, and they are of the world,
therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We
live in a world that hates the God of the Bible. They hate the
God of particular redemption, don't they? Huh? They just want God. and he's
the God of particular redemption. He said, Jacob, of thy love,
Esau, thy hated. Oh, they hate the sovereign God
who does all his pleasure. They hate the God of predestination
and election. They hate the God of all grace,
salvation by grace. Now if you want to, you can get
your good works and you can come in to worship God and you can
spread them out, but I'm telling you, God will do the same thing
to you that he did to Cain. He'll walk by and he won't even
look. He won't pay any attention to
it. And if he does anything, he'll spit on it. Oh, they hate the God of all
grace. And we're surrounded by false
religion. It wasn't the dregs of society
that nailed Christ to the cross, it was religious folks. I dare
say they had Old Testament scrolls in their hands when they were
standing there looking up at Christ dying on the cross. For
sure they had on their broad phylacteries and all these scriptures
that they'd memorized and say they believed in. It wasn't outlaws
and criminals that judged him, it was priests and scribes and
office holders in the church. And whether you know it or not,
you're in trouble. I'm in trouble. Great trouble. You couldn't exist one moment
apart from the grace of God. Not one moment. Not in this environment of sinful
men and in this nature. let alone the working of Satan
and the rulers of the darkness of this world. He takes men captive
at his will. He didn't ask God if it was possible
for him to tempt Satan. He said, just lift your hand.
There's no doubt in his mind what he could do. These ones standing around the
throne of God, these ones worshiping the Lamb on the throne, ones
looked upon. They were looked upon and wondered
at, I read it to you a few minutes ago, by angels, greater than them in creation. And they're looking down on fallen
men, and these men are dressed in white robes, in glory, standing
before the throne, saying, Salvation to our God. And right now, I'm preaching
to you, there's angels desire to look into these things, filled
with wonder over these things. Oh, who are these? They come up out of great tribulation,
soul damning, soul cursing trouble, and washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb. Are they before the throne of
God? Now listen, and serve Him day and night in His temple. You think He has to send out
a taskmaster with a whip? Not for these. No, they serve
Him day and night in His temple. Why? Because He loved them and gave Himself for them. Oh, that God be gracious this
morning. Give us a true sense of the trouble in us and around
us, visible and invisible, principality of powers. Things present, things
to come. And if you will, I have five
things in verses two through seven to comfort you. Help you to face this world with
the mind of Christ. Five things that God Himself
says to His people to assure them of their victory in Christ. The first thing He tells us is
that our hope begins and ends with God. There ain't any hope
anywhere else. I hate to use bad language, but
that's exactly what I want to say. There's no hope anywhere
else. Well, I'm going to reform my
life. Good. You need to. You need to. I need to. But that's not going
to save you. It might make you a better neighbor
to somebody, but it ain't going to save you. First thing he tells us is that
our hope begins and ends with God. And he's not writing to
the world, he's writing to his elect. Not some unaffectionate number. When people write about election,
especially intellectuals, they just like talking about this
abstract number. It's a number. It's 144,000,
you know, it's just a number. It's not just a number. It's
God's children. It's God's people. He called them by name. He knows their name. Don't he? Calls him by name. Lazarus! Come forward. He talked to Moses face to face. Oh. This is not some unaffectionate
number. This is a people elect according
to the foreknowledge of God. He knew us. He knows us. He knew us from the beginning.
Paul opens all his epistles the same way. Grace and peace from
God our Father. And from the Lord Jesus Christ.
God is the Father of His elect and we're all His sons in Christ.
And this election, he tells us, is according to the sanctification
of the Spirit. How do I know who God's elect
are? He sanctifies them through His
Spirit. Sets them apart from the world.
Separates them from the world. Whom He did predestinate, it
says, them He also called. Well, if they're predestinated,
they're going to be saved. Not apart from a calling, they're
not. Every man he predestinated, he calls. Isn't that what that
means? Called out of darkness into his
marvelous light. Called out of death to life.
They pass from death unto life. Called out of this damned race
to become sons of God and blessed. Sanctification of the Spirit
is the Spirit's power bringing us to Christ. That's what it
is. He brings us to Christ. He teaches
us, makes us to understand what this world blinds to. I have
not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man the things that God hath prepared for them that love him,
but God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. How do you
know these things? God revealed them to me. Not in a dream, in a closet,
in His Word, and through the preaching of the Gospel. I heard
a man preach. I heard men preach my whole life,
but I only heard one, and when he was done, I said, that man
called of God. How'd I know that? The Spirit
of God. That's the only way anybody will
ever know. Otherwise, well, that's your
opinion. I don't know where you go, you know. There is an effectual calling
of God the Spirit that cannot be resisted. And oh, thank God
for that. A calling that enables us to
be partakers with the saints. Oh how I wanted, I heard the
gospel preached and oh how I wanted to be in that number. How I wanted
to be able from my heart to call upon God and rejoice and cry,
oh how I wanted that. The Spirit of God enables you
to do that. To be partakers. There's an effectual calling
of God the Spirit that cannot be resisted. And this sanctification
of the Spirit is always, watch this now, always unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ. What's that about? There are certain denominations,
take a little water, sprinkled on your head, they call that
the sprinkling of the blood. That's not the sprinkling of
the blood. Under the law there was a washing,
a purification, and it consisted of the ashes of a red heifer.
They'd bring that thing in and burn him before the high priest.
Burn him, his dung, his body, his flesh, everything. They burnt
him just like they cremate a man. They cremated this this red heifer
until there was nothing left but ashes. And they put them
ashes up. And when a man was unclean, he'd
come before the priest. And the priest would take the
ashes of that red heifer and mix them in with a little water
and sprinkle that man and say, you're clean. You're clean. And he was clean. Huh? He was clean. Now if he walked
out of there unclean, and tried to perform the duties of a priest,
God would kill him. He'd kill him. Those who were priests of God,
considered unclean, they'd touched a dead body, or been around a
mistress woman, or whatever, they were unclean. And they were purged by these
ashes. Now listen to this. This is Hebrews
9 verse 13. Paul said, For if the blood of
bulls and goats, and the ashes of the heifer, sprinkling the
unclean, sanctify to the purifying of the flesh. They said he was
clean and when he walked away he was clean. He was clean. He was considered clean. How
much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God? What's He do? The Holy Spirit takes the blood
of Christ, and He sprinkles it on your conscience, and it's
clear. It's clear. Peace with God. Oh, peace with God. The love
of God. And you serve Him night and day. So here's the first thing. God
has a people. They're elect of God. They're
elect of God. Exactly as I told you right here
in the book of 1 Peter. That's what that election's all
about. Secondly, His election has made
them man. I hope there's nobody in this
place today who dares to think that they deserve the blessings
of God. I was raised in a religion that
did. Everybody in that place thought they deserved the blessings
of God. And they deserved them because
of something they did. Now we do deserve them, but we
deserve them because of what Christ did. Not because of what
we do. Salvation is by grace. The reason
for our conversion, for our calling, is that God has predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will. Several years ago, a man from
Hot Springs, Arkansas called me up. He explained who he was. He was a Methodist preacher.
And he was adopted when he was just a baby. And he lived his
whole life and he didn't know who his father was. And he said,
I've got good reason to believe that your oldest brother is my
father because of DNA. And he said, to put the lid on
it forever, he said, would you submit to ancestry.com to do
a DNA on you so I can be sure of this, and he and his wife
come down, they visited with us and told me the whole story
of his life. And I said, yeah, I will. So
they paid for it, and I sent my DNA in, and they did it, and
ancestry had made a mistake. My oldest brother was not his
father. But this poor man went through
life without knowing who his father was, adopted as a baby,
raised to adulthood, by foster parents. And it turned out he
wasn't my nephew after all. Believers go through life not
knowing that God is their father. This man was so filled with hope,
it just broke his heart when he found out that that wasn't
his father. He met the whole family, went
to the reunions, Oh, how he wanted to know who
his true father was. Believers go through life not
knowing that God's their father until he sends the Spirit to
manifest our adoption. Why would the Spirit of God work
in me? I was the biggest rebel to ever
live. Probably still am. I'm telling you, I was awful.
There were hundreds of people, everybody I knew. If there was
such a thing as dessert, they deserved it more than me. Why
would the Holy Spirit of God come to me and open my heart
and open my mind? Why would He allow me to see
what nobody in humanity has ever seen? Why would He do that? Because you are sons. God has
sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your heart crying at
my Father. That's why. My adoption was predestinated
from all eternity. God was my Father from the beginning. When you read Ephesians chapter
1 and he's talking about blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places and Christ Him being the Father of Christ
is how He's your Father. He's not your father apart from
Christ. Having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children, listen, by Jesus Christ unto Himself
according to the pleasure of His Word. Oh, believers are taught, they
said teach us how to pray. What did he tell them? Our Father,
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Huh? You can't call him our Father,
you've got nothing else to say. All those blessings come from
your Father. Every good and perfect gift cometh down from above.
Comes down from who? Father of lights. Believers are heirs. Heirs of
what? Heirs of God. Joint heirs of Christ. Heirs
of all things. Paul said to the Corinthians,
let no man glory in men. Quit doing that. I heard Henry
Mahan. That's how I got it. God could have saved me through
Peter Pan if he decided to do it. Don't glory in men. What have you gotten that you
haven't received, Paul said? Let no man glory in men. Listen,
for all things are yours. What things? All things. Whether
Paul... Now wait a minute, you're talking
about the apostles? Yeah, they're yours. That's why God chose them. That's why God gifted them. That's
why God gave them. They're yours. That's why I preserved
their writings. That's why I'm preaching from
one of them this morning to you and to me. All things, whether
Paul or Apollos. Here's a man trained, gifted
of God to speak, called into the ministry of Apollos. Or Cephas. Oh, but listen to this. Or the
world? Or life? Or death? Or things present? Or things
to come? All are yours. This world was
created for one purpose. For God to manifest His glory
in the salvation of a people. And so all creation groans and
prevails in pain. What are they waiting for? The
manifestation of the sons of God. This world is yours. It's
being preserved for you. For you. Because in you, God's
going to demonstrate His glory. He's going to manifest His glory
in your salvation. And so the world's yours. That's
how I have to look at it, Russell. It's mine. Glory in men. All things are yours. Why? Because
I'm an heir. I'm an heir. Pharisees saw Christ's disciples,
they were walking through a cornfield wherever they were going. It
was Sabbath day, Saturday. Couldn't do anything on Sabbath.
You could not do anything. Everything had to be prepared
ahead of time, on Friday. Saturday, you just rested. You
didn't do anything. They were walking through a cornfield,
and they was hungry. The Lord said, get you an ear of corn.
They reached over and got it, shook the back, Eating the corn. No one wants fresh sea salt.
Oh man, they had to catch. Do you know what your disciples
are doing? They're defiling the Sabbath
day. Here's what the Lord said. The Sabbath was made for men
and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore
the Son of Man is the Lord also of the Sabbath. The Sabbath belonged
to them. It was made for them. They could eat the corn because
that was their rest. That was their day. It was given
to them. God created a whole race of heavenly
creatures to minister those who shall be heirs of salvation. We're heirs. There's angels standing
before our Father right now. All He has to do is look down
like, man, they're gone. They're gone. Our Lord told them, He said,
My kingdom is others' world. He said, I could ask of my Father,
and He'd send how many legions of angels would be there in a
flash. In Ephesians 4a, He speaks of
Christ's ascension gifts to men. As our Lord ascended to His throne,
He gave gifts unto men. What did He give? Apostles, prophets,
evangelists, pastor-teachers. He gave us the comforter. He gave us the right to become
sons of God. God's election made us heirs. And then thirdly, God our Father,
according to His abundant mercy, has begotten us again unto a
lively hope, a living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. It says in John chapter 1 verse
12, as many as received Him, that is they embraced Him, they
loved Him, they listened to Him, they bowed to Him. As many as
received Him, to them gave He the right and privilege, gave
them the power, to become sons of God, heirs of God of my soul. Believers are born of God, born
of His Spirit, born of gospel seed, born into God's kingdom,
and born to a heavenly hope. Not some fickle hope of men,
a hope in his own ability and reason and works, but a hope
in God, heavenly hope. A living hope, a hope secured
by an act of God. A hope declared by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. We hope in a person. In a person. I have no reason to believe that
God loves me and has made full provision for me and will one
day raise me from the dead other than the person and work of his
dear Son. That's all the hope I need. I
don't need anything else. That's all I need. Christ in
you. The hope of glory. Oh, but there's
more. Our inheritance is secured in
the Savior. All the promises of God in Him
are yea and amen to us. All of them. And because of our
surety, our inheritance is incorruptible. Nothing, nothing can corrupt
that hope. It's incorruptible. No matter
how much Satan tries, and no matter how much I fail, my hope
can never be corrupted. It's incorruptible, listen, undefiled. And fades not away. It's reserved,
he said, in heaven for years. No treasure, no inheritance,
no promise has ever been so pure as ours is in Christ. I give
unto them, our Lord said, eternal life, and they'll never perish.
And nobody's going to pluck them out of my hand. And my father,
who's greater than me, you ain't going to pluck them out of his
hand either, and I and my father are one. So what about the sinner? He is, after all, a sinner. Is
he not? He lives in a sinful world, has
powerful, irresistible enemies. What about the sinner? Listen
to this, 1 Peter 1.5. This inheritance, this incorruptible
inheritance, is for those who are kept by the power of unto
salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time. Faith is the
work of God. It's a good work, being ordained
of God, that we should walk in it. And because it's God's work,
it cannot fail or be overcome. We're not of them who draw back
under perdition. We're kept how we're kept. Through reason, devotion, no. You're kept by the power of God
through faith. That same power that enabled
you to believe, he continues to work. He continues to work. And if he lifted his hand, you'd
be a reprobate in a flash. Paul reminds us that we're not
of them who draw back. We're of them who believe to
the saving of the soul. What we call faith is a product
of man. It's nothing but fool's gold.
Nothing but dross. And it's going to be destroyed
in the fiery trials of faith. But not the faith of God's elect.
Paul writes to the Philippians and he says, being confident
of this very thing. Here's his confidence in those
people that profess faith in Christ. I'm confident in this
very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you will
perform it. Who performed it in the beginning?
God did. So something going to overcome
God? No. He's going to keep right on performing
it. And you'll keep right on repenting and you'll keep right
on believing because God's performing this work. God will perform it
unto the day of Jesus Christ. And then lastly, and I'll be
very brief, let me give you this consideration.
Trials are not given to destroy hope, but to reveal the work
of God and separate the false from the true. That's what trials
do. Trials take away the dross. They destroy all these things
that so cloud our mind and reason. He just takes them out of the
way. And what's he leave? The pure gold of Christ. As much as I dislike trouble,
I'd rather lose a false hope than to awake in judgment with
it, and find I had no hope at all. True faith, when tried by
fire, shall be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearance
of Jesus Christ. It will be found in that day
exactly as it was in this day, that him that's righteous be
righteous still. Yeah, you're going to perform
it. And that's our hope. Do trials take it away? No. They
just help us to see it. Help us to see it. And oh, how
we get scattered. Scattered brains. Boy, that's
the term, isn't it? Scattered hoping in this and
hoping in that and doing this and doing that. No. It's all
in Christ. Brings these trials on you. Boy,
you see it then, don't you? Oh yeah, we do. May the Lord
add His blessing to the preaching of the gospel.