Back here in Luke chapter 12, I want us to consider two things
if we have time. From two verses that we read,
and the first is from verse 30, and this is the thought. Your
father knows. Your father knows. Our Lord often
told his disciples that. your heavenly Father knows what
you have need of. And the second thought is from
verse 32, where we're told, it's your Father's good pleasure to
give you the kingdom. Your Father knows, and your Father
gives. He knows, and He gives. And in between those two blessed
truths, even the phrase, the me, is full of comfort. your
father knows, your father gives. And arising from those comforting
truths, you have this, fear not, fear not. Your father knows,
fear not. It's your father's pleasure,
purpose, will to give you the kingdom, fear not. One old hymn
writer put it this way, better than I can. He knows, let this
my comfort be, He knows the path designed for me, a healing balm
for all my woes. Oh, blessed thought, my Savior
knows. My prayer for strength in Him
is known, though breathed in secret and alone. The weary heart,
the tear that flows, oh, blessed thought, my Savior knows. The
thorns that pierce my weary feet, the lowering clouds, the storms
that beat, And then with bliss of calm repose, O blessed thought,
my Savior knows. He knows that this suffice for
me. He knows the end I cannot see.
Now let my anxious heart be still and patient wait, my Savior's
will. My Father knows. Remember what
our Lord said, our risen Lord said, to Mary Magdalene early,
early, barely daylight, when she came to the tomb to finish
preparing his body that the Sabbath forbade her to do earlier. She came to finish that task,
but it was all unnecessary, wasn't it? He's not here, he's risen. Remember what he said to her
when she had found him supposing him to be the gardener? Where
have you taken my Lord? Tell me where you've taken him
so I can go there. Where have you taken his body?
And never a man spake like this man. He said, Mary. That's all he said, Mary. She recognized that voice. I think of each of you. I think
of what you go through. And sometimes, as I told you
before, I'm at a loss as to what to say. I'm at a loss as to how
to comfort you, what to do. But I know this. I take you before
the throne of grace and ask my Lord to do for you what only
he can. He can speak peace, Bobby. Marry. Marry. Oh, can you imagine the joy that
she was brokenhearted. The last time she saw her Redeemer,
the last time she touched him, he laid dead limp. And she hurriedly
did what she could to prepare his body for burial. And now
here he stands. She saw him die. There was no
question about it. And just as he said he would
do, in three days he rose from the tomb. Mary, you don't need
those spices anymore. Take them away. Mary. Jesus said
unto her, touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my father,
but go tell my brother. Even Peter, that denied you,
he's my brethren. Think about that. Jesus Christ
is my elder brother. Go tell my brethren and say to
them, I send them my father. But that's not all he said, did
it? I send them my father, and he's your father. Tell my brethren
I'm ascending to my God, but he's your God. Christ God is
my God. Christ's father is my father.
Christ's mansions are my mansions. Christ's place in heaven is my
place in heaven. Christ's acceptance before a
holy God is the same as my acceptance before God. You go tell my brethren. I've heard men talk, and I'm
sure you have too. It's silly, religious gibberish. But they talk about the universal
fatherhood of God. The universal fatherhood of God. There ain't no such thing. There's
no such thing. Yes, God is the creator of all
men, but he's not the father of all men. He said to the religious
folks in his day, the very religious folks, you are of your father,
the devil. You say God's your father. Christ
said, no, he's not. If he was really your father,
you would receive me. You would honor me. You would
believe me. You are your father, the devil.
There is no such thing. as a universal fatherhood of
God. Jesus told Mary, you take this
message. You take this message to my brethren. My brethren. And that's not all
men. That's not everybody. They are
only the ones that Jesus taught in another place, John 6. His
brethren His children, those that are truly members of the
family of God, they've been taught of the Father. They've learned. They've learned. They've got
the lesson. I remember when I was a young believer, and again,
when I felt God calling me to preach the gospel. And the thing
that concerned me most, to know that it wasn't Larry, that it
was God. I wasn't about, I didn't have
much sense, didn't know a whole lot, but I knew that, don't you
dare do that. Even those folks that encouraged
me to do so, no. That was just between me and
God, but I remember thinking to myself, what if God's telling
me to do this and I don't get the message? I told you I was
young, foolish. No, you'll get the message. You'll
get the message. Don't worry about that. If God
desires to teach you something, you're going to learn it. He
said, no man can come to me except the Father in John 6, except
the Father which has sent me draw him. Just like David said
concerning Mephibosheth, go fetch him. Go fetch him. Go draw him. and I will raise him up at the
last day." He said, it's written in the prophets, and they shall
be all taught of God. Not just a few, not God's children,
every one of them shall be taught of God. And here's the evidence
that they've been taught of God, that they've learned something
that the religious world does not know. Every man, every man,
no matter how ignorant he may be in other things, No matter
how poor he may be, no matter how despised he may be, no matter
how little of this world's goods he may possess of this world's
knowledge, or what they call knowledge, no matter how little
he knows of those things, he knows this. Every man, therefore,
that have heard and have learned of the Father, he comes to me. He comes to me. They're my brethren. Those are the children of God,
the evidence, the proof. of being a child of God is not
by some so-called, as we're told in so many corners today, speaking
in an unknown tongue. That's the evidence that you
possess the Holy Spirit. No, that's the evidence you've
been deceived. That's the evidence that you're a religious fool.
That's an evidence of a worm bragging before the throne of
God. That's the evidence of somebody trying to take the honor from
God and put it on themselves. Look at me. I despise that sort
of thing. That's all the charismatic movement
is based on, look at me, look what I've got. That is so contrary
and so opposite to a child of God in truth as it can possibly
be. As I said last Sunday, when we're
in the presence of God, when we learn of God, if we're really
a child of God, we bow before him in humiliation and we melt
and ask, oh, my Father's love. Why did he love me so? What a
wonder. The evidence of being a child
of God. The proof is not in such things
as that. Those things might make me a
member of a church, but they won't make me a member of the
household of God. The proof is this. Christ said,
I come to him. The proof of a believer is I
come to Jesus Christ. I bow to Christ. I believe on
the Son of God. I don't need no more evidence
than that. That's the only way any sinner
can ever know that they're one of God's elect. What a glorious
doctrine. People despise that. You go into
an average Baptist church today. If I would go down here at the
Big Baptist, every town's got a Big Baptist, don't they? The
Big Baptist. Go into Big Baptist and announce
your Texas being on the election of God's grace. Don't let the
door hit you in the butt on your way out. That's what the average
church would say. But you know in the word of God,
more often than any other term, they refer to God's people as
the elect, the chosen, my sheep, my bride. The only way I can
know that I'm one of that chosen, Those elect, those blessed individuals,
the only proof I can have of that is this. I've come to Jesus
Christ. All that the Father giveth me,
and he gave them to me before the world began, Christ said.
That's why I've come down to this earth, not to make a stab
at something. not to throw out some pig in
the poke and hope somebody picks it up. I've come to call my sheep. I've come to lay down my life
for the sheep. All that the Father giveth me,
all those sheep that he gave me, every one of them's going
to come to me. I like that. How can I know I'm
one of them? How can I possibly know that
I was one of those that God Almighty chose in his son before he even
created the world? How can I know that? What's the
evidence? I come to Jesus Christ. I come
to Christ. I believe on him and then I know. I cannot possibly know any other
way that I must have been chosen in him before the foundation
of the world. This is how the beloved apostle
put it. John, in 1 John chapter 5, verse
1. Could words be any plainer? 1
John 5 and 1. He writes, whosoever believeth
that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And everyone that loveth
him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. They
love the Father, they love everyone that's begotten of the Father.
Here we're plainly told that faith is not the cause of the
new birth, but the certain evidence of being born again. I'm not
born again because I believe, John says, I believe because
I'm born again. Everyone that believeth is born
of God. You remember when Paul and Barnabas
were sent out by the church in Jerusalem to preach the gospel?
And they came to Antioch, Barnabas and Paul, and they're preaching. They've been preaching there
a while. And the religious people, not the drunks, not the harlots,
Just like in our Lord's day, it was the religious people that
hated the message. They began to stir folks up.
But Paul preached this message. He said, Be it known unto you,
therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached
unto you the forgiveness of sins, this man, the God-man. And by Him, no other way, through
no one else, by Him, Jesus Christ, all that believe are justified
from all things." Wow! Justified? Justified? Declared righteous in God's sight? Declared righteous not by religious
standard, but by God's holy standard? Man, that's a high standard.
That's perfection, Billy, justified, declared righteous in the sight
of Almighty God. Paul said, through this man,
all that believe are justified through all things from which
you could not, you could not be justified by the law of Moses. And lo and behold, that good
news, that glorious gospel wasn't received as such by the religious
crowd. They hated it. What about that?
They hated it. They're told you can be justified
through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ by believing on
him and you'll never find that by trying to keep the law of
Moses. It's never going to happen. It's never going to happen. And
they hated that message. And they still do. They still
do because Anyone who thinks they're working their way to
heaven, and you come along and kick their props out from under
them and say, it ain't gonna happen, it ain't never gonna
happen, that's not good news to them. But oft, find some poor,
bankrupt, bankrupt beggar that's got nothing to pay. You find
one of them, and I say it often, I've not met one for a while.
Everybody's made their decision. Everybody's blah, blah, blah.
But oh, for a bankrupt sinner to be told, believe on this man
and you'll be justified. You'll be declared righteous
in the sight of God Almighty. Woo! Can you think of any better
message for them to hear? That'll be good news to them. And there were some in Antioch.
All the religious folks, they turned a deaf ear and said, we
won't hear this. You tell us our works are not
going to earn us a place in heaven? Well, we won't hear it. We'll
have no more of that. We read on down in chapter 13 of Acts. And when the Gentiles heard this,
unlike those religious Jews, when the Gentiles heard this,
they were glad. And they glorified the word of
the Lord. And as many as were ordained to eternal life Now most people want to turn
that around, don't they? Most preachers want to turn that
around and say, well, as many as believed were ordained to
eternal life. No, no, the ordination came first. The election came first. Paul
said, I know He wrote to the church at Thessalonica, I know
your elective God. How do you know that, Paul? Have
you climbed to heaven and opened the Lamb's book of life? No,
of course not. How do you know? Because when you heard the gospel,
you believed the gospel. And you became followers of the
Lord Jesus Christ. As many as were ordained to eternal
life be lead. Oh, as a preacher, I find it
so encouraging. Every believer should, really.
God's word, God's word. will not return unto him void.
It won't happen. It never has, and it never will. As many as were ordained to eternal
life believe. That is simply another demonstration,
another example of what the great shepherd of the sheep said, is
it not? Other sheep I have, he said.
And this is always true. This is always relevant. This
is always current. As long as the world exists,
this is the reason. It doesn't have anything to do
with what they're doing in Jerusalem. No, no, no. It doesn't have anything
to do with that. No, it has to do with this. The
reason the world exists Christ said, other sheep I have which
are not of this fold, them also I'm gonna try to bring if they'll
let me do it. That leaves a bad taste in my
mouth. That's not what he said. Other
sheep I have. I have. They're mine. Before
I call them, before they believe, before they come to me, they're
mine. They're already mine. Other sheep I have which are
not of this fold, them also I must bring. Wow. Wow. Take that with you when you preach
the gospel. Take that with you when you witness. The great shepherd
says, I'm not sending you out on a fool's errand. No. When I was ordained, there was
a fella at work wanting me to marry him and the girl he'd been
shacking up with, she was threatened to kick him out of the house
if he didn't marry her. And he said, Larry, are you hors
d'oeuvres? Can you perform a marriage ceremony? I said, hors d'oeuvres? No, I'm not hors d'oeuvres. ordained,
not ordained by man, God, God, and it's not a fool's errand.
I went through that worthless ordination service when I didn't
have any better sense and was told to always carry mints in
my pocket, always wear a tie when I visit, no matter where
it is, even casually in someone's home, always wear a tie. Nobody
told me. Nobody said anything. I had a
doctor of divinity I was sitting across from. Looked like the
Sanhedrin there, asking me all kinds and giving me all kinds
of irrelevant advice. But nobody told me, when you
go out, Larry, make sure you do this. Take with you this.
Determine to do this. Forget the mints. Forget the
mints. You can afford to forget them, but don't forget this.
Preach the glorious gospel of the blessed God and nothing else.
Nothing else. And remember this, oh, how encouraging
it is to hear the voice of the great shepherd of the sheep saying,
other sheep I have which are not of this fold, they're going
to hear my voice. Through the preaching of the
gospel, they're going to hear my voice and they're going to
come to me. They're going to bow to me. The
greatest encouragement I need or the greatest proof I have
personally of that is myself. I won't come. I won't bow. I won't believe. There's no way
and ain't nobody gonna make me. Jesus Christ said, oh, we'll
see about that. I won't come and Christ said, oh, you will
come. I won't bow. Oh, yes, you will bow. I won't
believe. Oh, yes, you will. And I became
willing, more than willing, in the day of his power. And I'm
so glad, aren't you? Every true believer is. Thankful
that God didn't leave me to my so-called free will. Again, there
ain't no such critter. I'm glad that God did not let
me have my way. Aren't you? I'm glad that God
didn't leave me to walk that path of destruction, that he
stopped me in my tracks and said, come down sinner! Other sheep
I had. which are not of this foe." Again,
John in chapter 5 of his first epistle said, and this is the
record. You can count on this. This is written in heaven. This
is the record that God has given to us eternal life. And this
life is in his Son. It's not in the Catholic Church.
It's not in the Baptist Church. It's not in Arminianism. It's
not in Calvinism. This life is in his Son. He that
hath the Son hath life. And he that hath not the Son
of God hath not life. And John in verse 13 of that
chapter, 1 John 5 and 13, he's writing, now listen, a child
of God, this is to you. These things have I written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may
know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the
name of the Son of God. Just stay where you're at. Just
keep looking to Jesus Christ. Just keep trusting Christ. Just
keep believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, and it will be well with
your soul. I love this story, and I know
you've heard it. You may have heard it before
I did, because you and Brother Henry Mayhan go back a long way.
But I remember somewhere years ago, I was in a service and Brother
Henry was preaching. And he told the story about a
young boy back in the horse and buggy days. Every time his daddy
got ready to go to town, that little boy would say, daddy,
take me, take me. He said, son, you're too young. You stay behind
with your mother. I'll be back shortly. One day,
one evening, the father hitched up the horse and the buggy to
go to town. The little boy said, daddy, take
me. He said, all right, all right, jump up here. And away they went.
They went to town. They went around. He bought the
supplies and the things he needed to take back home, and they got
on the wagon, and he said, oh, I forgot something. He said,
son, listen. They got down off the buckboard,
and he sat his son on one of those big wooden kegs and big
barrel-like things. He said, listen, son. It was
almost dark, but he said, listen, son, I've got to hurry before
they close the store. He said, I'm going to put you
right here. You stay right here. Just sit right here until Daddy
gets back. Well, Daddy went and conducted his business, Came
back and just jumped up on the horse, or on the buckboard and
started home. Man, he'd gone a little ways.
Oh, my soul. Oh, my soul. I forgot Johnny. Forgot little Johnny. Because
the first time he'd been with him, so he turned, boy, oh, you
can imagine how frightful he was. He ran back away, parked
that thing, jumped off and peered through the darkness and there
sat Johnny right on that barrier where he left it. He ran up to
him, put his arms around him and said, oh son, I'm so sorry,
I'm so sorry. Are you okay? Are you afraid?
I'm sorry I left you. He said, daddy, I'm okay. You told me to stay right here
till you got back. Jesus Christ tells me, Larry
Criss, you stay right here till I get back. You just keep believing. You just keep trusting. You just
rest right here till I get back. Rest in what I've done, what
I've accomplished, what I've obtained, what I've already done
for you, what I'm gonna do for you. You just rest right here. You just fall back. This illustration
I'm about to give you wasn't in my notes, but it occurs to
me right now. Many, many years ago. I won't
go in great detail, but I was a believer. Oh, my soul, for
I had gotten myself into a pickle. I'd gotten my eyes off Christ.
Going through a trial and didn't think it'd ever end and thought,
well, trying to carry it myself. I got so mentally exhausted I
couldn't even read a verse of scripture without my mind wandering. I was a mess. I was a mess. In West Virginia, and I'd heard
that Mr. old brother Scott Richardson's
conference was about to take place, and I thought, well, I
had enough sense to realize, oh, I need to get under the gospel.
I need to get under the gospel. They didn't have a place to worship
at that time. So I went up that weekend. Man, old Don was preaching. That Saturday morning, I went
and sat down and Don was preaching. He said, you know, when I try
to come to God and try to be accepted
before a holy God on the basis, on the foundation of my own works,
it's like me sitting in this chair. It was a little chair
Scott had. a fifth of the size of Don. And Don walked over to
that chair and said, if I sit down and everybody's like, oh!
He said, Don, you're right. If I sit in that chair, it's
going to hit the thing. But he said, trust in Jesus Christ.
Trust in Christ and His works. What He done, oh, I find rest
for my soul. It's like, and he walked to the
other side of the platform and he sat down. He sat down in his
chair and he said, oh, that feels good. You know, Don, big, big,
he was bigger in those days than he came to be. But boy, he put,
oh yeah, this feels good. I'm not worried about this chair
collapsing. I'm not worried whether it can
bear my big load. He said, oh, I can just rest
easy. Can't you just picture him? And
the light went on. And I said, oh, Larry, that's
what you need to do again. And the Lord said, come unto
me. You've been trying to do it all on your own. That's why
you're so flustered. That's why you're at with sin.
That's why you feel like you're losing your mind. Larry, come
unto me. Come unto me. Get in that chair
and find rest. Find rest. Oh, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and find rest. In Romans 5 and 1, Paul wrote,
Therefore, being justified by faith, we've had peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we also have access by
faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope
of the glory of God. The imputed righteousness of
Jesus Christ is worth all the good works, all the religious
activity that I could ever do. It's because of Christ that I'm
justified. Because of Christ that I have
peace with God. My works could never do that,
it did the opposite. That's why we stand before the
holy Lord God and we rejoice in the good hope of eternal glory. Because God, for Christ's sake,
accepts us into the family of God. It's because of my union
with Jesus Christ that God accepts me. Now there's your peace. There's your peace. Can you name
one blessing, one blessing, whether you start with eternity past
in election and go all the way to eternity to come in glory
and everything in between, calling, perseverance, being kept, endurance. Can you name one glorious thing
That you have, apart from Jesus Christ, anything. Justification? Not without Christ. Sanctification?
Not without Christ. Election? Not without Christ.
Redemption? Not without Christ. Calling, not without Christ.
Being kept, not without Jesus Christ. Being brought all the
way to glory, not without Jesus Christ. Standing before the holy
God and hearing, well done, enter into the joy prepared for you.
This is all for you. Welcome home, not without Jesus
Christ. He will lead that multitude that
no man can number as the captain of our salvation as every one
of them passing the glory. Singing worthy is the lamb. Oh yes, I would rather trust
in what Christ has done for me than anything that I think that
I have done for him. How precious, David said, considering
God's many benefits. On one occasion, the psalmist
said, I think it was old Spurgeon that said, the best talk that
a man has sometimes are those that he has with himself. Just
shut the door, shut out the world, get away from everybody else,
just get along with God. And David said, oh, when I think
of all his benefits toward me, he said, it's more than I can
grasp. It's just more than I can get
a hold of. He said, how precious also are
thy thoughts unto me, O God. How great is the sum of them. What a precious thought. My Father
knows. My Father knows. Christ's Father
is my Father. Read John 17, that high priestly
prayer, and our Lord said that God the Father loves us the same
as He loves His Son. Wow! Wow! He accepts us the same as He
accepts His Son. My soul, now that'll give you
some rest. Old James Smith, and I can see
right now we're not gonna get to the second part there in verse
32, the father gives. So we'll just stick with this
and bring this to a close. Your father knows. James Smith
was a preacher in the 1800s. He pastored New Park Street pulpit,
New Park Street Church, rather, from 1841 to 1850. That was the same church that
young Mr. Spurgeon came to afterwards.
But before Spurgeon came, James Smith was the pastor. And I read
this by him the other day. He said, I was standing at my
window one day while the cholera was raging in London. And I saw
two corpse carried by, followed by a little child walking alone
next to the coffins with a few neighbors behind. That child
is now an orphan. Both parents had been carried
off by the pestilence. The sight of that child produced
deep emotions and awakened painful sympathy in my heart. I was led
to think of the sorrows and deprivations of orphanhood and then of the
happiness of the Lord's people to whom the Lord Jesus said,
I will not leave you as orphans. A child of God will never be
an orphan. A believer can never be one.
He has an ever-living, ever-loving, ever-present Father. You remember
our Lord, the night before he went to the garden, he was with
his disciples in John 14. He said, you're all going to
forsake me and flee. Peter, you're going to deny me,
regardless of what you say now, the boast you're making now,
you're going to deny that you even know me, but let not your
heart be troubled. In my father's house are many
mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you I'm going away to prepare a place for you. And if I go
prepare a place for you, they're not going to remain empty. I'm
taking you there to occupy." And then on down in that same
chapter, John 14, he said, I will not leave you comfortless. If
I would ask any child of God here right now, looking back
over a stretch of 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60 years, has God ever
left you comfortless? Raise your hand. Raise your hand.
Have you ever went through anything where God left you comfortless?
No. Christ said, I won't leave you
comfortless. I will come to you. I will come
to you. I will come to you. This is what he literally said.
I will not leave you orphans. That's what it says. Cross out
comfortless and put orphans. That's it. I will not leave you
orphans. I will come to you. Oh, a present
crisis of strength, the righteousness, the peace, the joy of every believing
soul. The other day, Robin was telling
me that she ran into someone, I think it was the week before
last, And this person asked her, I
heard you got flooded again. How much did you lose in that
flood? And I told Robin, when she brought
that up, I said, I don't think we know yet, do we? We don't
have an accurate estimation yet of what we've lost in the flood.
We lost a good bit. But until we begin to open all
these crates and stuff that were so hurriedly packed from the
first flood, we won't know. We found out just the other day.
When Keith was here trying to hook up that old computer, it's
broke. I thought it was kept, but it's
broke. We just really don't know. But then the thought struck me,
didn't it, Robin? I told you when we were talking
about that, I caught myself. And I thought, I still have Jesus
Christ. I haven't lost him. I'm still
his, and he's still mine. And there's no flood, no sickness,
no disaster can take me away from Jesus Christ. I'm still
his, and he's still mine. Let me close this. I began by
reading an old hymn. Let me close by reading another. Loved with an everlasting love,
Led by grace that loved to know, Spirit breathing from above,
God has taught me it is so. Oh, this full and perfect peace,
Oh, this transport all divine, In a love which cannot cease,
I am His, and He is mine. How about that? His, forever only His, Who the
Lord in me shall part, Ah, with what a rest of bliss Christ can
fill, the loving heart. Heaven and earth may fade and
flee. Firstborn light and gloom decline. But while God and I
shall be, I am His and He is mine. The Lord hath appeared
of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting
love. Therefore, with loving kindness
have I drawn thee. Yes, what sweet comfort our Father
knows. God bless you.