Brother Bruce Crabtree, I was
up preaching for him up in Newcastle, Indiana a year or so ago. He started to introduce me. He was just bragging and bragging. He said, so good, so honored
to have one of God's choice servants, faithful, faithful servant of
God. And he bragged and bragged. She said it's good she could
bring Don with her this time too. I'm so thankful I was here to
hear what we just heard. I want to talk to you tonight
about felt things. Felt things. Let me begin by
making three statements. Number one, Be sure you hear
me now. The basis of our faith is the
Word of God and the Word of God alone. The basis of our faith
is not our feelings, our emotions, or our own thoughts. The basis
of our faith is the Word of God alone. I fully agree with Martin
Luther when he wrote, feelings come and feelings go and feelings
are deceiving. My warrant is the word of God. Nought else is worth believing. I once heard Brother Donnie Bell
make a statement. Somebody asked him, said, you
don't believe that stuff about the whale swallowing Jonah, do
you? But Adonis said, if the Bible said Jonas wanted a whale,
I'd believe it. The basis of our faith is the
Word of God alone. With David I say, my soul thanketh
for thy salvation, but I hope in thy Word. Thou art my hiding
place and my shield, I hope in thy Word. He cries, remember
the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to
hope. I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word
do I hope. Our feelings, I repeat, are no
basis for hope. Our hope is in that which God
has caused to be written in this book we hold in our hands tonight. Something in some verse, some
doctrine, some fact, some text in God's word must be the source
of our hope if indeed we have a good hope before God. Our confidence
must arise from something God has written in the word that
we received and we believe. The heart is deceitful above
all things. And he that trusteth in his own
heart is a fool. Well, I know my heart. You better
know something besides that. Good feelings are deceiving.
Unless they cause us to point to thus saith the Lord as the
basis of our hope, they are a lie. God has given us his word. And
Paul tells us that these things were written aforetime for our
learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures
might have hope. If you believe something spiritual,
if you believe something religious, if you believe something doctrinal,
if you believe something about God, Make certain you can point
to it in this book. If all you can do is repeat what
you heard your pastor say, you don't believe a frazzling thing.
If all you can do is repeat what you've heard mama or daddy say,
you don't believe anything. Every now and then I'll have
folks call me up and say, you know, I've been discussing this
with these fellas and I need some help. Can you give me some
verses to prove this? I said, well, I could, but I
won't. You won't? No. Quit fussing with
folks about doctrine. Just quit fussing with them about
doctrine. Oh, I want to convince folks of election. You can go
to hell believing in election as well as you can not believing
in it. That makes no difference. Our Lord said, go home and tell
your neighbors and your friends What wondrous things the Lord
has done for you. That's our business. If God will
give the ear, he'll cause folks to hear. But you must be able
to witness that which you have experienced yourself from the
Word of God. All right? The basis of our hope
is Holy Scripture, the Word of God alone. That which is revealed
in the Word of God, which gives me hope, is the person and work
of the Lord Jesus Christ, our substitute. Oh, I love that what
Donnie was dealing with in his message. So glad he got to substitution. Christ is our hope. We hope in
the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul said. The Lord is my portion, saith
my soul, therefore will I hope in him. I hope in Christ as my
covenant surety, that one who assumed all responsibility for
my soul from eternity, the Lord Jesus. swore himself as my surety
assuming the totality of responsibility for Don Fortner and all that
includes before the world began. And the book says the father
trusted him as my surety. We are to be to the praise of
his glory who first trusted in Christ. I hope in Christ as my
blessed sin-atoning substitute. I have one hope before God. Jesus
Christ, God's darling Son, satisfied justice on my behalf. He paid the debt I owed. Now listen to me. Listen to me. Look up here now. You're looking
at a man who owes God nothing. I owe him everything and gladly
acknowledge it. But I owe him nothing in point
of justice. I owe him nothing on account
of sin. I owe Him nothing to satisfy
for guilt. Christ paid my debt and took
my sins away. And Jesus Christ, my hope, is
Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our righteousness. What righteousness
do you have with which you hope to stand before God? Come on, be honest. Lay down on your pillow tonight,
and as you close your eyes and think about meeting God in judgment,
what righteousness have you that gives you peace and hope before
God Almighty? What have you done? What have
you done, felt, thought, said, or imagined that you can offer
to Him? This is it. Jehovah said, can
you? I offer God what God has given
and that's his own son. I offer God what God demands. Perfect righteousness. Perfect
righteousness. Perfect obedience. Jesus Christ,
God's darling son, walked on this earth for 33 years as a
man in perfect obedience to the triune God in heart, in thought,
in mind, in will, in deed, in work. Never once did he fail
to fulfill perfect righteousness. Let me tell you something. I
did it in him. when he breathed his first breath
as a man on this earth. You know who was breathing in
those lungs? Don Fortner was. When he walked on this earth
and he said, I must be about my father's business. Do you
know who was about his father's business? Don Fortner was. And when he died, do you know
who died? I died. And when he arose, I
arose. And when he took his seat, on
the right hand of the majesty on high, I sat down with Him
on the throne of God. Worthy to be there by perfect
righteousness and perfect obedience in Him who is my substitute. That's the whole of my hope. I know whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that he's
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day. Now, here's the third statement.
The basis of our hope is the word of God. That which is revealed
in the book is that which gives us hope. And that's the person
and work of the Lord Jesus. Third. And this is what I want
to get to. I want you to see that the good
hope of grace, the good hope of salvation that God gives to
his elect is something that is felt in us, felt inwardly in
our hearts. The Apostle Paul speaks of God's
saints as a people rejoicing in hope. Now I don't know about
you, but last time I checked, joy was something you feel. Hope maketh not ashamed. Shame is something you feel.
And no shame is something you feel. Hope maketh not ashamed
because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost which is given unto us. I wouldn't give you a nickel
for any religion that's nothing but feeling. Emotionalism, sentimentality,
religious excitement is not grace and it's not salvation. But I
wouldn't give you a rotten half a penny for religion that has
no feeling. I'm sick to death of religion
that's nothing but creed, nothing but doctrine. nothing but intellect,
nothing but argument. Religion that doesn't affect
a man's life because it doesn't affect his heart. Religion that's
all together on paper and it's nothing in experience. That religion
that has no feeling, that's all intellect, is cold and dead and
useless. That hope that's been begotten
in us is called in the book a lively hope. 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. What does that mean? Well, let
me see if I can get it expressed. When Lazarus was raised from
the dead, do you reckon he felt alive? Do you? Somehow I got a hunch
he knew he was walking around breathing. I just got a hunch. Pardon is something a prisoner
may not feel. But if that prisoner ever comes
to experience the forgiveness that arises from the pardon,
he feels it. A prison holding a man like a hole, a
deep pit where there's no water. When the man's released from
it, he feels liberty. Christianity is a matter of the
heart. With the heart we believe unto
righteousness. Prayer is found in the heart. David said, therefore thy servant
hath found it in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee. Prayer
is found in the heart. It's in the heart. Those things that are found in
the heart are felt things. It is Christ in you whom the
Spirit of God calls the hope of glory. And I find that amazing. I read and hear things people
yak about. They fuss and they like to pick
poets and dress fellows down. And I've been dressed down a
few times, but they say, it's Christ crucified that's our hope. Oh, no. Oh, no. Christ crucified
is nobody's hope. It's Christ in you. You know all there is to know
about the doctrine of the atonement. And you know all there is to
know about the substitutionary work of Christ. You can know
all there is to know about Christ died, buried, risen again, even
as our substitute. You know all there is to know
about imputed righteousness. But it is Christ in you. That's the hope of glory. Is
that what the book says? It's exactly what it says. And
if Christ is in you, he'll stick out. And if he sticks out, you're
gonna feel it. Turn with me now to Exodus chapter
10. I want to show you from the book
of God three things every heaven-born soul experiences and feels. There are three things I discovered
in the scriptures a while back, physical things, that are experienced
and felt. These physical things, though
they are physical things, they vividly portray spiritual things. The first was found here in Exodus
chapter 10, verse 21. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness
over the land of Egypt. even darkness which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his
hand. Here's this man universally used
in scripture as the representation of God's holy law, of God's strict
justice. He stretches forth his hand toward
heaven and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt. for three days. When the Lord
God brought this ninth plague upon the land of Egypt, He declared
that His purpose in these plagues was to destroy the land. But Egypt's still over yonder. They've got pyramids over there.
Found another one just recently. Excavated under the sand. It's
still over yonder. What does it mean, destroy the
land? He was sending the plagues not to physically destroy the
land, but to destroy the confidence of a land of rebels before him. To destroy Pharaoh and the Egyptians
in their confident, cocky rebellion. To destroy the confidence and
strength of the Egyptians. And the plague here, this ninth
plague is called thick darkness. Darkness that was felt. And when
God the Holy Spirit comes in the mighty operations of His
grace to save a sinner, let me tell you the first thing
He's going to do. I promise you, He's going to do it. He's going to destroy all creature
confidence in you. He's going to destroy it. He
does so by sending into the souls of chosen sinners, redeemed by
His precious blood, thick darkness. The thick darkness that comes
by the raising of Moses' hand in the soul. The thick darkness
of guilt. Guilt. Darkness that's felt in
the soul. Do you know what it is, Mike
Lovelace, to be guilty before God? Guilty before God. Darkness is often used in the
Scripture in just exactly this way. Symbolic of guilt and hopelessness
and despair. Turn to Isaiah 42. Listen as you turn. The people
that walked in darkness have seen a great light. They that
dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the
light shined. And until you've been in the
land of the shadow of death, I promise you, the light hasn't
shined. Until you have walked in thick
darkness, great light has never shown upon you. And in that day
shall the deaf hear the words of the book and the eyes of the
blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. Look here
in Isaiah chapter 42 verse 5. Thus saith God the Lord, He that
created the heavens and stretched them out, He that spread forth
the earth and that which cometh out of it, He that giveth breath
into the people upon it, and the spirit unto them that walk
therein, I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will
hold thine hand and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant
of the people for a light of the Gentiles to open the blind
eyes to bring out the prisoners from the prison and them that
sit in darkness out of the prison house Look in chapter 50 of Isaiah
verse 10 who is among you that feareth
the Lord, and obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh
in darkness, and hath no light." Well, the darkness said, find
me a lost man, he's found. Find me a sinner, he's saved.
I don't have any hesitancy in saying that, none at all. You
who walk in darkness and have no light, Let him trust in the
name of the Lord and stay upon his God. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. We who sometimes were darkness
are now light in the Lord. He delivered us from the power
of darkness. The conviction of sin is something
felt in the soul. It's felt. It's not just a logical,
reasonable thing. It's not just something you kind
of coerced into acknowledging. It's not just a repeating of
words. Holy Spirit conviction. The conviction
of sin. And that's the first thing about
conviction. He, the Spirit of Truth, will
convince the world, convince God's elect scattered through
all the world of sin. Not somebody else's. Not just
Adam's sin. Not the sin of the race. Not
the sin of the rest of the world. Your sin. My sin. My sin. Oh my God, give me grace
to know and deal with my sin every day, every hour. You'll convince the world of
sin. Turn over to Lamentations chapter 3, I'll show you how
he does it. Jeremiah said, I am the man that
has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me
and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Verse 3. Before God shows mercy, He causes
grief. And both works of grace, the
grief and the mercy that follows, are according to God's eternal
purpose, as Jeremiah describes it here. Verse 3. He said, I'm
in darkness, Because surely against me is he turned. I said something to you the other
night about agreeing with the adversary.
You know there was a time I was walking along and me and Jesus
had a good thing going. He didn't bother me and I didn't
think I'd bother him. I wasn't disturbed by anything.
I knew facts. I'd heard facts. I'd been taught
facts about religion and about God and about Christ and heaven
and hell and eternity and salvation. But none of it bothered me. And
one day, God turned against me. God turned against me. He turned
Himself against me. He turneth His hand against me
all the day. My flesh and my skin hath He
made old. He hath broken my bones. He hath
built it against me and compassed me with gall and travail, with
bitterness and pain. Oh, I can't tell you the bitterness
and I can't tell you the pain experienced in my heart. Everybody around me thought I
was going crazy, and I was about convinced. He hath set me in dark places,
as they that be dead of old. He hath hedged me about. Try as I may, I can't get out.
He made my chain heavy. I've been wearing this chain
all my life, just didn't know it. Now, this chain about my
neck and my hands and my feet, pressing with the weight like
the hand of God himself shoving me into hell. And I cried. I did. And I shout. I did. And he shutteth out my
prayer. As he did with that Syrophoenician
woman, he acted like he didn't know I was there. He hath enclosed my ways with
hewn stones. He hath made my paths crooked.
He was unto me as a bear lying in wait. and as a lion in secret
places. He's the lion of the tribe of
Judah. And he hath turned aside my ways
and pulled me in pieces. He made me desolate, empty, barren,
lifeless, useless, worthless. And he bit his bow and aimed
his arrows right in my heart. set me as a mark for the arrow.
He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my heart,
my reins. I was derision to all my people
and their song all the day. He hath filled me with bitterness
and made me drunk with wormwood. He broke my teeth with gravel
stones, covered me with ashes, and thou hast removed my soul
far off from peace. I forgot prosperity. I forgot
what it was like to live as a normal man with no feeling of guilt,
no fear of hell, no dread of God. I said my strength and my
hope is perished from the Lord. Oh, I pray God will do that for
you. I pray God will do that for your
children. Cause everything that gives you hope to perish within
you. And until you're stripped of
all self-confidence, I'm here to tell you there's no hope for
your soul. None at all. This I recall to my mind. Therefore have I hope. Find me a man, find me a woman
whose hope has perished from the Lord. And I'll find you one
made willing in the day of His power to trust an absolute Savior. This is how God makes His people
willing. Turn to Psalm 107. He discovereth deep things out
of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.
He makes darkness His secret place. Clouds and darkness are
round about Him. Righteousness and judgment are
the habitation of His throne. It's 107th Psalm. He's describing
what I'm talking about. Look at verse 10. Such as sit
in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction
and iron. How come? Because they rebelled
against the words of God and despised the counsel, contend
the counsel of the Most High. Therefore, he brought down their
hearts with labor. They fell down and there was
none to help. Then they cried unto the Lord
in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses.
He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and
break their hands in sunder. Oh, that men would praise the
Lord for His goodness. I'm talking to you about God's
goodness. His goodness in judgment. That's a wonder of His grace.
and for his wonderful works to the children of men, for he hath
broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder." The sinner's only hope is the
Lord Jesus Christ, God our Savior, Himself. The Lord is my portion,
saith my soul. Therefore, I will hope in Him." The only thing an utterly helpless,
hopeless sinner can do for God's salvation is to wait. That's all. short circuit the thing, you
know. They'll try their best to get involved somewhere and
give you something to do. And in spite of all the instruction,
all you do is sit and wait and bear the yoke of your youth,
bear the hand of God's judgment on you until He crushes all hope
from within you and destroys the land of man's soul. This
is what Jeremiah is teaching us. This is the experience of
every heaven-born soul. There is felt darkness and confusion
in the soul when God comes and convinces the sinner of his personal
vileness and hell worthiness. That's the grief Jeremiah is
talking about. It's a spiritual grief caused in the soul by God. My friend, Brother Harry Graham,
when I was just a young man, he's with the Lord now. When
I was 19, Harry was about my age now. He was 57, 58 years
old. He said, Brother Don, when God
deals with a sinner in mercy, He always takes him to hell first. You can bake on it. You can bake
on it. Jonah went to hell before God
spit him out on dry land. This is God's strange work. He
causes grief that he may bestow mercy. Where sin is not felt
and hated, salvation will never be enjoyed. Where wrath is not
dreaded, love is not experienced. The heart that's a stranger to
misery is a foreigner to mercy. God creates the waster to destroy,
Isaiah says. To destroy all earthly creature
comfort. To bring us down to hell. So
that he might cause us to look to the crucified Christ. And
find salvation in him. In him alone. Alright. Turn if you will to Acts. And
I'll turn to the book of Mark first. The first thing the Holy
Spirit does in the sinner in the experience of grace is to bring felt darkness into
his soul. Then he brings felt healing by the
conviction of righteousness. He convinces the sinner that
because Christ has gone back to heaven, righteousness is finished. Is that what our Lord said? Is that what He said? He'll convince
you of righteousness. Not convince you that God requires
righteousness. You were born convinced of that.
Read Romans chapters 1 and 2. Not that God's going to judge
you in righteousness. You've got that stamped on your
heart by creation. You may suppress it, you may
deny it, but you've got it there and you can't escape it. What
do you mean convince the world of righteousness? Righteousness
finished by a substitute. It's finished and here's the
proof of it. I'm going back to my father. I've done the work
he sent me here to do, I've brought in everlasting righteousness,
made an end to the transgression, made an end to sin, and righteousness
is established. And now, the sinner, convinced
of sin, looking out of himself, looks away to Christ, and sees
his righteousness. I mean, the sinner sees his own
righteousness. Righteousness established for
Him. Such righteousness as God Himself
is and must be well pleased to have. Righteousness. How can
that be? How can that be? That God be
pleased with me. Pleased with me. In the substitute. in the surety, in the doing and
dying of the Son of God. And as soon, as soon as the sinner
looks away to Christ crucified, he feels something in his soul.
Healing. Healing in his soul. Brother
Henry Mahan used to tell a story. about a missionary who came to
visit him at 13th Street years and years ago. And he told about
one day being an Indian, walking around with some folks and he
heard a raspy voice in the distance. And he looked for where that
voice was coming from. Finally, in a small clearing,
they saw this pitiful sight, a man who had been taken by his
people out and left to die in the very last stages of leprosy,
sitting there, crying as loud as he could with a raspy whisper.
Help me. Somebody help me. The missionary said, as I watched
that man in utter helplessness and heard his pitiful cry, I
thought to myself if I could go over to him and put my face
on his face, my mouth on his mouth, and I could breathe into myself all his corruption. Breathe into Him all my health. That's what Christ did for me. And it's healing that's felt
in the soul. It's not healing I want to argue
with you about. My soul, why should I argue with you about
it? Well, you don't look very well to me. You ought to have
seen me six weeks ago. Why would I argue with you about
that? You look like you're a little weak tonight. You ought to have
seen me just a little while ago. I couldn't stand up. But I feel
strength and life in my body. And I feel health and life in
my soul. Because Christ has given me life. Mark chapter 5. If ever God gives you faith to
touch the hem of His garment, you'll feel His healing grace.
Verse 25. A certain woman, which had an
issue of blood 12 years. She was real sick, she'd been
that way for a long time. Just had a continual Slight loss
of blood for 12 long years Forgive me for the personal reference
Few weeks ago after surgery went home late in bed one night. I
started bleeding In a matter of three three and
a half hours I lost six pints of blood, internal bleeding. That was just three hours. I
was bleeding, hemorrhaging horribly. And I couldn't get out of bed.
I couldn't stand up. Couldn't stand up on my own.
This gal had been 12 years with a continual slight bleeding,
but bleeding that as soon as something's supplied a little
bit, she loses more blood. Every time a little blood's supplied,
she loses more blood. And she'd been to every doctor
in town. She suffered many things of many physicians. She'd spent
all that she had and was nothing better, but rather grew worse. And when she heard of Jesus,
she came in the press. I can see her crouched over.
Hardly able to move. She's unclean. If she asked permission,
nobody would let her come. She came in the press behind,
and she reached out and touched his garment, just touched his
clothes. Because she said, if I may touch
but his clothes, I shall be made whole. And straightway, as soon
as she touched him, the fountain of her blood was dried up. Now watch this. And she felt
in her body that she was healed of that plague. I had a plague in my heart called
sin. And under the curse of God, crushing
my soul down to hell. But I heard of Him. And I came to Him. And I touched
Him. And I felt in my soul that I
was healed of that plague. Alright, turn to Acts 28. Here's the third thing. When they were escaped, then
they knew that the island was called Melita. This island Melita
is the isle of Malta on the southern end of Italy, just below Sicily
on the toe of the boot. And the barbarous people showed
us no little kindness for they kindled a fire and received us
every one because of the present rain and because of the cold. And when Paul had gathered a
bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, there came a viper
out of the heat and fastened on his hand. And when the barbarian saw the
venomous beast hang on Paul's hand, They said among themselves,
no doubt this man's a murderer, whom though he hath escaped the
sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. And he shook off
the beast into the fire. Hang on to your seat. And felt
no harm." Felt no harm. He's bitten by
a viper. by a viper that shakes it off
in the fire, and it feels no harm. We were bitten by a viper in
the garden, and oh, the harm we felt. But soon, in heaven's glory, we shall shake
that viper, the devil, off into the fires of hell. And when our God makes all things
new, feel no harm. So fully, so completely, So absolutely
does our God save His people, that when He has finished with
all things of time, and God's elect are gathered with Him in
Heaven's everlasting glory, and He wipes away all tears from
our eyes, there will be no harm. That's that. No harm. Satan didn't
do a thing. Didn't do a thing. Didn't accomplish
anything. God lost nothing. God's Son lost
nothing. I lost nothing. Nothing. You, all you who believe, lost
nothing. Christ didn't partially restore
what He took not away. He restored everything, though
He took away nothing. And when God's done with us,
and He's done with the devil, even the slime of the serpent
will be erased from His creation. Amen. That should be more than one.