I do thank you for having me
here. It's been a real joy. You may believe that these conferences
are for your benefit, but they're really for us preachers. We can
get away from the day-to-day work that we do and see some
believers, maybe we don't see so often, see each other, renew
acquaintances, I always go away from these conferences encouraged
to go back to the work I came from. And you've been very gracious. I appreciate Jim asking me here. And ever since you sent me that
email, I've been looking forward to it. I'm glad. The amazing
thing is with these conferences, it seems no sooner you get started
and get into the rhythm of it, it's time to wind it down, you
know. And I appreciate all that has been done with the food.
It's been such good food, and plenty of it, both here and at
the Home of the Birds there. I appreciate those of you who
have given. I know that these things cost
money. You don't put one of these on without somebody writing a
check. And I appreciate those of you that do that, make it
so that us preachers can have a good time for a while. And
I hope that when we're done here, you'll say, well, it was worth
it. I'm glad that we got something out of it. And I pray that the
Lord will bless you through what I say this morning. John 14,
we'll read the first 14 verses together. Let not your heart
be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also
in me. In my Father's house are many
mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and
the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, We know
not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? Jesus saith
unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. If ye had known me, ye should
have known my Father also. And from henceforth you know
him. and have seen him. Philip said
unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith
unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou
not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father. And how sayest thou then, Show
us the Father? Believest thou not that I am
in the Father, and the Father in me. The word that I speak
unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth
in me, he doth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father,
and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very work's
sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me,
the works that I do shall he do also. And greater works than
these shall he do, because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever
ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may
be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my
name, I will do it." The Lord never ceases to amaze me. Here it is, the night of his
betrayal, and he knows full well what's going to happen in the
next few hours. And yet he says to his disciples,
let not your heart be troubled. Don't you think it would have
been more natural for man to say, my dear friends, I'm overwhelmed
with what lies ahead. Would you pray for me? Would
you gather around me and strengthen me? And yet at a time when any
of us would have been seeking to be comforted, is comforting. Our brother read, comfort ye,
comfort ye my people. And you know, Isaiah did, but
that wasn't for Isaiah primarily. There's one who can comfort. There's one who can speak comfortably
to Jerusalem. There's one who can say to Jerusalem,
your warfare's over. It's finished. who can say you've paid double
for your sins, say, well, I haven't paid anything. Well, he did,
and it was paid in your name if you're in him. Only one that
can do that. I am amazed at the strength of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember this. Our Lord was God,
but He lived here fully as a man. He was not standing there in
His divine power saying, well, it's going to be tough, A few
hours and a few days and this is all over. He looked at what
lay ahead as a man would look at it. And it was horrifying. Horrifying, and I don't care
how much you and I expand our brains and try to understand,
we don't know. He did. Any Jew could pick up
an Old Testament Scriptures, he could read there in the law
what went on in the most holy place. He could read about what
had to be done and how the high priest had to put on the garments
and had to have the blood and the incense. He could read about
that, but there was only one man in those days that knew what
really went on back there in the most holy place, and that
was the high priest, because he's the only one that ever went
back there. And you and I can read in the Bible what our Lord
Jesus Christ went through. But there's only one man in heaven,
earth or hell that knows what went on. And that's our high
priest, because he went into the most holy place, that one
not made with hands and not with the blood of bulls and goats,
but with his own blood. And knowing full well what lie
ahead for him. He said to his disciples, let
not your hearts be troubled. And really for the foundation
of him being able to say that is this, his heart would be troubled
for them. Now we have our troubles. And
while they cannot in any measure compare to the troubles of the
Lord Jesus Christ, he does not have contempt for our troubles. You know, sometimes we as parents,
our children come up to us with their little troubles. And we'll
don't bother me with that. I got big things to deal with.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, facing troubles immeasurable. Did not count the troubles of
his disciples as something to be ignored. were passed off as
insignificant. Now, he had washed their feet
and that troubled them. They didn't understand it. Lord
ever do anything you don't understand? They didn't understand that. Peter said, you're not going
to do that. It didn't seem right that the
master should wash the feet of the disciples. That's scandalous. And the Lord said, well, if I
don't wash you, you've got no part in me. And you know one thing,
Peter did a lot of things that were silly, but when push comes
to shove, he does the right thing because he cuts through all the
details that sidetrack so many people. All he heard was, if
I don't wash you, you have no part in me. Well, he didn't do
the whole thing. We're going right there, you
know. But still, he doesn't understand what's going on. He told him, he said, you don't
understand what I've done for you. But what I've done, you're going
to do. And they did in time. And then he told him somebody
was going to betray him and secretly signal to John who it would be. And they saw Judas get up and
leave. And they didn't know why. Something else they don't understand.
They thought, well, maybe the Lord sent him out to get something,
I don't know. And then he said he's going to
go away. And then he told Peter, before the rooster crows, you're
going to deny me three times. And he told him that right on
the heels of that big boast. Lord, I'll lay down my life for
you. No, Peter, that's not the way
it works. Will you lay down your life for
me? He didn't say this. Here's the understanding behind
it. I'm going to lay down my life for you. So will I give
my life to Jesus? What does he want with it? What's
he going to do with it? He doesn't need you to lay down
your life for him. You need him to lay down his
life for you. He doesn't need what you've got,
you need what He's got. He doesn't need your sacrifices,
you need His. And there's no surer way to have
proven to you your utter uselessness than to boast of your usefulness. Said Peter, and as it played
out, You're going to deny me three times, and you big burly
fishermen that you are, are going to quake at the accusation of
a young girl. You're going to deny that you
even know me." And then he said, let not your heart be troubled.
This passage begins with a word of comfort and ends with a word
of promise. He tells them, let not your hearts
be troubled. We got a lot of things that trouble
us. And you know something that there's nothing wrong with that.
There's a lot of troubling things. When he says, let not your heart
be troubled, he doesn't mean don't let it ever get into a
troubled state. What he's saying is, is when
it's in a troubled state, I've got a remedy for you. See, being
troubled is not wrong when there's legitimate reason for trouble.
Look right back here at chapter 13, verse 21. Says when Jesus had thus said
he was troubled in spirit, being troubled is not wrong. Therefore,
don't think that when you have a worry or that you have a care
that somehow or another you are not responding appropriately
to the conflicts of your life. If they didn't trouble you, they
wouldn't be called conflicts. I mean, it's just the way it
works. It is silly to think for a minute that you, particularly
if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, that you're
going to go through this life and not be troubled. Man is born
to trouble just like the sparks fly upward. You start a fire,
let it burn a while, then poke it. What's going to happen? The
sparks aren't going to lay down. They're going to go up. That's
just as sure as sure can be. That means it's just as sure
as sure can be. You're going to be troubled. Our Lord said,
that in this life you will have trouble. All the promises in
the book are mine, including that one. You will have trouble. And so
there's no use us trying to avoid it and no use us acting like
it doesn't trouble us when it comes. When he says, let not your heart
be troubled, He said, there's a reason. There's a remedy for
your trouble. There is a comfort in your trouble.
And here's what it is. Let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God. Believe also in me. We can comfort
our hearts. That is, let our hearts not be
troubled in this truth that we have a God in whom we can trust
and a mediator between God and me whom we can trust. We have a God that we can trust.
God's trustworthy. I was a Boy Scout, and there
are 12 things that Boy Scouts are supposed to be. Trustworthy,
loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty,
brave, clean, and reverent. I've known that for going on
40 years now, and I don't know why I remember it, but I do.
And I've been to Boy Scout camp, and Boy Scouts aren't any of
those things. Least of all clean and reverent. They just aren't. God's trustworthy. What's trustworthy mean? Well,
He is worthy of your trust. You can commit everything to
Him, knowing that it will be taken care of well. You can entrust everything that
has to do with you to him. Now, that doesn't mean he's going
to do with it what you think is the best thing to do with
it, but isn't that why you entrust things to someone else? I take
my money to the bank because they've got a big vault they
can put it in and they can do a better job of keeping my money
safe than I can. God can do a better job than
you can. He's trustworthy. Most of all,
he is trustworthy with your soul. Now, when we say that someone
is trustworthy, there are generally three things we have in mind.
First of all is power. Power. Look over here at Jeremiah
32. We recognize, that is anybody who's been honest
about this business of the salvation of the soul, There's going to
have to be an exercise of power to save a soul. Because most
of us, well, all of us, truth is, but some more than others,
every one of us tried to do it. Every one of us tried to do it
ourselves. We stretched ourselves to our full length in an attempt
to save our souls from the judgment we knew they deserved. And we
primarily tried to do it by getting ourselves in a position somehow
that we didn't deserve the punishment. We thought that's the only way. And we failed. And when we failed,
we enlisted the help of others and we enlisted the help of the
church. And we gathered all the powers that we knew of. And all
of them individually and collectively failed. But it says in Jeremiah 32, verse
27, Behold, I am the Lord. I love it when God says that. Now, if I came up to you and
said, I am Joe, that doesn't mean anything, does
it? Okay, I'm Bill. When God says, I am the Lord,
it means something. This is the Lord who spoke and
it was and commanded and it stood firm. This is the Lord who descended
on Mount Sinai and gave the law and terrified the people. But
I tell you, there wasn't any question in their minds about
power. This is the Lord who got them through the sea. This is
the Lord who caused water to come out of the rock, who caused
bread to come down from heaven. This is the Lord that drove out
all the Amorites and everybody else before them and brought
the walls of Jericho down. I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. He isn't
the God of the Jews. He's the God of everybody. Whether
or not they acknowledge it. You see, in those pagan days,
they kind of believed, you know, every area had its God. And so they said, well, Jehovah,
he's God over there in Israel. He's God over the Jews. The Lord
said, no, I'm God everywhere. Yeah, you set up your little
idols here and there, but I want you to know I can knock them
down anytime I want to. And if you go on in your idolatry,
it's because I was willing to let you play around and die in
your sins. And when I'm ready to show grace,
I'll knock them down and I'll reveal myself. But I am God everywhere. I'm the God over all flesh. And
the issue here before Jeremiah is this. It's an interesting
story. I'll try to make it quick. God told Jeremiah, your cousin's
coming. He's in debt. He's going to lose
his property. You redeem it. You buy it. Well,
the Lord had told Jeremiah they're going to be driven out. This
is not the time to invest in real estate. They're leaving. He says, you do that and you
go to the town gate and you make it all official and you put the
deed in a clay pot. You seal it up. Jeremiah said,
why are you making me spend this money? I'm throwing it away.
He said, no. In this place, here, they will buy and sell land. And this is not a bad investment. Jeremiah, you're leaving, but
you're coming back. That seemed impossible. How could...
God, you just told me you're going to send Nebuchadnezzar
here and just wipe the place out. And I'm going to bring you
back. Is there anything too hard for
me? That leper said, if you're willing,
you can. Leper had no question about his
abilities. Neither should we have any question about the abilities
of our God. He can do anything. We don't
know for sure what he will do, but there's nothing outside the
stretch of his power. And then we when we think of
someone being trustworthy, we think of their wisdom. It's one
thing to be able to do stuff. It's another thing to know what
to do. You know, generally speaking,
businesses are divided into labor and management. And you get the
people strong in back and weak in mind, you know, to lift things,
and then you try to find the people This is a caricature I
know, but you get the people strong in mind, but maybe weaken
back to tell them what they ought to lift and where they ought
to put it. Power and wisdom are generally found in the same person.
It's rare, but God has all wisdom. He says here over here in Isaiah
28. Isaiah 28. Verse twenty nine. This also
and he's he's been speaking about discretion and farming, actually.
Now, a farmer knows what to do with different kinds of grain,
when to plant it, when to plow, when to stop plowing and plant
and when all that. So this also come forth from
the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel. And excellent in
working. Wonderful in counsel. He's the
wonderful counselor because he's wise. He knows all things, and
he doesn't simply know it because he went to school long enough
to learn it all. He is the very definition of
wisdom. All that is wise, all that has
ever been recognized as wise has come from him. The farmer
finally figures out that there's a time to plant wheat and another
time to plant oats and all this. Why is a farmer considered wise
when he figures that out? Because that's how God designed
things. God didn't figure that out. God
made it that way. We can trust his wisdom. Say,
I just don't know what to do. He does. And if he wants you to do it,
he'll cue you in on the wisdom at the appropriate time. I feel
so stupid. Well, good. I mean, you may as
well have honest feelings. That's just the way it is. But if he's got in mind for you
to do anything, then he will tell you what to do when it's
time to do it. He'll say, there's a big rock,
move it. Remember, you're labor. He's management. He's wise. We can trust him.
But most of all, and here's where the kicker is with us, earlier
with me, but I figure folks kind of like me. We can trust his
power. What we've learned since we were
little kids, God can do anything. He's wise. We can grasp that. But before you can trust anybody,
you've got to be able to trust their goodness. You've got to
be able to trust that they'll not only know what's good for
you and have power to do what's good for you, but that they want
to. You know, the gods of men are
angry, mean, vicious gods, and they have to be constantly propitiated.
You've got to constantly bribe them to do you good, and then
there's always a trick in their hand. You know, you always hear
those stories about people get three wishes and no matter what
they wish for, it comes out bad for them. Why? Because whoever
they're wishing to, whether it be a genie or something else
like that, really isn't good. They don't really want to do
you good. They're going to find a way to twist your desires, your wish
as it's expressed and make it turn out bad for you. Like that guy in the desert,
he found a Little Bali rubbed it. Jeanne came out and said,
look, I'm tired, you get one week. I said, all right, I'm
hungry. Make me a ham sandwich. OK, you're
a ham sandwich. Our God is good. He's not trying
to trick you. He's not going to twist your
words into something you didn't intend. He may reveal to you
that your intention was wrong, because He can read your heart,
but He's not out to get you. Look back here again in Jeremiah
32. You get a chance, you read all
of this. I'm going to start at verse 40.
God's talking about when He's going to restore them, when He's
going to bring them back and they'll sell and buy land again in Israel. He says, And I will make an everlasting
covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do
them good. But I will put my fear in their
hearts that they shall not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice
over them to do them good. If I can put it this way, we've
got to talk about God in man's terms because we don't know any
other terms. It makes God happy to do good for His people. He rejoices over them to do them
good. And I will plant them in this
land. I like that. He didn't say, I'm
going to send them. He didn't say, I'm going to give them a
map. He didn't say, I'm going to set them. He said, I'm going
to plant them. Plant them in this land assuredly. with my whole heart and with
my whole soul." Love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul. Okay. Do you do that? No. But God loves His people with
His whole heart and whole soul. What they shall never be able
to do for Him until they are in His presence, He has been
doing for them all along. Every aspect of God's person
is engaged in the salvation of his people. It is not a sideline
with him. It's not his second job. It's
not even just his first job. It is, in his mind, his whole
job. He gives himself entirely to
that work. I don't know about you, but that
blows me away. It's my soul that's being saved, and I don't give
myself wholly to my salvation. I don't seek the Lord with all
my heart. Do you? But He sought me with all His.
42, For thus saith the Lord, Like
as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will
I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them. And
fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ye say, It is desolate,
without man or beast. It is given unto the hand of
the Chaldeans." Our Lord says, before He ever sends them into
judgment, He says, I'm bringing you back. And with my whole heart
and with my whole soul, I'll plant you in this land, and you
will buy and sell and flourish right here." He's good. Those who trust in Jehovah shall
never be put to shame. Their trust shall never prove
vain, nor their hope disappointed. For the Lord in whom they trust
is powerful. and wise and good. Let not your heart be troubled. Everything that troubles you
is in the hand of one who knows what to do and wants to do it. The Lord says you believe in
God. Believe in me. This word means to trust. You
trust God, don't you? Trust in me. The Lord Jesus Christ
is equally trustworthy with the Father in all these matters.
The same trust we have in God, we are to have in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, the disciples' knowledge
of the Lord Jesus was cloudy and sketchy, kind of like us.
Don't think that because we've got the New Testament and they
didn't, that we understand all things. We understand more than
they did at this point, but we don't understand all things.
And I'll tell you one thing that you do not understand You cannot
understand, and if you think you understand it, you need to
change your thinking. You don't understand who Jesus
Christ is. You can say the words, you can say he's very God of
very God and yet fully man. And having said it, you don't
have a clue what you just said. That's just the way it is with the essential
truths of God. Why? Because we just don't have
a vocabulary to talk about what he really is. How will you compare
Him to anything else? To be uncreated and created at
the same time? To be both the author of the
story and a character in the story at the same time? I don't
know how you do that. How to be omniscient on the one
hand and yet say, of that day and the hour, knoweth no man,
not even me? I don't know. Don't have to. I'm not a pharmacist, but I do
know how to take pills. And I may not know what's in
that pill, but that don't keep it from making me better. Just
because I don't understand who Christ is, I can't get that in
my brain. That doesn't mean that I cannot
trust him for who he is. They didn't understand that he
was very God of very God. But we are to trust Christ just
like we trust God, because He is God, one with the Father.
And he spends some time telling that to the disciples back here
in John 14. He's one with the Father. He says, He that's seen
me has seen the Father. He that knows me knows the Father.
As our brother pointed out from Hebrews, those first verses there
in Hebrews, boy, what a way to start a book. He is. the brightness of His glory,
the very express image of His person. Do you know why God said,
don't make yourself an image to worship it? I'll tell you
why. He said, because I'm going to make one. And that's who you'll
worship. That word, I believe, the one
translated image, idos, from which we get the word idol. Someone
told, I believe it was Brother Richardson, you make an idol
out of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, God did. He is the image
of God whom we worship. We fall down before Him because
whatever we know of God, we must learn it from Him. He is the
only revelation of God. Do you understand that? He's
not one of them. He's not even the best. He's the only one. God is not speaking by any other
language than His Son. To know Him, to know the Father,
to see Him, to see the Father. He and the Father are one, so
we trust Him just as we would the Father. He's powerful, but
He's not only powerful like God, He is the power of God. To the
world, He's weakness. They look there at Him on the
cross and say, you know, what's that? Look at that man. He's
dying. Can't be a God if He's dying. But to us who are being
saved, He is the power of God. The gospel is the power of God
and the salvation, but that's only for one reason, because
the gospel tells us about him who is the power of God. He is
not only wise like God, he is the wisdom of God. People in
this world are so foolish, they not only don't know the answer
to the gospel question, they don't even know the gospel question
is this. How can God be God with all the attributes of God and
save somebody like me? How can He be righteous and have
anything to do with someone so unrighteous as me? How can He
be of pure eyes and to behold iniquity, and yet draw to His
bosom one who is so iniquitous as I am? How can He be the just
God who will by no means clear the guilty, and yet let me go
free? How can He do that? They're answering
the wrong questions. They're trying to figure out
whether God's for alcohol. They're trying to figure out
when is a human being a human being? Is it OK to be gay? He is the wisdom of God because
he not only knew the right question, he is the right answer. God set
him forth to be a sacrifice, a satisfying sacrifice for sin,
so that God may be just and justify those that believe in Christ. God can justify for any reason
He wants to. He's God. But because He's God, a just
God, If he were to justify without a satisfying sacrifice, he would
forever be irritated at what he had done and forever begrudging
of those who benefit by it. So he sacrificed his son. His
brother Mahan put it this way, I remember him saying this, that
before God could ever do anything for the sinner, he had to do
something for himself. Jesus Christ's death was God-ward,
to satisfy God, that God might freely save us. He is the wisdom of God and He
is good. That leper said, if you are willing,
you can make me clean. And our Lord, without any big
preamble or anything like that, said, I'm willing. Of course. Of course. Oh, while we hold
forth the absolute sovereignty of God and the fact that he's
under no external obligation to save anybody, don't ever act
like God doesn't like to save people. He likes to save them
so much he killed his son so he could do it. We need to be We need not be
troubled for Christ our Redeemer has gone ahead of us to make
provisions for our eternal welfare. I'm out of time. Give me just
a couple of minutes to hit this. In my father's house are many
mansions, not colonnaded, ostentatious mansions. That word just means
a place to live. Isn't it interesting? that the
world describes heaven in terms of things that God said not to
fall in love with? They look at those Arabs and
say, how ridiculous to describe heaven in terms of 72 virgins.
I'm getting a mansion and a gold driveway. It's just a dwelling place. My
friend, the glory of heaven is not a mansion, it's Christ. The
Lamb is all the glory in Emmanuel's land. He said, in my Father's
house are many rooms. There's only
one house up there. There are lots of bedrooms. Many
of them. And none of them are going to
be empty. None of them are going to be
ill-furnished. Fellow over here, he was an apostle.
He gets a king-size bed, jacuzzi. All right, we got a cot over
here for you. In fact, you're in the ward. You don't even get
a private room. You're with a whole lot of other
than the riffraff of the church. Many rooms. Here's all our Lord
is saying. I'm going to prepare a place
for you. I'm going there to make your
bed ready. there to make sure there's a room for you and it's
all ready for you when you get there. Because, you see, I'm
going, but I'm coming back. And when I come back, here's
the reason, I'm coming to get you. As this nation or this country
was being settled, sometimes men would go out to the frontier
and get them a homestead, you know. They'd go alone and they'd
get everything ready. And then they go back and get
their wife and their kids. They say, now, come on, I've
prepared a place. Well, our Lord is our forerunner who has gone
in ahead of us, and He's made the place for us. And at the
right time, He will come back and get us. For 2,000 years,
He's been coming back and getting His people one by one. Some days,
they'll say, well, that's enough, one by one. I'm going to collect
the rest now. And so shall we ever be with
the Lord. Let not your heart be troubled.
What looked like abandonment to his disciples was just his
way of securing their eternal welfare. Yes, I'm going away,
but I'm going away to prepare. Christ broke through to the Father. Now, His way to the Father is
not the way we're going to take and be glad. I guess we took
it in Him, but we're never going to walk that path ourselves,
because His way to the Father was through the cross. I've often
wondered about that scripture where our Lord says, On this
rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. And I've heard lots of interpretations,
and I cannot be dogmatic in what I think our Lord meant. But the
Bible calls him the breaker through. He's not talking about breaking
in. He's talking about breaking out. Our Lord went into death. He went into where we were. And hell, death, tried to hold
Him in. But death could have no hold
on Him. When He died, the very power of death was broken because
He died. I mean, by that, why? What would
give death any right to hold him if sin was on him? But such
was the character, such was the nature of his person that when
he died under the sins he bore, the sins disappeared. They were
gone. The reason hell goes forever
is because no matter how much we die, we're never sufficient
to put away the sins that we have. But the Lord put them away. Death, therefore, could have
no hold on him. And though death's strong chains and bars and locks
and everything were on those doors of hell, our Lord busted
out. They could not prevail against
Him. And when He went out, He led captivity captive. All of us captives, He led us
out with Him. Let not your heart be troubled.
You say, but preacher, I've got to die someday. That's all right.
The door's open. The doors open. He broke out
and they've never been able to shut those doors since then. And when you die. He who broke
through will be right there. You say this way. You're coming
with me. Let not your heart be troubled. Lord be with you.