It's a great joy. I count it
a privilege and an honor to see you and to worship with you.
And may the Lord enable us a few minutes to preach to you. Over
in Matthew 9, I want to read this incident that took place,
beginning here in verse 18, concerning this man coming to our Lord,
whose daughter was terribly, terribly ill. I want to begin
reading in verse 18, Matthew chapter 9, and let's begin reading
in verse 18. While he spake these things unto
them, behold, there came a certain ruler, and worshipped him, saying,
My daughter is even now dead, but come and lay thy hand upon
her, and she shall live. And Jesus arose and followed
him, and so did his disciples. Now, let's skip down to verse
23. The woman came to him with an issue of blood and temporarily
interrupted his going to this man's house. In verse 23, we
pick up again. And when Jesus came into the
ruler's house and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise,
he said unto them, Give place, for the maid is not dead, but
sleeping. And they left him to scorn. But
when the people were come forth, he went in and took her by the
hand, and the maid arose. And the fame thereof went abroad
unto all that land." Now, you and I often read in the Scriptures,
and I'm sure you're aware of this, that when the Lord healed
someone, Blind Bartimaeus is a good example. As soon as he
received his sight, he followed Jesus in the way. And it always
happened that way. We always read of the multitudes
following the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn back over here with me just
a minute to your left, back over in the fourth chapter. And here
we have some places it tells us of this. Matthew chapter 4,
and look here in verse 18. Everyone followed Him. In verse
18 of chapter 4, Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee and He
saw these two brethren. Simon called Peter and Andrew
his brother, casting the net into the sea, for they were fishers. And he said unto them, Follow
me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway
left their nets, and they followed him." And then he goes on in
verse 21, and he went from Fence and saw two other brothers, James
the son of Zebedee and John his brother. They were in a ship
with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them.
And immediately they left their ship and their father and followed
him. And then we go down in verse
23 and verse 24 and it tells about all the miracles that our
Lord did. Healing those that were diseased,
lunatics and casting out devils. In verse 25 it says, there followed
him a great multitude of people. They were always following him. And that's what makes chapter
9 and verse 19 here a very unique scripture, a very unique incident. Something happened here that
had never happened before. And it never happened again as
far as I know. Did you catch it there as I read
it in verse 19? And Jesus arose and followed
him. Ain't that amazing? The dear
and blessed Son of God incarnate He that hath the preeminence
in everything, he that created everything and upholds everything
by the word of his power, here he is following a mere man. Ain't that amazing? Ain't that
condescending on our Lord's part? Every street this man turned
down, the Lord followed him right along. Every path he turned down
to walk on, our Master was right behind him. Every road he got
on, there he was. Jesus Christ our Lord following
this man. That's amazing just to think
about it. And I think there's something there that's very comforting
and very instructive for you and I. I don't think the Holy
Spirit just put that in there to fill that up. And I want to
look at that in a few minutes. But first, I want to look at
this man himself. We're told here that came to
him. Matthew doesn't tell us who he
is, But Mark and Luke tells us his name was Jairus, and they
tell us about this man that he was a ruler of the synagogue. He came to the Lord Jesus and
fell down on his face and worshiped the Lord, and he was a ruler
of the synagogue. And when these three writers,
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, when they spoke of this man coming,
this Jairus, this ruler, coming to Christ, All three of them
used this same expression to identify His coming to Christ. They said this, Behold, behold,
there came a ruler. And if you want to read that
like I read that, when I see that word sometimes, I often
say, Would you look at that? Would you look at that? There
was something amazing about this man. It caught their attention. And it brought out, Would you
look at that? And I'll tell you what it was,
brothers and sisters. These rulers hated the Lord Jesus. They despised Him. When He went
into the synagogue to preach, just His mere presence caused
those fellows to be stirred with indignation against Him. He was
preaching. Our Master was preaching in one
of their synagogues one day. And there was this lady that
was bent together. The Spirit says she was bent
together, probably bent over that She was just always looking
at her feet. Eighteen long years, this lady
went bent together. And the master seen her while
he was preaching. And he called her to himself
and said, you're loose from your impregnate. He straightened her
up. And immediately, she was straightened up and glorified
God. And you know what the ruler of that synagogue said. He said,
there's six days that you ought to come here and be healed. And
not on the Sabbath. And our Master said, you hypocrite,
you hypocrite. He said, last Sunday, last Sabbath
day, you went out to the stall and you put a halter on your
ox and you rassled him down to the creek and you let him drink
all the water he wanted and rassled him back up and put him in the
stall. Went to the next stall and got your old donkey and rassled
him out to the creek and stood down there and tried to make
him drink and rassled him back to the stall. And you did all
of that on the Sabbath day. And here I've spoken one word,
and I've given this woman this great liberty and healed her
of this awful disease. And you're mad at me? You hypocrite. You hypocrite. They hated our
Master. It didn't bother them that that
woman was healed. They hated Christ. It was these same rulers
that brought our Master to power. And they said, we found this
man perverting the people, lying and deceiving the people. And
he said, I'm going to release somebody. And the same ruler
said, release to us Barabbas. And you crucify this Christ.
You crucify Him. And they came there on the cross,
Matthew tells us and Luke tells us. And while our Lord was hanging
there in His agony and blood, they derided Him. If you be the
Christ, you come down from the cross. We'll believe you. If
you be the chosen of God, come down from the cross. They hated
the Son of God. Matthew, and when Mark and Luke
saw one of these fellows come to Christ, they said, Behold,
would you look at that. The endowment against these rulers
was by their own people. Have any of the rulers believed
on Him? Was that what they said about
Him? Yes, they have. Here's one, Clare. Here's one.
Bless God, here's one. There's a rich man over in England,
someone was telling me about years ago, the Lord had saved
him. Very influential man. And he was reading 1 Corinthians
chapter 1 and verse 26. Dad, repent us, but I tell you,
I don't have much confidence in you. But I tell you one man
that came to Christ, and the Lord said, before this day is
over with, you're going to be a man in paradise. He's a thief.
He's a lost thief. He came to Christ. He had one
foot in the grave. I know there are exceptions,
aren't there? But that's what the Lord's good at. He makes
exceptions. And it brings out this behold.
And I tell you, I tell you, when I think that I've come to Him,
When you think that you've come to Him, don't it bring out of
you? Would you look at that? After we've grown some in grace
and in knowledge, and we have more understanding now of what
it means to come to Christ, and who He is, and where He is, and
what He is, and what we are in our awful depravity and inability. And we know that coming to Christ
means we come to Him in our hearts, we come to Him by faith, And
when I think that I'm coming to Him, I say, it still amazes
me, don't you? A man that's not amazed that
he's coming to Christ. I don't know if he's coming or
not. Because I tell you what, it just springs out of, behold,
behold. Here was a ruler that came to
Christ. And for as we know, he's the
only one. Behold. But not only that he came, but
look here how he came. If you read the account of Mark,
Mark 5 and Luke 8, you'll see this especially. They bring up
just a little bit more of this. But Mark tells us that when he
saw the Lord, that he fell at His feet. He just fell at His
feet. Now here was the ruler of this
synagogue, and you can imagine how well this man was dressed.
I mean, he was a proper man. A very dignified man. You could
tell he was the ruler of the synagogue by the way he dressed.
And yet here this man came and without a word he pressed his
way through the crowd and fell right on his face down in the
dust in broad daylight before the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't
come after dark like Nicodemus did. It was broad daylight. He
came unashamed. He didn't speak in the Master's
ear and say, could I speak to you in private over here where
nobody can hear me? I've got this problem. He didn't
do that. He came in broad daylight and
fell right down, and the Scripture says here, he besought the Lord
greatly. He became a beggar. This ruler
became a beggar before the Lord. Well, I tell you, a need, if
our need is great enough, if we need the Lord more than we
need anything else, we ain't going to be ashamed to come down.
It may be midnight somewhere in the privacy of your bedroom,
Or it may be here in this congregation. Or it may be on your job someplace. But boy, if you need Him as bad
as this man needs Him, you're coming to Him. You don't care
who's around or how many's around. You're coming to Him. He said,
you folks know who I am. You know who I am. You know what
my occupation is. You know how prestigious I am.
You know who my friends are. He said, I'm a broken man. I'm
a needy man. And nobody else here can meet
my awful need. but Jesus of Nazareth. And boy,
there He comes and down He goes on the ground before the Master.
And He begins to beg right in front of everybody. No wonder
they said, Behold. Behold. Amen. Don't you and I
confess the same thing? Ain't no difference the way He
came really than the way we come. I confess it in my closet in
private. I confess it before you. I confess
it before this world. And if you've come to Christ,
you confess it too. In and of ourselves, we're poor,
we're needy, we're lost, we're helpless. And nobody but the
Son of God can save us. And He's our everything. He's
our salvation. He's our life. He's our living.
He's our hope. He's our religion. He's our song. And we're not ashamed of Him
because He's everything to us. And when you feel that way, boy,
down at His feet you'll go. And you'll worship Him. There's
a man, a ruler, and that's enough to bring out a behold. But when
we consider here how this man came, he became a bagger. He's a bagger. That's all we
are is baggers. We confess that. Baggers that
he's lifted up out of the dunghill, right out of the dust. That's
how he came. Something else I noticed about
this man, and I know this is just one aspect of his coming,
but I can't help but see here the correlation. between this
man's coming to Christ and the problem and the anguish he was
suffering with his sick daughter. Now, I know there's more involved
in coming to Christ than that. I realize that. But you can't
help but see this correlation. The scripture tells us that this
man had only one daughter. And Mark says he comes to the
Lord and he says, Lord, my little daughter is probably now dead. as I'm talking to you. One of
the reasons that he came to Christ was out of this terrible anxiety
that he had concerning his daughter. Boy, I tell you, God has every
means available to Him to humble us and to teach us and to chasten
us and to encourage us. And sometimes He uses even our
family and especially our children to teach us. Some of you here
tonight, and you've got children. Some of them are still pretty
young. And some of you here tonight that's got grown children that
have children. Boy, you still know, and you
recognize this, that to this day, God still uses your children
to teach you some good lessons. And He used this man's daughter
to teach him some lessons. My daughter, would you come and
heal my daughter? He has grievously vexed over
his daughter, and he said she is at the point of death. He is concerned about her dying.
Jairus, why are you so concerned about death now? It ain't been
long ago you weren't concerned about death. How many times are
you sure that it's appointed when the man wants to die? You
didn't even give that a second thought. Why are you thinking
about it now? Why are you concerned about death now? Why are you
looking upon death as something terrible now? My little daughter,
my little daughter, she's at the point of death. That changed
the way he thought about death, didn't it? Sort of woken that
man. He never had the thoughts of
death before, as he had now. The Lord would use in his daughter
to teach Dad a good lesson about death. Lived in the light of
it. He never had before, but I bet
you he did after this. There was a man that brought
his little son. Remember this? He had a little
child, brought him to the Lord's disciples. He had a devil, a
dumb spirit. His disciples couldn't cast him
out. All the crowd was around, and the poor man was so vexed
that his son had this devil. And he came to the Lord and he
was weeping. He said, Lord, if you can help
me do anything, please do. I've got this son here, and he's
grievously vexed with the devil, and he's cast him into the fire.
He's thrown him into the water, and I'm afraid he's going to
kill him. I have to keep an eye on him all the time, and I'm
afraid this devil is going to kill him. Oh Lord, if you can
do anything, help us. Well, if you can believe, all
things are possible. Lord, I believe. He said with
tears, kept my unbelief. Why was he so concerned about
the devil, man? I bet you his dad, with the time
in his life, he wasn't so concerned about the devil. The devil's
probably leading him around himself. He's probably flirting with devils
himself. Why did he change his mind now
about devils? Why did he suddenly see, boy,
devils aren't our friends. Devils are the enemies of God.
Devil is the enemy of humanity. He's our chief enemy. Oh, he
began to see what devils really were, didn't he? What brought
him to a greater knowledge of that? Lord, my son is grievously
betched with one. You let the devil get in your
house. You let him start controlling one of your sons or your daughters.
You see what you think about him then when he starts casting
one of your sons in the fire and in the water. The devil is
a roaring lion, brothers and sisters, and his end is to destroy
everybody he can. He hates the Son of God and he
hates humanity because they're the creation of God's Son. And
he hates God's children. And he takes no greater pleasure
than molesting them. He's our enemy. And when you
see a dear dad getting on his face before the Lord and saying,
Lord, deliver my son from the devil, from this power of darkness. Lord ever teach you some things
through your children? Boy, he taught David a good lesson,
didn't he? Remember when David lay with Bathsheba and then sinned
and tried to hide it with lies and murders? The Lord told him,
he said, David, I promise you this, the sword is never going
to leave your house. And I tell you one of the most
grievous things to David, and the whip that the Lord often
laid upon his conscience turned out to be nobody but his son,
Yeah, you lay with her, David. You go ahead. I'll raise up your
son and lay with your concubine. I'll afflict your conscience.
I'll use him when you're an older man to be a burden to you. I'll
show you. I'll teach you. I'll chasten
you. You young children here tonight, let me tell you something.
Let me tell you something about your parents. You young children,
love your mom and dad. You honor your mother and your
father. You obey them. Take mom and hug
her and tell her you love her. When dad tells you to do something,
you do it. Don't talk back to him and be
mean and hateful. It wasn't long ago I was a 9
and 10 and 12 and 13 year old little boy. Sometime when my
dad wasn't around I spoke very hateful to my mother. I'm 54
years old now and it still weighs upon my conscience. And I tell
you when it weighs upon my conscience, when I see one of my little grandchildren
act the same way to their parents that I acted towards mine, I'm
reminded I'm reminded. I tell you, God deals with us.
He teaches us through our family. He taught this man. Jairus, you
haven't been thinking properly about death. You haven't been
living in the light of it. It may be you tomorrow. I'm going
to teach you something about death. I'm going to take your
little girl right to the edge. Oh, I'm going to burn your soul
down. Lord, my little daughter. My
little daughter. Death has got its grip on her.
Wretched, miserable, That's one of the things that brought this
man to our Lord. A friend of mine was telling me about a man
that had two sons, and neither one of them were saved. Neither
one of them knew the Lord. He's a godly man. My friend said
he always prayed that the Lord would let him die an easy death,
that his sons may see how a Christian dies, how a child of God dies,
how he faces death with peace in his heart. But when this old
man came down to die, boy, he had a struggle. Awful darkness
came upon him. He died hard to us. And his sons
were there when he died. They buried him. And a few weeks
later, one of the sons came up to the oven. He said, you know,
he said, I really believe that our dad knew the Lord. I really
believe he is a child of God. And if our dad struggled in his
dying, where's that going to leave him in you? Where's that
leave us? And out of that, They began to think about their awful
condition and sought the Lord. The Lord uses family to teach
family. Just as you use this man here.
He came to the Lord and one of the aspects and one of the reasons
that he came was somewhere or another connected to his poor
little daughter. And verse 18 here says something
else about this man. And the scripture says he worshipped
him. He worshipped the Lord. He came
and he fell down in the dust before the Lord's feet. and he
worshipped him. Now, there's no doubt the Lord
this man worshipped. If the Spirit says he worshipped,
then we can believe he worshipped. Here's a man that worshipped,
and there's two aspects of worship. True heart worship that we see
in this man. What is true worship? What is
it to come to Christ in our hearts and truly worship Him? We see
it in this man right here. First of all, he had this need.
He came to Christ. Out of this awful need, my daughter
is at the point of death. Awful, awful need. How often
do you and I see that in the Scriptures? That somebody came
to Christ and it was said they worshipped Him and then they
expressed their need. A leper came to Him and worshipped
Him saying, Lord, if You will, You can make me whole. I remember
Brother Mahan years ago. He came to where we were going. I wasn't pastoring at that time.
The pastor came and asked me suggest somebody to give. I suggested
Brother Mayhead. He lasted two nights and they
ran him off. But he preached the best message I ever heard
him preach. He preached the message and then read his text. His title
was, Why Won't You Come to Christ? And he preached his message and
then he read his text. The Lord healed those who had
need of Him. And he said that's why men don't
come to Christ. They have no need of Christ.
When you and I come to Christ, we're always coming out of this
need of Him. When we first come to Him, oh,
we needed Him to save us worse than this world. We needed Him
to save us. But I tell you, we still ain't
lost our need of Him, haven't we? We're still coming to Him.
We're coming to His throne of grace. We need grace. We need
grace to help us. His grace. We need mercy. We
need His pity. I want Him to pity. Don't you
want Him to pity you? Somebody said, I want pity. I
tell you, I want God to pity me. I need to know He pities
me. As a father pitieth his poor
son. And I'm coming to Him. I've got
a need of this pity. A need to be washed. Oh, a need
to hear His voice. A need of His presence. We have
a need. And I tell you, brothers and
sisters, if our Master supplied every need which we have, and
we have a lot of them, there's one need. that He's going to
take eternity to meet. And that's a need to worship
Him. That's a need we'll never get
over. I think that's why David said, I was glad when they said
to me, let us go up to the house of the Lord. For he said, there's
where the tribes go up. And what do they do when they
get up there? They give thanks unto the name of the Lord. They
worship. They worship. That's the first thing about
worship is a need. That's what you're doing here
tonight. There's a creature There's a new creature down inside you.
Down inside this old earthy playhouse, there's a new creature. And I
tell you, He longs to continually worship Him that created Him.
And He'll never be satisfied until He looks upon the face
of Him that created Him and worships Him with an undimmed eye and
an unsinning heart. That's what it's going to take
to satisfy this man down inside of you. He came and worshiped. And secondly, about worship here
is this, is confidence. Confidence. A need and confidence. I'm amazed what this ruler said.
He thought his daughter may now be dead, but he made this statement
in verse 18. He said, Lord, come and just
lay your hand upon her and she shall live. Boy, that's confidence
there. Just lay your hand on her. I
tell you, he didn't believe this was some mere man, did he? He
knew something about who this was he's talking to. Why, you're
the Lord of Glory. You're God in our midst. You're
life itself. This lay your hand upon my daughter
and she shall live. Brothers and sisters, that's
confidence. That's the way we worship Him. You and I come here
this evening. We come here in faith. We've
not come here by accident. Every one of us here tonight
are here on purpose. God's purpose. And you and I
believe as long as this world stands, there's going to be a
church, a church that expresses confidence in the Son of God,
just as Abraham did when he said, I'm fully persuaded that what
you promised, you're able to perform. And you and I come here
this evening with this confidence, that when we gather in the Lord's
name, He's here in our midst. We're not here in vain. And what
we do in the worship of our Lord won't return void. The songs
that we sang, the prayers that was prayed, the reading of His
Word, the preaching of His Word, it will not return void, brethren
and sisters. Our confidence in Him this evening,
He's accomplishing His purpose. He's calling out His elect people.
He's comforting His saints. And as long as there's a church
in this world, they'll gather and they'll worship the Lord.
They'll ascribe all the glory and all the honor to Him for
everything. And as they do, it's called worship. Lord, You lay Your hand on her
and she shall live. That's worship. That's worship.
And as long as this world stands, the churches stand, and the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it. Don't you believe that? You
know why we have that kind of confidence? Because our Master
said the gates of hell shall not prevail against him. Not
one of his little ones. I am the resurrection and the
life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall
he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never
die. Do you believe this? Yeah, Lord,
I believe. I believe you, Lord. You're my
Lord and you're my God. I believe you. I worship Him.
We're here to worship Him. This is the man that Jesus Christ
followed. He followed this ruler that came
to him, fell down before him, and said, Lord, would you come
and lay your hand upon my daughter? And the Lord Jesus Christ followed
this man. Now, let me give you three or
four things right quickly. This has just concluded. First
of all, don't we see something very comforting when we read
here that the Lord Jesus followed him? I wonder how comforting
this was to Jairus. Can you imagine how this thrilled
this man? How it cheered him? He's going
back to where his daughter was dying. And here the Lord of life
was tagging along, so to speak, right after him. He turned to
the right. Boy, the Master was right on
his head. Don't you imagine he turned around and looked often?
And how it cheered him to know he's still there? He's still
following? Oh, the joy of his heart! when
he opened that door to go into his house. And he stepped aside
and the Master stepped in. Oh, can you imagine the cheer
and the comfort that was in his heart? Imagine what would have
happened if the Lord didn't go in. If he had opened that door
and shut it behind him. Just another man, just another
dad to weep over a dying, dead daughter. But that ain't what
happened. The Lord followed him though. Boy, that comforts me.
I think that comforts me when I think about coming here today
to preach. I prayed to this end last week. Lord, I'm going to
Todd's Road next week. Would you follow me there? The
devil sometimes, you know, when you want to go visit somebody
or somebody's on your heart and you feel like you want to go
to them and talk to them about the Lord. Maybe somebody's in
the hospital and you want to go visit them or maybe on your
job at work. You're sitting across the table
from somebody and you want to speak to them about the Lord.
You know who I'm talking about. The devil whispers to you constantly,
the Lord's not working there. Ain't no sense going over there.
He's not even over there. Well, if I go over there and
he's following me, then when I get there, he'll be there.
And if he's there, no telling what he might do. And brothers
and sisters, if I come here, and I come up here and open my
Bible, and he's following me, and it's not me you see, and
it's not me you hear, but it's him Speak into your heart. Oh, then you'll be profited and
I'll be profited. We'll be filled with joy just
like this man was. He's following us. This should
encourage all of us to do great things for our Lord. Do great
things. Seek to do great things. Just
give yourself out to Him. Get out on a limb, as old Brother
Barnard used to say, and cut it off. If He's out there with
you, no telling what He may do if He's following you. But there's
something else, secondly, about this, too. This poor man may
have been filled with so much anxiety. He may have fainted. We don't know what happened to
him. Let's suppose he did. Let's suppose he was so overwhelmed
with all this. The poor man, maybe he got so
disoriented, he fainted. Who was the first one to find
him and help him up? Have you ever fainted, dear brothers
and sisters? I've fainted. Have you ever fallen?
Maybe this poor man got so excited he fell. What if he'd have fell
and broke his leg and didn't go on? Who was there to help
him up? Oh, there's a big advantage in
Jesus Christ following us. I've fallen before, haven't you?
Oh, but if he's following. What if this poor man got so
disoriented he got lost? What if he turned down the street
and he forgot, well, this thing is blocked? And here's this whole
crowd following him, and there he's at the end of the street.
And he can't turn around and go back. And now he's lost. What's he going to do? Poor man.
Well, he's got one behind him that knows the way and can direct
him in it. You think I'm just saying this.
Let me show you a Scripture or two. Look over here in Isaiah
chapter 30. A couple of places in Isaiah
chapter 30. Look here in verse 21. Here's
what the Scripture says about this very thing. And shows us
how profitable it is for the Lord himself to be following
us. Look in chapter 30 and look in
verse 21 of Isaiah. And thine ears shall hear a word
behind thee. You really don't hear a word.
Our Lord Jesus doesn't speak to us audibly. But we hear his
voice. My sheep hear my voice. And it's
said to be behind us to show us that it's a secret voice.
It's just heard by your heart, by your spirit. That he speaks
behind us saying, this is the way. Walk you in it. Oh, isn't that profitable? You
ever lose your way, dear brothers and sisters? You ever get so
confused you didn't know what you were going to do? You didn't
know what the solution was? It seemed like you had just sat
down in darkness and you didn't know what to do. You were waiting
for the Lord's voice to give you direction. And sometimes
we have to wait for a long time and we get so anxious. And then
we hear this little voice, our Master, our Shepherd saying,
this is the way. Go to the right. Go to the Lamb.
Look over here in another scripture. Look in Isaiah 42. Look at this. This so describes us. In chapter
42, look in verse 16. Isaiah 42, verse 16. I will bring
the blind by a way that they knew not. I have no idea where
the Lord is going to lead me tomorrow, and you don't either,
do you? We're on a way that we've never been on before. But the
Lord says here, I will bring them that way. I will lead them
in paths that they have not known. I will make darkness light before
them, crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them,
and not forsake them. How does He do that? He's just
following us along, directing our steps right behind us. My
wife, bless her heart, Worst backseat driver. And you men
know what I'm saying. I don't even drive for her anymore. She scares me to death. You going
to hit him? But boy, I'm so glad the Lord
is following me. He's following me. Aren't you
glad for that? Something else. Something else
about this Jairus. What if he had lost something
very valuable to him when in his haste he was going home? What if he had lost his wallet?
His purse. Who would have been the first
one to find it? Well, I was in an airport. It had been a while
back, but I'll never forget this. I was going out to Brother John
Mitchell's to preach for him out in Great Falls, Montana.
And I sat in an Indianapolis airport. And I went through the
check-in and everything. They checked me in and went over
there to sit down. I wasn't on the plane. It had come almost
time to get on the plane. I reached back to get my wallet.
You know, to get my ID out. And my wallet was gone. And you
can imagine how my heart sank beneath me. I almost had, well
I did, I reached down and got the arm of the chair to steady
myself. And I thought, oh no, I can't get on the plane, can't
even get back to the house without my wallet. And I headed back
up to where I checked in at. And boy, I tell you, I was looking
everywhere. Thoughts ran through my mind, somebody, some rascal,
that rascal had stolen my wallet. I'll never find it. Oh, imagination
ran wild. I got back up there and asked
that guy, I said, oh, have you seen a wallet? I've lost my wallet.
And he said, I found your wallet. I said, man, I could kiss you.
I could kiss you. If I went home tonight, and I'll
get home about midnight, and I'll bet you anything, if I went
in and I woke my wife up, and I said, sweetheart, where's your
purse? She'd tell me exactly where her purse is. You ladies
value your purses, don't you? And if you lost it, it would
fill you with anxiety. And here's the advantage of having
our dear Lord Jesus following us. Have you ever lost your joy? Have you ever lost your assurance?
Your long-suffering? These graces of the Holy Spirit
seem to window, and as far as you can tell, you've all but
lost them. And you wonder, where did I lose them? And how in the
world am I going to find them? How far am I going to have to
go back seeking for them? But as soon as you turn around,
who do you see? And He's got all your valuables.
And as soon as you see Him, you realize And you say, oh, Lord
Jesus, bless your heart. I didn't know where I lost these.
I didn't know where I was ever going to find them, but you found
them. Oh, bless your holy name that you're following me so closely. Isn't there a big advantage of
Him following us? And to think of His love and His goodness
that He would do it. Here's something else I thought
of as I looked at this. The advantage of the Lord Jesus
following us to right all our wrongs. to pick up the pieces
that we've scattered and to clean up our messes behind us. What
if your Iris and his haste, his anxiety had knocked some poor
man down in the ditch and just went on, never stopped to help
him up or to apologize, and here comes the Lord and he helps him
up. He says, you'll have to forgive
my friend. He's so anxious and carried away.
Forgive him. When I come down to death, When
I come down and stand there at the river of death, brothers
and sisters, one of the greatest joys I think I can have in my
heart, looking back over my life, and I tell you, I've made some
messes. I sometimes tell people my life, my Christian life, when
I look back over it, it's like that road. Remember in the first
Gulf War when all the Iraqis were fleeing out of Iraq into
Jordan, and miles and miles and miles of that road was bombed. And there was tanks and trucks
and cars and human parts and animal parts and oil and gas
scattered all over that place. Just a junkyard for miles and
miles. And I saw that and I thought,
boy, that looks like my Christian life. I've made such a mess. Oh, I've hurt some people. I've
broke some hearts. And I think the biggest thrill
and the greatest comfort when I'm standing there at the river
of death and I look back and think of some of the messes I've
made, and hear my Master standing there behind me, and he says,
yes, and I cleaned it all up. I cleaned it all up. Won't that
be comforting, brethren? He says, I followed you. I followed you. I've been following
you all the way. Oh, no wonder David said, Lord,
let goodness and mercy follow me. Let the Lord who is good
follow me. Let mercy, the Lord who is merciful,
follow me and forgive me. and clean up my awful message
that I made. He followed this man. And lastly
is this. Can you imagine just knowing
that the Lord Jesus was following him, how careful this made this
man? I bet you he was careful how
he led the Master to his house. He probably thought a time or
two, now boy, that's a shortcut. I leave the main road, and there's
a little path. It's swampy, and it's muddy,
and it's got some old stagnated moss in it." And he thought to
himself, now wait a minute. My Master's following me. He's
following right with me. Am I going to get him out of
that mud? Can I endear to think, when I see his holy feet, that
I've got him in the mud? Can I see that stagnated moss
hanging from his holy garments? Would I do my Master? Oh, no,
he said. Not after he's been so good and
condescending to follow me. Brothers and sisters, I tell
you what will secure your desire. To not be around people you shouldn't
be around. Not to keep company you shouldn't
keep. I tell you what will secure your desire not to go places
that's not wholesome and good for a child of God to be. I tell
you what will secure that. Your knowledge that the Lord
is following you. I heard Brother Mahan tell about
this pastor in a large church out in Texas. And he got together
with some of the elders, and I guess they thought that some
of the congregation was going places and keeping company they
shouldn't keep. So their solution was to write
down all these rules for the congregation to live by. Where
you can go, how you can dress, who you can keep company with.
And when they got all the rules wrote down, the pastor ran off
with the piano player. Ain't that what happens? There's
no sense. of Brother Todd and the elders
getting together to tell you who to keep company with and
how to live. I'll tell you what will secure that. I'll tell you
what will secure us living for His glory. Knowing that He's
following us. Lord, if Your presence go not
with me, Moses said, don't carry me after You. How then is it
going to be known that we're Your people? Is it not then that
You go with us? So shall we be separated. I and thy people, from all people,
the presence of the Lord, teach you where you don't need to be.
And if He don't teach you and you don't live out of gratitude
for His presence, there ain't no sense in me trying to teach
you. Jesus followed him in the way. Oh, how our Master condescends. Just knowing who He is and the
fact He condescends to follow us. Oh, that's love. He is so
good. Our tender Father.