Let me read verse 8 and 9 of
1 Peter chapter 1 at this time. Whom having not seen, let me back up and read verse
7 with it. That the trial of your faith
being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though
it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom, having not
seen, ye love, in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing,
ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving
the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." The
Apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 1, Verse 16 and 17, he said,
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God unto salvation and to everyone that believeth, to the
Jew first and also unto the Greek. For therein that is in the gospel
is the righteousness of God revealed, And the righteousness of God,
as we've told you many times, is a person. Is a person. And that person is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, beloved, if you are joined
to Christ, in union with Him, you have God's righteousness.
Christ is God's righteousness. And then it goes on to say that
those that are justified, they walk by faith, they live by faith.
And so God's people are here this morning. I believe there's
some here that truly do know the Lord, truly do have the faith
of God's elect, and it's joyous to be able to meet and assemble
with the saints of God. I hope this morning that you
had a burden to come. I hope you had a burden for this
preacher. I hope you had a burden for those souls that would be
sitting around you in the meeting today. It's always good to see
the Lord's people gather together. I heard about a preacher that
went down one day to the mall, and he found a run-on to one
of his delinquent church members. And that church member had not
been in the meeting for a considerable length of time. And so he said
to him, he said, missed you at church lately. And the fellow
said, well, he said, you know how it is, preacher. He said
the children have been sick, and then it's rained. and rained
and rained. And the preacher said, well,
you know, he said it's been dry down at the church. And he said,
yes, he said, that's another reason I haven't been there. It's because it's been dry at
the church. Well, it ought not so to be. And I hope that you're praying
that it will not be so. That there will be life in the
preacher. and that the preacher will have
a living message, have a word for you from God that will stay
your soul, a word from you or from God to you that will stand
you instead in these difficult and trying times. Now the subject
for this morning is seeing is not believing, but believing
is seeing. That is the subject, I believe,
of these two verses. And I hope that we can work our
way through these verses and that we'll be able to profit
from our time together. Now there are those who are lost,
I would suppose, that are convinced that if they could physically
touch the hem of the Savior's garment, it would heal all their
spiritual diseases. that they would be healed, like
the woman in the New Testament that had the issue of blood.
She came up behind the Savior, touched the hem of His garment,
and she was healed. Virtue flowed out of the Son
of God and healed her. But beloved, we know that there
are those, and probably those in our very midst, that believe
that the medicine of the gospel will heal them but they just
simply do not know how to take it. They do not know how to get
at it. The problem with these that we
mentioned first is they just don't know how to touch the Lord
Jesus Christ in our day and in our time because you see we're
dealing with one that we cannot see. We're dealing with one who
has not been seen for 2,000 years in this world. And so there are
those that say, well, if I could touch the hem of his garment,
I would be healed. And those who say, well, the
medicine of the gospel would cure, but I just simply don't
know how to take the gospel. By what means shall these be
brought into contact with Christ. How will He become the Savior
of their souls? How will they ever get to Christ? Now the aim of the gospel ministry
should be to remove all such difficulties as these, remove
them out of the way completely and entirely. So this morning
I want to try, if I can, God helping me to lift the barriers
that seem to be upon the king's highway that honest souls may
believe and see. They may believe and see. Now there was a story told one
time about a king who would try the patience of his subjects. And so he took and put a huge
boulder in the middle of the most traveled thoroughfare in
his kingdom. And he put an observer to watch
to see what the people would do. Well, the people would come
up A lot of them would come and they would stand and look at
the rock or look at the boulder and then they would turn around
and just simply go back home. Fact is, most of the people that
came up against the huge boulder just simply shook their head
in astonishment and turned around and went back home. They wouldn't
attempt to make any effort whatever to remove the barrier, to lift
the burden or lift the rock out of the way to remove it. And
so one day there was an old peasant that came by and he had a burden
upon his back. He had vegetables to take to
the market. And he came up and he looked
at this rock, the rock that others had climbed over, the rock that
many had just went over into the field to get around. He looked
at it and he looked at it and finally he laid down his burden
and he went about by the wayside seeking poles and something for
a leverage and he worked and he worked and he worked till
finally he removed this huge boulder out of the road and lo
and behold under the boulder there was a purse that the king
had placed there for that one who would remove the boulder
and the purse was filled with gold coins. And so the moral
of the story is that those who would remove the stone will receive
the gold of the gospel. And those of you this morning
that need to listen carefully to this message, I hope that
you will. that you'll receive the gold of the gospel and that
the preacher also will be blessed seeing that you're my crown in
the Lord. And so may the Lord bless our
efforts. Beloved, it is common to me with
people or with persons who say, I wish that I had heard the Lord
Jesus Christ. actually heard him speak, if
I could have just been there, if I could have listened to that
naturalist eloquence of which it was written, never a man spake
like this man. I would have been convinced,
they say, I would have been humbled, I would have been melted, I would
have been led to repent, and I would have been inspired with
Faith, with true faith. Oh, if I could just have heard
Him say those words. Come unto me all ye that labor
in a heavy laden, and I will give you rest. I would have jumped
out of my seat, and I would have cried, Master, Master, I come. Here I am, a heavy laden sinner. Give me rest, give me rest. That's what you say that you
would have done. You might also say, you say,
I think if I could have had the privilege to lean my head upon
the bosom of the Lord Jesus as John the Beloved did. As a matter
of course, I believe that I would have been saved by feeling the
heartbeat of the Son of God ringing in my ears. Oh, if I could have
heard, if I could have touched, if I could have just seen These
would have been gates through which I could have come to Christ. I could have got to Christ if
I could have just been there in the day of His physical ministry
upon earth. If I could have only exercised
my senses upon His blessed person, I know that I would have become
a believer. I know that I could have come
to the place where I could have loved Him and where I could have
served Him. Well, at first sight, these may
seem to be plausible statements, and seems that there must be
some truth in it. But believe me, beloved, when
I say that there is none, there is no truth in these statements,
no truth whatsoever. My friend, you have the Gospels.
You have the four Gospels, and you have the epistles of the
Word of God, and you have the abiding presence of the Holy
Spirit. And if you believed not, neither
would you have believed if you had been among the company who
saw Jesus, who touched His person, and listened to His voice. Peter's
talking to people here who have not seen Christ. These people
that he was ministering to had not seen the Lord Jesus Christ
with their physical eye. It is a mistake to think that
contact with Jesus through the senses would produce faith. That is a mistake. That is not
true. That's a boulder we want to remove
out of the road this morning. It's a plain fact that out of
the mass of people who did, see the Lord Jesus Christ, who did
hear him speak, few, that is very few, actually believed. Now the crowd which gathered
round the crucifixion, which seems to me to be the most moving
scene in the history of the world, were not bettered by what they
saw. They were not bettered by what
they saw. As the multitude gazed upon him there, instead of tears,
there were laughter. Instead of repentance, there
was blasphemy. Instead of submission to the
Lamb of God, no, there was no submission, there was rebellion.
There they are, look at them as they're gathered, all sorts,
the highest and the lowest, the intelligent and the uneducated,
and all of them alike spit their venom of their hatred upon the
crucified one. They cried, if he be the Son
of God, Let Him come down from the cross. Oh dear and blessed
Jesus, come not down from the cross. We must have Thee on the
cross. If there be not a crucified Savior,
there is no hope for sinners like me and you. My point is,
seeing is not believing, but it's disbelieving and it is hatred. They had beheld His miracles.
They had seen dead Lazarus come forth from the grave. They had
seen the lepers cleansed, the blind given sight. They had feasted
upon the bread and the fishes which He had created for them,
and yet they believed not. Yet they believed not. Well,
what makes you think that you would have believed if you'd
been there? You say, well if I'd have been there, I would
have been different. My friend, there's nothing better
in your heart than in the hearts of other men. We're all blind
as bats. We're all graveyard dead spiritually. We all are spiritually as dumb
as wild asses. Spiritually speaking, there is
no life in us and there's no desire in our souls and hearts
to behold Him and worship Him and to live in the light of His
truth. The probabilities are that if
you'd been there and done that like they did, that you would
have remained what you are now. Just what you are now, an unbeliever,
a lost sinner, one who would have added to your guilt because
you had been there and because you had participated in their
rebellion and in their sin. It should never be forgotten
that those who did believe in Jesus Christ in His own day had
to get out and off and beyond the sphere of the senses in order
to believe. Oh, the natural man is not going
to assist or help us to believe the gospel. Our own nature. Oh, my friend, if you're looking
to your own nature, I'm going to tell you something. You're
pumping a dry well. There's no hope in looking to
yourself. You've got to look outside of
your senses and ask that God would give you the faith to believe
on Him whom you've not seen. Now, listen to me. Let me show
you what I mean. It should never be forgotten,
I'm saying, that those who did believe, they had to get beyond
their senses in order to believe. Let me show you here what I'm
talking about. Let me ask you a couple of questions. Would the sight, would the sight,
think of it with me, of the deep poverty of the man of sorrows
lead you to believe in his Godhead? No! The Bible says that there
was no place, He had no place, no place, think of this, no place
to lay His head. No place to lay His head. Now beloved, the first chapter
of John tells us that He made the world, created all things
in it. Nothing that was created was
created without Him. He did all of that, yet He was
stricken with deep poverty in this world. The song that we
sang this morning on page 44 said, He emptied Himself of all
but love and bled and died for that chosen race, that race which
God the Father set His love upon. from old, from the foundation
of the world. He had emptied himself out and certainly he
was in deep poverty when he was in this world. Would that cause
you to believe if you viewed him and looked upon him? Here's
the God-man. Here's the man who made the world.
And you look upon him and here he is. Not a place to lay his
head. Foxes have holes, birds of the
air have net. But the Son of Man, not a place
to lay his head. Would that have helped you to
believe on him? No, my friend, it would not. Would an association
with him and his rejection and his dishonor lead you to believe
in his heavenly, in his celestial glory? Would it? when you saw
him rejected, when you saw him dishonored, when you saw him
treated as he was maltreated, would it have caused you to believe
that he was from heaven and that he was heaven's best, that he
was the king of glory come down to earth? Absolutely not. If you'd seen him betrayed and
dragged away to an ignominious doom, Would that shameful scene,
would that in any way assisted your faith? No, it would not. All you could have done was shook
your head in bewilderment. Oh, here is a fake. Here is a
phony. Here is one who says he's God.
Here is one that says he's equal with God. Here is the God-man,
we're told, and yet here he is. being led off in shame to a cross
and crucified on a cross. I say to you it wouldn't do you
any good to have witnessed that scene. Beloved, faith would have
had to triumph over all that the eye beheld. Would it not
have been needful, would it not have been needful, I say, to
use the eye of the soul rather than the poor optics of the body
to see the Son of God in the Son of Man? Would it not have
been necessary for God to have opened your eyes, the eyes of
your soul, in order for you to believe that this was indeed
the Son of God, the Son of Man? How was the Messiahship of the
Godhead, the glory and power of Christ, to be seen by the
natural eye? Well, what was saw was hostile
to faith. It was contradictory to faith. Did not the prophet Isaiah tell
us that when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should
desire him? That's what he said. There's
no beauty that we should desire. He is a root, he went on to say,
out of dry ground. He's a man of sorrows acquainted
with grief. The Lord Jesus I'm talking about.
You see, His heavenly glory, His heavenly power, His heavenly
wisdom is all concealed in this veil of inferior clay that He
took upon Himself. After all this, if any did believe,
it was on another ground altogether than sight. Remember that. Listen to Jesus. Turn back with
me to Matthew chapter 16 if you will, quickly. Matthew chapter
16. I want to show you this, how
this is spelled out very clearly in the Word of God. Matthew chapter
16, I begin with verse 13. When Jesus came, and by the way,
He's speaking here to the very Peter that wrote our epistle,
the one we're studying out of here this morning. When Jesus
came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples,
saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am? And they
said, some say that thou art John the Baptist. Some, Elias,
and others, Jeremiah, are one of the prophets. And he saith
unto them, but whom say ye that I am? Peter, whom do you say
that I am? Peter had been with the Lord
Jesus. He had feast with him. He had fellowship with him. He
had walked with him day and night. He had prayed with him. Peter
had been with him in retirement, if you please, at night. Peter
had stayed with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Jesus said, but
whom do you say that I am, Peter? You've known me. You've been
around me. You've watched what's happened. Whom do you say that
I am? You've heard what others have
said. Now what do you think? And Simon Peter answered and
said, He answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God. Thou art the Christ, Thou art
the inordinate one of God. Thou art the Messiah, the true
Messiah of God. Thou art the one who has come
down, having been sent of God, coming down in order to bring
in everlasting righteousness and to save your people from
their sin. Thou art the Son of the Living God. And Jesus answered
and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh
and blood did reveal it unto you as you were standing by. Your daddy told you that I was
the Christ. Flesh and blood revealed it to
you. No, that's not what it says. You that don't have your Bibles
open, you may think that I'm making scripture. But blessed
art thou, listen to what he said, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and
blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is
in heaven. The only way you found this out was to have illumination. The only way you found it out
was to have enlightenment and to have regeneration from above. The only way you found it out
was for God to reveal it to you. You've been with me and all that,
but he didn't trace it back to what had went on between them
as they conversed in fellowship. No, it was because The father
had revealed it unto him now turn with me quickly to John
6 John 6 and here in John 6 this is also brought out very clearly
Now we read in verse 32 that Jesus said unto them and that
is the Pharisees He said verily verily truly truly. I said you
may Moses gave you not that bread from heaven Moses gave them you
remember the manna and He gave them the manna to eat. But, he
says, Moses didn't give you that bread from heaven. Oh, it came
down, but it didn't come. That wasn't the true bread. But
my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. My Father
giveth you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God
is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the
world. Then they said unto him, Lord,
evermore give us this bread. And that's what you and I would
say, being enlightened of the Spirit of God. Lord, evermore
give us this bread. These people were not thus enlightened. And Jesus said to them, I am
the bread of life. I am the bread of life. In verse 38, for I came down
from heaven. I came down from heaven. Now
the Jews in verse 41 murmured at him because he said I am the
bread which came down from heaven. Here he was standing right in
front of them. Plainly spoke into their ears and told them
that he was the bread of God that came down from heaven. And
they murmured, because he had said this. And they said, Why,
this Jesus is not this the son of Joseph, whose father and mother
we know? That's all we know? We know his
father and mother? How is it then that he said,
I came down from heaven? You see how the physical eye,
how that it betrays the soul? Do you see how it is that even
though the ear hears, I am the bread of life? No, it doesn't
hear it. It's not able to hear it. He
says, Jesus therefore answered in verse 43, and said unto them,
murmur not among yourselves. Murmur not among yourselves.
Here you are backness back and forth about who I am, where I
came from, and so on and so forth. He said don't murmur among yourselves. No man can come to me except
the Father which has sent me. Draw him, and I'll raise him
up at the last day. It is written in the prophets
they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath
heard and learned of the Father, he cometh. Unto me so you see
clearly how this is spelled out in the word of God my friend
how we need to take note of this We must get out of this idea
that if we could have just been there or what? Believers we would
have been and what Christians we would have been if we could
have just just been there and No, no. In Isaiah, Isaiah said
again, who hath believed our report? To whom is the arm of
the Lord revealed? And what he was saying was, who
hath believed our report? Question those to whom the arm
of the Lord is revealed. They're the ones that have believed
the gospel. These are like these that Peter
is writing to. Whom have ye not seen, ye love? Now then, if you have faith,
it is the cause of the work of the Spirit of God in your heart.
I say it over again, no soul is ever saved without the working
of the Spirit of God. God must work in your heart. Well, somebody says, if it's
not by seeing, and if it's not by hearing, and not by touching,
how can we make contact with Christ, preacher? How can we
make contact with the Son of God. Well, number one, the first
point of contact that Peter mentions here in verse 8, He says, whom
having not seen, ye love. And the second point of contact,
in whom though now ye see him not yet believing. So the two
things here, we love Christ and we believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is the two points here of
contact. This is how a soul comes in union
with the Lord Jesus Christ. Whom having not seen. Peter twice
says of these people, that they had not seen. He describes them
as loving and believing on Him, Jesus Christ, that One who is
going to appear in honor and great glory. They believe on
Him. Jesus said, if God were your
Father, you would love Me. You would love Me. Now, if any
man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha.
The love of God is shed abroad, Paul said in Romans 5, in our
hearts by the Holy Ghost. And there's the answer. My friend,
the Spirit of God comes down upon you and puts His love in
your heart for the Lord Jesus Christ, whom you've never seen,
then you're a Christian. Then you're a Christian. Now,
we did not see him become poor that we might be rich. We did
not see that happen. No, we did not. We believe the
testimony of the Word of God. He was Lord of all, yet, yet,
he laid aside, he laid aside his glory, he laid aside his
riches, he became poor that we through his poverty might be
rich. We know he did. We know he did. And the reason I know he did
is because of the true riches of the gospel and how wonderful
it is, what a treasure it is to have those riches in earthen
vessels. Isn't that wonderful? Marvelous
to have these treasures of the gospel and they're all made possible
because he who was rich became poor that we, through his poverty,
might be rich. We did not see that. We wasn't
there when he was born as a babe in the manger. But we know it
happened. We know it happened. He who was
rich became poor that we, through his poverty, might be rich. We
did not. Us? We didn't see that. We wasn't
there. We know it happened. Somebody said, can you prove
it? Don't have to prove it. I know it happened. I know it
because I love Him because He came down here into this world
and became very man, very man for us. At the very thought of
Him leaving the highest throne of glory. My friend, doesn't
that not inspire love in our hearts? He left that throne because
He must come down here and be born once that we might be born
twice. He come down here in this world
that He might take upon Himself our sin, that He might take upon
Himself our very sin and our guilt. He came down here in this
world, His very thought, the very thought that He left His
throne in glory to come down here to die, to live, to die
for this sinner. Oh my friend, I must, I must
love Him. We don't need a physical seeing. Our soul needs not to see Him. Believing we love Him. Believing
we love Him. We must love Him. How can we
help but love Him? He laid down His life for us. We were not at Calvary physically,
however the eye of faith sees one hanging on a tree, there
in agony and blood, and we fixed our languid eyes upon him, those
eyes of faith, and with the Spirit's eye, With the Spirit's eye, we've
seen it all, haven't we? Somebody said, well, I like to
describe Calvary. I'll listen any time. Listen to me any time. Any man who can preach up Jesus
Christ, I'll listen to it. Any man who can describe that
scene of Calvary. Anybody that can talk about the
death of Christ and what that death meant. I'll take my hat
off to Him. I'll listen to Him. I'll consider
His feet to be beautiful if He can tell me about the crucified
Son of the Living God. I'll rejoice in it and praise
God for it because it's going to stimulate my heart to more
love. I'm going to be able to see that
this was for me. So the contemplation of His intense
agony there on the cross For those of us who were His enemies,
constrains us, constrains us all to say, we love Him. We love Him! Do we not love Him?
We've never seen Him, but we love Him because of what He's
done for us. So we never saw Him dead. No,
we never saw Him dead. Yet our soul's glory in His death. His death was our death to sin.
You see, beloved, I would have had to die for all eternity.
I would have had to suffer eternal death. Never, never, never to
have lived in eternity. Dying, dying, dying, dying for
every day! But it was the Lord Jesus who
died the death of sin. Don't you ever get over that.
If you ever get over that, God help you, God pity you. Your
love for Him must be built upon these things that He has suffered
in our stead, in our room, in our place. We love Him. We love
Him because He first loved us. Remember the Scripture says in
Romans 5, when we were yet without strength, Christ died for the
ungodly? Yes, He did. He died for the
ungodly. Nor did we see Him rise from
the dead. Oh, I wasn't there in the upper room when He appeared
to the brethren, and then when He came back and appeared to
old unbelieving Thomas. No, no. But the witness of the
Spirit of God and the resurrection power of the gospel that lives
in this old soul of mine tells me that it's true. He was raised
from the dead. I believe I'm living on the resurrection
side of the grave. And I'm talking to you as a man
who stands in the victory of the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I believe in it with all my heart. And so when you plant this old
body in the dust of the earth, Don't let it bring you down to
the place of tears, my friend. It's a morning of victory. It's
a time of victory because Jesus has been resurrected from the
grave. And although we have seen Him,
we haven't seen Him, I just know He's seated today at the right
hand of God. I know that He is. I know some
infidel was talking to a young man. Who's reading the scriptures? And he said, what are you doing
now? What are you reading that old book for? There ain't nothing
in that old book. What are you reading that for?
And the boy said to him, he said, listen, mister, he said, this
is the only book that gave my mother any comfort when she was
a dying. And he woke that old infidel
up, and at least I had the poem that he wrote. But he went off
and got with the Lord, and he got saved, and he wrote a poem.
My friend, he wrote a poem, and I'll dig it up, and I'll read
it to you. It just came to me to tell you
that. I'm telling you, in the resurrection of Christ, this
Bible, there's a whole chapter, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, called
the resurrection chapter, and you ought to read it, meditate
upon it. It'll give you hope, and it'll make you love the Lord
Jesus Christ. It'll make you believe on Him.
You may see many things in this life that you do not understand. And we certainly have many, many
things that we could not figure out or understand. We may touch
many things as we pass through on the way of life, but my friend,
without realizing what we've done. But you cannot love a fiction. You cannot love a myth. My friend,
love and faith makes the Savior real to the heart. Can you not
say amen to that? Love and faith makes the Son
of God real to the heart. I know and you know, who have
believed on Him, that you could not, if you saw Him, trust Him
more really. than you do right now. His death,
His resurrection, His righteousness is the sole foundation of our
hope. Our acceptance in the Beloved is a fact undisputable. The way of the cross leads home
and the way to the cross is by love and faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Well, that brings me to the next
thing that is mentioned here. I must hurry. The time is getting
away. He says, though now you see him
not yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory. When a soul has made contact
with Jesus Christ's beloved faith, well, what follows? Well, Peter
says, he says, ye rejoice, ye rejoice. There's a time of rejoicing
and this joy, he says, is unspeakable and it's full. He says of glory,
it's full of glory to God. Now the first result of trusting
and loving Christ then is a joy of the most, let me say, the
most remarkable kind. It is far above all common joy. Listen, it is spoken of as joy
unspeakable, joy that you just can't talk about. It'd be kind
of like Paul when he came down to the third heavens. He said
he saw things that he couldn't utter, things that he couldn't
talk about. And so it is with the joy of the Lord in the soul.
All earth-born joys can be told out to the full. Why, you hear
people talking all the time how happy they are. Oh, my friend,
listen, but spirit-born joys cannot be told because there
is not yet been a language given to describe these joys. There is no language anywhere
on earth that would describe the joy of a child of God. You say, boy, my friend, preacher,
you just, you kind of must be hallucinating a little bit talking
about these things and saying that believers ought to have
this joy. Well, they do have. They do have
this joy. Not be they ought to have, they
do have. Now, I suppose that this, for that is the language
I'm talking about, There's not been a language yet that's been
given to describe the unspeakable joy of the Lord. I suppose, though,
that there's going to be a language, and there is a language reserved
for heaven where spiritual minds will talk to spiritual minds
without being confined to the poor, poverty-stricken words
of earth that are so necessary to us while we're yet in this
body. But there, there's going to be a language. that we're
going to be able to talk about the love of the Master, the love
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we're going to be able to converse
with one another, to spiritual minds, to spiritual minds. The
jaw of the believer is unspeakable. There is no telling it out. You say, well, I've been waiting
for you to describe the preacher. Well, my friend, there's no telling
it out. Earthly joy is often exaggerated,
you know that, but the jaws of the believer is often seen in
the countenance of the believer. Not all the time, but often seen
in the countenance. Isaiah 55 and 12 says, For ye
shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace. The mountains
and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and
all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. You ever
been there? Bless God, wonderful days. Wonderful days. It would be wonderful
if you could just hold them. I mean hold them, and I've hugged
them. I mean to tell you I've hugged them. But, you know, you
can't keep them. They won't be there all the time
in this world. No, they won't. I never will forget, and I don't,
you know, I'm not trying to make anything of anybody's experience
other than what I've really witnessed with my own eye. But I remember
when the Lord saved Mike. how that when he came home the
night, the morning after he got saved, he got up really early
and took a load of lumber off, I think, to Lewistown and came
back. And in the evening when he came home, walked, started
walking down toward where I was, down to the barn, and when I
saw him coming, I could tell. I could tell. He was right there. The joy of the Lord in his face,
in his countenance, it was there. And I'm telling you, it's often
seen often seen on the countenance. The apostle adds that it is full
of glory. Many worldly jaws are full of
shame. The jaws of the world are too
selfish to be boasted of, my friends. We will tell the devils
in hell, every believer here, every true believer here, every
believer here that's ever experienced the joy of the Lord in their
souls, will tell all unbelievers that they are not ashamed to
glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. We will dare tell
it out to the worst as well as to the best. Though often we're
cast down in our pilgrim journey on our way to the celestial city,
but my friend, the world, we'll tell it to the world that we
have a joy that they don't have, that they've never experienced.
Well, why is this joy of the Christian so unspeakable and
so full of glory? It is so because it is altogether
divine. It is altogether God. That's
why it is so. To God be the glory. Now, beloved,
I cannot believe that Armenian free will religionists ever experienced
anything like this. There may be a few of them around,
God help their poor souls, that have not yet been able to come
to the place where they can rejoice in free grace and everlasting
covenant love and the election of God, but my friend, to God
be the glory, not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name give
glory. And this glory, this unspeakable
joy, gives glory. Isn't it alright with you to
give it to Him? Give it to Him? Give it to Christ! He's the one
that bought our salvation, paid for it in full, and so we give
Him glory from the beginning to the end. Our joy would lead
us to ascribe all glory and praise unto our God. Not one inch of
ground shall ever be reserved for us upon which we can boast. We shall give all glory, all
praise unto God. Now then, this is altogether
divine. What I want to say is it's God's
own joy. Can you imagine? Can you just
imagine God, His joy? Can you imagine? Well, That's
hard to do, isn't it? It's hard to do. But here's a
perfect being. Here's a being that knows everything.
He knows all. He has all power. He can do whatever
he will. His will is dominant in his universe. God will bring to pass his holy
and sovereign good pleasure and purpose. None can stay his hand
or throw at him. Don't you suppose he's got some
joy? I suppose he does. Well, the joy he gives the believer
is his own joy. It is Christ's own joy. It is
Christ's joy. Don't you believe he has... He's
going to present us perfect before his Heavenly Father with, the
scripture says, ecstatic joy. Ecstatic joy because of what
he's accomplished. You think the Savior ought to
be... Don't you think he ought to be happy for what he accomplished?
He shall see the travail of his soul, he shall be what? Satisfied! And so he has joy that he is
going to have his own. So it is unspeakable and full
of glory to God. Well brother, sister, let me
say that I never knew the meaning of this little word joy. until
I knew Christ, until I come to know the Lord Jesus. I never
knew the meaning of it. I know a little bit about some
of this little glib stuff that people experience in their life,
but deep-seated, real, true, joy, heavenly-sent joy is only
had through knowing the Son of God, through knowing Him as your
Lord, your Savior. This joy unspeakable is not dependent
upon circumstances. Some of us have had a small measure
of success in life. Others have had a great deal
maybe of success. We may have had setbacks. We
may have had griefs like those to whom Peter is writing. You
remember we told you about them. But this joy unspeakable full
of glory is unaffected by all of this, good or bad. Praise
God. Praise God. Lift us above this
world. Lift us above. Lift us up. Lift
us up past this world. Well, the last thing, and I'll
hurry to a conclusion. The Apostle mentions another
blessing received by loving and trusting Christ in verse 9. Receiving the end of your faith. even the salvation of your souls.
When these people are rejoicing, it is because they have received
the end of their faith. They have salvation. They have
the salvation of their soul. Receive it. What hast thou that
thou hast not received? And if thou hast received it,
then why do you glory as if you had not received it? Everything
we got we received. Received it. I told you all ago
didn't come from nature Jesus told his disciples He said it
is given on your behalf to understand the mysteries of the kingdom
of God now beloved a mystery Listen to me a mystery. There's
three things about a mystery and that is number one. It's
beyond nature and It's beyond our nature. We received it. We
received it. It's beyond our senses. And it's
beyond our, the very, well, the other one slipped my mind right
then. Let's see, the senses, and then, well, I'll think of
it in a moment. But nevertheless, there's three
things involved in it. But it's beyond our nature. And
so what we have here, we have received something we couldn't
produce. And the receiving, we have received
the salvation of the Lord. He says receiving the end of
your faith, even the salvation of your soul. Every man who trusts
and loves Christ is saved. The common idea bandied about
by the religion is that perhaps we shall get saved when we die.
The Word of God knows nothing of such salvation and neither
do we. True salvation saves when? Now. It saves when one believes
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says in Ephesians 2.5, you
should look it up, talks about our being dead in sin, how we
were quickened with Christ, and Paul makes this statement. He
makes this statement, five words, by grace ye are saved. Ye are saved. Got it. Right now. You got it. By grace, you got
it. Because you have received it.
Didn't pump it out of your well. Ye received it. When salvation
is once done, it is done how long? Forever. If you're saved,
you're saved, and you'll never be lost. What are we saved from? Well, from the guilt of sin.
That's what this salvation's all about. Jesus said, Or Matthew
1.21 says, Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save
His people from their sin. Did you ever feel the burden
of sin? Somebody says, I don't know about this guilt of sin
and this feeling it and all of that, but did you ever feel it
when it was there? Well, bless God, if you ever
felt it when it was there, you also felt it when it was lifted,
when it was gone. What a wonderful thing. The removal
of guilt is no fiction. It's not the idea of a weak-brained
enthusiasm. Has it happened to you? Have
you received the end of your faith? Have you received the
salvation of your soul? Are you saved? If not, there isn't any wonder
you don't know anything about what we're talking about. Listen to
these poems. The moment a sinner believes
and trusts in his crucified God, His pardon that once he receives,
redemption in full through Christ's blood. His pardon for transgression
past, it matters not how black their cast, and oh my soul with
wonder view, for sins to come, here's pardon too. I'm talking
about being saved from the guilt of sin, being pardoned, have
the assurance that we're saved. We receive the end of our faith.
even the salvation of our soul. An unsaved man, I'll tell you
this and then I'm done, talked with a gospel preacher about
how to be saved, because he was deeply convicted about his sin. And when he asked the preacher
what he could do to be saved, the preacher said, you're too
late. You're too late. Too late! What do you mean? You mean I'm too late to be saved? No, the preacher said, you're
just too late to do anything yourself. Christ has already
done it all. And that's the point. We need
to love and believe the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I wonder
this morning if you all had to write a letter, every one of
you, to God. Write a letter to God. And in that letter you had to
tell him Whether you believed or not.
Whether you really believed what the preacher said. You were gathered
with the others. You heard what was said. And
you had to be honest. The judgment day honesty. And
you had to tell whether you really believed what the preacher said
or not. What would you do? What would you say? Would you say,
no, I don't believe it? Would you? One of you got the
grit. to write a letter to God and
tell him you don't believe what you heard here this morning in
this public. I challenge you. I challenge
you to do it. There ain't no one of you that
could do it. I believe every one of you believes what's been
preached here this morning. Every one of you. And those of
you that believe it, that have never had the guts to stand up
and say, I believe that gospel. I believe that gospel. And I
trust that Christ. Then my friend, God help you.
You're ashamed of Jesus. May the Lord bring your heart
to where you will openly confess, I believe the Lord Jesus Christ
to have died for my sin. I believe on Him. Father, in
the name of Jesus, bless the message and use it to Thy glory,
use it to Thy honor, use it to Thy praise. We give You all glory. We give You glory for anything
that comes to pass here that is God honoring. In Jesus' name,
Amen.