I want to talk this morning about
unbelief. I want to talk about mistrusting
of God and how that it is deplored and denounced in the Word of
God. How long will this people, God
asked Moses, how long will this people provoke me and how long
will it be ere they believe me? Now the children of Israel were
very prone to unbelief. This generation of professed
believers that I'm speaking to and that other men are addressing
this morning are commonly spoken of as being the generation of
unbelieving believers. And I would say this morning,
as I heard someone say the other day, that there is enough unbelief
in any one of us to send us all to hell. And I firmly believe
that. The scripture says in John 3
and 18, He that believeth is not condemned. But he that believeth
not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name
of the only begotten Son of God." Now the children of Israel, as
we said, are very prone to unbelief, as we are. They wanted something
visible, something visible to worship and to trust, and they
would not they could not learn the lesson of faith in one great
invisible God. So they were one day bowing before
an idol, and the next day they were murmuring against the one
true and the living God. Their life was according to the
flesh, after the sight of the eyes and the hearing of the ears.
And so they praised God when Pharaoh was drowned in the Red
Sea. And when manna lay round about
their camp, they were full of joy and praise. But the very
moment that they were in want or in difficulty and saw no supply
or no relief at hand, they could not trust in God, but began to
mistrust the Lord and began to murmur and complain against Him. Note, if you will, with what
wonderful longsuffering the Lord bore with them. They cried for
water and they doubted God's power to give it to them in the
desert sands. But the smitten rock, if you
remember, poured forth a thirst-quenching stream. Then they cried for bread
and charged the Lord with bringing them into the wilderness to kill
them with hunger. Would to God they said, we would
have died in Egypt. would to God that we could go
back to Egypt. And yet in spite of their unbelief,
God had mercy upon them, and there fell a shower, you remember,
of angels' food for them to eat. Then they clamored for flesh,
and they had not long began their unbelieving murmurs. against
God before a strong wind brought them up quails and they fed to
the full upon those quails. My soul, such liberal answers
to their murmurings ought to have silenced their fears forever,
and they should have exhibited faith. because of the way God
miraculously provided for them and met their needs. And yet
they did not do so. They would not believe God. They
would not trust God. But for 40 years they provoked
the Lord. For 40 years in the wilderness
they murmured, they complained, and they doubted God. Now the
incident that is before us this morning In our text it relates
to that great and terrible provocation in which the long-suffering of
God came to an end. It came to a halt. Now they had
sent spies, you remember, into the land of Canaan. and there
were twelve of them that were sent in. There was two, Caleb
and Joshua, who were men, who were regenerated men, and who
had the right spirit of God about them, and the spirit of faith
in their hearts. But there were ten unbelievers
that had went with them, and when they came back, why these
unbelievers They caused the people to be fearful and they had a
testimony that turned the hearts of the people away from the promise
of God and the word, the good word, the sound word and encouragement
of Caleb and Joshua turned them away into unbelief. So then they began to accuse
the Lord according to their unbelief and former manner, denying His
power to fulfill His ancient covenant and to give them the
land that flowed with milk and honey. They just could not believe
that God could give them this land, beings that there were
giants in the land. Now this time the Lord swore
that they should not enter into His rest. This time God had all
that He would put up with. He was provoked to the end, to
the very limit. And I say to you this morning
that we're living in a time when the Word of God is not treasured. We're living in a time when men
and women will read the Bible and then just very scoffingly,
very scoffingly just cast it off and they will not believe
what God says in His Word. But if you are a child of God
this morning, my friend, may you take heed to the warning
that Paul gives us in the Word of God. Let us be warned by this
fact that there's a limit to the long-suffering of God, especially
when it is tried by unbelief. Now the Lord may bear with unbelief
for a time, and blessed be His name for a long time, for He
remembers that we're but dust, But when it comes to willful
perseverance in unbelief, the Lord will not put up with it
forever. We ought to listen to the words of Paul. I suggested
that a moment ago in Hebrews 4 and 1, where he says, Let us
therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into
his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. Now, beloved,
my subject this morning is the sin of unbelief. I want to talk
about it a little bit, and then I want to try to help you, if
I can, to find the way where you can be delivered from this
awful, plaguing unbelief that's in our hearts. Now, the sin of
Israel is here defined. How long will it be ere they
believe me? God said, how long is it going
to be before these people will believe me? Before they will
trust me? Observe that God's account of
all the murmuring and all the discouragement and all the fear
which these people felt was simply that they did not believe Him. They did not believe Him. Had nothing to do with Moses.
Had nothing to do with the ten witnesses. They did not believe
Him, God. They would not trust His Word
and His promise. They said they were afraid of
their enemies, the sons of the giants. They seemed like grasshoppers
in the sight of such gigantic beings. Had they been ordinary
men, they would not have been afraid, they would say. If these
men were just men like us, we wouldn't be afraid of them. We
wouldn't be having any problem about just marching over into
the land of Canaan and taking it into possession. But because
of these unreasonable people, these people that are extraordinarily
large, well, things are just not ordinary. These are unusual
circumstances, and therefore we will not go. We cannot believe
God. Well, beloved, we are often saying
with them how that our circumstances are unusual. We say, well, we
believe God, but after all, things are just tough with me and things
are difficult, so difficult in my life that I'm not able to
believe God and walk by faith. 1 Corinthians 10 and 13 says
that there is no testing taking you, but such as is common to
man. But God is faithful who will
not allow you to be tested above what you're able, but will with
the testing make a way of escape that you might be able to bear.
So God says that the testings that come in to our lives, that
they're the testings that are common to man. They're common
to man. So you cannot plead unusual circumstances,
and we always are doing that. We're pleading unusual circumstances,
and this is the way that we excuse ourselves from walking by faith. No, says God, that's an idle
excuse. No fear of giants would enter
your mind if you would believe Me. You'd be like Caleb and Joshua
and said they are food for us. I mean their defense is departed
from them. And the Lord is with us, fear
them not. And so they would have stood
with Joshua and Caleb if they would have believed God. He says, how long will it be
ere they believe Me? How long will it be? For they
take My Word, My bare, plain, naked Word, and just believe
it and trust it. Well, if these sons of the giants
had been ten times as big as they were, yet God Almighty could
have vanquished them. And if the cities had been literally
as well as figuratively walled up to the skies, yet the Lord
could smite them out of the heavens and cast the ramparts into the
dust. Yea, they are indeed bred for
us. Now this would be nothing to
him who had divided the Red Sea. that they might be able to pass
over. Wouldn't it have been anything for God to tear them cities down,
the cities of the Canaanites and the Amalekites, tear them
down and give them over to the children of Israel? But they
would not believe God. When the omnipotent is present,
opposition just vanishes. It just vanishes away. Do you believe in a sovereign
God? Do you believe in a God who is able to do exceedingly
abundantly above all we're able to ask or think according to
that power that works in us? Do you believe that God Almighty,
that there's nothing too hard for Him? That the Lord is able
to manage? That the Lord can undertake for
us? Then trust Him. This was so clear
that if the Israelites were afraid, the real reason was that they
did not believe their God. They just didn't believe their
God. So my brethren, let us strip
our discouragements and our murmurings of all of their disguises, and
see them in their true character, and they will appear in their
own naked deformity as discrediting God. as just literally not believing
the Lord. It is true that the everyday
difficulties and the difficulties before us may appear to be very
great, but it cannot be great to the Lord who has promised
to make us more than conquerors. You say, Preacher, I do have
some very trying circumstances to live with. I have some very
difficult circumstances that I have to deal with every day.
Well, it is true that many of us do have difficult circumstances,
but God has promised to overcome the hindrances. God has promised. that He would give us His power,
and that we would be more than conquerors through the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is true the circumstances
may appear unusually perplexing that you're facing, but they
cannot perplex a God who has promised to be our guide, an
all-knowing God, a God who knows the end from the beginning. Psalm
48 and 14 says, For this God is our God forever and ever,
and He will be our guide even unto death. This God is our God
forever and ever, and He will be our guide. Oh, get a hold
of it. He will be our guide even unto death. He either will or
he won't. He said he would. Are we going
to believe what he said? Okay, and since we're all aware
of this, it is clear that the real reason that we're so dismayed
is not to be found in the difficulties, it's not to be found in the circumstances,
but it's to be found in our misgivings of God. Next, these people might
have said, we fear because of our weakness. They could have
called attention, they could have talked about their weakness,
I suppose, for days on end, as we are prone to do ourselves. We cannot do this, we cannot
do that, we cannot walk in faith because of our weakness, making
excuses for ourselves. But how could their weakness
affect His power? What did their weakness have
to do with His promise? What did it have to do with his
promise? He said, I'm going to give you.
He had promised under their forefathers that he would give them this
good land that flowed with milk and honey. Well, what could their
weakness, how could their weakness affect his power to give them
the land? He can conquer Amalek if they
could not. And your enemies, they may be
too much for you, but they're not too much for God. Your enemies,
my friend, will fall before the Lord. The Lord will raise up
a standard against our enemies, and we must believe that. Cable
had told them, Caleb had told them in verse 8, if the Lord
delights in us, then He will bring us into the land. If the
Lord delights in us, he will bring us into the land. Now,
when we plead our weakness, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. In the light of the promises
of the Word of God, don't be pleading your weakness. It's
all right, my friend, for a man to acknowledge that he has weaknesses. But when it comes to God and
the promises of God, lay aside your weakness and believe God. Because God is able to enable
you to do everything that He asks you to do. And so trust
Him. For we know that we can do all
things through Christ. which strengthen us, Philippians
4 and verse 13. If we probe to the bottom of
our doubts and fears, which apparently arise out of the sense of our
own weakness, we will find that they spring really from a mistrust
of God. Our trembling is not humility. But it's unbelief, naked unbelief. That's what our trembling is.
We may mask it however we please, but that's the state of the case
as God sees it and he sees it like it is. Do you suppose? I
think God sees it like it is. The question is not how long
will they be weak. That's not the question, but
how long will it be ere they believe me? How long is it going
to be before you're just going to trust me and depend upon me? No, no, the people may have said,
we're not murmuring against God, but we're murmuring against Moses
and we're murmuring against Aaron. They made a huge mistake, they
would say, when they brought us into the wilderness. Moses
and Aaron, they led us out here to die. Moses and Aaron, they're
the culprits. They're the ones that got us
into this mess here in this wilderness. We blame them. They have undertaken
what they could not carry through. They're not able to get us over
into that promised land, but the Lord would not have it so.
The Lord would not have it so. Moses and Aaron were only God's
instruments and mere second causes. And the Lord will not allow that
the quarrel is with them. But he asked, how long will it
be ere they believe me? The Lord will not allow us to
quarrel with second causes. You say, all my trouble is this,
all my trouble is that. All my trouble is somebody else.
All my trouble, oh my soul, I just got so many troubles. Nobody
could expect me to walk by faith. Nobody could expect me to magnify
God and glorify God. Nobody could expect me to live
right because of so and so and such and such. Well, my friend,
listen to me. God will not allow us to argue
with him about second causes. God is the first cause of everything,
and we'll say something about that in a moment. So brethren,
we sometimes look at those around us, and they're so infirm, They're
so short-sighted, and they have no wisdom, and we say, well,
with this church you never get any place with the kind of people
that are preaching here, with the man that's preaching there,
and the deacons, they're not educated. We don't have the high
and the mighty in the church, and we don't have people of big
money in the church. Don't find fault with second
causes. Why don't you trust God? Why
don't you believe God? Why don't you depend upon God
and quit looking to people around you and arguing? Well, God can
accomplish His purpose with whom He will despite their frailty. Do you believe that? Well, I
believe that. However frail, however clumsy,
however ignorant, if God, as a brother read the other night
something about a live dog is better than a dead lion, and
certainly it is so. God, if he puts somebody into
the place where they're in the position of leadership, like
old Moses and Aaron were, You just trust God and you believe,
you just listen and believe what God says and God leads you on. He leads you on to victory because
God is able to accomplish. God in one man is a majority
and God is able to lead you on to victory. So I say and solemnly
declare that though our doubts and fears are called oftentimes
by more respectable names because we do not like to see their sin
in all its nakedness, yet it comes to this, that we do not
believe the ever-blessed God. That's what our problem is. If
we look at our discouragements, if we look at our mistrust in
this life, we shall no longer pity. but blame ourselves, and
instead of excusing, we shall accuse our hearts of a great
crime. Mistrust towards God is not a
mere weakness. You remember this. Mistrust towards
God is not a mere weakness, it is a wickedness of the gravest
order. Now, beloved, if we are plagued
with unbelief, if we are plagued with misgivings, You pardon me,
I'm trying to get through the message and I'm talking a little
faster maybe than what I ought to and my throat is giving me
some difficulties. But if we're plagued with misgivings
about God and if we are full of unbelief and we just cannot
believe the Word of God and believe what God says, how are we going
to avoid provoking the Lord. How are we going to avoid this
sin? How are we going to get away from this? How are we ever
going to rise above this? Well, let me give you a few things
that I believe will be of great help to you. Now, Romans chapter
10 and verse 17, the Bible says that faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God. Faith in a believer is the heart
of the mind. We need faith in the living God. Well, faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God. In some truth, that will help
us. Some truths that we can find
in the Word of God will help us to stifle the unbelief of
our hearts. And we need these truths desperately,
and we need to hang on to them, and we need to get them fixed
into our heart. And I pray this morning that
the Holy Spirit, who inspires the Word of God, will effectually
inscribe upon our hearts verses of Scripture that will enable
us in all things to believe and to worship and give thanks to
God. One of the verses that's been
a tremendous help to me to be able to deal with the unbelief
that wells up in my own heart and soul is found in Romans 8,
verse 28, a very familiar verse of scripture, but one that is
often overlooked by the majority of the people of God. And we
know, the scripture says, that all things work together for
good to them that love God, to them who are called according
to His purpose. Now I want to talk to you just
a little bit about this verse and some others. And I trust
that God will help us to hide these verses in our hearts to
enable us to overcome so many, many difficulties. Now this phrase,
we know, that Paul starts out with in this 28th verse of Romans
8, the word know in this sentence refers to a knowledge beyond
speculation, beyond theory, beyond doctrine, or even sound judgment. This word, no, it is the knowledge
of a confident, assured persuasion based upon fact and experience. He says, we all true believers
know We know. We know. Well, how do we know,
Paul? What is the basis of this knowledge? Is this a pipe dream or a matter
of established fact that all things work together for good
to them that love God? Well, listen to the Word of God.
Psalm 84, verse 11 and 12 says, For the Lord God is a sunning
shield. The Lord will give grace and
glory, and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk
uprightly. That's Psalm 84 verse 11 and
12. Now in the 12th verse, he says, O Lord of hosts, blessed
is the man that trusteth in Thee. Psalm 91 verses 1 through 16.
You that are taking notes, make a reference of that. Write it
down and you read it later. Read the whole chapter. Sixteen
verses in Psalm 91. Read it. Proverbs 12 and 21. It says, There shall no evil
happen to the just, but the wicked shall be filled with mischief. First John 2 and 20 says, But
ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.
Do you know? that all things work together
for good to them that love God. And when things are perplexing,
and when things are trying, and when you're discouraged, and
when you're cast down, and when it looks like that you're drawing
a blank in life, Are you going to be able to believe that all
things work together for good to them that love God? Ye have
an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. 1 Corinthians
2 and 16 says, But we have the mind of Christ, who hath been
his counselor, who has taught him. But we have the mind of
Christ. And the mind of Christ says that
all things work together for good to them that love God. What a delightful persuasion,
if we know that. if we know that in our hearts.
Well, Brother Barnard used to say, an old preacher that I heard
a few years ago, he said, we only believe what we experience.
And he's exactly right. Are you persuaded? Are you really
persuaded of what Paul teaches us here in this verse? If you
are, you have a persuasion that's going to keep your soul in peace. Indeed, this is the only persuasion
that will keep your soul in peace. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God. To them that love God. This is a designated people,
you see. This promise of God is not for
and it's not given to everyone. It's a special promise made to
a special people. It is God's promise to them. that love Him, to them who are
the called, to them who are irresistibly called by the power of the Holy
Spirit into the family of God, into the body of Christ. These,
the elect of God, God said to them, all things will work together
for your good. And this is a declared purpose.
We know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. Now, beloved, one of the things
that we often overlook is that the God of the Bible is a God
of purpose. He's a God of purpose. Everything
He does, He does on purpose. And He has a purpose for the
things that He allows to happen in our life. The children of
Israel couldn't see it. They couldn't believe it. They
weren't able to hold of it. But I hope we can, that the God
of the Bible is a God of purpose, and He has a purpose of grace
toward His people in eternal election and predestination. God is going to work in our lives. Now in Daniel chapter 4 and verse
26, the Scripture points out there that the heavens do rule. Now one of the things that we
need to understand in this God that's a God of purpose is that
he is indeed a God that rules from the heavens. That he does
according to his own will. in the heavens and among the
inhabitants of the earth, none can stay his hand, none can say
unto him, what doest thou? And sooner or later, God's gonna
make everyone see and acknowledge what he taught the proud king
of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, and that is that the heavens do rule. And we need to believe that with
all of our hearts. Now you may in your great depth
of imagination and imaginary wisdom presume that you could
run this world a whole lot better than God has, or that you can
run it a whole lot better than God does, that you could manage
a lot better if God just stay out of your business, that you
could manage for yourself. Well, the children of Israel
had that same sort of mind, that same sort of attitude. and it got them into trouble
because they would not believe that the God who had a purpose
could rule their lives and bring them through to that place where
they could live for his glory and where they could live for
his honor. Could not the almighty easy put an end, somebody says,
to sickness? Couldn't the Almighty put an
end to poverty, to war and crime and disease and famine and earthquakes
and death? Couldn't He do that? Well, indeed,
my friend, He could. But God Almighty will not be
dictated to by us. Who are we to dare set ourselves
up as instructors to the all-wise God? He worketh all things after
the counsel of His own will. And we need to come to the place
where we believe that and rest our souls in it. Now the providence
of God is the outworking of the decrees of God in time in the
lives of God's people. God's providence is mysterious. I will not deny that. His providence
is mysterious. The judgments of God are a great
deep. His ways are past finding out.
But I know this, God always has his way. He always has His way. His ways are not our ways. We
admit that. But His ways is always right.
His ways are always best. We simply must not question His
will, His ways, or His works. Now my friend, do you want some
help from your unbelief? You want some help from all of
this scatterbrained stuff that's going on with you and all these
questions that keep welling up in you, what you ought to do
and what you ought not to do? My friend, you listen to me.
You trust God, you believe His Word and you stick to what God
says and don't you deviate from it either to the right or to
the left. There are many, many people in this world who are
mad at God. You see them all the time. They're mad at God. Now they'll tell you they're
not mad at God, but they are mad at God. They want to run
this world and they want their own will and they want their
own way and those people would do things to spite other people
thinking they're going to get their way in the doing of it.
That's just like a man or a woman that will spit into the wind
and think that it's not going to blow back in their face. I'm
telling you, God runs this world, and the quicker you can come
to the place where you bow your knee and submit yourself to what
the Word of God teaches, and rely upon the Lord, and wait
upon the Lord, and trust God, even though there's much mystery
about your situation, God will bring you through. He will lead
you out. I say, His way is always right,
and His way is best. You look at me standing up here
preaching these things, how in this world do you ever think
that I got to this place where I could mail those things? My
friend, through a great deal of difficulty, through great
trials, and through great tests, I come to you this morning at
my age and I tell you God's ways are right and God's ways are
best. And we must not question His
will, His ways, or His works. I say the providence of God is
mysterious. Number two, I say that God's
providence is minute. See, some of you may think, oh
well, the providence of God don't cover my situation. In Matthew
10 and verse 30 it says, the very hairs of your head are all
numbered. Imagine that. So minute is the
providence of God that He, before the world began, numbered and
determined the hairs which would be on your head at every stage
of your existence from infancy to the grave. Divine providence
is all-inclusive. God rules everything, great and
small, everywhere, and always He is in control. And I want you to believe that.
He controls all inanimate matter. He who created the world out
of nothing commanded a flood to drown all who lived upon the
earth at that one time except Noah and his family. He divided
the waters of the Red Sea with the wind and God caused the earth
to swallow up the sons of Korah. He dried up the Jordan River
to make a path for his people. He made the fiery furnace a cool
fire for his servants. Meshach, Abednego, and what was
the other one? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Okay, but he made that fire cool. I'm talking about God controlling
ineminent matter. Okay, and so our God has his
way, the scripture says, in the whirlwind. And God has his way
everywhere else. Our great God is in total control
of all irrational creatures. The flies, the frogs, and the
locusts came and went at the will of God. He prepared a great
feast to swallow up his servant Jonah and carried him to Nineveh. He calls and asks to speak to
his servant, Balaam, and a rooster to crow on cue for Peter. You
believe all that? Well, the Word of God testifies
to it. He calls, listen to me, the Lord
hath prepared his throne in the heavens. His kingdom ruleth over
all. Our God and Heavenly Father controls
absolutely and controls totally all rational creatures too. Listen
to me. He controls all men, and yes,
women, everywhere. good and bad, in the good they
do, and in the evil they perform, all angels, all demons, and Satan
himself are under the total control of our God. Do you believe that?
Well, the Word of God teaches it, that God has created even
the wicked for the day of evil, and that the wrath of man shall
praise him, and the remainder of wrath, Psalm 76 and 10, shall
he restrain. Many have a lot of trouble with
this, I know, they do not understand. that God truly is God, is fully
in control of what's going on in hell as He is and what's going
on in heaven as totally in control of wickedness as well as of righteousness. Do you believe that? These things?
My friend, I'm trying to help you to come to the place where
you throw your unbelief away and where you'll trust God. You'll
trust the Lord because He's God in heaven above and in earth
beneath. And let me say that God's providence is good. He
said all things work together for good to them that love God. All things work together for
good to God's elect eternally, spiritually, and collectively. They work together for His good.
Our God is king in heaven and the heavens do rule. That is
exactly, my friend, as it should be. And oh, that the children
of Israel could have believed that. that they could have rested
in that, that they could have trusted in a God who is in control. This God is at work. He's the
one that's always at work and he's bringing to pass his goodwill
and his purpose. Oh, that we could bow, that we
could submit ourselves, that we could just simply submit ourselves
unto the God who reigns, the God who rules. There was a man
by the name of Horatio Spafford, And he was a very prominent businessman,
a very successful businessman in Chicago, Illinois, in the
late 1800s. He was very wealthy, very well-known
and influential. But overnight, in the Great Chicago
Fire, he lost almost everything in that fire. He decided to relocate
his family. At two o'clock in the morning
on November the 22nd, 1873, he loaded his wife and his four
daughters onto a French luxury liner. It was the largest and
the most luxurious liner in the world at that time. He kissed
them goodbye, promising to meet them in France in a few weeks
so soon as he could settle up his business affairs in Chicago. Several days out of port, that
ship, sailing peacefully toward France, was rammed by an English
ship. And it took the largest, best,
most luxurious ship in the world just two hours to sink to the
ocean floor. 226 people died. on that ship, including all four
of the Spafford daughters. Nine days later, when the survivors
landed safely at Cardiff, Wales, Spafford received a short wire
from his wife. It contained just two words,
Saved Alone. As soon as possible, he booked
passage on a ship to Europe to join his wife. And on the way
over, the captain called Spafford to the bridge of the ship. He
said, according to my calculations, we're now passing over the place
where your children drowned. Spafford thanked the captain
and went back to his cabin, and he wrote these lines. When peace,
like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows
roll, whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well,
it is well with my soul. Now this man who had lost his
business, his home, and his four children said to a friend, I'm
glad that I can trust the Lord when it costs me something. When
he and his wife finally met and embraced one another, she said,
we've not lost our children, we're only separated for a little
while. How could that man and his wife
bear such trials and such losses and such heartaches with such
composure? Only one answer can be given.
Horatio Spafford and his wife, they believed God. They believed
what God's Word said. They were convinced in their
hearts of that which we've been talking about here in the last
few minutes, about Romans 8.28, and we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God to them who are called
according to His purpose. This knowledge and understanding
of the providence of God is the comfort, it's the strength of
believing hearts in the midst of their trials. and the trials
that we have are real in the midst of temptations in this
world to throw it all away and to walk away from it and go our
own way and to do as we please in this world, throw off all
the restraints of the Word of God, all the restraints of the
Spirit of God in our hearts and just do our thing and do it like
we want to do it. My friend, the only thing that's
going to stay in your heart and hold it like a vice is the Word
of God. The blessed God, the happy, the
truly happy God will make His people happy in this veil of
tears if they know and if they trust in God and if they believe
that this God is indeed the God that rules in all providence
and they'll trust Him. Oh my friend, that's the only
way to be happy is to trust and obey. Believe God. Believe His
Word. And whenever you know the way,
my friend, don't act like that you don't know the way. God's
going to hold you accountable for what you know, what He's
shown you, what He's revealed to you, what He's made known
to your heart. He's going to hold you accountable
for that. And you cannot go against the
light that God has put into your heart and expect the blessing
of God. I tell you, you spit in the wind
and it's going to blow back in your face. You must live in the
light of what God reveals to you and make known to you. Study
the Word of God and trust God, depend upon Him, and God leads
you in the way. God leads you to truly blessedness
that whatever happens. And oh my friend, how we need
to learn to speak the language of the children of God. Not like
those Philistines of old who had the Ark, you know, they had
the Ark of the Covenant, and the Lord struck them with hemorrhoids
in the secret place, and they said, we're going to send this
thing home. And so they got busy, hooked a couple cows to it, and
said, we're going to see which way that ark goes. And if the
ark goes a certain way, we're going to know that the Lord is
the one that sent these judgments on us. And if it goes another
way, then it just happened by chance. Now, my friend, you know
what happened. They hooked up the cows. And
them cows went straight down the coast, and they knew that
God had sent it. But they said, it might be they
just happened by chance. Things don't happen by chance.
Don't talk that way. That's not the way believers
talk. You need to talk like old Job
talked. In the first chapter, in verse 21 of Job, he said,
naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return
thither. The Lord hath give, and the Lord takes away. The
Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of
the Lord. And Job worshipped and did not
charge God with foolishness. He worshipped God. And then like
old Eli, when God was speaking to Samuel, and God was telling
Samuel what he was going to do to Eli's house, And Eli said,
you tell me everything. Don't you hold back anything
from me that God has told you. And so Samuel told him what God
had said to him. And Eli said, it is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth good.
That's the language of a believer. That's the language of a child
of God. It is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth good.
And you remember when that fellow came along and cursed David in
2 Samuel? Cursed him from the side of the
mountain. Oh, Abishai said, let me go over
there and take his head off. And David said, no. He said,
don't. You're not going to do it. You're not going to do it.
He said, the Lord told him to curse me. God told him to do
it. And so you're not taking his
head off. My friend, that's the language of a believer. That's
the language of somebody that believes this book. That trusts
God. And that's exactly where we need
to come in our conversation. It is the Lord. It is the Lord.
Let the Lord do as He will. We believe God. We trust God.
And we're depending upon the Lord. We're walking in the fear
of the Lord. And we believe what our God is
doing is the best for us. Whatever. Whatever. We may end
up, we may end up, you see, in that place like old Joe, just
lost all of his family. Naked came out of my mother's
womb. Naked shall I return thither. But the Lord gives, the Lord
takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Well, last Sunday we preached
on that verse of scripture out of the psalm that said, let those
who love thy salvation say continually, let God be magnified. Can I let
God be magnified out of this group this morning? Let God be
magnified. Let God be magnified. Let Him
be glorified. Praise His name. Let's pray.
Father, thank You for this privilege. Thank You, Lord, for Your Word.
Oh God, forgive us all of our unbelief. Forgive us all, O God,
of our murmurings and our complainings, which are truly against Thee.
O Lord, give us the ability to face our situation and to deal
with it in the light of Your Word, and not, our Father, take
up, as it were, our own flimsy ways to deal with the problems
of our life, but help us to submit ourselves. The Lord is high.
And we are lowly. Help us to take our position
before Thee and to submit ourselves. Whatever it brings, Lord, our
times are in Your hands. Our situation is entirely with
Thee. And whatever becomes of it, whatever
becomes of our lives, our days on this earth, Lord, it's in
Your hands. It's in Your hands. And we trust
You this morning. It is well with our soul. And
we give You praise from the depths of our hearts for Your workings.
for your workings, O Lord, and for your faithfulness, for your
faithfulness, even when we're unfaithful. Still you abide faithful,
because you cannot deny yourself. Thank you, O Lord, for thyself,
God of wisdom, love, and might, God of power, God of grace. We praise Thee, we thank Thee,
in Jesus' name, Amen.