chapter of the Gospel of Matthew,
Matthew chapter 26. I want to read a passage here
and then we'll turn to the 21st chapter of the Gospel of John,
the chapter that Brother Randy has read to us this morning.
I'd like to begin with verse 30 of Matthew chapter 26. And
when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives.
Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye, notice here the certainty,
this prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ, all ye shall be offended
because of me this night. For it is written, I will smite
the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered
abroad. But after I'm risen again, I
will go before you into Galilee. Peter answered and said unto
him, Now notice Peter now is speaking, Though all men shall
be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. Jesus saith unto him verily I
say unto thee that this night before the cockcrow Thou shalt
deny me thrice Peter saith unto him though. I should die with
thee Yet will I not deny thee? likewise also Said all the disciples
now turn if you will to John 21 and I wants to read here beginning
with verse 15 and and read down through the 17th
verse, verse 15 through 17. So when they had dined, Jesus
saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me
more than these? He saith unto him, yea, Lord,
thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second
time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea,
Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed
my sheep. He saith unto him the third time,
Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved, because
he said unto him the third time, lovest thou me? And he said unto
him, Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee.
And Jesus saith unto him, feed my mature sheep, feed my advanced
sheep. feed them on the word of God
and on the truth that I've revealed to you as I have ministered unto
you. I want to talk primarily this
morning about these verses here in John chapter 21. I felt it be necessary to read
these verses that we read previously out of Matthew 26 in order that
we'd get the background for our message this morning. Now we
find that Peter has denied the Lord when he professed that he
would not, but he did deny the Lord. Now what was the object
here in John chapter 21 of our Lord in questioning Peter as
he did? Now this question can only be
answered I feel by considering the peculiar character of Peter
and the peculiar circumstances of his history during the last
days of our Lord's ministry on earth before the crucifixion
took place. Now, none had made so high a
profession as Peter did. Peter made a high profession
with a loud voice. None had spoken so confidently
of his own strength as Peter had. Peter said, though all these
be offended, our Lord Jesus said, you all are going to be offended
before this night is out. And Peter said, well, these all
can be offended, and they probably will be, but yet I will not deny
thee. I will not be offended. I'll
die with you before I will deny you. Now that was the statement
made by Peter and none of the disciples in the end proved to
be as instable in the hour of trial as old Peter. He turned
out to be the greatest failure of the bunch when it come to
trusting God and leaning upon the Lord in that very trying
and testing hour. None had fallen so sadly by denying
his master not once, not twice, but thrice. Three times he denied
his master. So remembering all this, we can
really see the object that our Lord has in view of questioning
Peter before these six witnesses. Now, if you remember, in verse
2, we're told about those that were present at this particular
time, and there were six witnesses to Peter being examined by the
Lord here, being asked these questions. Now I believe, so
remembering this, I believe that the first object of our Lord
here really was to remind Peter of his sad fall. And I believe
that Peter fell, and I suppose you would agree with me, through
his being overly confident in himself. He had a degree of confidence
that went far beyond what he ought to have. He felt that he
was made out of much better material than what he really was. He felt
that he had a deep relationship with the Lord and a deep experience
in the grace of God and that he was not about to fall, that
he could not fall. He felt that he was so spiritual
that he could not possibly fall. Now he would have him know, that
is Jesus would have him know that though pardoned and forgiven
and raised up because the Lord Jesus had blotted out his sin,
the Lord Jesus had put that sin behind his back. The Lord Jesus
had forgiven him completely and entirely of his denial of him. He had forgiven him but the Lord
Jesus would have him never to forget what had happened. Never
to forget that he had fallen and had denied his beloved master. Now three times, as we said,
he denied the master. Three times he must be asked
publicly, he must be asked publicly whether he truly loved his master
or not. Now, number two, I believe that
our Lord's second object was to restore Peter to his former
position as a trusted apostle and preacher of the gospel. I
believe that the Lord meant to use old Peter, regardless of
his failures, regardless of his weaknesses, of his over-confidence,
I believe that God intended to strip him down, bring him to
the place where he could trust, really trust the Lord, and where
he would become a mouthpiece for the Lord to spread the gospel
of the grace of God. And so the Lord meant to do that.
Well, so the second object of our Lord was to restore him to
that former position as a trusted apostle and preacher of the word. Now, Peter had forfeited this
claim to an apostle, leader of the church, by his denial of
the master. I believe he had forfeited that. And you can imagine what kind
of an impression he had made on the other disciples. Now they
heard what he said, and they said the same thing. You remember,
they said the same thing. All of them said, we'll not deny
thee. We'll go with you to the death.
We'll not deny you. But Peter spoke the loudest.
And he said, they might be offended, but I won't. And so he had spoken
the loudest. And do you know what kind of
impression that would have? upon the other disciples. They
would say, this man is fickle, this man is so feeble, we won't
trust him anymore, and we certainly will not listen to what he has
to say. But our Lord restored him, and
the Lord would use him. And that reminds us of the scripture
that says, but the gifts and the callings of God are without
repentance on God's part. Thanks be unto God. Whenever
God calls a man, he will not go back on that calling. God's
not gonna turn around, change his mind. No, the Lord might
bring that fella in an unusual way. The Lord might bring him
to a place of chastisement and a place of ridicule and shame,
but he will not forsake that individual, and God's calling
will continue to abide on that individual and that I believe
is what we find here is our Lord's second object in his asking and
examining Peter here, do you love me? Do you love me? Now
thirdly, the third object of Christ was to teach Peter what
should be the primary aim of an apostle and preacher, feed
my lambs, feed them little babies in Christ. Feed those that need
the milk of the word of God, Peter. That's what you're about. You've been called to that end
and to that purpose. Feed them little lambs. And you
know we have lambs in the church, and we have those that are young
men and women in Christ, and then we have those that are mature
or advanced in the faith of the gospel. and we have these various
categories of people in the church. And so he says, I want you to
feed my lambs. If you love me, feed my lambs. And then he said, secondly, my
sheep. And I believe those are those young men and young women
in Christ, those that are young in the faith, but those that
are maybe middle-aged in faith. And then he says, my advanced
sheep, I want you to feed them. And so this, I believe, is the
primary aim of our Lord Jesus Christ, is to accomplish these
three things in the examination that he gave to Peter. Now, there's
one other thing here that was interesting to me. And why does
our Lord address Peter as Simon, son of Jonas? Why did he not
just say, Peter, lovest thou me? Why didn't he use the word
Peter? Well, we know that, seems to
me at least, that our Lord purposely avoided using the name of Peter,
which means rock, in order to remind Peter that he had shown
himself not as firm as a rock, but as weak. as a reed. He wanted him to remember his
roots. Simon, son of Jonas, the fisherman. Simon, your background you need
to remember. You need to understand that you're
nothing but flesh and blood and that you descended from a humble
fisherman. And you must understand that
to do that which I have called you to do, you're going to have
to have divine enablement, divine strength, and divine grace, and
you must be emptied out of all that you think you are, and you
must be filled with the power of God. And so I believe that
that's the reason why he never called him Peter. Simon son of
Jonas remember one time he spoke to him Matthew 16 and said Simon
son of Barjona flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you but
my father which is in heaven He wanted to remind him there,
and you know that Peter gave a great witness and a great confession
of his faith in that chapter and in that particular scripture
there. But he wanted to remind him there that what he knew about
the Son of God and what he knew about everlasting life, salvation,
was all by the revelation of the Spirit of God, had nothing
to do with his intellect or his ability to discern on his own. It had to do with God revealing
these things to him by the Spirit. Now, this indeed then, this question
that our Lord asked Peter here, lovest thou me more than these?
This question is a very solemn question. And I thought this
morning that I should ask myself this same question. And you know,
there's very little that we can do or very little that we can
really say other than what we have said about our Lord examining
Simon, son of Bar-Jonas here, or Simon, son of Jonas. But there
is some things that we can deal with in regard to ourselves.
There's some questions that, and this question should be asked
by each one of us this morning, do we love the Son of God? So
I suppose this morning that I should ask my own heart, I should examine
my own heart, and I should examine it and think and meditate and
remember our Lord Jesus Christ, remember my conduct, remember
who I am and what I am, and ask myself sincerely, do I love the
Lord Jesus Christ? Now I believe that when the Lord
asked Peter this, and when he said, lovest thou me, that he
used a deeper word, there's a word here for this word love, lovest
thou me. That is a broader word, it's
a deeper word, it's a more spiritual word, it's a greater love Then
when Peter spoke back to the Lord and said Lord, you know
that I love thee You know that I love thee and this was a was
a word that didn't carry the weight now you see the Lord Jesus
the Lord Jesus would have us to love him and with the love
that he gives, of course, but with a love that is deep, a love
that's not on the surface, not a lip love, but a love of deed
and truth, a love of the heart based on what we have received
from the Lord Jesus Christ. And let me remind you that if
a man truly loves the Lord Jesus Christ, it is because he has
got something from Him. Now you mark it down. You cannot
love the Lord Jesus Christ without getting something from Him beforehand. The Bible says that we know that
He loved us before we loved Him. We know that his love was prior
to our love, and we know that he manifested that love various
ways. But now let each of us this morning
then, for our own profit, ask ourselves, do we love the Savior? Do we love our blessed Redeemer? Now, I want you to notice here
that the question concerning Peter's love was not, Peter,
are you one of the elect? Now that's a very serious question.
I don't know whether you've ever attempted to answer that question
or not yourself. But that was not the question
that our Lord asked Peter. And then he did not say, are
you born again? Peter, are you born again? Do
you have the spirit, Peter? Peter, are you justified? Peter,
are you pardoned of your sin? Not Simon, son of Jonas. Do you have any fear of me in
your heart? That's not the question. That's
not the question and the issue here. It is not even a question
concerning Simon's faith. He didn't say, Simon, do you
believe me? Do you believe me? Have you rested
your soul upon me? Now, beloved, listen to me. Lovest
thou me? Love is the very best evidence
of piety. Love is the brightest of all
the graces and therefore becomes the best evidence as to whether
we are one with Christ or not. Love toward the Lord Jesus Christ
is one of the best evidences that we are joined to Christ
and that we have the Spirit of God abiding in our hearts. Now
love becomes one of the very best evidences and one of the
easiest signs of discerning whether we're alive in the Lord or not. We remember reading in John chapter
8 verse 42, where it says, if God were your father, you would
love me. If God were your father, Jesus
talking to the Pharisees, and of course God was not their father,
they supposed he was, but he was not. And Jesus looked at
them and said, if God were your father, you would love me. And so don't you see here that
this is one of the very best evidences and one of the easiest
signs of discerning whether we're alive in the Lord and whether
we know the Lord or not is whether or not we love the Lord Jesus.
Now I am a firm believer in this, that he that lacketh love toward
the Son of God must lack every other grace there is. In reality,
If you don't love the Lord Jesus Christ, then you lack all the
other graces spoken of in the Bible. In 1 Corinthians 16 and
verse 22, it says that if any man loved not our Lord Jesus
Christ, let him be anathema maranatha. And what that means is let him
be separated from the people of God and delivered up to his,
that is God's, final irrevocable judgment. Let him go to hell
when the Lord comes. Now that's what that means. If
a man doesn't love Christ, he doesn't have any of the graces
of the Spirit of God, and he doesn't belong to the Lord Jesus
Christ, and he's without the life of God, and he'll come into
the judgment and be judged along with all unbelievers. Because
he doesn't love Christ. He doesn't have the love of God
in his soul. Now we've talked about why our Lord asked this
question a few minutes ago of Peter, but what is the reason
for this question as far as you and I are concerned? Lovest thou
me? Well, let's deal with this just
a little bit by thinking just about this last week. Don't you
remember this last week? I mean, you were somewhere this
last week, and you either are conscious of what went on, or
you probably are one that is very careless from day to day
about the events of life and about the Lord's dealings with
you as an individual. But I just wonder as you think
about this last week, I wonder how you feel about how you lived
this last week in regard to your being in fellowship with the
Lord Jesus Christ. You knew what you did. You know
what you did this last week. You know about the sins of the
past week. You know about the failures of
the past week. You know about how possibly you
murmured and complained and you know whether or not you offended
somebody needlessly or whether you were so weak in and of yourself
that you had no ability to convey any sort of a Christian message
or hope to anyone around you that you were just simply, you
would say, just a failure this last week. Well, how many sins
have we winked at in the last week? How many crimes have we
just covered over? How have I made my Savior's heart
to bleed in this last week? How have I in some degree disgraced
my heart's profession of love to the Lord Jesus Christ? Now
think about it. You examine yourself and see
how this is. Ask yourself these questions.
Is this really my kindness to him? If this is an example of
what I am, then lovest thou me? The Lord could ask this morning,
and we'd have to say, Lord, please don't ask that question. Please
don't ask it. Does your willingness make you
doubt your love to the Lord? Your worldliness. You know the
Bible says if you love the world, the love of the Father is not
in you. Your worldliness. And beloved, listen. We're facing,
and we must face it day by day as we live, hour by hour. But
the world wants to make an inroad into your life. And not only
that, but your flesh is susceptible and weak and the world will take
over in your life. All you do is go on with your
carelessness and with your prayerlessness and the world will move in and
take over. Now I recognize that some sovereign
grace Baptists don't like to hear anything about the fact
that they're to mortify the deeds of the body that they might live,
and that they ought to put off concerning the old man the deeds
of the flesh, put it off. But beloved, there's an obligation
that we have out of love to Christ, not because of slavish fear,
but out of love to the Lord Jesus. Now how cold have you been this
week at the mercy seat? How hurried was your prayers
this week? How little wrestling with God
was there in your heart this week? Wrestling with God. How
little was there prayer in your heart? Isn't it any wonder sometimes
that God brings us abruptly to ourselves to that we might begin
to genuinely, honestly, sincerely, with a heart that's fervent,
begin to cry unto the Lord. Truly, I think that prayer, that
my prayers make me doubt whether I love the Lord or not, maybe
more than anything else about me. I believe that. In other words, I am convinced
that my prayers does not show that I love the Lord like they
could if I was more faithful in prayer. Well, how cold is
prayer when it is cold? Well, I think of all things that
are bad when they're cold, prayer most surely must be the worst
thing that there is. Is that true? I believe that
when our prayers are cold, they're bad. I mean they're real bad.
Is Jesus not right in asking you this morning, lovest thou
me? Now I've asked all these questions
here because I've asked them, as I said, I've asked them of
myself. I do not approve, let me quickly
say, of the man or the woman that says, I know I love Christ
and I never have a doubt about it. Because I have often had
reason to doubt whether or not I truly love the Lord Jesus Christ
or not. I've often... of a man or woman
like Peter saying, well, I'll never deny the Lord. I'll never
have a thought that's vain, a thought that's contrary to the divine
mind and purpose. I'll never do this. I'll never
do that. My friend, do you love Christ?
A believer's strong faith, and you listen to me now, a believer's
strong faith is not a strong faith in his own love to Christ. It is a strong faith in Christ's
love to him. Did you get that? My faith, somebody
said, well I believe God preaches, well we ought to, but that faith
ought not be in my love for Him, or in my love for Him, but it
ought to be in His love for me. And I believe that the Lord does
love His people. He loves them with an everlasting
love. He loves them with a love that is unvarying, a love that
is absolutely steadfast and sure. Now I have no doubt about His
love to me as a saint or a sinner. But to be certain at all times
that I love the Lord, that's quite another matter. That is
indeed another matter. About this, we need continually
to question ourselves and to examine both the nature and the
extent of our evidences. Well, the next thing I want to
say a few things about this morning is the answer that Peter gave
to the questions that our Lord asked him. He asked him three
times, as we mentioned earlier, and Peter was grieved. that the
Lord asked him the third time. Why would you suppose Jesus asked
him three times? Was it not? Is it not simply
that Peter denied the Lord three times, and so he would remind
him of that, and so he would put the question to him three
times in order that he'd get the message. And he was grieved
about it, but he was not grieved about it to the extent that our
Lord was grieved over his denying Him three times. You know, the
Bible says that we're not to grieve the Spirit of God. Grieve
not the Holy Spirit of God with which we're sealed until the
day of redemption. And it is possible. The Holy
Spirit is a person. And we can grieve the Holy Spirit. And I know that Peter grieved
the Lord Jesus Christ when he denied it. Now, in this answer,
and I believe his answer is a beautiful example of sincerity and humility. a beautiful example of sincerity
and humility and take note he says Lord thou knowest that I
love thee thou knowest that I love thee and he saith unto him yea
Lord thou knowest in verse 16 that I love thee and then he
saith in verse 17 Lord thou knowest all things and thou knowest that
I love thee now he did not say Lord I you know that I'm deeply
taught of the Spirit more so than others and Lord you know
that I love you because I well you know that these others here
there's six of them standing here these apostles and you know
that I I've had more I've had deeper experiences And I have
really been, you know, on the mountaintop so many times. And
you know I love you because of my experiences. No, no, no, no. That's not it. He did not say,
Lord, I preached for years. And so you know I must love you
because I preached for years. And then, Lord, you know I give
of myself. And you know I give so much of
myself and of my goods too, Lord. You know I give of my goods to
the poor. And I'm a great, great, I'm a
cheerful giver. Well, that's not what he said.
And he didn't say, blessed be the name of the Lord, you've
given me grace to walk humbly and faithfully and honestly,
and therefore, Lord, I think I can say I love thee. No, that's not what he says.
Peter's answer was very wise, and he was very sincere and humble,
and he said, Lord, Thou knowest that I love thee. And so he appeals
here to the omniscience of God. He appeals to the Lord's knowledge
of his heart. That's what he appeals to. In
other words, he says, Lord, you know my heart, and I appeal to
your knowledge of my heart. Now most of us could really do
all we do and not have an ounce of love to Christ. Thou knowest. Now, what about it with you?
Could you do everything you do and not love Christ? I really
think you could. I think many, many times. I mean,
a man can preach a sermon and not love Christ. A man can give
of his money and not love Christ. A man can even talk about the
gospel and not love Christ. We can do all we do and not have
an ounce of love toward the Lord Jesus Christ. If Christ would
come here this day and he would walk right down the middle of
this aisle here and he'd look to the left and to the right
and he would ask each one of you this morning, Lovest thou
me? And I wonder this morning if
you could appeal to the omniscience of his infallible knowledge of
your heart in that, and could you say, Lord, thou knowest my
heart, that I love thee. Now come on, brethren. Come on,
sisters in the Lord. Come on to this point. Come on
to this truth. I mean, if the Lord was to look
you in the face, sister, brother, sister, the Lord look you in
the face. Lovest thou me? Lovest thou me
more than these? Do you love me more than these
or more than these things that you, Peter, you know, had just
said? I'm going fishing. I'm going fishing. I'm going
to do this, I'm going to do that, nothing wrong with going fishing,
that's for sure. And I wouldn't even suggest such
a thought, but I will say this, that some people love it inordinately. They love it inordinately. And
some people love other things, not fishing, but something else,
inordinately. And you know this morning, whether
or not you got any feelings or not, and every one of us can
feel, even a child can feel, And do you have love in your
heart for the Lord Jesus Christ because of what he's done for
you? Now listen, I want you to think
about this. This is the test point between
a hypocrite and a real Christian, love to Christ. This is the test
point. It's one of the simplest tests
that can be applied to a true Christian. The hypocrite would
say, If Jesus walked down the aisle and looked at him and would
say, lovest thou me, the hypocrite would say, well turn around Jesus
and ask the preacher, he knows whether I love you or not. That's
what the hypocrite would say. And the hypocrite would say,
well, we've got two deacons here in this church. Why don't you
ask them? They know about me. I mean, the
deacons, they know what I do. They know how I've conducted
myself in years gone by. But he won't say, thou knowest. Thou knowest my heart. Thou knowest all things, and
you know that I love thee. He won't say that. A hypocrite
will not say that because it strikes terror into the heart
of the hypocrite to know that God knows him and knows the truth
about him. That God knows everything there
is to be known about him. That God knows all of his thoughts
and all of his heart. And God knows whether there's
an ounce of love in your heart toward Christ or not. He knows. He knows. Is that right? He knows.
But the hypocrite, now you can lie to your own self, but you
can't lie to God. Because he knows. He knows all
things. Thou knowest all things. Peter
had this right. And your talk and your religion
is all vain if you don't truly know the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
love, and I'll hurry on here, I know the time is getting away,
but love can be known only from the action it prompts. Now, God's
love is not seen in the gift of His Son. 1 John 4, verse 10
says, Herein is love, not that we love God, but that God loved
us. and gave his son to be a satisfaction for our sin. Hearing his love,
not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and gave his son
to be a satisfaction for our sin. Now, it is obvious that
the love of God is not a love of complacency or affection that
was thrown out by any excellency in its objects. Romans 5, 8 says,
but God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. It was an exercise of the divine
will and deliberate choice, made without a signable cause, save
that which lies in the nature of God himself. You could read
Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 7 and 8, where God chose Israel And he said, I didn't choose
you because you was a great nation. I chose you because I loved you.
I loved you! And there is no reason except
the reason that comes from my heart and the reason comes from
my nature alone that God loves his people. And so the action
here is the love of God. God loves his people and there's
action in that that he gave himself for us. I respect In respect
of love as used of God, it expresses the deep and the constant love
and interest of a perfect being towards entirely unworthy objects,
producing and fostering a reverential love in them towards the giver
and a practical love toward those that are partakers of the same.
God loves His people, and whenever He manifests that love to them,
it turns their hearts toward Him. Well, is there not a demonstration
required on the part of those who are the recipients of God's
love? Absolutely. Don't let it ever
be said that you can't tell whether a person loves the Lord Jesus
Christ or not. It's like the light. It will
be seen. It's like sound. It will be heard.
It is like heat. It will be felt. While it exists,
it cannot be hid, and where it cannot be seen, you may be sure
that it's not there. Let me try to help you with this
a little bit. Now, Christian love has God for its object,
and expresses itself in implicit obedience to God and His Word.
John chapter 14 and verse 15 says, If you love me, you keep
my commandments. John 15 verse 12 says, this is
my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.
And greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends. And so there is indeed a manifestation
of the love of God toward us in the giving of His Son and
in us in that that we respond to that love and obey the Lord
and submit ourselves and don't live unto ourselves because that's
a negation of love when we do that, but that we just simply
live our lives to His glory and praise. Well, lastly, and I'm
going to hurry here, I want to get you out of the misery that
you're in with these flies and so on. I just want to remind
you of what we were talking about a few moments ago when we were
talking about God's knowledge of our hearts. The true test
of reality in our relationship is to be able to appeal confidently
to God's knowledge of our hearts. Now this is something that I
want that you would really understand. The true test of whether or not
we're saved, whether or not we've been born again, whether or not
we have the hope of heaven, whether or not we're truly the Lords
or not, is in our ability to appeal confidently to God's knowledge
of our hearts. And it matters nothing, my friend,
what your friends, what your relatives, what your brothers
and sisters may think and say of us. They may praise you when
you do not deserve it, and they may condemn you when you're innocent,
but it matters nothing. It don't mean a thing if we have
the witness of our hearts that we can appeal to the Lord Jesus
Christ the searcher of hearts, and say, Thou who knowest all
things, knowest that I love thee." My friend, we need not be afraid
if we can do that. We can be sure that we know the
Lord and that our hearts are knit to Him and that there is
a relationship between Christ and ourself and we're joined
to Him everlastingly. There's a union there if we can
appeal to Him and if we know in our own hearts that this love
is there. If we really and truly feel love
to Christ, we may thank God and take courage. If you can truly,
listen to me, truly feel love in your heart, and even a child
can feel, they can feel, they know whether they love the Lord
or not. Now of our own faith and grace
and degrees of piety, we're very poor judges. I know I am of my
own, whatever there is, whatever faith there is, whatever grace
there is. I'm a poor judge. I don't know
where to put myself. I'm a sinner saved by the grace
of God, and I don't spend much time trying to figure out Whether
I'm a great believer or whether I'm a great unbeliever or whether
I'm a, you know, whether I'm sanctified or unsanctified or
just where I stand as far as my state in this world is concerned,
that really is not my, I'm a poor judge of that. But the question
is, do I love Him? Do I really love Him? That is
indeed the question and the very existence of love in the heart
is a sure sign that whatever else we may or may not have been
successful at in our Christian life, whatever else there is,
that it really doesn't matter if we love Him and if we know
that we do. Now, we could not love Christ,
and I said this a while ago and I want to say it lastly here
this morning, and that is if we had not got something from
Him. If we've not got something from
Him, well, you know what we've got from the Lord Jesus Christ.
We got life in Him. We got salvation. We got forgiveness
of sin, pardon of our sin. We stand in Him as accepted in
the Beloved. We stand before God in His righteousness. We have the robe of righteousness
upon. We got something from Him. And
if we feel love in our hearts toward him, we can answer as
old Peter did, Lord, thou knowest all things, and you know that
I love thee. Now, beloved, let me just say
this in closing. I feel like that I've been in
a considerable amount of battle in the last some time. And I
realize that there's a lot of stress and strain on everybody. And there's some, the Lord's
doing some things. And we need to be very prayerful
and very conscious that God's working in hearts. And there's
some people here that I believe that are very close to the kingdom.
And I believe that they need to hear what the Word of God
says and the truth of God. And I want to be faithful. And
I'll come here, whatever be my state, and I'll mouth out what
God lays upon my heart as long as God will give me strength
to do it, as long as God gives me grace to do it. I have a burden
for these young souls and for everybody that listens to me
preach. And I'm burdened for them. I want you to be burdened
about your own soul and examine yourself examine yourself, and
ask yourself, can I with confidence refer my heart's condition to
Him who knows all things? And if you can, take courage
and rejoice with me. I know that God knows my heart,
and I believe, I believe that I love Him, and I want to serve
Him, and I want to be faithful to Him. And I believe there's
many of you many of you that are exactly in the same position.
May the Lord bless you this morning. Father, in the name of Jesus,
receive the glory and the praise. Bless the message and use it
to thine own good. And Lord, do not allow the weakness
of the preacher to some way or another hinder the outcome of
this message. Use it for thy glory. In Jesus'
name, Amen.