Thank you for coming. Trust that
the Lord will give us a word that our time be spent in a very
profitable way this morning. I invite you to turn in your
Bibles to the book of John, the Gospel of John, chapter 14. Chapter 14. I want us to begin
reading with verse 25 and read down through verse 31. John 14, 25-31, These things
have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the
Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in
my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to
your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave
with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth,
give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. You have heard how I said unto
you, I go away, and come again unto you. If you love me, you
would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father, for my
Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before
it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, you might believe. Hereafter I will not talk much
with you, for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing
in me. But that the world may know that
I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, even
so I do. Arise, let us go hence. I invite you this morning to
notice verse 27. This verse of Scripture has been
going through my heart over and over again in the last few days,
and I believe that the Lord has impressed me to use the last
part of this verse as our text this morning. Word says, let
not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Let not your
heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Now there's a verse
of scripture found in the 16th chapter of the Gospel of John,
it's verse 33, and I'd like to read that at this time. These
things I have spoken unto you, saith Jesus, that in me you might
have peace. This is John 16 and 33, that
in me you might have peace, in the world you shall have tribulation,
in the world you'll have trouble, but be of good cheer, be comforted,
be courageous, be bold, for I have overcome the world. Now we as
the people of God, we know this morning that we're in this world,
and this world is real, And all we encounter, all that we face,
all that we endure in this world is very, very real. And these words of our Lord Jesus
Christ to us, when he said, let not your heart be troubled, neither
let it be afraid, are very necessary words unto the Lord's people. The Bible says in Psalm 34, 19
that many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord
delivers him out of them all. The burdens that we bear with
our brothers and sisters in this world are very, very real. Hebrews 13 and 2 says, Remember
them that are in bonds as bound with them. and them which suffer
adversity as being yourself also in the body. So we're in a body
like our brothers and sisters in Christ. They have afflictions,
they have trouble, and as the Lord Jesus said, in the world
you will have tribulation. And, beloved, we recognize that,
as the words of the old song, we share our mutual woes, our
mutual burdens bear, and often for each other shed a sympathizing
tear. We have trials, and you have
trials. We have adverse situations in
our lives as individuals, and we must deal with them. Now,
beloved, this is a fact, and we see these words being fulfilled
Every day in this world we see, we talk to people and we know
that they are in trouble. We are living in a day of unprecedented
prosperity. People are on the move in this
world, they're traveling about. by every means that is available. And they take vacations, and
they take extended vacations. They go on business trips, trying
to get away, to ease their mind, trying to deal with the complexities
and the difficulties and the frustrations of life. They take these vacations in
order to be able to regroup and to be able to, as it were, to
charge their batteries. This is a real world. This is
a very testing place that we live. Men and women have televisions
and telephones, fax machines, access to the internet, all which
provide instant worldwide communication. But in spite of the fact that
we are living in a time when people have more, when people
go more, when people seem to be seeing their physicians and
their psychologists more and more, and when they have more
information than in any other area of time, there also seems
to be a tremendous amount of frustration and unhappiness in
the hearts of individuals in this world. We hear more and
more of marriages ending in divorce, We hear more and more of domestic
trouble, more teenagers in a state of rebellion, more addiction,
more anger, and more depression. It seems now that on the highways
of America, we see more anger in people just driving about. because they're frustrated and
their hearts are full of envy and strife and pride and rebellion. And even among professed Christians
we hear people saying, do we not hear this? I just can't take
much more of this. I'm not going to be able to deal
with this much more. My nerves are shot. Have you
heard anybody say that in the last little while? Well, I feel
a terrible sense of emptiness, somebody says. Somebody says,
I don't get anything out of going to church anymore. Somebody else
says, well, I don't even get anything out of reading my Bible
anymore. We observe that when a day of
trouble comes, and it most certainly will come, and has come, many
who are believers just seem as confused about how to deal with
it as those that are in the world. They just simply do not know
what to do in a day of trouble. I wonder this morning what would
happen if a sudden calamity, some situation would suddenly
befall you or your family. What would you do? How would
you handle it? How would you be able to deal
with it? Now then, people will go to church
on Sunday, and they will sing uplifting hymns of praise to
the sovereign God of the universe, and declare their faith in the
truth of salvation by sovereign grace, and then fall apart during
the next week in attempting to deal with the frustrations of
life. Troubles, heartaches, disappointments
are all part of life, and every one of us have to experience
it. Every one of us will deal with
it if God leaves us here in this world for any length of time.
There will come a time when we will weep. Oh, we will. We will
weep. And if you've not yet wept, you
will weep. And if you've not yet undergone
suffering and pain and sorrow in your life, then you will undergo
suffering and pain and sorrow. If you see anybody that appears
that there's nothing wrong, they're happy all the time, those people
are either liars or they're insane. They're living in a world that
is complex and very troubling, and our hearts experience, day
by day, such pressure from disease and sickness and poverty, bereavements
and loneliness. These are things that are common
to our race, and they're common to this world in which we live.
and we need to learn how that they must be dealt with. Now
God's elect are not exempted from these things. We must learn
that as the Lord's people. We're not exempted from this. Somehow we get the idea in our
heads by the foolish preaching of modern day charismatics that
God's people are to be exempted from these things, and it's not
so. It's not so. Our Lord said, in
this world you will have tribulation. He was speaking that to his disciples. He wasn't talking about this
heathen crowd in the world. He wasn't talking about the irreligious.
He was talking about his own people. And he said, in this
world you're going to have trouble. But he added these words of comfort,
I want you to be of good cheer, I want you to be comforted, I
want you to be courageous, and I want you to be bold as you
face this world. Now I want us to look here at
John chapter 14 and verse 27. I want us to examine these words
of our Lord. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid." Now, in that that we've opened this
message up and you see where we're going, I think that we
can better understand something about this if we just say a little
more about what Christ has been talking to His disciples about
in this text. First of all, He had told His
disciples that He was going to leave them. He said, I'm going
to leave you, that he must be crucified by cruel men, and that
he must return to the Father. All of this in the purpose of
God, all of this according to the plan of God, all of this
according to the will of God. But they did not understand all
that he was talking about, and their hearts were troubled. And
they said, what are we going to do? What are we going to do?
We've left all and followed thee. Now you're going to leave us.
Now you're going to leave us, you're going to leave the world,
and we're going to be left here as orphans in this world. Their hearts were troubled. So
he tells them in verse 16 and in verse 17, notice these verses,
and I will pray the Father. Jesus said, I'm going away, and
whether I go you know, and the way you know. They didn't understand
what he was saying, but he says here in verse 16, I'm going to
pray the Father. I'm going to go to the Father
in prayer, and He'll give you another comforter. He'll give
you somebody to come down and come alongside you, that He may
abide with you forever. In other words, you're not going
to be left orphans in this world. I'm going to pray the Father,
and He'll send the Holy Spirit. which is even the Spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither
knoweth him, but you know him, for he dwelleth with you, and
shall be in you." The Holy Spirit was going to come down on the
day of Pentecost, and Jesus adds in verse 18, I will not leave
you comfortless, I will come to you. And let me say that that
verse of Scripture has been fulfilled many, many, many times, In the
lives of the Lord's people, as they're being sorely tested and
tried, and as they're storm-tossed in this world, how many times
has the Lord come to you? How many times has He come to
you in the night and spoken a word to you in the night? How many
times has He given you a verse? out of the Word of God to strengthen
your heart and enable you to endure the pressure and the stress
of your life. How many times have you had a
verse of a song that has come to you? God has visited you and
blessed you. He said, I will not leave you
comfortless. Now then, as we think about the
pressure that was on these disciples and Jesus about to leave, we
hear what Jesus says to them. He says, Peace, I leave with
you. Your hearts are troubled and
you're frustrated and you don't know what's going on, but peace,
I leave with you. My peace, I give. unto you. The Lord Jesus had
peace. Thank God for His peace. There is a peace, beloved, that
passes understanding. And when we're faced with various
trials and various situations in life, we don't understand
them. We don't know what's going on.
Let me tell you, there's a peace, that passive understanding that
will keep the heart and mind through Christ Jesus and This
is the peace of our Lord. My peace, he says, the peace
that I have. Have you ever thought about the
peace that Jesus had in his heart? The Lord Jesus, you know, he
was in this world and he came on a mission and he came down
here, heaven's best. He was no angel with a broken
wing. He came down here. He was the Son of God. And He came down incarnated in
a body of flesh, took upon Himself our flesh, a body of flesh. And He lived in this world, but
He had peace. He had peace with the Father,
and he said, my peace I give you. I give you my peace. This
will settle you down. I'll give you my peace. It'll
do something for you. I mean, it'll touch you where
you're at. It'll touch you in your situation.
My peace. I'll give it to you. And I'll
tell you there's some times in this life that we either get
a hold of God's peace or we're not going to be able to stand.
We must have this peace that our Lord Jesus said, I will give
to you. The peace that I procure, the
peace I perform, the peace I give, my peace I give unto you. What
a legacy! Our Lord Jesus Christ is giving
us a part of Himself. He's giving us His peace. Not
as the world giveth, give I unto you. I don't give like the world. The world is Indian. They're
Indian givers, as the expression is. But the Lord Jesus, He gives
and He doesn't give in a stinting way. He doesn't give in a way
that makes you think that He's short on what He's giving. I
mean, He can give you His peace and then He can give it to your
brother and sister in Christ and He'll never be any shorter
of it than what He was to begin with. Our Lord has a treasure
of peace and He can give Here's peace. Let not your heart be
troubled, he said, neither let it be afraid. Now in the most
loving and gentle and charming tones, our Lord says to his disciples,
yes, and he's saying it to you and to me, let not your heart
be troubled. All these things are going on
and all of this world and reality is facing you and you're facing
it, but don't let your heart be troubled. Now I want, if I
can, to help those who believe this morning in the Lord Jesus,
to have that peace and comfort and joy that comes through faith
in our Lord. If we would but believe God,
our hearts, I think this morning, would be at peace. Now you write
it down if you want to. There is no reason, beloved,
for any child of God, anyone who is in Christ, anyone whose
sins are under the blood, anyone whose sins are covered, as Conrad
mentioned in his prayer, anyone to whom the Lord will not impute
sin. There is no reason for any child
of God to be perpetually vexed with a troubled and fearful heart. There's no reason for it. George
Mueller said that the beginning of anxiety is the end of faith,
and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety. What he is saying is this, when
we worry, we do not believe God. When we believe God, we cease
to worry. That's what he's saying. Another
man said anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered
in anything short of God and his sovereign will for us. Anything short of that. You center
your hope in men and you're gonna be disappointed. You bound to
become frustrated. And if you lean on the arm of
flesh, you bound to be frustrated. You dare not trust your own.
But if your hopes are centered in the Lord, if you're trusting
him, if in him you find all of your springs, and if your desire
is toward him and from him, Then, beloved, you have no reason to
have this fearful heart, this troubled heart that our Lord
is talking about. Now, I call your attention this
morning to three things that I believe are taught very clearly
in our text. And first of all, our Lord said,
let not your heart be troubled. And with these words, I am sure
that He is giving a gentle reproof. This is a reproof any way you
look at it. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. Our Lord is telling us that we
ought never to be anxious, we ought never to be fearful, we
ought never to be worried, we ought never to give our hearts
over to these things. He would have us to cast our
care upon Him and trust Him to provide for us and to protect
and to guide us in all ways, in all of our ways, and in all
things. The Apostle Peter in 1 Peter
5, and there's three verses there, and I'd like for you to turn
there quickly and look at these three verses. In 1 Peter chapter
5, and I want to read verse 5 where it says, Likewise, ye younger,
ye younger members of the church, you younger elders, submit yourself
unto the elder or the older folks in the church, those who have
had some experience, those who are not novices, but those who
know something about the ways of God and the work of God and
God's plan and purpose in the lives of his people. He says,
yea, all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with
humility. For God resisteth the proud,
and he giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore,
unto the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due
time. casting all your care upon him,
for he careth for you." Humble yourselves. Humble yourselves. And I believe at the very outset
here, as I'm beginning to open up these three things, and we'll
hurry, but I want you to understand that humility is required in
order for us to be able to get our hearts, get the trouble out
of our hearts. and to get the fear out of our
hearts and the worry and the anxiety out of our hearts, humility
is required. Humble yourself, bow down to
God's hand, God's will, God's providential direction that he
may exalt you in due time. Humble yourself. You say, I just
don't know which way to go, preacher. Humble yourself under the hand
of God. Submit yourself to God. Bow down
to Him. God gives grace to the humble,
and He'll surely give it to you if you get down off your high
horse and wait on Him. Now in verse 7, it said, just
casting all your care on Him. Casting all your care, roll over
the burdens of life on Him. Do so with confidence because
He careth for you. The Lord cares for you. He is
saying, stop worrying, let not your heart be troubled. Now,
I don't want to shock anybody here this morning or offend anybody,
but beloved troubled hearts arise, and I want you to get this, troubled
hearts arise from trouble in our hearts. That's where it comes
from. Now, you may differ with me,
but troubled hearts come from trouble in our hearts. our hearts,
not from outside of our hearts like we think it does, but from
trouble within our own hearts. We blame it on the trouble without. It is not our outward circumstances
and troubles that causes trouble in our hearts, but rather it
is our inward sin and unbelief. We can't do anything about the
trouble that's outside. But the trouble that's inside,
this is where it must be dealt with. Let not your heart Let
not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Now the troubles
we talked about when we opened up this message this morning,
they're not going away. They're not going away. Now then,
the problem is in here. What are we going to do about
it in here? It's in our hearts where we've got to deal with
this. Well, somebody said, you say, preacher, my troubles, my
sicknesses, my heartaches, You say these things that cause me
to be depressed, you say that that doesn't cause me to have
heart trouble and to be fretful and frustrated and worry. In
some cases it may, but most of the time it is sin that is within
that causes us to be cast down and depressed. I've seen sick
people, and you probably have too, who were full of happiness,
cheer, and delight before God. They were just happy. I visited
people who were deformed and people that were in desperate
situations, and they certainly had nothing to look forward to
in this life. but yet they were a comfort to
me and a joy to my own heart and a blessing to me. Well, you
say poverty causes men and women to murmur and complain against
God. I beg your pardon. It is sin that causes men and
women to murmur and complain against God. Believe it or not,
there are poor people who are content before God in this world. Well, preacher, I just believe
Well, I just believe that my trouble has to do with my neighbor.
My trouble has to do with my situation at work. My trouble
has got to do with something else. But listen to me. If you'll
listen just a little bit, I think you'll understand more clearly
where I'm going. And I want you to listen. Now,
we don't want to admit that we got any responsibility for all
the upheaval that's going on in our souls, do we? We don't
want to admit it. We don't want the responsibility
of having to deal with all that's going on inside of our hearts,
inside of our lives. We don't want it. We want to
cast it off. We don't want to accept the responsibility
for it. But I want to tell you something.
There's one thing that believing In the doctrine of the absolute
sovereignty of Almighty God, there's one thing that that will
do. When you get a view, a correct view, of the God of the Bible
and how He controls this universe and all things that are within
it, and whenever you know that He's a sovereign God over every
minute detail that takes place in this world and in your life,
you get a view of Him. you'll understand yourself a
little better, and oh, what it'll reveal about yourself. Here's
a God that is holy, a God that's wise, a God that's all wise,
a God who never erred, a God that will never make a mistake,
a God who works according to perfect plan and wise and holy
counsel, and this God is not about to err. If there's a problem,
if there's somebody upset, if there's somebody confused, if
there's somebody frustrated, it's me and you, friend. It's
me and you. And we've got to deal with these
frustrations. And so Jesus said, let not your
heart be troubled. Let not your heart be afraid. And so then this deals with our
own hearts. Now then, there are five besetting
sins that I believe that are in our hearts that causes our
heart trouble. And I'm not preaching down to
you, I'm telling you I'm preaching to myself. But what I would say
to myself will probably be right on target to you this morning. Sins that were in a body that
is similar. Now there are things that we
have to acknowledge and confess to God. We have to acknowledge
it. We've got to take responsibility
for it. We can't pass it on to somebody
else. You know, we're always trying,
and this is a generation that will not take, will not take
you telling them that they have a responsibility and they're
responsible for what's happened many, many times in their life
and their situation. They brought it on themselves,
a lot of the troubles they had. You can blame your mama and your
daddy, you can blame your preacher, you can blame anybody you want
to, but you're going to have to come back. There's five besetting
sins in your life. and you're going to have to face
it and take responsibility for it. Now there was two little
boys, one of them five, one of them six years old, and they
were talking one day and trying to figure out why it was that
surgeons wore face masks when they operated. and they batted
it back and forth, the five and six-year-old boys, and directly
they came to the conclusion that it was because if anything went
wrong, they didn't want to be, the surgeons didn't want to be
identified. They didn't want to be responsible for what took
place. And I'll tell you, there's a
whole lot of this business of wearing masks in order that we
don't have to face up to what really is the problem in our
lives. Well, The first of these five
sins is pride. Pride. Now this is the cause
of heart trouble. Sorrows usually spring out of
our hearts. Spurgeon said, when self is conquered,
sorrow is to a great extent banished from the human heart. It is pride
which makes us think, which makes us think that the sun ought always
to shine on us. and that we ought never to have
a rainy day, we ought never to have a bad day, we ought never
to have a day when everything goes contrary to our mind. It is pride which makes us think
we ought to always walk in silver slippers and our paths be always
smooth. That's pride, that's what that
is. Why, listen to me this morning, it is pride, it's self-love,
self-esteem, a sense of self-worth which causes us to rebel against
God's sovereignty and God's providence and to resist his will for our
lives. We just think that things ought
to be better with us, and that we deserve that they be better
with us. And I'm unhappy about it, and
I'm frustrated, and I just simply don't know how much longer I
can deal with things being contrary to what I think they ought to
be for somebody of my reputation and class. Somebody of my degree
of holiness. Somebody of my degree of spirituality. Oh, surely things ought to be
better for me than what they are. When all the time things
are better with us, every one of us, than we deserve that they
be. Is that right? I'll tell you
what, if you could see as God sees, you would see that things
are better with you than they ought to be. But that God in
mercy has blessed you and given you what you got. Well, there's
some verses that I want us to look at quickly, and I'm watching
the time now. You don't have to do that. You
just go along with me here. Isaiah chapter 45, if you would
turn back there, I want you to see some verses here. We don't
want to resist His will. We want to humble ourselves.
We want to cast out the pride of our hearts. Well, our Lord
in Isaiah chapter 45 is describing Himself. And the children of
Israel, they have been murmuring and complaining and carrying
on and they've rebelled against God's hand. And in verse 5 he
says, I am the Lord and there is none else. And there is no
God besides me. And then the last part of verse
6, he says, I am the Lord and there is none else. And in verse
7, listen to it, I form the light and create darkness. I make peace
and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. And then we go down here to verse
9, and he says, Woe unto him that striveth with his maker! Let the potsherds strive with
the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that
fashioned it, What makest thou or thy work? He hath no hands. Woe unto him that saith unto
his father, What begettest thou unto the woman? What hast thou
brought forth? Now beloved our God, he says
in verse 12, I have made the earth and created man upon it,
I even my hands have stretched out the heavens and all their
hosts have I commanded. What it certainly is setting
forth is the absolute sovereignty of God. He says I am, when you
have peace, he says I created it. When things go smooth, when
times are good, when the cupboards are full, when the job is stable
and secure, when there's money in the bank, the family's in
good health, he says, I, the Lord, do all these things. I make peace. And when God makes
peace, you have it, and you have his blessing. And when trouble
comes, Darkness, the bank account is depleted, the cupboards are
bare and empty, the family is ill and everything is going wrong.
I am the one who creates evil, God says. I'm the one who creates
evil. Now the Lord, God says, in verse
10 there, he says, don't fuss with me about this. Don't fuss
with me. Woe unto him that strived with
the potsherds. These potsherds are there. He
said, if you're gonna strive, strive with them. Don't you get
angry with me. Bow down, humble yourself, and
cast away your pride. And all on earth that keeps us
from bowing down is pride. That's what keeps you from bowing
your knee. Pride. Rebellion. Pride in your own
heart. Face it. And we're not going
to find no comfort for our hearts until our pride is broken and
our hearts are subdued. And when they are, then we'll
begin to get some relief. You say it can't be done, preacher.
Well, it has been done. Job did it, and I want you to
turn to the book of Job, the second chapter. I just got to
read this, I just got to do it. And so if you'll pardon me, turn
to Job, chapter 2, and I'll tell you it's been done. Somebody
said, I think that'd be a difficult thing to humble yourself Just
cast yourself before the Lord and resign yourself and not have
any pride. Just throw dirt in your own face
and bow before the Lord. Listen to me. Here's old Job
and he's lost his family and the devil has moved God against
him without cause and he's lost all of his possessions. And he's
been greatly afflicted, physically afflicted, sore borals from the
sole of his foot to the crown of his head. He was scraping
himself one morning on a hot, hot summer morning. The humidity
was terrible, and the mosquitoes and flies were terrible. And
he was scraping these borals, and his wife in verse 9 of chapter
2 said unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Do you still, after all of this,
you still maintain your integrity? Curse God and die. Curse God,
rebel against God, and die in that state. My soul, can you
imagine somebody dying, cursing God? And that's what this man's
wife told him to do. Said curse God and die. All right, then he said unto
her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speakest. What,
shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not
receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with
his lips. He didn't sin. He said we receive
both good and evil from the hand of God. Woman, you speak like
a foolish, foolish woman, telling me to curse God and die. God's
on the throne, and He does good, and He also sends bad days and
trouble, and you bow down, and you quit fighting against God.
You submit yourself unto the Lord, and you will find comfort.
Now the second thing is unbelief. First of all, it's pride. Long
as that old pride stays in your heart, you're going to be uncomfortable.
Because you're going to think things ought to be better with
you than what they are. Now, the next thing is unbelief. This
is a cause of heart trouble. Worry, fear, anxiety. They're the fruits of unbelief.
Worry, anxiety, and fear. Oh, let me tell you something.
This is nothing more than pleasant words for pure, down-home, growing
unbelief. It's what it is. It's unbelief. You say you just don't understand,
preacher. Yes, I do understand. I understand
the frailty of human nature. I understand the frailty of physical
constitutions. I do understand the awful trouble
in the heartbreak of this world, but I also understand the sinfulness,
the absolute sinfulness and ungodliness and the rebellion of worldly
fretfulness and unbelief before God our Father. I know something
about this. I've fought this battle for many
a year. I know what kind of heart beats
in this old breast right here. I know about it. I'm telling
you, I know about it. Worry, one man said, is faith
in the negative. Worry is trusting the unpleasant. Worry is the assurance of disaster. Worry is belief in defeat. Worry
is the interest we pay on tomorrow's trouble. We anticipate difficulties,
so we sit around and worry about it till it comes. We just know
that it's going to come. And so we sit and worry. What
I'm saying is, if I trust God as a believer should, there is
nothing that I can reasonably fear, nothing that I can with
reason worry about, nothing that I can with reason anticipate
with anxiety. Worry, anxiety, and fear, that's
the reason that Israel perished in the wilderness, you know.
And you know that the reason we worry and fret and stew, we
think we're serving God. But the truth is, and there's
a verse in Matthew, and I'm not going to ask you to turn there,
I'm just going to read it to you right quick. It's in Matthew
6 and verse 24, it says, No man can serve two masters. You see,
you're in this world, you're in a body of flesh, and there's
masters in this world. And no man can serve two. For
either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will
hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God in
mammon. Now what happens is, a man thinks
he's serving God, but the real trouble is, he's serving himself. A man is trying to, he wants
to enjoy himself. He wants what he wants. It's
just what he wants. That's all that's gonna make
him happy, what he wants. And he says, I'm a servant of
God. My friend, you can't serve God and hate God at the same
time. If you love God, bow to him.
Submit to him. Let him be the master. Submit
to him. He is the master. Bow to him. Submit yourself. You say, well,
I just think I was serving God. No, you're serving yourself.
And so you're turning away from the master, turning to yourself. Well, the third thing is covetousness.
Now, most of our heart trouble and fear, worry, uneasiness,
and anxiety, I think, come and arises from the root of covetousness. Well, somebody said, what are
you talking about, preacher? Covetousness. That sounds like a real nice
word to me. Covetousness? Well, everyone in this room,
here's what covetousness is. It is that we want what God has
not given to us in his providence. We want something else. We don't
like the lot God has given us. We don't like the hand we've
been dealt. We don't like it. And see, I told you that this
preaches to me. Maybe more than anybody else
here. Sometimes we don't like the hand we've been dealt. And
we've got to covet his heart. And we want God. We want God
to make us happy. And we're unhappy. And we're
fretting because we want a different lot. God help us to let our conversation,
that word is behavior, in Hebrews 13 and 5 and 6, let your conversation,
your behavior be without covetousness. Live like you were satisfied
with what you got. Be happy before the Lord with
what God has given you. Submit yourself to the Lord.
let your conversation be without covetousness for he has said
for he has said I will never leave you nor forsake you so
that you may boldly say the Lord is my helper and I don't have
to fear what man shall do unto me you can trust God and accept
what the Lord has given you I have no use you know that for Roman
Catholicism But I read a story about a priest who had received
thousands of confessions through several years of his service. And he said, all of these thousands
of confessions that I've heard, I never once had anybody confess
being covetous. Never once. had anybody that
admitted they wanted something in life that they didn't have.
That they wanted something that they had made a god out of something
and they must have it or they'd never be happy as long as they
live. That's dangerous business. It really is. And we must each
one of us, you see what I was talking about? About admitting
these things in your heart? You want to be happy? You want
to get rid of your frustration? Then crucify this covetousness. That you gotta have something
that you haven't got. Every one of us is afflicted
with it. Amen? every one of us, and that's why we have the trouble
that we do. Yes, that's the root, discontentment
and the worry and fear and uneasiness in this world. Now the fourth
thing is envy, and this is a trouble David had. Psalm 73 in verse
3, he was envious of the prosperity of the wicked. I want what the
ungodly have. I've washed my hands, he says,
in innocency. I said it's a foolish thing to
serve God. And when it comes to his senses,
he said, I was as a beast before thee. In verse 22 of that psalm,
so foolish was I and ignorant. I was as a beast before thee.
Envy is the most loathsome, most vicious child that pride ever
sired. Envy is a denial of God's providence,
and as a moth eats cloth, so envy eats a man. It is hard to
keep envy and our hearts apart, because they're so entwined,
they're so alike. Don't you see what I'm saying?
Okay, and the last thing, and I'm not gonna finish the message,
I'm just gonna give you this last thing, and then I'll take
up the rest of it when I have time. Self-pity is the last thing. So you can rest, And you can
listen to me for this last point. Self-pity is one of the reasons
why our hearts are troubled and why they are afraid. Now, troubled
hearts are usually peevish and full of self-pity. Self-pity
is the sum of all these things we've mentioned. The sum of pride,
unbelief, covetousness, and envy. And when you add them all together,
self-pity Ain't that right? Self-pity. Oh me. Oh me. Oh my. My friend, the Spirit
of Christ is not self-pity. It is self-denial. Self-denial. He said, you take up your cross
and you come after me. You follow me. You come after
me. Let a man deny himself come after
me. Heart trouble, fear rises from
these things that we've mentioned this morning. So we have the
reproof. The Lord has reproved our hearts.
We see where we stand. And I will take up on this the
Lord willing next Sunday. And there's two other things
that I want to mention out of this text that I believe can
be most helpful in our dealing with our situation. But let's
believe God. Let's trust God. Let's bow down
and agree with God and say, Lord, You know my heart. You know what
I want. You know what I desire. You know
the way I would like to see things be. But Lord, I'm not going to
argue with you about it. I'm not going to fight with you.
And I will not any longer rebel against your will in my life.
I submit myself. I humble myself under your hand.
Somebody say, that's weakness in a preacher. No, sir. You are
humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God. and God will, in
due time, exalt you. God will visit you. There'll
come a day when He'll visit you and bless you and your old heart
will be able to rejoice in Him. Get rid of your self-pity. Things
are better with you than what you deserve that they be. All
of us. May God bless you. Father, in
the name of Jesus, take this message and use it And may it
be, our Father, that we should see, hear fruit come from the
hearing of this word. And may the Lord Jesus Christ
ever be exalted in our preaching and in our services, in our songs. We pray for his sake. Amen.