I invite you to turn in your
Bibles this morning to John chapter 11. John chapter 11. The Lord Jesus had friends in
Bethany, Mary, her sister Martha, and their brother Lazarus. And Lazarus became ill, And he
died. And our Lord Jesus heard about
the fact that Lazarus was, that he died. And so he purposed to
go there, telling his disciples that this sickness was not unto
death, but that it was for the glory of God. And so he went
to Bethany. And we find that when he arrives
at Bethany, beginning with verse 19, that many of the Jews came
to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she heard
that Jesus was coming, went and met him, but Mary sat still in
the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus,
Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But
I know that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will
give it thee. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother
shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know
that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the
resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. And then our Lord asked this
question, believest thou this? She saith unto him, in verse
27, Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son
of God, which should come into the world. I want you to hold
your finger here in John chapter 11, and I want you to turn over
with me to the book of 1 Thessalonians chapter 3. 1 Thessalonians chapter
3. And I want to read beginning
with verse 8. down through verse 10. For now we live, the Apostle
Paul says, if ye stand fast in the Lord. He's writing to the
church of the Thessalonians. Now we live if ye stand fast
in the Lord. For what thanks can we render
to God again for you for all the joy wherewith we joy for
your sakes before our God. Night and day praying exceedingly
that we might see your face and listen to this last part of verse
10 and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith." That
we might perfect that which is lacking in your faith. Now, beloved,
it is not to be supposed that every true believer in Christ
is a perfect believer. That is not to be supposed. The
Apostle Paul tells us that there were some things lacking in the
faith of the Thessalonians that he would like to perfect. Now
Martha truly believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, but she did
not perfectly believe in him because there were some things
that her faith had not yet embraced. There were some things that had
not yet been revealed to her that she might be able to grasp
them and hold on to them with a heart of faith. Now I don't
know how many there are here this morning that think that
your faith, that it is perfect or that it's complete. and that
you have a well-rounded faith, and that you believe God, you
believe the testimony of the Bible, and you just believe God
perfectly. Well, if you think that, then
this morning you'll not receive very much from what I've got
to say. And of course, you wouldn't need
it anyway. And I just want to come to you this morning, and
those of us who have an imperfect faith, and I suspect that that
describes the most of us, that we may profit somewhat this morning
from the Savior's question to Martha when he said, Believest
thou this? Now I hope this morning we might
hear his loving lips inquiring of us concerning this truth and
the other, whatever truth it might be in the word of God that
we're questioning or that's not yet been revealed to us, that
our faith has not yet been able to lay hold of, that we might
hear him say to us, believest thou this? Now we desire to believe
everything that is true. Is that not right? We desire
to believe everything that is true, and we wish to receive
into our minds every doctrine which the Holy Spirit has revealed.
And is this not one of the privileges of being a child of God? When
He, the Spirit of Truth, has come, the Bible says, He shall
guide you into all truth. When He, the Spirit of Truth,
has come, He will guide you into all truth. Now we long to believe
everything that is within the range of our spiritual knowledge. So our faith, taking the entire
range of every divine truth, may be complete for every emergency
and mighty in every conflict so that we would be able to live
out our days in this world to the glory and the praise of our
God. Now faith, beloved, cannot believe
what it does not know. Faith is not able to embrace
or to grasp what it does not know. There were some things
that Martha knew, and we'll talk about that a little while, but
there were some things she did not know. And your faith is not
able to grasp something that's not been revealed to it. And
you can't believe what you do not know in your heart any more
than you can come back from some place where you haven't been.
You have to know these truths and and they must be revealed
to you for you to be able to grasp them and receive them in
your heart and we therefore have missed many things and there's
a verse of scripture that talks about fat things full of marrow
and wines on the leaves well refined and these things might
have been to our strength and joy but we miss them because
they had not yet been revealed to our faith and we not yet embrace
them and believe them. Now, we would all be comforted,
I think, if we could grow in the grace and knowledge of our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And if we had a more intelligent
appreciation of the preciousness of the truths which he has been
pleased to reveal about himself in the word. Now, faith may be
defective through ignorance. No question about that. Faith
may be defective through our ignorance. We just simply do
not know what the Bible says. Mike mentioned this morning the
verse in Romans 10 and 17 where it says faith cometh by hearing
and hearing by the Word of God. And so it is as we become more
acquainted with the Word of God that our faith is able to embrace
the truths of Holy Scripture and we are able to grow in the
grace and knowledge of Christ. And also I believe that our faith
is defective through a want of appreciation. of the person of
Jesus Christ through a want of appreciation for the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now Martha had a friend and that
friend was Jesus but she did not know the preciousness of
this friend. She did not know that he himself
was the resurrection and the life of all believers, of all
of his people. She looked upon him as a man. Sure, as a godly man, as a man
who had been a blessing to her family, but this man she did
not look upon him as being the resurrection and the life. And so it was in Martha's case.
Her faith was for one of appreciation for the Lord Jesus and through
ignorance her faith was not complete. In 2 Peter 3 and verse 18 it
says, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ to Him, listen to this, to Him be glory both
now and forever. And so the child of God in this
world, we are to grow. Our knowledge and our faith can
grow. And the knowledge of Jesus Christ
is the most important and gracious knowledge which a believer can
obtain in this world, this side of heaven. We need to know Jesus
Christ better. The Lord Jesus is that person
that we need to be taken up with, that we need to understand better,
and that our faith needs to feed on. He's the bread of God that
came down from heaven. The Lord Jesus is that one that
we're to daily, spiritually feed upon, to Him. He said, be glory
both now and forever to the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us single him
out. Let us find out about his preciousness. The Bible says in Peter, that
unto us who believe, he is precious. And He is precious. He is our
Savior. He's our Redeemer. He's the one
that loved our soul out of the pit. He's the one that loved
us into eternal life and loved us into everlasting glory. That
glory which is coming for the Lord's living family. And so
we need to learn more of His preciousness. Now, we said earlier
that a man cannot believe what he does not know, and we must
understand that we need to study the Word of God, and we need
to listen to it being preached, and we need to give our hearts
and minds over to the truth as it is revealed to us. If we're
ignorant of precious truths, we'll never be able to glorify
Him as we ought in this world. Now let me tell you what I believe
that Mary here did know, or what did Martha know. That is, Mary
is her sister. But Martha, what did she really
know? What had her faith already grasped? Before the Lord questioned her,
She had already expressed her faith in certain great truths
that we rejoice in, that we're glad that the Lord has also revealed
to us. She said, first of all, I want
you to look at this, that in verse 21, she said unto Jesus,
Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. Now Martha said, if you had been
here, physically, Lord Jesus, if you had been here, my brother
would not have died. Now, I want you to think a little
bit. She believed in the Savior's
power to heal the sick. She believed in that. She believed,
listen to me, that so long as her brother yet breathed, the
power of Christ could have kept him alive if he would have been
there. If Jesus would have been there
present and his power there to heal that her brother would have
still been alive. He wouldn't have been in that
tomb behind that huge rock for four days if Jesus had have been
there. Now is there anything wrong with
that? I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. It is never
It is never right to question the ableness of the Son of God. There is nothing that is too
hard for God. God is able to do whatever He
purposes to do, and there's nothing that keeps God back. The Bible
says there's nothing that is impossible with God. God is able
to do whatever He pleases to do, and if God is pleased to
come and to heal somebody that is afflicted. If he's pleased
to raise up somebody that is in a desperate set of circumstances
physically, then, beloved, he can do so. Don't ever question
the ableness of God. God is able. Settle that in your
minds. Well, I believe And this is just
what I believe. I believe that God has indeed
healed many people. And I don't believe in the gifts
of healing. I don't believe that that gift is any longer in the
church. The Bible says, when that which
is perfect is come, that which has been done in part will be
done away. And those things were in parts.
The Bible likens that to when we were children, we played with
certain things and certain toys, but when we became men, when
we grew up and become adults, we put away childish things. These gifts, these various gifts
that people talk about, the gifts of healing and speaking in tongues,
and all these things, those gifts passed away whenever the complete
Word of God was given, when the complete revelation of God was
given. I'm not here this morning to
tell you that there's men around who can lay hands on you and
heal you. I'm telling you God can heal
you if he purposes to do so, and you should ask him to do
it if you're sick. If any man's sick, the Bible
says let him pray. Let him pray and let him ask
of God. And if God's pleased to raise
him up, then glorify God on that behalf. But I believe that for
every pain which racks this mortal frame, for every disease There's
a remedy in God's wondrous laboratory among the herbs of the field
if we could just find it. If we were able to find it, I
believe there is a remedy. Now, I'm here this morning and
I know that men die. I know it's the will of God that
men die. I know that death is the cause
or that death is caused by sin and I know that we ought to die
in that that we have sinned and we will die finally and these
bodies will be put off but I believe that God has some wonderful remedies
in the field of herbs and I'm not here to exalt herbs but I
just believe that God is a God that could and can heal whenever
he pleases to do so. So that's the first thing that
Martha believed. She believed that if Jesus had
been there physically, he could have kept her brother from dying. Okay? Now the next thing that
she believed is in verse 22, where it says, But I know that
even now... In other words, you weren't here,
you weren't here, and my brother did die. But even now, she says,
whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. God will
give it thee. But I know that even now whatsoever
thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. Well, Martha believed
that though her brother was dead, such was the efficacy of Christ's
prayer that he could do something. She does not quite say what,
that she thinks that he could do to comfort her and to make
this situation one wherein she would feel comfortable. But she
says, I know that even now, I know that even now, even though my
brother's been dead four days, I know that even now, while the
situation looks absolutely impossible, while it looks like nothing could
be done, Well, it looks like it's permanent and real, truly. I've lost my brother, and he's
gone. Nothing can be done. And she
said, I believe that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God,
God will give it thee. Now that's what she believed.
See, she had faith in our Lord's prevalence with God in prayer,
and that to a very unlimited degree. Even now, Lord, in this
present situation, in having advanced to where it is, I believe
that if you speak, Jesus is that mighty intercessor, one who had
but to speak with the Most High God, and his request would surely
be answered. Look at verse 41 and verse 42
here in John chapter 11. Then they took away the stone
from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up
his eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me.
And I knew that Thou hearest me always. But because of the
people which stand by, I said it, that they may believe that
Thou hast sent me. So Jesus here is expressing the
fact that he knew that he'd been heard of the Father. And he said,
I knew that thou hearest me always. You always hear me. Jesus was
the perfect Son of God. Jesus had no sin. Jesus was holy,
absolutely holy. And the Father always heard him
when he prayed. There was nothing between Jesus
and the Father. The way was absolutely clear
and there was nothing to hinder his prayer and his fellowship
with the Father. And so Martha believed that Jesus
was a great intercessor. And oh, this is very commendable.
This is a very commendable measure of faith when one believes this. Believest thou this? Do you believe
this? Do you believe that Jesus is
your advocate before God? Do you believe that Jesus is
your intercessor? Do you believe that Jesus Christ
the righteous is that one that takes your case and perfumes
your prayer and takes it before the Father? Do you know it's
through His merit that the Father hears your prayer? It's Jesus
that causes the Father to hear and answer the prayers the Lord's
people and we need to understand that the Bible says in Hebrews
7 and 25 he is able to save to the uttermost seeing all that
come into God by him seeing that he ever liveth to make intercession
for them and he's appearing in the presence of God for us Paul
said, they're making intercession on our behalf. They're pleading
our case before the Father. And so come on, sinner, come
on to Jesus, and I'll tell you, He'll plead your case. He'll
plead your case. You say, I don't have any righteousness.
Come on, He's got plenty of it. He's got enough to satisfy God
on your behalf. Come on to Him. You say, well,
there's so much wrong with me, I can't pray. There's nothing
wrong with the intercessor. There's nothing wrong with the
substitute. There's nothing wrong with Christ. You say, I've got
such terrible thoughts that go through my mind, and I'm such
a sinner. But there was never an unholy
thought ever went through the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ. Come. He said, I'll be your intercessor. I'll take your case. I'll pray
for you. And you know, Martha believed
that? She believed that. Believest thou this? Believest
thou this? That the Lord Jesus can be and
will be your intercessor? I wish we all did. I think it'd
make us a more of a praying people if we believe that. You know,
that was the very point of what James the Less was talking about
in the book of James when I quoted last Sunday about Elijah being
a man subject to like passions. Do you know what he wanted you
to understand by that statement? He wanted you to understand that
Elijah, he had prayed once that it not rain, then the Bible says
he prayed again, but this man was subject to like passions
as we are, and he wanted you to understand by that that this
was just a man, just a man with all the thoughts that men have,
all the thoughts that mankind has, all of the difficulties,
all the struggles, all the trials that people have. This is just
this man, but there's an intercessor. that is absolutely perfect, that
God always hears. And men pray, and God takes,
Christ takes that prayer into the presence of the Father, and
there He pleads with the Father on the behalf of His people.
And isn't that a commendable thing to believe? You see, she
was a believer, there's no question about that. Now in verse 24,
The next thing that Martha also expressed her belief is, is to
the certainty of the resurrection at the last day. Look at this,
Jesus in verse 23 said to her, thy brother shall rise again. Your brother is going to rise
again. Martha saith unto him, I know
that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
I know he is going to rise again. I know, she said. Jesus said,
now you believe this, Martha? He's going to rise again. She
said, yes, at the last day, he's going to rise again. Now then,
she had gathered, I believe, this truth from the Old Testament
scriptures, and the general belief of the Hebrew people was that
when a person died, there would be a day when they would be resurrected,
that their bodies would come out of the grave. Now, she was
a sound believer in this, but she had not yet seen the resurrection
in the Christian light, and she had never perceived our Lord's
connection with the resurrection. She didn't understand it. She
was not able to see it. But it's clear to me that she
derived very little consolation from the fact of a distant and
general resurrection. I don't think she got any comfort
out of that. She said, I know that my brother
will rise again at the resurrection of the last day. That didn't
make her happy. Did not make her happy at all. Now, brother,
sister, there's something about you go out to the cemetery and
you look, you look there at the graves. and the grass is growing
over. And there are those graves that
have been there for years and years, decades. men have been
buried in the ground and you say well yeah you don't get much
consolation somebody said they're going to be raised in the last
day you don't get a whole lot of consolation out of that now
you say well are we supposed to well maybe we maybe we should
but if we understand what Martha didn't understand I think we'll
get a whole lot more consolation and this is so very important
she needed resurrection and life to come near home. She needed
to come nearer home and to become more of a present fact to her. And what did He ask her to believe? Believest thou this? What was
it really that Jesus asked her to believe? Now Jesus said here
in verse 25, He told her, He said, I am the resurrection of
the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet
shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. Believest thou this? Well, what
he wanted her to believe and to receive and to embrace with
her faith that she might be comforted is this, that he himself, that
he himself was the resurrection of the life, raising those who
believe in him from the dead. Now beloved, every child of God,
every child of God has been raised from the dead already. Do you
feel like that you were dead and now you're alive? The scripture
says in John 5 and 24, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that
heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting
life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is, listen
to it, is past, from death unto life. Paul the Apostle in Ephesians
chapter 2 and verse 1 says, you who were dead in trespasses and
in sins hath he quickened, hath he made alive. All believers
have been made alive in the Lord Jesus Christ and all believers
have experienced a spiritual resurrection. They have. Now
this is because, and we'll see it quickly here, because of their
union with the Lord Jesus. And he would say to her, I'm
the resurrection, I'm the one that brings people from the dead,
those that believe in me, I'm the one that gives them a resurrection,
a spiritual life, and I keep in life those who being alive
believe in me. I keep them alive. Meaning this,
and this is what he's talking about, he says that that all
those who are in me, I've quickened them to life, they'll never die.
They'll never die. The same spiritual life that
they have while they're walking around here that Lazarus had
when he was walking around and when he was in the home with
Martha and Mary, that same Lazarus and the life that he had in him,
that life never dies. And the life of a believer, a
true child of God, oh, he may breathe his last breath, and
you take his body and bury it in the earth, but he's alive.
I tell you he's alive. I tell you he has the life of
Christ in him. I tell you he's in union with
the Living One. Jesus said, I in them, and thou
in me, that they may be made perfect in me. I'm the vine,
you're the branches. Let me point this out to you,
that there is no spiritual resurrection or physical resurrection unto
eternal glory apart. from union with the Lord Jesus
Christ. And all believers are in union
with Him. Do you believe that all who live
unto God by faith are one with Christ? Do you believe that we're
one spirit with the Lord? And do you believe that the life
that He has in Him, that all believers have that life in the
Spirit? He said, because I live, ye shall
live also. And so when you look at a believer,
You look at somebody who is alive in the Lord, somebody who has
spiritual life, somebody who's already experienced a regeneration
and they're alive in the Lord. Now Paul said in Colossians 1
and 27, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the
glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in
you, the hope of glory. Now I want you to turn with me
to the book of Colossians and I want you to look with me if
you will in chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3. This is
very important. Please, if you have a copy of
the Word of God, turn to Colossians chapter 3. I'm trying to show
you here what it was that Jesus would reveal to Martha in order
to comfort her soul. Now in chapter 3, beginning with
verse 1, I want to use the first four verses. If ye then be risen
with Christ, Do you know of anybody that you could say this morning,
can you look around you in this building and say, would you say
to the one next to you, have you been risen with Christ? Have
you been risen with Christ? Well, beloved, Paul is talking
about all believers here. He says, if ye then be risen
with Christ, and all believers have been. Now this is the union
that we have with Christ. When Christ came into this world,
we were in Him. Of God, 1 Corinthians 1 and 30
says, are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Now, hear me. We're in Christ. We've been put
there by an act of a sovereign God. We're in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And when you come into this world,
when the Lord Jesus lived, He was living for us. We lived under
the law. We lived a perfect life in our
substitute. We obeyed every jot and tittle
of the holy law of God. We established a righteousness
through our obedience unto God in the person of our substitute. Then, the Lord Jesus Christ was
taken as a common criminal. He was taken as a sinner. And
he was nailed to Calvary's cross. The cross was lifted and dropped
into the socket of the earth. And when he died, you died. You were in him when he died.
Because you'd been chosen in him from the foundation of the
world, you'd been placed in him. And when he died, his death to
sin was our death to sin. His death was our death. And
then, do you know what happened? The Lord Jesus was raised up
from the dead. Do you believe that? Do you believe
that? Jesus was raised up from the dead. And guess what happened
when Jesus was raised up from the dead? Well, Colossians chapter
3 and verse 1 says, if you then be risen with Christ, what that
means is that when He was raised, you was too. He's the resurrection. and you've already participated
in it, and you will participate in it in that day when Jesus
said, marvel not at this, the hour is coming when all that
are in the graves are going to hear his voice, and they're going
to come forth out of the grave. It's coming! John 5 very clearly
says that, but we've already experienced resurrection in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, listen to this. It says,
seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. Our head, the Lord Jesus, our
representative, Christ, in whom we are as believers. He's ascended
and been seated at the right hand of God. Now, it says for
us to seek those things which are above. That means to set
our affection, as the next verse says, on things above and not
on things on the earth. For ye are dead. Anybody here
feel they're dead? Paul says, for ye are dead. Now
he's writing to living people. But he says, for ye are dead.
Now what does he mean by that? He means that as far as God is
concerned, you died in the substitute. You died in Christ. And listen
to what else he says, and your life is hid. With Christ, in
God, your life is hid. Why, in your old life, He doesn't
look at you as you stand in Adam anymore. He doesn't look at you
that way. He looks at you as one who has died and has been
resurrected and one who's living on the resurrected side of the
grave. He's looking at you as one who
in Christ has been raised up. and that you're no longer in
that state that you used to be in. Jesus said, I'm the resurrection
of the life. And a man lives and believes
in me? Why, he's got a life that'll never die. He's got a life that'll
go on for all eternity. He's got a life that when this
world is over, I mean, he'll go on living forever with the
Lord and be in the presence and fellowship of God Almighty forever
and ever. But I'll tell you this, You can't
have it apart from union with Christ, the living head. You
can't have it unless you're in union with him. Now then, when
Christ, listen to verse 4, when Christ, Paul said, who is our
life? When Christ, who is our life? So beloved, the spiritual life
we have is Christ. He's the hope of glory. Christ
in you is the hope of glory. And Christ who is our life shall
appear. He's coming back from heaven.
He's coming back down here to this earth. Then, He says, shall
you also appear with Him in glory? As sure as He is your life, you're
going to appear with Him in glory. And Christ is the life of His
people. Now, I think that you probably
could see by this, then, very clearly, that Jesus was showing
Martha here what the true case, what the affair was. Here's Lazarus,
his old body's in that grave. Jesus knew he was going to resurrect
him right then. He knew he was going to call
him out. But he wanted her to understand that the life that
a child of God has, that that life is his life. That he is
life. And that all spiritual life is
wrapped up in the nail-scarred hands of the man in glory. It's
wrapped up in Christ. And if you're going to have it,
you're going to have to do business with Him, because Christ is our
life. He's life. Well, so much then
from Martha. Now, Jesus said to her, He said,
Believest thou this? Do you believe this? I want to
ask you, as we pause just a moment here, do you believe this? Believest
thou this? Do you believe you've got a life
that's never going to die? And do you believe that that
life that you have, that the Lord has given you, that it's
the most valuable possession that you have? And do you believe
that it really doesn't matter where they plant this old body
when you die? That your spirit, life, and soul
is going to go on forever and ever? And that you're going to
be with Christ all throughout eternity? Believest thou this?
Believest thou this? Can you die in peace? knowing
that you've got a life that will never die. It'll never die! And
even though your body is dead, you're still alive. And I remember
the testimony of one old servant of God, and he was riding back
on the train back to Chicago, and he had been preaching down
in the South, old E.L. Moody, and he knew he was dying. He was very near death. And he
wrote it down, too, on a piece of paper, And he told the fellow
that was with him, he said tomorrow morning, probably tomorrow morning,
it's going to come out in the headlines, in Chicago, Illinois,
Deo Mudius dead. He said, don't you believe a
word of it. Don't you believe a word of it. He said, I'll be
more alive than I've ever been. That's what he said. And that's
the way it is with a child of God. Believest thou this? Can
you believe that? You see, that puts a different
light on this thing of death altogether. It puts a different
light on it. And if you can believe that,
and if you're in union with Christ, hallelujah, glory to God, what
a wonderful thing that is. Now, I know that my time is getting
away, and I'll just, I don't know whether I, well, I may have
to take up the last part of this next week, but let me just say
a few things more here. I want to, and this is very important
to carry this through, in order that our faith be perfected,
in order that our faith be what it ought to be, in order that
we might be able to glorify God. And I'll just give you a few
things here to think about, and then maybe next week we will
take up some individual doctrines of the Word of God that are so
important. And we can ask ourselves, do
we believe? Do we believe? Believest thou
this? Now, I do not want to suggest
that there's one doctrine that should be placed above another
doctrine, but I would advise you to put the question about
every revealed truth, every revealed truth, everything that you believe
that God has shown you out of the Bible, to this question. Really and truly do I believe
this? Believest thou this? Put it to
the question. Now you who are believers have
faith in the scriptures in general and you can boldly declare that
from the first word in Genesis to the very last word in the
book of Revelation that you believe all that is written in the Bible.
Now I've heard it over and over in my lifetime. I believe the
Bible from cover to cover. Have you ever heard anybody say
that? I believe it from cover to cover. I believe everything
that is written in the Bible whether I understand it or not.
Hogwash. There is no way that a man can
believe something that he does not know. It is not enough to
say, I believe the Bible from cover to cover. That's not enough.
That's not good enough. It is not. Sounds mighty pious.
It just isn't so. Unless it's been revealed to
you, and unless you know what the Bible teaches, and unless
you can go through the catalog of the precious truths of the
Word of God, and single them out, and look at them, and say,
And ask yourself the question Jesus asked, Martha, believest
thou this? You don't know anything about
what you believe. There was a man one time, he wanted to come into
the church. And so he come forward and they said, well, what do
you believe? And he said, well, I believe
what the church believes. And he says, well, what does the
church believe? Well, they believe what I believe.
Well, and again, what do you and the church believe? Well,
we believe what the preacher believes. And they said it'll never do.
It'll never do. That's not good enough. Now listen
to me. The point is, is that we're to
take out of this general mass of things believed or supposed
to believe, to be believed, each one and separate these items
and look at them over and over in detail and then say with our
heart and our conscience, I believe this. This is what I believe. And my friend, you will never
be happy You'll never be happy this side of heaven or hell until
you get to the place where you know what the Word of God teaches
and until you know what it teaches about particular truths and until
these things are embedded into your heart and you believe them.
Until that morning, whenever the phone rings and there's an
emergency, When there's a great crisis coming to your life, and
then you're able to lay hold of the truth of God in your heart,
and you say, well, this is what we believe. And the father of
the family can say, children, wife, sit down here. This is
what we believe. This is what the Word of God
teaches, and we're going to stand with what the Word of God says.
We're going to believe the Word. We're going to believe the testimony
of Scripture, and that's how we're going to be comforted.
We believe the Word. Now then, next week, the Lord
willing, I'm going to take up six or seven doctrines out of
the Word of God. And like I said, we're not going
to, we're not going, we're going to attempt to do this, if God
wills, if God enables us to do it. And we're going to look at
them. And we're going to look at them seriously, because these
are doctrines that, that so many people in America today, they,
if you even mention them in their presence, they'll, they'll just,
they'll sneer and they turn thumbs down on them, and they're not
interested in hearing the precious truths of God. They're not interested. And this is a generation characterized
by the fact that men will not hear God's Word. They will heap
to themselves teachers, they having itching ears, teachers
that will tell them what they want to hear. Not the precious
truth of God. And I want to say this to you,
that as we go through these truths, And as we look at them seriously,
I want and I'll remind you of it if the Lord allows me to live
until next week. If I'm able in the providence
of God to get here next week, if it's in God's will for me
to stand before you, I'm going to remind you after every truth
we discuss that the question of the Savior, believe us thou
this. Do you believe it? Or did your
daddy just believe it? And you say, well, I guess I
believe it. My daddy believed it. Or my grandpa
believed it. But do you believe it? Believest
thou this? I want to tell you there is no
comfort from the Word of God until a man can say, yea, Lord. Yea, Lord. I believe it. I believe
it. It's in my heart, and I believe
it. It's been stamped on my soul, burned into my soul, and I believe
it. I believe it. Father, in the
name of Jesus, we thank you that we've been privileged to be here
this morning to speak your word. May it please you that this message
be remembered, and Lord, we know whether we're back here next
week or not is in your hand. And we just leave it with you.
Whatever becomes of us, it's with you. And we know thou art
God and you're sovereign. And we just commit our way to
you, commit our soul into your hands. Have mercy upon us. Father,
save sinners. May there be those who realize
today their union with the Lord Jesus Christ, and that they're
one with him, and they have his life. They breathe this breath,
and they're alive in the Lord. Father, bless and save sinners,
and bless this church. May it stand for years and years
to come, and may the glorious testimony of the gospel Go on
and on and on in this place for Christ's sake we pray in his
name. Amen Mike would