Psalms chapter 31 I want us to
Memorize next week the 24th verse of Psalm 31 We're going to use
this verse this morning as a text along with a few other verses
but I want you to memorize verse 24 where it says be of good courage
and he that is God shall strengthen your heart and All ye that hope
in the Lord. All ye that hope in the Lord. I'd like for you to turn, holding
your finger here, in our text to the book of Jeremiah, chapter
17, and I'd like for us to read beginning with verse 5. Jeremiah
17, beginning with verse 5. Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be
the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and
whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the
heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but
shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness in a salt land
and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth
in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a
tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots
by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf
shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought,
neither shall cease from yielding fruit. Let's read verse 7 again. Blessed is the man that trusteth
in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. Let us pray. Father, we thank you this morning
for this opportunity and privilege to gather again with thy dear
people. And we ask this morning a blessing
given by the Holy Spirit to our hearts. May the Word be opened
up to us today. Might we see the utter, the extreme
vanity of this world. Might we see the inability of
this world to provide anything lasting, anything enduring, anything
that's blessed for us as thy children. But grant, our Father,
that we may ever look to you with a single eye of faith, and
might our hope be in the Lord. Might we all be numbered among
and in that company that hopes in the Lord. Father we ask thy
blessing upon this congregation and pray that you would undertake
for us that we might be revived in our hearts that our souls
might be stirred up to take hold of Thee. Thou knowest the lifelessness
of us apart from the inward working of that mighty power that raised
up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. And Thou knowest, our
Father, wherein we need to be touched today, wherein we need
to be affected, where Thy children And the scripture says that our
conversation is in heaven, our citizenship is in heaven, from
whence also we look for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, coming
back to change these vile bodies, that they may be changed in and
like the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father we
thank you for that everlasting hope that we have in the Lord. Do thou strengthen this people
and encourage us and Lord open doors for us that we might be
able to speak to men and women about their never-dying soul
and about the gospel which our brethren have been talking about
this morning, been quoting Romans 1, 16 and 17, might we have a
clear message of the gospel, each one of us, and might we
give it out, our Father, and speak the word with authority. We do pray this morning, Lord,
that you would undertake for those that have asked an interest
in our prayers, we pray for the afflicted, We pray for those
who are discouraged. We pray for those that are confused.
We pray, Our Father, for those that are cast down and who have
afflictions bodily. We pray for them, that You'll
lift them up, that You'll encourage them, that You'll strengthen
them, and that You will, Our Father, send a mighty revival
to all of our hearts. enabling us, our Father, to draw
up very near Thee, seeing that You have brought us nigh by the
blood and in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do Thou strengthen
us, Father. Strengthen us, O Lord. Give us
courage to go forward, to go on. We pray it in Jesus' name
and for His sake. Amen. I was very much impressed
the last few days with verse 24 of Psalm chapter 31. I thought
a great deal about the vanity, the utter vanity of this world
and the inability of this world to meet the needs to solve the
problems that a dear child of God has in this world. I thought about it being a waste
howling wilderness. how that it was a dry place,
a very parched and dry place. I thought about what the scripture
says in the book of 1 John about how the world passeth away and
the lust thereof. Again in 1 John it says that
the whole world lieth in the lap of the wicked one, the world. My beloved, this morning I know
that there's hope in one place, and one place only, and that
is in the Lord. We notice in this verse of scripture,
in Psalm 31, 24, that David is addressing that company, that
hope in the Lord. He says, Be of good courage,
he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord. Now why would David say this?
Well, I'm sure that David, like you and I, if we've been in this
world very long, If we have pilgrimaged here and found it to be so, as
our Lord Jesus said, in the world ye shall have tribulation, but
be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. And through much tribulation,
the apostles said, we're going to enter the kingdom of God.
And if we've pilgrimaged in this world very long, We found this
world to be a place of trouble. We found this world to be a place
of discouragement. Really and truthfully, I believe
with all soberness that every day of a child of God in this
world can be described as being a day of trouble. A day of trouble. We are indeed afflicted in this
world. This world is no friend of grace,
the song says, to help us home to God. This world is a place
of difficulty and struggle wherein the people of God have many temptations
and many, many trials. There was a man and his wife
who recently, he was a preacher and his wife, who was recently
taking a bus trip through the Appalachian Mountains, and the
bus broke down right in front of a Hillbilly grocery store.
And the woman who ran the store, they went in and they got acquainted
with her, and she had never been anywhere else much except there
in those mountains. And the preacher's wife said,
as they visited a while, and then as they were going back
to the bus, she said, I don't believe this woman knows what's
going on in the world outside. And the preacher said to her
husband, well, don't tell her. I wouldn't want the poor soul
to know. Let her die in peace. Well, I
think that's exactly how we feel somewhat in our hearts about
this world. Now the scripture bears out the
fact that history is going to end in catastrophe. In this world
today we have abounding lawlessness, we have abating love, perilous
times exist in this world today. I believe this world has lost
its way and there is not one area of life today Well, you
speak of government, law, you speak of morality, you speak
of the national debt, of world peace, air pollution, traffic,
family life, art, literature, theology, that is not in one
hopeless mess. It all is just simply one hopeless
mess. We've boxed ourselves in, locked
the door, and we've thrown away the key. Beloved, long before
we split the atom, long before we came back from the moon, we
gave God Almighty His walking papers. gave them to him in the
garden and said, you go on back to heaven, we're going to run
this world like we want to, and we've decided, men and women
have decided that we can save ourselves whatever saving we
need, we can very aptly supply it ourselves, and that surely
the scientists have all the answers to our maladies. That certainly
we can find whatever answers we need with mankind. Of all
the illusions and the fantasies and the farces of human history,
the biggest mirage of all is what we call progress, and what
this world calls progress. We invented television, but beloved,
what is there to televise? We have computers to do our thinking,
but who is it that's thinking? I'm tired of the experts, are
you not, who know all the answers, but they don't know the question.
Men are all excited about living on the moon while they never
learned how to live on Earth. We're not going to last long
enough morally, beloved. You listen to me. We're not going
to last long enough morally to do what we're trying to do scientifically. I believe that is a true statement. We've learned how to lengthen
life, but we don't know a thing on Earth about deepening life.
We know nothing about how to get deeper in our hearts in the
truth, in the truth of God. Somebody said you'd have to live
twice as long to live half as much as our fathers lived before
us. It is said that birthdays tell
how long we've been on the road, but not how far We've traveled
and this generation hadn't traveled very far. This world has not
traveled far in the direction of God Almighty and the direction
of the gospel and the direction of the truth. We have wonder
drugs. You take them and then you just
wonder what's going to happen. They misuse, or I would say the
misuse and the long-range effects of these drugs that men and women
are taking every day are going to have problems that are too
great to solve. They are going to produce problems
that are unsolvable. Our cities have become jungles
of crime where no sensible person would walk the streets night
or day. Now I'll tell you, beloved, this
world is a mess. That's what I'm trying to say.
I'm trying to empty this morning every thought of your mind that
there's any hope in this world. I'm talking to that company whom
David addresses here as he would arise this morning out of his
grave and he would speak to the generations of men and women
and he would say, all ye that hope in the Lord. My message
is to those that are hoping in the Lord. We've thrown out the
Word of God. The Bible says it is time for
you to work because men have made void by law. We have despised
the Word of God. We have said we do not listen
any longer to what God says. We're not concerned about God.
We do not tremble any longer at the Word of God. We're not
moved by what God says any longer. Somebody said we don't need to
go to the ballroom. We need to find us a balling
room and begin to weep before God because of the carelessness
of our heart and the coldness of our heart and because of the
love of our hearts for this vain world and for the deceitfulness
of sin. The Bible says, Thou shalt not
commit adultery. The Bible says, Thou shalt not
steal. The Bible says, Thou shalt not
kill. It's time for you to work, O
God, because they have made void Thy law, they've set it aside. The Bible teaches that men ought
not to bear false witness, they ought not to steal, but shoplifters
alone in one particular season of the year steal over six million
dollars of goods every year. The Christmas season, shoplifters
are out Stealing everywhere, men and women are, they have
no compunction about them whatsoever about stealing in our day and
time. One woman said she didn't know
what the world was coming to. Somebody, she said, broke into
my house and stole all of my Holiday Inn towels. Every one
of them. I heard this summer about a family
down south. They went on a picnic. The whole
family went out on a picnic, and one of the boys went over
into a watermelon patch and stole the watermelon. And his mother,
when he came back with the watermelon, said, son, don't steal any more
of those watermelons. You don't know what they might
have sprayed on them. Beloved, we're teaching our young people
to thumb their nose at God. We're teaching them that stealing
is alright, and that to break God's word and to break God's
law is alright. Do whatever you want to do, break
the law of God. We're living in a day when sin
is called sickness. and alcoholism is called a disease. I'm talking about the world that
you and I are living in and some of you are in love with. We're
telling you that this world is a place where the judgment of
God is about to fall. We're living, I say, in a place
where we call sin, sickness, alcoholism a disease, and I might
add it's the only disease that we're spending hundreds of millions
of dollars a year to spread. We're doing it. Well, I just
read this last week where alcohol is the favorite drug of the people
in Montana. And it's true. Just the other
night, there was a lady that supposedly was drunk, got in
her automobile, a little old G.O. Metro car, got on the interstate
going the wrong direction, and had an awful accident. People
were involved. People were hurt. And you say,
well, why would anybody do a thing like that? Well, she did it because
she was intoxicated with alcohol. And the Bible says, who hath
wounds without cause, but they that carry long at the wineglass. Surely, beloved, we see that
this world is a place of vanity and utter emptiness. This world,
we know that America in itself is the entertainment center of
the world, but there are more people depressed today and discouraged
today than maybe at any other time in the history of this nation. There was a comedian that went
to his psychiatrist, and this comedian was at that very time
putting on a show each night in town. And the comedian sat
down before the psychiatrist and told his story about how
depressed he was and how he was at the point of despair. And
the psychologist said, well, what you need to do is go hear
comedian Matthew. Oh, he's quite the guy. He'll
cheer you up. And the fellow bowed his head
and said, Sir, I am Matthew. I am Matthew. I'm the comedian. And I'm depressed. This America
that we're living in, the center of amusement and entertainment,
and this generation is going to hell because they don't know
anything about hoping in the Lord, hoping in something that
is solid. Now everybody, as we said, is
sick. Nowadays a liar is just an extrovert with a lively imagination. A murderer is just a victim of
a traumatic experience. His mother wouldn't let him push
his oatmeal dish off of the tray when he was little, so now he
pushes somebody off a bridge. That's what he does now, and
he's just a victim. He's just a victim of a traumatic
experience. He had a hard lifetime. He ought to have grew up in the
30s. That's what he ought to have done. Grew up in the 30s.
Grew up in a family of 11 children. Grew up with a razor strap. Was
always near at hand. grew up where there was always
a chicken house to clean out, and where there was two acres
of yard to mow with a push mower, and then he would have something
to talk about, and ten or twelve acres of corn with the morning
glories needed to be cut out. Never any free time, just get
with it and stay with it. They needed, I'll tell you, this
generation don't know anything about traumatic experience. They
ought to have been in my shoes when I was a kid. No wonder despair
runs rampant in our day and in our time. Well, the company,
and I want to stress this, to which David speaks is all ye
that hope in the Lord. All ye that hope in the Lord. Now, beloved, we must not regard
all parts of the Bible as alike addressed to every individual.
The Bible has many things to say to all the sons of Adam,
but there are certain portions of the Bible which belong only
to that seed, according to promise, which is distinguished by faith. In other words, what I'm saying
is that there are some verses in the Bible that belong to God's
living family. It belongs to men and women of
faith. Holy Scripture discriminates.
It makes some general promises to be sure to all men, but its
choice of words are given to persons of a special character. Judge for yourself this morning. Do you come under the description
of the text, all ye that hope in the Lord? Do you hope in the
Lord? First of all, we see that there
are those who hope. They're those who hope. They
do not have all they expect to have in this world. They have
not yet received their full inheritance. They're hoping. They have a hope
for something that is better down the road. The children of
God look at this world. They see it not through rose-tinted
glasses. They see it exposed, as we've
just exposed it here in these few minutes this morning, and
they're looking for something better down the road. They look
for something beyond the gates. They look for a better home,
in a better place. They have a living hope. They
have a hope which sees beyond the dark river of death. A hope
with eyes so clear that they can see things that are invisible
to other people. They can even see the glories
of a better world. I'm talking about those who have
a single eye toward God. Those whose expectation is in
the Lord. Those who believe that all of
their springs are to be in God and that God will provide all
they need and satisfy the deep and longing desires of their
soul. Are all your treasures with you
now? Do you have all of your treasures? You can set them up
on the shelf and look at them or you can go out and look at
them in the garage. Are they all behind you? Some
people, they live in the past, and they say, I used to have
this, I used to have that, and they lament that they've lost
it. But beloved, if so, this text is not for you. If all of
your treasures on earth, if all of your treasures is what you
can see with your eye, then this text is not for you. This text
is talking to those who hope in the Lord. If you're a child
of God, you're a hope. is in what is to be and what
the eyes does not yet see. God's people are a hoping people,
hoping for the fulfillment of the promises of God, the promises
that God has made unto us. Next, they hope for good things. All those who hope in the Lord
are of a certainty hoping for good things, the goodness. Listen
to verse 19. Psalm 31. Oh, how great is thy
goodness which thou has laid up for them that fear thee, which
thou has wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons
of men. How great is the goodness of
God. Do you know you only need to
add one zero to God and you have good? Certainly God is good to
all of those that trust Him, those that believe on Him. Now
we do not hope for riches here. We do not even hope for a long
life here. The will of the Lord be done.
Look at verse 15. David said in verse 14, I trusted
in thee, they were going to take away my life if they could, in
verse 13, but my times, he says, are in thy hand. My times are
in thy hand. We just leave it to the Lord
as to how long we live, how long we stay here, how long our journey
is in this world. We just leave it in the hands
of the Lord. We're hoping for a city like
Abraham whose builder and maker is God. We're hoping for joys
which I have not seen nor heard, neither has it ever entered into
the heart of a man. We're hoping for things that
are so good that they can only come from God himself. Amen? Amen? That's what we're hoping
for. We're looking for something else. We're not satisfied with
this vain and empty world. Are you a soul with this good
hope? Are you a man with a hope that you would not exchange for
a dozen worlds like this one? Do you have a hope, a good hope,
a hope of good things in the hereafter in that house of the
blessed where you shall be forever at home with your God? Do you
have that hope? Are you hoping in the Lord? So
then, if we are as these spoken of in our text, this hope of
ours is rooted and grounded and established in the Lord. Beloved,
there's not a ray of hope apart from our God, not a ray of hope,
apart from the Father, apart from the Son, apart from the
Holy Ghost, the Son of God. We're looking and we're waiting
for Him, that ever-blessed One who hath redeemed us. Here in
this psalm, David said, Thou hast redeemed me in verse 5,
O Lord God of truth. His God had and David was able
to look out down through by faith, looking forward to Shiloh coming,
looking forward to the Lord Jesus Christ coming, the one who would
die in his room and stand in place, the one who would buy
him back from the slave market of sin, and would give him everlasting
hope, and he had it. He said, the Lord has made with
me an everlasting covenant that's ordered in all things insure.
David's hope was in the Lord Jesus Christ, even though he
had not yet come and died on the cross, he was hoping in the
Lord Jesus. I heard a story about a fella,
that when he was a young man, he lived off in the country,
and he was converted when he was just a young man, a teenager. He was in his late teens, and
he was up on the roof, helping his daddy fix the roof. And there
was an old chimney that came out of this old family home,
and back in those days, of course, the brick was a little softer.
I don't know whether any of you remember those kind of brick
or not, but they were soft. You could engrave in them pretty
easily. And so while he was up there,
he wasn't as busy as his daddy was, and so he engraved, he had
been saved, he had been converted, and so he engraved on the side
of his chimney, in the brick there, Christ, my hope of heaven. Christ, my hope of heaven. And over 50 years passed by,
he moved away when he was a young man, was married, and went away. And 50 years went by and he came
back to the old home place. One of his cousins lived there.
And he got a ladder and he went up on that roof to look at that
chimney to see if he could see any of those words that he had
put in there as a young man. And he got up there and he looked
and he looked, and finally he could make out two words, two
words and two words only, and that was Christ and hope. Christ and hope. Beloved, there
is no hope anywhere else for a sinner outside the Lord Jesus
Christ. Only Christ can do helpless sinners
good. Only Christ. Paul said, Christ
in you is our hope of glory. And beloved, Christ and hope
go together. If you don't have Christ, you
don't have hope. You'll never have hope until
you have Christ. And may Christ come into your
heart today and live in your soul for eternity, giving you
hope, real, lasting and settled hope in the Lord. Now, beloved,
this is what we're looking for. My soul wait thou only upon God. for my expectation is from Him."
We're people, are we not of great expectation? Our expectation
is not in men that die or in men that live. Our expectation
are in Him who never dies, never fails, never disappoints. those
who put their trust in Him. Isn't that wonderful? He, the
Lord Jesus Christ, is He that was alive and was dead, but now
is alive forevermore, never to die again. And our hope is a
living hope because it's in a living Savior, the Lord Jesus. Now,
I cannot come around to each one of you individually and ask
you this morning, say, do you belong to this company, that
hope in the Lord? I can't do that. But I asked
you this morning, Are you a member of this approved company? All
you that hope in the Lord? Not you that hope in yourself?
No, not you that have any confidence anywhere else, but you who hope
in God alone. Are you trusting the Lord? That's
what I want to know. Are you trusting God? Second,
this text seems to intimate to me that there's a weakness which
is apparent in many of those who hope in the Lord. We do not
hope perfectly. There is a weakness, and it says,
Be of good courage. He's lying, intimating that our
hearts be weak, and that we need to be strengthened. Well, it
is a weak heart, and a weak heart is dangerous indeed. He said,
be of good courage, he shall strengthen your heart. Brother,
sister, even if there's a little wrong with the heart, it's a
serious matter, is it not? It's a serious matter. John 14
and 1 says, let not your heart be troubled. If you believe in
God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many
mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. Some of
God's own people are occasionally, and many of them very often,
subject to weakness of heart. They lose their courage. Did
you ever lose your courage? We're living in a world where
we're to live, to just live by faith. To just live by faith. And you can lose your courage
in this world when you don't see things that you'd like to
see. And you know your old flesh,
it knows nothing about faith. Your flesh knows nothing about
faith. Your flesh cannot believe in
a God who can't lie. Your flesh can't do that. Your
old flesh nature is always full of unbelief. It's possessed by
unbelief. And you have a weak heart. You
lose courage. The joy departs and you become
fearful and you become timid. Sometimes this occurs when we're
called upon to suffer bodily in this world. Now everyone here
is going to sooner or later, if you live long enough, you're
going to experience some traumatic changes and you're going to wake
up some morning and you're going to have some problems in your
old body that you're going to have to deal with. There's afflictions. their sickness, ailments. And
there comes a time when this whole tent, as it's described
in the Bible, will start coming down. It'll start down. And you'll feel like that the
picture's being broken at the well, and that the grinders are
getting low, and that the knees are getting feeble, and that
it's coming down, this whole body. Afflictions. And beloved,
we get a little timid. We get a little fearful. We get weak. when that happens. And so does also in the battle
of life. There are many of you that are
in the battle of life, getting up, just to make it, to face
it, to stand up to it, is a battle in this life, is it not? And
do we not sometimes grow very weak? Many hearts are going to
fear for the things that are coming on the world, the Bible
teaches. Men's hearts will fail them when things begin to come
in the world. But David said in Psalm 71 14,
but I will hope continually I will praise the Lord My I will hope
continually whenever whatever my situation be When I have to
stand up when I have to face up when I have to deal with reality
in my life And I can't go around it. I can't get over it. I can't
go underneath it my trials a real preacher I can't get over but
I'm just going to I'm gonna trust I'm fearful, but I'm gonna trust
the Lord And then, beloved, there are times of temptation. Tempted
and tried, the old song says, we're oft made to wonder why
it should be thus all the day long. Why are we so tempted and
tried? This is a vain world, as we've
said, and there's deceitfulness of sin in this world. Sin poses
as being the most attractive and wonderful thing that a man
could possibly give himself to, especially a young man. And he's
tempted. And then we remember old Just
Lot, whose soul was vexed with the filthy conversation of the
wicked. Many have to live and put up
nowadays with the talk and the filth around them. and that's
constantly bombarding their hearts. And in our labor for the Lord,
we do not enjoy the success that we would like or expect to have.
I'm talking about when we lose courage. I'm talking about this
weakness of heart, this feebleness of heart. My heart's nearly failed
me in this place on many occasions, on many occasions. Get up and
preach again, again. again, again, again, regardless
of what happens, you're to be there, you're to preach again,
and again, and again, and you're to keep on preaching, and you're
not to fail in the grace of God, preacher. You must be there and
give out the message. Whatever happens on Saturday,
on Sunday, you must stay with the work. The Lord said to me,
be you steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in
vain in the Lord. Those words were spoken to me
at a time of great weakness, and a time of great weakness
of heart. He said, you be steadfast, unmovable,
whatever anybody else does, you be steadfast, unmovable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know
that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Now then, even David
became weak and faint. And he was weak and faint in
this psalm. That if you read it carefully,
I think you can see some times of weakness and he cried to God.
He cried to God. You and I all have to cry to
God. Like the poet said, if I can find it here, I wrote down something
that I want to share with you. Like the poet said, I would have
liked to have got around where David was praying, wouldn't you?
I really would. I'd like to have heard what he
had to say. But the poet said, sovereign ruler, lord of all,
prostrate at thy feet I fall. Hear, oh hear my earnest cry,
frown not, lest I fain and die. And I'll tell you what, brother,
sister, there are times whenever this old heart is about ready
to faint and give up the fight, and we lose courage. David became
weak and he fainted, Samson, after he had said, with the jawbone
of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass, have
I slain a thousand men, a thousand men, yet for want of a drink
of water, he was ready to lie down and faint and die. That's
right, he would whore out, absolutely die of thirst, slaying a thousand
men with the jawbone of an ass. He's just ready to lay down and
die. And it don't make any difference. You can't live tomorrow off the
victories of today. You can think about them, meditate
on them, but you just need them every day, don't you? Like a
fellow heard a preacher, and he heard this preacher, and he
said, that fellow, he's preaching about Nahum and being dipped
in Jordan seven times. And somebody, after he listened
to the sermon, he went out, one preacher said to another, he
said, that fellow needs to be dipped in Jordan himself. He
needs to be dipped in Jordan himself. Well, brother, sister,
I'll tell you what, there's been a lot of times when I feel like I need
another dip. Another dip in the power of God. Another dip in the anointing
of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of God coming down from
heaven to enable us. And we can just accomplish so
much, maybe one time next day we're as weak as water. We don't
feel like we got an ounce of spiritual strength and any ability
to do anything. We just need another dip as the
expression is. You know what I'm talking about.
We just need to be plunged again. And we need a fresh anointing
of oil. That's what David called it. A fresh anointing of oil.
The best of men are but men at the best, and no wonder their
heart sometimes fails them in the day of suffering, in the
days of struggles, in life and in their labor for their Lord.
This weakness restricts our service. How many good resolves and holy
projects never come to anything It would make a man weep when
he thinks about all the people, and I've seen a lot of people,
young people along the way, young men, who are very promising. Very promising. Oh, we're going
to serve the Lord. We're going to serve God. That's
right. Well, we found out what happened. They fell by the wayside. Fell
by the wayside. What goes undone from the one
of courage and confidence in God? We need to believe God,
brother, sister. I said right here in this pulpit
a few weeks ago that God's going to get around to asking you to
do something one of these days that's not prudent, that's not
wise from the flesh standpoint. God's going to get around to
asking you. And I'll tell you what, there's going to be some
people that are going to be faced. This is what I want you to do.
This is what I want you to do, young man. I claim your life. Your life is mine. This is what
I want you to do. And it's going to take faith,
courage, for you to buck the world, for you to stand, to be
faithful. It takes grace to serve God.
No man serves God without sacrifice. There is nobody in this room
ever going to serve God for a minute without a sacrifice. You're going
to have to sacrifice something. And you're going to have to walk
by faith to serve God. And God calls upon you to do
that. But how much has gone undone for the one of courage and confidence
in God? I could take you some places
this morning and stand you right in the spot. where my knees knocked
together, where the courage was gone, and I didn't have the strength
to do what I was called upon to do. If it had been for the
mercy of God, I would not be standing here today if it hadn't
been for the grace of God. I'll tell you that. I'm telling
you. I can take you right into Great Falls on 7th Avenue South,
take you right to the address and show you the spot in the
yard. where that the Lord had to rebuke
my heart from unbelief in order to get me to move. Move on and
do what I've told you to do, what I've called you to do. Be
of good courage. I'll strengthen thine heart.
I'll strengthen your heart. Oh, may God raise up some men
that are in debt to nobody but to Him and to God. There was
an old conductor in a train. And he was letting people on
one night. The weather was bad. The weather
was terrible. Oh, it was so bad. And the people
were having to wait while this conductor, he was an old man,
and he was trying to see everybody's ticket and letting them on. And
one guy walked up to him, finally got up to him and said, you know,
there's a lot of people here irritated at you tonight. A lot
of people irritated at you because you're slow and you're not letting
them on the train fast enough. And he said, there's one, just
one person that I'm concerned about and one person I intend
to please is the superintendent of this train. And that's the
only person I'm concerned about. And brother, sister, if you ever
get into the pulpit, or brother, if you ever get into the pulpit,
not any of you sisters, I know none of you are going to get
in here, but if any of you brothers ever get here in this pulpit,
I'll tell you what, don't be looking around to see whether
somebody approves of what you're saying or not. Don't get cross-eyed,
flipping back and forth, trying to see why the brother so-and-so
or sister so-and-so is approving of what you're saying. No, sir.
If you ever get here, if you get here like I got here, I'll
tell you this. You won't be too concerned about
anybody but your God. and being faithful to Him, and
telling out His story, and preaching His truth, and preaching His
gospel, whether anybody believes it or not. Whether anybody comes
back next week or not, you be faithful to God if you get here
like I got here. I'll tell you that. So listen
to me now, we need some strength. God deliver us from faintness
of heart, lest we fail to magnify and glorify Him. in our lives. Well the third thing and the
last is this. We'll hurry on here to a conclusion.
There's an exhortation here in this text. Be of good courage.
Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart. I like
the way this is put. It does not only say be of good courage
but it also says and with it he is going to strengthen your
heart. Now God requires us to be of
good courage at the same time he's promised He's pledged, I'll
strengthen your heart. Now, beloved, this is incumbent
upon us, be of good courage. Be of good courage. You must
not be so, you must not be so timid, and you must not be discouraged. Don't sit and rub your eyes and
say, I just cannot help it. I can't help it. I don't have
the courage. to do what I ought to do. I don't
have the courage to stand up to this crowd that I'm working
with. I don't have the courage to step out and say, I'm going
to follow God, I'm going to follow the Lord, I'm going to serve
Christ, I'm going to obey Him, I'm going to serve Him however
I can. I don't have the courage to do that. I believe this morning that we
each one need to realize that in the name of our God, as he's
commanded us to be of good courage, that we ought to take the commandment
of the Word of God as the enablement And we ought to stand today with
courage. Put your trust in God. Take your
harp off of the willow tree. You cannot play the harp if it's
hanging on the willow tree. God give us grace to play our
harp, to play a joyful song, and to speak in this world. God
deserves to be trusted. What has he done? What has God
done to cause you to be so doubtful, to stand back in unbelief, and
to be so withered and so just dried up in your spirit and your
soul? What's He done? When has He failed
you, my soul? When has He failed you? Is He
not a God of His word? There's never been one promise
God ever made to His people that ever failed. God is God of truth. Lord God of truth, David called
him. He's a Lord God of truth. What
do you expect to get out of your worry? What do you expect to
get out of your fretting? What do you expect to get out
of your stewing? What are you going to get out of this? What's
going to happen to us if we're not a good courage with all we
have to face in this world? Some of us are better than halfway,
maybe three quarters of the way, and maybe almost home. I don't
know. But some of you, are just halfway. Some of you barely that. What are you going to do? You
got a family to raise. Why are you so discouraged? Why? Take courage. You must be courageous. You say, Preacher, I'm no coward.
I just have a retiring disposition. But you know what they do in
the military? They shoot people for that. That's right. A retiring
disposition? I mean, you run back from the
front lines? Why, they'll shoot you at sunup. And so, beloved,
we need to come out of this and be courageous. Have some courage
about us. Is God with us? Find out whether
God's with you or not. And if God be for you, Paul said
in Romans, He said, what good will it do anybody to be against
you? Stand your ground. If God's for you, he'll strengthen
your heart. This is a very cheering promise.
You know, I don't have time to do it, and I'll have to leave
it alone, but I've been thinking recently about those mighty men
of David. And especially about those three
that were captains over those bands of men, the mighty men
of David that broke through the Philistines' armament and got
old David a drink of water out of that well there at Bethlehem.
David grew up in Bethlehem, and many a hot day he drank out of
that well, that cold water out of that well. Those men broke
through, those three mighty men, and got him a drink of water
out of that well down at Bethlehem, and got back through the lines
and brought it back to David. And David looked at it, and he
said, I can't drink this water. He said, I can't drink this.
He said, I wished I had a drink out of the well of Bethlehem.
But I can't drink this water. He said, this water here represents
the blood of those three courageous, mighty men. And he poured it
out unto the Lord, a sacrifice unto God. I'll tell you what,
those men, they adored David. Those men followed David. Those
men would follow him to the death. Anything David required or wanted,
they would do. And is not Christ as dear to
us? Is He not as dear to us? Whatever
He would ask of us, if He just made a little suggestion, wouldn't
we be courageous enough to break through the lines of this world
and do what He asks us to do? Wouldn't we do that? Wouldn't
we be men and women enough to do that? Men of courage? Men
of faith? Well, this is a very cheering
promise to me. God alone can strengthen the
heart. He can strengthen the heart. Spiritually, the mercy
is that God who made the heart understands the heart, and he
who sees its weakness knows exactly how to strengthen the heart.
How does God strengthen men's heart? Well, sometimes by gracious
providence. By gracious providence. Sometimes
something very unexpected happens. And you're in real trouble. And you get into a tight. You're
in deep water. And your feet won't touch the
bottom. And you can't swim. You're in a bad place. And you
just have a simple dependence upon God. And you just expect
God to deliver you. And you don't know how in this
world He's going to do it. It's all up to Him. You look
to the providence of God, and you believe that God's going
to intervene for you, and something unexpectedly happens. It happens. And I'll tell you what, the Lord
has a way of making something unexpected happen. He does. And don't you ever lose heart. Listen, despair is a terrible,
terrible thing. Satan would have you to despair.
Satan would have you to lose hope. Lose hope. If you're a
child of God here today, you listen to what I'm telling you.
Don't you ever, ever lose hope. It don't make any difference
how bad your situation is. It don't make any difference
if it looks like that you're going to be so deep in the deep
the rest of your life that you will not even be able to see
out over the edge. Don't you ever lose hope. Don't
you ever lose hope. The God that we serve is a God
who raises the dead. He's a God who can sin from above
and deliver you. David saw the hand of God many
a time. Don't you ever lose hope. Now, I'm talking to people who
I'm sure is going to sooner or later going to have to remember
what this old preacher said on September the 21st, 1997. He
said, don't you ever lose hope. Don't you ever call me and tell
me you've lost hope. Now there are times when we feel
like we cannot believe any further. But beloved brother or sister,
believe what God says, believe His promises, trust His word,
be of good courage, be men, be women of courage. He that looks
to the providence of God will never want for a providence to
look to. Keep looking. Now the Lord has
a way of strengthening our hearts. Sometimes He does it, as we said,
by unexpected things happening. Sometimes He sends a friend by. He sends somebody by. Paul, you
know, was often refreshed by Christian associates. Often he
was refreshed. And maybe the Lord will send
somebody by. Maybe somebody will come up the
driveway with a word from God. Maybe somebody will come. I've
read many a story. I can't give you all of them.
I couldn't give you any of them, I guess. I just don't have the
time. But how people showed up just at the right time. before
the fella jumped off of the box with the rope around his neck
showed up at the right time the Lord sent me here what's the
matter? no dry run brother the fella
was in trouble God sent somebody to him in the middle of the night
as he was about ready to jump off the box of the barrel I'm
telling you what I'm I mean what I'm saying to you The Lord can
send somebody. Just believe it. Don't lose heart. Goodly words brought to us by
men of faith and experience that God has, He can send them. And they will give us a word.
God sometimes does it by a precious promise, a text of the scripture.
What a wonderful power is in the Word of God. Are we not all
ashamed of how little we spend in the Word? Shouldn't we all
be better Christians than we are, having been involved with
this thing as long as we've been? I mean, shouldn't we be? Do you
ever berate yourself a little bit? Why don't you get a little
hard on yourself? We ought to be better Christians
than what we are. We really ought to be. I can't
forget that preacher that somebody said, how big is your church?
And he said, oh, it's big. It's big. But he said, you can't
find a third of the people. And he said, not even the FBI
could find them. And they're probably looking
for them. But brother, sister, what I'm trying to say is this,
that we just simply ought to be better Christians. They never
showed up there. So he said he couldn't find them,
and he didn't suppose the FBI could either. But I'm telling
you this, we ought to be better than what we are, more faithful
than what we are, more courageous than what we are. We ought to
be men. And I long to see men. in this church that says, we're
here for one purpose, as a brother prayed this morning, just here
for one purpose. This world don't have my heart.
I'm here to serve God all the days of my life. This is what
I'm about. I serve as old David, the will of God in my generation.
That's what I'm about. And that's what we're gonna do.
Okay, now. So then the Lord gives us a precious
promise. power of the word, and God the
Holy Spirit has a secret way of strengthening the courage
of his people, which none of us can explain. Have you ever felt it? You may
have gone to bed very sick, heavy, with a weary, weary heart, sore,
depressed, and you wake up in the middle of the night like
an old believer that I heard about sometime back Woke up at
two o'clock in the morning, greatly depressed, discouraged. And he
got up, he couldn't sleep. So he got his Bible and he started
to read his Bible. Come across that verse that says,
he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. And
he said, Lord, he said, if you're up, I'm going back to bed. I'm
just going back to bed if you're up. How about that? Isn't that all right? I'll tell
you what, God has a secret way of giving courage to our hearts
and strength and he can come to us. Now perhaps God will visit
you suddenly strengthening your spirit
so that you're perfectly resigned, satisfied, prepared, ready, come
what will, you're ready to get up and you're ready to go. You
ever had that to happen? I've had that to happen so many
times. I could not begin to enumerate here how many times. I don't
even know how many times. I just know that God's got a
way of getting to your heart and giving you courage. He's
got a way of doing that. Now, don't go out of here this
morning and say, I'll have to give up. I just can't make it.
You don't need to be a coward. Don't say, I just am beaten. I'm beaten. No, you're not beaten. You don't have to always be despondent.
No, you don't. You needn't be. Pray. Be of good
courage. He'll strengthen your heart.
He's never failed any who trusted him. We read it out of Jeremiah
17, verse 5 through 8. Can any man stay his hand? God
is all-powerful. God is able to strengthen you.
Who has ever known him to deny his promise or retract his word?
If you'll trust him, He will be better to you than your largest
hopes. Just trust Him. The God that
sent the trouble, whatever the trouble is, just trust Him. Trust Him in the trouble. Stay
yourself upon Him. Lean upon the bosom of the Eternal.
Lean hard. Lean hard. Lean all your weight
there and leave your burden there and the Lord be with you and
bless you. Blessed are all those who put their trust in the Lord.
The Lord be gracious to every one of you for Jesus' sake and
bless you that you might be of good courage. The Lord strengthen
in your heart all you that hope in the Lord. May the Lord give
His blessing and enable you to take this in. Take it in. Not
enough just to have it up here and remember it for 15 or 20
minutes and then it's all gone. May the Lord help you to get
it right down in your soul, right down in your heart. Remember
it. Remember it. Father, we thank you for your
word. How merciful, how merciful you
are to us. To give us a word, to be able
to speak to this people. Lord, strengthen this people,
undertake for them. You only know what time's gonna
bring for these people. So do thou minister to them and
bless them. I pray for Jesus' sake, in his
name, amen.