Now if you have your Bible open
to John chapter 16, I invite you to look at verse 28 down through verse
32. Verse 28 down through verse 32,
I came forth from the Father and am coming to the world again. I leave the world and go to the
Father. His disciples said unto him,
Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now
are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that
any man should ask thee, or should tell thee, or that you should
ask any man about anything. We know that you know everything,
and you have no need of getting information from men. By this
we believe that thou camest forth from God. Jesus answered them,
Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea,
is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own,
and shall leave me alone, and yet I am not alone, because the
Father is with me. I wanted this morning to speak
on this subject alone and yet not alone. Alone and yet not
alone. Our Lord Jesus had just explained
to his disciples that had been with him for the three years
plus that he had been among them in his earthly ministry. He just
had explained to them about His coming forth from the Father
into the world, how that He was sent into the world by the Father
on the mission of redeeming His people from their sin. and how
that he was now going to lead the world, he was going to die,
the death of the cross, he was going to be with the Father,
he was going back to glory, to be with the Father, and his disciples,
they finally came to grasp what he had to say, and so in the
29th verse they said, now you are speaking plainly, and you're
not speaking with a proverb. We're able to understand you
now. It's finally come home to us what you've been talking about. And we're convinced now, they
said in verse 30, we're sure that thou knowest all things.
We know that you're omniscient. We know that everything is known
to you, that there's nothing that is hid from you. We know
that the eyes of Him with whom that we have to do is open and
that everything is clear to Him. We know that you're God, that
you're God and that you know all things and you don't need
to ask anybody about what's in man. You don't need to ask anybody
any questions on earth because you're God and you know all things. And by this they said, this is
what they are saying, the disciples, by this, in that we are sure
that you know all things, by this we believe that thou camest
forth from God. This assures us that you're no
fake and that you're not a hypocrite. This assures us that you truly
did come down from heaven, that you're that bread that came down
from heaven and that you're that one that Moses, that is a type
of the serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness. that everyone
that looks to Him and believes on Him will have everlasting
life. We believe that you're the Christ. We believe this. This we believe,
that you came forth from God, that you came down from heaven,
that you wasn't born like other people, but that you came down
from heaven. You didn't have any earthly father.
that you were conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the
Holy Ghost and you came down from heaven that you're from
God they said we believe this and Jesus in verse 31 answered
them and said he asked them this question he said do you now do
ye now believe do ye now believe now this is a very interesting
question Our Lord looks for faith as the result of His teaching. Let me say that again. Our Lord
looks for faith as the result of His teaching. We read in Romans
10 and 17 that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word
of God. I think that our Lord, if He
were here this morning, would ask us and certainly if he was
here in every one of our services, as I believe that he is, that
he would ask at the end of every service of each one of our hearts,
do ye now believe? Do ye now believe? You've listened to the preacher
and you surely have formed some kind of an opinion about what
he's been talking about. And you surely have, you must
have surely felt something as the Word of God has been preached,
as it's been proclaimed to you. And my question, our Lord, would
put to you this morning is, do ye now believe? Do ye now believe? In Hebrews 4 and verses 2 and
3, Paul said, For unto us was the gospel preached, as well
as unto them. But the word preached did not
profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard
it. For we which have believed do
enter into rest. Hebrews 1 verse 18 and 19, And
to whom swear he that they should not enter into his rest? but
to them that believe not. So we see that they could not
enter in because of unbelief. So beloved, it is obvious that
anything short of believing leaves a soul short of salvation. Anything short of believing leaves
a soul short of salvation. Now faith is not the Savior. It was not faith that was born
at Bethlehem and died on Golgotha for us. It was not faith that
loved us and gave itself for us. It was not faith that bore
our sin in its own body on the tree that died and rose again
to put away our sins. Faith is one thing and Christ
is another. But Christ is the Savior. And so don't let us confound.
I don't want anybody to be confused. Don't let us confound nor ascribe
to a poor, imperfect act of man, that which belongs exclusively
to the Son of the Living God. Christ is the Savior. We're saved through faith, but
the Lord Jesus is the one that did the work. He's the one that
we trust in. He is the object of our faith. And anything short of faith in
Christ leaves an individual short of salvation. Well, I would like
to put the question of this text to everyone here today. I would
like to impress it upon your heart because you have listened
to, God only knows, how many sermons you've listened to in
your years and you're getting older every day as we all are.
And some of us have turned white-headed, and some are turning gray-headed
here among us. The gospel is very familiar to
you, and eternity is fast coming, fast approaching. Hell is opening
up its jaws to receive those that are unbelievers. And so
I put this question to you this morning. Do ye now believe? Do you believe on the Son of
God? Do you trust in the saving work of our Lord Jesus Christ? Are you trusting Him this morning
as your Savior, as your Lord, and as your Savior? Now a truthful
answer to this question will, I think, this morning tell us
all what our condition is before God Almighty. Do ye now believe? Now if you believe, then you
stand this morning in God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And everything
that you did Every sin that you committed has been charged to
Christ, and all that Christ did has been charged to you and to
your account. You are accepted before God in
the Lord Jesus Christ if you believe. Now, beloved, Christ
loves faith wherever He sees it. It is to Him a very precious
thing. It is a very precious thing to
the Lord Jesus when He sees faith. And you know one time He said,
when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth? Will
there still be any here when I get back? Well, it's a precious
thing when the Lord finds faith. And that's because He's the author
of all true faith and He's the finisher of the faith of God's
elect. And upon Him, listen to me now,
upon Him, you who believe, you confer great honor. If you believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, you confer upon Him all the honor
it is possible for a fallen son of Adam to confer upon the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now why is that so? Well, because
your trust in the Lord Jesus adorns Him with jewels. Your confidence in Him puts the
crown on His head. True faith gives glory to God
and brings salvation to the lost soul. True faith gives glory
to God. Beloved, if we believe on the
Lord Jesus, that means that we don't have anything else to trust
to. We're not trusting to anything
else, but we're just trusting wholly to Him. That we believe
entirely that He has accomplished what God demanded that we do
and that we be, and that He is that, and that He's accomplished
everything that God Almighty would have Him to accomplish. Let me say this clearly. The
things that our Lord did not do when He was in this world
were laid to His charge. The things that I did, He did
not do them. but they've been laid to his
charge and he treated he was treated as if he had done them
all. Do you know that? Everything
that we had done was laid to his charge and he was treated
like he did everything that I did. He didn't do any of it. But God
treated him just like that he had done them. And the things
that he did do the things, the righteous things that Jesus did
do are put to our account and we are accepted and treated by
God as if we had done them all. Now isn't that a glorious thing?
That's a blessed thing. That God, that's the summit of
the gospel, is the fact that God treats us like we've done
everything that Jesus did. And treated Jesus like he did
everything we did. in order that we might have the
blessed hope of the gospel. Well, I hope this morning that
you have faith and you can say this morning, well, I do believe
in the Lord and I do glorify God and I do put a crown on the
head of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do ye now believe on the Lord
Jesus? Well, another thing I notice
here to take the disciples down in Achitu, the Savior reminds
them that whatever faith they had, they were a long while coming
to it. He said, do you now believe? Kind of sarcastically, in a way. There's some sarcasm here. Do
you now believe? I've been with you for three
years. I've been teaching you for three years. I have worked
miracles in your midst. And for three years you have
seen me as I've manifested the Father to you in the world. But
after all this time, have you at last come to a little faith? Do you now believe? Do you now
believe? Are you just now getting around
to believing? I've been with you all this time.
And I've been faithful to God. And I've preached to you. And
I've prayed for you. And I've been in your midst. Are you just now believing? Well,
brother, sister, we never have any reason to boast of our faith. Make any difference how much
of it we think we've got, we never have any reason to boast
of it. For if we have any, we've been a long time coming to it,
haven't we? We really have. We've been a
long time getting around to believing on the Lord, by trusting the
Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, you say, well, I trust Christ,
preacher. I trust Him now. Well, I hope
we do, and we'll all go to hell if we don't. But listen to me,
we believe in God. We believe in God's Son. We believe
in the Blessed Holy Spirit. But how long did it take us to
get to that? How long did it take God to drive
out? all of the self-righteousness
and all of our self-confidence and to wean us from leaning on
everything else that we could possibly find to lean on until
we got to Christ. How long did it take? Well, for
some people it takes a long time. It takes a long time. There are
few that God is pleased to reveal his son to and in an instant
they believe on him and trust him. But most generally it takes
us a good while like it did these disciples to get around to believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ. It has taken all this time for
the Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit to work out what
little faith that we have in us. All this time. I'm 63 years
old now. And I would think that by now
a man ought to give up on belief. He ought to be done with it.
I mean, if the Lord saved a fellow when he was 17 years old, he
ought to give up on unbelief. What's he doing not believing
God now? Well, beloved, we all have to
fight, we all have to pray, we all got to confess that our faith
is sometimes very, very weak. And our Lord here has reminded
them that it's taken them an awful long time to come to what
faith they have. We know and we're sure now, after
three years plus. Then again, our Lord reminded
them of another thing that I think is more humbling yet. That as
their faith was long in coming, it might be very quick in going. It might be very quick in being
gone. Because listen here to what our
Lord says. Behold, he says, the hour cometh
yea and is now come that ye shall be scattered every man to his
own and shall leave me alone why he said the hour comes and
is now come when you're going to be scattered the shepherd
will be smitten and the sheep will be scattered and you're
going to leave me alone you're all going to forsake me so you
got a little faith have you He said, well, it's not going to
be long before your faith, you're going to find out you don't really
have much at all because you are going to leave me alone. Do you now believe? Do you now
believe? Well, the Lord knew all things
and He knew what they were going to do. He knew what was going
to happen when they were faced with losing their life for being
identified with Him. He knew what was going to happen
when the pressure and when the sun was going to beat down upon
them. Just a little cloud of trouble
appears on the horizon. There's some unseen difficulty
that occurs. And then where is your faith?
Where is your faith? You know, there can be a little
persecution, a little idle talk of an unbeliever, the sarcasm
of an agnostic. and then where is our faith? Our faith is suddenly gone. Is
it not so that there are times when the sun is shining and when
our lives seem to be trouble-free that we could just almost boast
of our faith in God? We could almost brag about how
we can believe on the Lord. You know, everything's going
so well, and we don't have much problem, and we got enough to
make it, and we can get by, and everything's all right. And we
can almost brag on how much faith that we actually have. And we
just feel so strong, and we feel like that our mountain will stand
forever, and that there's never gonna be any more test that we
believe God, and we're gonna sail right on to glory just that
way. But all when the clouds come
back after the rain and when the wind of trouble howls Then
the heart is troubled and disturbed and then the tongue is quiet
The tongue is quiet now. There's no bragging. Nobody's
got anything to say. Everybody's got their head hanging
down. Everybody's got their harp hanging
on the willow tree. Everybody is shut up! Nobody's
got anything to say now. Oh, yesterday everything was
going so well and we believed God, but today Today I mean the
clouds are black and it looks like that They'll never again
be any more blessing and looks like the Lord's forgotten to
be gracious And so we're giving it up. We're giving it up and
we're murmuring and complaining Well, let me say this to you
you that are tempted to brag and you that are tempted to look
at your faith and Say you think you really got something. Let
me say this to you this morning that there will be something
that sometime between now and the time the Lord takes you out
of this world that will bring you to the place where you will
see that your faith is not what you thought it was. You will
see that you just barely are able to hang on by just your
fingernails to the Lord. There'll be something that'll
upset your apple cart. There'll be some rocks that'll
be put in your bed. There'll be some disturbances
in your life. And you'll come to the place
where you don't know whether you believe or whether you don't
believe. You're gonna come to the place where you'll consider
just giving it all up. Ah, let him that glorieth, let
him glory only in the Lord. Let him glory in the Lord. Don't
let any of us ever glory in our faith. Now the disciples They
didn't take heed to what our Lord said here. They didn't take
this word of caution. It didn't mean a thing to them.
None of them took heed. Because certainly, and I'd say
to you certainly Peter did not. In Matthew chapter 26. I'd like
you to turn back there with me if you will. Matthew chapter
26. And let me read to you verse 31 through 35 here. And I want
you to listen to what this scoundrel said. And I want you to listen
to what these others had to say. Now after our Lord had said,
now you fellas are going to leave me alone. You're going to be
scattered and you're going to leave me alone. Oh, we now believe. Oh, do you? Well, look here.
In verse 31 of Matthew 26, then saith Jesus unto them, All ye
shall be offended because of me this night. For it is written,
I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall
be scattered abroad. But after I am risen again, I
will go before you into Galilee. And Peter answered and said unto
him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet
will I never be offended. And Jesus said unto him, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, that this night before the cock crow
thou shalt deny me thrice. Peter said unto him, Though I
should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. I want you to
listen to this last statement. You got your Bible open? Look
what it says. Likewise also said all the disciples. They all of them said, though
I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Every one of
them said that. Well, I wish this morning that we could
say that there is no man among us who will ever be a traitor
to Jesus Christ. I wish we could say that. Or
I wish this morning we could say that there is no woman here
who will ever come up with a cold, indifferent heart that is plagued
with unbelief and that departs from the living God. But beloved,
it would be pure self-flattery for us to make such a statement
as that. What others have done, what these disciples did in leaving
the Lord Jesus, what they did And what others have done, however
base and mean, I want to say that we're capable of doing.
We need to be aware of that. And pride says, no, I'd never
do that. I'll never do that. Well, your
pride, my friend, is wrong. You best just shut up. It's what
you better do. Christ said, the hour cometh.
No, he said, behold, the hour cometh. It is to call attention
to something. When he says behold, it's like
some of the old books used to have a hand in the margin pointing
toward something. That means you stop, you look,
you listen up because I'm going to say something. He said the
hour come up and now is when you're going to be scattered
and you're going to leave me alone. It's come. The time has
come. Well, so let us learn the lesson
of our frailty and cry to our God to hold us up and to keep
us. Lord, keep me because I cannot
keep myself. God, keep us. Christ of God,
keep us because we cannot keep ourselves. Well, there's three
things that I want to hurriedly mention to you this morning from
this text of Scripture. Number one is the trial of our
Lord Jesus. I'll be left alone. He said,
you're going to leave me alone. Number two, his confidence. He
said, and yet I'm not alone because the Father is with me. And then
third, there's some, he's an example to us and we're to follow
his steps. And so we can learn just a few
things from his example. First of all, then notice our
Lord's trial for it may happen to you sometime. You may be forsaken
and you may be left alone in this world. Now, He was left
alone. That was his trial. And he was
talking to his disciples when he made these statements, and
not one of them is going to stand. Every one of them, as we pointed
out, is going to leave him. Every one of them. You know,
over in Mark chapter 14, it talks about there how that the disciples
will be offended, and there was one fellow by the name of John
Mark. And this young fellow was there, and when the enemies of
our Lord came to take him, and he had a linen cloth wrapped
about, the Bible says, his naked body. And when they were trying
to take the Lord and take the ones that were with him, they
grabbed a hold of this linen cloth And old John Mark, in order
to save his life, he took off running, and they stripped that
linen cloth right off him, and the Bible says he ran off naked. He ran off naked. Had to get
away, don't you see? Now this is one of our Lord's
disciples. He'd rather run away naked, right
down through the populace, than he would to stand and stay with
the Lord. And so here he is, those in the
garden, we know that they couldn't sleep. They fell asleep and all
of them forsook the Lord Jesus. And when the Lord Jesus stood
before Pilate and Herod, there was not one there to defend Him.
There was not one solitary voice that was lifted up in support
of the Lord Jesus. Now these were honest men. Don't
you conclude they were? They were honest men, all these
disciples. They said they believed. We're sure and we believe, they
said. But they were honest men, and
I think they were. They wasn't being a hypocrite
about all they said. They meant it. They meant every
bit of it. We'll die rather than deny you. They meant it. Don't you mean
what you say? Don't you mean what you say?
I'll never do it again, Lord. Have you done some things and
you said, well, Lord, I'll never do it again? Don't you mean that? Well, sure you mean it. Lord,
I'll be faithful to you. I'll follow you on the days of
my life. I'll follow you whithersoever
thou goest. Don't you mean that? Well, we'll find out whether
you do or not. Each one of them believed that
he could go to prison, to death, rather than deny the Lord. They
were only saying what they really intended to do. The Lord You
remember I asked Peter one time, he said, do you love me? Peter
got irritated and the Lord said, well, do you love me, Peter?
Lovest thou me? And Peter said, Lord, thou knowest
that I love you. I'm talking about somebody that
had appealed to the omniscience of the Lord Jesus to prove his
love. That's who I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the Lord's disciples. I'm talking about
these poor, weak things that our Lord had for disciples. They turned their backs on the
Lord in the day of battle. This was His trial. They were
not His enemies. They were His friends. He was
left by every man. Every man went to his own. Is
John gone? Yes. Every man. Christ looked
and there was none that would stand behind him. The Lord Jesus
must comfort, must confront his accusers without a single witness.
In his favor, every man was gone, gone to his own. Of the people,
there's none with him. The prophet had said, his own
arm would bring him salvation. Well, where were they? Well,
every man was looking to his own safety, looking out for his
self. Now that's what the scripture
says here. Jesus said, every man to his own. every man to
his own and that's what he meant he said every one of you is gonna
run because you're number one in your own heart and esteem
and your own hide you're gonna save you're gonna save your own
hide you're really number one you say you believe but you don't
really believe on me and trust me as you ought to you're gonna
flee every man to his own now men have this unique ability
to calculate immediately when a situation comes up, how much
something is going to cost them, what a given situation is going
to cost them, and off they go. Off they go. All we know now,
you're sincere and all of that, but what's that going to cost
me? I mean, what's this going to end up, where's this going
to put me? And you know what happened? Every
one of them took off. because they are all looking
out for their own life. I'm talking about the disciples of our Lord.
Every man to his own. Listen, is this all that Christ
received from the best of his followers? Every man to his own? I'm telling you the truth. Every
man to his own! That's the best he received from
all of his followers. Are these thy friends, O Jesus?
Lover of men, are these thy lovers? Look what they've done. Every
one of them scattered. Every one of them went on to
his own. This, beloved, the Savior had
to feel. Did you ever feel like that there's
not too many around you you can trust? Well, beloved, the Lord
Jesus, He came to see the fickleness and the feebleness of those disciples
in such a clear way at the time when He had to go to the cross.
He saw that they, that they didn't really, were not able to stand. He saw what they were made out
of. And I'll tell you what, this ought to cure every one of us
ever boasting or bragging about one spiritual grace that we got
in our heart. Just shut our mouth. shut our
mouths. We'll cut out of the same kind
of cloth these fellas were cut out of and we ain't no better
than they were. We would have done the same thing.
We'd have left our Lord to face his accusers and to go to the
cross. We would have left him alone
and went on and took care of our own. That's what we'd have
done. Well, the number two thing I
said I was going to talk about was our Lord's confidence. He
said, you're going to leave me alone. But he said, I'm not alone.
because the Father is with me. The Father's with me. You, this
bunch, they'll leave me, but the Father is not gonna leave
me. He's gonna be with me. Well,
look at this. This confidence that our Lord
had kept Him to His purpose. Kept Him to His purpose. Now,
He said, all you gonna be scattered. Well, has Christ gone? Is He
still here? He's still here. Peter, James,
and John, and Thomas, and all the rest are gone. Has Christ
gone? No. No, He's still standing to
His purpose. He came into the world. The scripture
says He came into the world to do the Father's will. The Father
gave Him a work and He came into the world to do that work. And
is He going to stick to the purpose? Is He going to stay? Is He going
to stay under the load? Is He going to press on and persevere
to Calvary and die and redeem His people? Save them from their
sin? Absolutely. Because He said,
the Father is with me, He's come to save, save He will. He's come
to redeem, redeem He will. He's come to overcome the world,
and He said, I have overcome it. So the Lord Jesus, He's stuck
in there. He's no coward. And He won't
turn back. I'm here to honor Christ. I'm
here to glorify Him. That's what this is about. This
is a little meeting here to glorify the Son of God and to tell you
about the stick-to-it-ness of the Lord Jesus Christ. His confidence
in God sustained Him in the prospect of a trial. He said, I am not
present tense. I am not alone. I'm not alone. He meant the same thing that
old David meant when he said, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall
not want. Present tense, the Lord is with
me. Now our Lord said, the Father
is with me. This was contradicted by appearance. Let me explain that. He did not
say, He's not saying here when He
said the Father's with Him, He's not denying or contradicting
what He would have to say in just a little while when He hung
on that cross when He said, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
Me? He wasn't contradicting that.
But do you know what it looked like? The Father had completely
abandoned Him and forsaken Him entirely! It looked that way. That was the appearance of things.
Well, how could he say, the Father is with me, and at the same time
cry out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? When God
forsook him, it was in his official capacity as the lawgiver and
the executive of the law. You see, the father had given
the law, and he was the executive of the law, and so the father
forsook the son because the son stood before him or hung on the
cross as a lawbreaker because the people he was representing
were lawbreakers. And so the Father forsook Him
and meted out death to Him, but yet in His personal relationship,
the Lord Jesus is the Son forever. And the Father did not forsake
Him in His relationship. The Father was with Him. And
don't ever believe that God can forsake His own because He never
can and He never will. God will never forsake His own. Now listen to me, the Father
was with Him as to His eternal purpose and covenant. Do you
remember that when Abraham was going to Mount Moriah to offer
up Isaac? And the scripture says, it's
written, so they went. both of them together. Both of them together. Abraham
was taking Isaac to offer him up as a sacrifice. They went
both of them together. So did the Eternal Father and
His well-beloved Son when God was about to give up His own
Son to death. There was no divided purpose.
They went both of them together. And so when Jesus was in the
garden, when Jesus was being accused, and when He was in Pilate's
hall, and when He was hung on the cross, He and the Father
were together. They were together. The Father
was with Him, just like old Abraham was with Isaac. The two of them
going together. And so the Father was with the
Son. All the work of Christ was the
work of the Father, and the Father supported Him to the very end. Jesus said, I'm not alone. I'm
not alone. Well, the atonement was the gift
of the Father, but it was the work of the Son. In all that
He suffered, He could say, truly say, the Father is with me. Well, lastly, there's some lessons
here in this example of our Lord. When He's forsaken by everybody,
and yet He is confident in His God. Yet I'm not alone. Well, learn this, number one.
Learn to be faithful when others are unfaithful. Learn to be faithful. Learn to stand your ground. Are
you a Christian? Do you trust Christ? Do you love
Him? Is the Bible true? Then stand. You say, well, it's not popular
to stand that way anymore. I mean, you know, there's not
hardly anybody that believes anything anymore, and that's
true. But you need to stand like your Lord. You be faithful when
everybody else is leaving the cause of God in truth. You be
faithful just like your Lord was. Never desert Him and His
cause. Number two thing I learned from
this is that we with Christ need to believe that God the Father
is all sufficient. That God is all sufficient. You say there seems to be So
many things against me. There seems to be such a force
against me in this world. There seems to be nobody for
me. Well, beloved, let me ask you
this question. Are you a child of God? If you are, then God
is for you. And if God be for you, then the
scripture says in Romans, it won't do anybody any good to
be against you if God is for you. And God is for all of His
people. God is enough for you. You say, well, I'd like to have
a few people to stand with me. Well, so would I. It's always
blessed to have friends and to have those that will stand with
you, come whatever will, stand with you. But beloved, when there
isn't anybody to stand with you, Is God going to be enough? You
need to ask yourself that question. Jesus found out the answer to
that, beloved. He found out the answer to that.
He found out God is enough. God is enough. Not only enough
for you, but for all, all believers, regardless of however weak they
may feel themselves to be. God is enough. Jesus said the
Father is with me. Rest in God. The third thing
is this. Rest in God despite the appearance
of things. Are you poor? He said, Preacher,
I'm poor. I don't know how I'm ever going
to make it. I don't see any way out for me. Well, hey, join the
crowd. I've been there a number of times,
a lot of times in my life. Nowhere. Where can it ever come
from? Well, there's no streams flowing
my way. I don't see nothing big enough
coming toward me that's going to provide all that I need. I
don't see it. Where is it at? The appearance
of things is, it's just a little while and it's all going down
the wash. It's all going down the drain.
What are you going to do? Well, that's the appearance of
things. Are you weak? Say, I'm a weak
preacher. Well, the Bible says our strength
is made perfect in weakness. That's the appearance of things.
It may look like you're as weak as water, and you may feel like
you're weak as water, but if you're a believer, you stand
and trust God, and regardless of the appearance of things,
and the Lord's going to see you through. Are you scourged? with
what seems to you to be the biggest stick that God Almighty has in
His arsenal. You think you're getting a whipping
like nobody else ever got? It may look that way. And I'll tell you it looked that
way to me many times in my life that God got the biggest stick
He could get, the biggest club He could get to whip on me. But
I'll tell you this, that's the appearance of things. The Bible
says that whom the Lord loveth, He chastens. So God loves and
He chastens His people. And you, listen, you've got to
rest in God despite, you've got to believe in Him, though you
may sometime or other have to ask, feeling this way, and we're
bound to feel this way once in a while, why hast thou forsaken
me? Why have you abandoned me? Why
have you made me a target? for all of your errors. Why? Believe Him when you cannot see
Him. That's what Jesus did. Believe
Him when He frowns on you. Believe Him when He smites you.
Believe Him when He slays, because this is the climax of it all
to say with Job, though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. These
are some of the things that you need to learn from our Lord saying,
I'm alone, and you left me alone, but I'm not alone. The Father
is with me. Well, it is His, God, it is His
to do what He likes. It is mine to trust Him, let
Him do what He will. That's my obligation to trust
the Lord. Well, the last thing is this.
The fourth thing that we learn from this is that whatever trial
you have in your life, and however pressing it is, and you don't
know the outcome, I know you don't, unknown things belong
to God. Just learn this, that it will not last long. It
will not last long. Did you notice how the Christ
puts it? He said, behold the hour cometh.
Only an hour. He calls the whole period from
the bloody sweat in Gethsemane's garden to the death of the cross.
He calls it all the hour. The hour. It is not a year, brother. It's not a month, sister. It's not even a week. He said
it's an hour. Your affliction, your trial will
last an hour. It's the part of faith to shorten
days to hours. That's something you need to
remember. It's a part of faith to shorten days to hours. Say, it's going to last longer
and I'm going to hold out. Well, can you wait another hour,
brother, sister? Can you wait just an hour? Well,
shorten it down. It's just an hour. Your trial
is just an hour. That's all you're going to have
to wait. Just wait an hour. Jesus said the hour has come. And all of that mess Necessary
for our Lord to go through with the hands of men, wicked men,
in order to secure our redemption. He said it's just an hour. Father's
with me. The poet said this, and I close,
let doubt then and danger my progress oppose. They only make
heaven more sweet at the close. Come joy or come sorrow, whatever
may befall, an hour with my God will make up for them all. I
believe that. I believe that. I believe that
when we get to heaven, we'll see that all these little afflictions,
you know, that they really didn't last long as far as God is concerned. They just seem like a long time
to people that were in a hurry. Want to get them over with. so
we can go on back to our own thing. The Lord has a purpose
in all things. May we trust Him, bow to Him,
and I hope this morning, even if there's somebody here who
says, I feel alone, that you'll be able to say, well, I'm not
really alone. The Father's with me. Do you
now believe? Do you now believe? You may be
afraid to say anything after you read about them disciples
and found out about them fellas. that said they believed? Oh,
we believe and are sure now. We're sure now. We're sure. Oh, we believe. Do you now believe? Do you now? We got a young lady in our