It is good to see each one of
you this morning. I trust the Lord will give us
something for our hearts, our souls today. I invite you to
turn back, if you will, in your Bibles to the 31st Psalm, Psalm
31. I would like to read beginning
with verse 21 and read down to verse 24. Verse 21 through verse
24. Blessed be the Lord, for he hath
showed me his marvelous kindness in a strong city. For I said
in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes, nevertheless
thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto
thee. O love the Lord, all ye his saints,
for the Lord preserveth the faithful and plentifully rewardeth the
proud doer. Be of good courage, and he shall
strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord. Listen
to that last verse again. Be of good courage, and He shall
strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord. Let us
pray. Father, we're grateful this morning
for this privilege we have of gathering in that dear and lovely
name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Surely He is altogether lovely. We praise you this morning for
the mercies that we have in the Lord Jesus. We thank you for
having brought us out of our sin and brought us to where we
can hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you for hope, as
the song says, for today, tomorrow, and for all eternity. And apart
from Jesus Christ, we would have no hope. But Father, we give
you praise this morning and thanksgiving from our heart for your love,
your mercy, your kindness, your patience toward us. We thank
you for preserving our lives, Lord, throughout another week.
and bringing us here today for this opportunity and privilege
of being able, Lord, to sing hymns and seek Thy face and to
listen to Thy Word expounded and proclaimed. We just pray
this morning that you'll receive our worship, our thanksgiving
for all these mercies that you have so graciously given to us
were unworthy of the least of them, but received because we
offer the thanks and the praise and we send up our prayer unto
thee today through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. I will shut up to this portion
of the Word of God this week and could not get away from it
in regards to finding the Lord's mind for the message this morning. I do not know your heart. I do
not know your mind. I do not know all of the circumstances
that you're involved with, what it is that's been troubling you
this week, what kind of problems that you have. But I do believe
with all my heart that the Lord has led me to this text of Scripture
this morning. And I want to speak to you this
morning on verse 24, on the cure for a weak heart. the cure for a weak heart. Now, there is no preaching like
that which grows out of our own experience. I mean, when a sermon
grows out of our own garden of experience, well, I think that
makes real good preaching. You see, David, here the writer
of this text, he had trusted in the Lord, and he had been
in trouble. David had been in trouble. Let's
look at verse 7 and read here a few verses. He said, I will
be glad and rejoice in thy mercy, for thou hast considered my trouble. Thou hast known my soul in adversities. and hast not shut me up into
the hand of the enemy, thou hast set my feet in a large room. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for
I am in trouble. Mine eye is consumed with grief,
yea, my soul and my belly. For my life is spent with grief,
and my years with sighing. My strength faileth because of
mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed. So David had trusted
in the Lord, but that didn't keep him from having trouble.
David had trouble in his life. Now God had delivered David out
of his trouble, and after the Lord's deliverance, then he wrote
this psalm to be sung by the faithful of all time. He wrote this psalm and said
that we ought to always sing, be of good courage and he shall
strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord. Now then,
he gave this exhortation which grew out of his own experience
then. This exhortation, be of good
courage, and the Lord will strengthen your heart, all ye that hope
in the Lord. This came out of his experience,
out of his trouble, and out of his deliverance. And so David,
I believe, we can believe what he says, and we ought to be encouraged,
and we ought to follow his exhortation. Now we'll never speak to the
help of those around us. We'll never be used of God to
comfort, to encourage anybody around us if we are not able
to speak out of our own heart's experience. It's one thing to
take somebody else's word for something, But it's another thing
to have such experience in our own hearts from which we can
speak to the comfort and the edification of those that are
around us. And I really believe that if
we would really be helpful, if we would be able to speak a word
in season, a word that is fit for the season, is right for
the season, I believe that we must look into our own experience
and find something there that God has blessed us with and given
us that we might be able to use that to the comfort of others.
Charles Spurgeon said that the best notes of a sermon are those
that are written on our own inner consciousness. And I believe
he's right about that. The best notes of a sermon are
those that are written on our own inner consciousness. Now
if we speak of the things which we have tasted and handled and
made our own, we speak with a certainty and with an authority which God
will be pleased to use for the comfort and edification of his
people. Now, then we hear David, who
has been in the grave a long time, but he being dead, yet
speaketh out of his royal tomb, and he says, as a result of his
own happy experience, to you and I today, be of good courage,
and the Lord will strengthen your heart, all ye that hope.
in the Lord. Now the first thing that I want
us to consider this morning, I want us to give our attention
to in our dividing this text and trying to expound upon it,
is that I want all of us to pay attention to the company to which
David here addresses his word of exhortation. And that company
is, all ye that hope in the Lord. Let's talk about these people
that are hoping in the Lord. Now we must not regard all parts
of the Bible as a lack of address to every individual on the face
of the earth. That is a mistake. The Bible
has many things to say to all the sons of Adam, but there are
certain portions of the Word of God which belongs only to
that seed according to promise which is distinguished in the
Word of God by faith. Now, the Scriptures discriminate. It makes some general promises,
to be sure, but its choicest words are given to persons of
a special character. And David here addresses all
ye that hope in the Lord. This is the company to which
he speaks. And you judge this morning for
yourself if you come under the description of this text of scripture,
all ye that hope in the Lord. Are you hoping in the Lord? Are
you one who is trusting in the Lord? Are you one who is trusting
in God alone? Are you hoping in the Lord? Now the first thing we see is
that these people are people of hope. They're people that
have a blessed hope. Now they do not have all that
they expect to have as of yet. These people expect something
down the road. They're looking for something
more than what they already have. They are a hopeful people. They
have not yet received their full inheritance. They are a people
that are hoping in the Lord. They have a hope for something
that they have not yet received. They have a living hope, a hope
which sees beyond even the dark river of death, a hope with eyes
so clear that they see things that are invisible to others,
even the glories of a better world, these people see in their
hope. They have a hope, don't you see?
Now, are all of your treasures with you right now? Or are they
in your past, all those things that you esteem to be of great
value? If they are, this text of Scripture
is not written to you. These words, this word of exhortation,
is not given to people like you. It's given to people whose best
is yet to come, who has a hope before them, who's expecting
something in the future, and who is believing God for that
something. Now if you're a child of God
then, your hope is in what is to be. Your great hope is in
the future. It is in what is to be. Of what
the eye does not as yet see. What you're not yet able to grasp
with a physical hand. It's something down the road
that only God can provide. Now God's people are a hoping
people. They hope for the fulfillment
of the promises that God has made to them in His Holy Word. They hope that the day will come
that those promises that they have hung their hearts upon,
that those promises will be fulfilled to them, and that the Lord will
bless them and give them that which they desire with all their
souls. Now, listen, they hope for good
things. These people hope for good things. Those people that hope in the
Lord, all those who hope in the Lord, are of a certainty hoping
for good things. Good things, I say. Now, we do
not necessarily hope for riches here in this life. Now the Lord
may be pleased to give some of us some riches. I don't know
whether He will or whether He won't. We'll leave that with
the Lord. And we do not necessarily hope for a long life here in
this world. That's in the Lord's time. David
said in verse 15, he said, My times are in thy hand. My times
are in your hand, Lord. You can give me whatever you
want to give me, and you can lengthen my days. My days can
be long upon the earth, or they can be short. My times or in
your hand. You're a sovereign God and you
can do whatever you will with me. I'm your creation and you
can do as you please with me. Can not the Lord do what He will
with His own? Well certainly He can. And so
the Lord, that's in His hands. But we yet hope for good things. Now, we are hoping for a city
like Abraham, whose builder and maker is God. We're looking for
an eternal city. We're not looking to find one
here we can move into, but we're looking for a city somewhere
in the future whose builder and maker is God. We're hoping for
joys which I have not seen. nor ear heard of, neither have
they entered into the heart of man. But we are expecting and
we're looking for those things, and we taste sometimes, we feel
sometimes, we're able to see a little bit sometimes with the
eye of faith in this life, but yet our great hope is for the
future. We're hoping for things so good
that they can come from only God Himself. You know, the Bible
says that every good, every perfect gift cometh down from the Father
above, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning. Everything that God gives is good. God is good, and
He knoweth those that trust in Him. The Lord is good, and out
of His great goodness, God has laid up for His people a glorious
future, and His people hope and they trust in Him. Now, are you
a soul with this good hope? Are you a man with a hope that
you would not trade for a dozen worlds like the one that you're
living in? Well, the people of God are just that kind of a people.
They would not give up what they are hoping for, for a dozen worlds
like this one that you and I know of here this morning. Do you
have a hope, a good hope? A hope of good things to come
and to hear after in that home of the blessed where you shall
be forever at home with your God? Do you have a great hope
for the future? Now the only hope there is that's
good is a hope that is based upon the God of hope. Now the
reason why God is called the God of hope is because all well-grounded
and well-founded hope must be in Him. And unless it's in Him,
it's not a good hope. And all good hope is through
grace. It's through grace. We do not
expect anything because of our merit. We do not expect anything
because of who we are. But we do expect through the
merits of God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to have the hope
of glory fulfilled toward our never-dying soul. We expect that
God, because of His grace, by pure grace, to give us all that
which He has prepared for those that love Him. And we believe
He'll do that. It's through pure grace that
we have this hope. My friend, do not ever Look within
yourself. Always look to God and believe
that the God of hope, that He can give you everything that
He provides for His own and for His people. He can make you one
of His as you trust, as you trust, as you believe upon Him. So then,
if you're one of these spoken of in our text, this hope of
yours, is a hope that is rooted and grounded and established
in the Lord. It is a hope in the Lord. All ye that hope in the Lord. Now you have no hope apart from
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Now our hope is in
the Father because with expectation, the expectation of a child, we
look toward the inheritance. And we believe that the Father
will give us the inheritance, that we will be joint heirs with
His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that, of course, must be
on the ground and footing, as we said, of pure grace. And to
the Son of God we look, waiting for that wedding feast that we
will have over there with the bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ. We look to Him. We expect to
be there at the great wedding feast. And to the Holy Spirit
we look, for He is with us now. The Holy Spirit dwells in all
believers. Every believer has what we call,
what the Scripture calls, the earnest of the Spirit. And that
earnest we already enjoy. The Spirit of God is already
in our hearts. But we're looking to the triune
God, don't you see? He is our hope, and our hope
is established in this God. And we believe that in this life,
the filling of the Spirit and the light and love and purity
and blessedness of the Holy Spirit is ours, but how much more will
it be ours in heaven above? We're looking for these things. We're hoping for these things
in the Lord. You're looking, the Scripture
says, David said another place, he said, My soul wait thou only
upon God, for my expectations is from Him. My expectations
is from Him. Now we're people of great expectations. Now, I really believe that God's
people ought to pick up on this and question themselves and examine
themselves. Because you see, this is the
way that we would discover whether or not we have hope and whether
hope is alive in our souls. Are we people of great expectations? Now I would not want anyone to
expect something in eternity, the seed of which is not in their
lives here in this world. I would not want anyone to expect
something in eternity that they don't have a well-grounded reason
for believing it's going to be theirs. But I do believe that
all of those who are in the Lord and those who are hoping in the
Lord, that they should have these great expectations that we're
talking about. They ought to have them. And
our expectations are not in men that die, or men that live as
far as that is concerned. Our expectations are in Him who
never dies and never fails. and never disappoints those who
put their trust in Him. Our expectation is in the Lord. Our hope is in the Lord. Now
I cannot come around to each one of you this morning and ask
you individually whether or not you have Bible hope, whether
or not you hope in the Lord, whether or not you're truly one
that is expecting and waiting upon God for the fulfillment
of all of His promises toward your soul, but do you belong
to the company that hope in the Lord? That's my question. I'll
ask you from the pulpit, I'll ask you straight out, do you
belong to that company that have hope in the Lord? Do you belong
to that? If so, then, then this is the approved company. This
is the company, all you that hope in the Lord, not you that
hope in yourselves, not you that have any confidence anywhere
else, but you who hope in God alone, this word of exhortation
is given to you. It is given this morning to your
soul. Now the second thing that I want
to talk about, the text seems to intimate that there is a weakness
which is apparent in many of those who hope in the Lord. It
is spoken of here, I think it's very clear, be of good courage
and he shall strengthen your heart. And here it is where it
is implied that sometimes the heart of the Lord's own people,
sometimes the heart of those that hope in the Lord grows weak. That heart grows weak. Now, even
if there is a little wrong with the heart, it's a very serious,
it's a very serious matter. John chapter 14 and verse 1 says,
let not your heart be troubled. For if you believe in God, Jesus
said, then believe also in me. Let not your heart be troubled. Don't have heart trouble as a
believer, as a child of God. Now, many of the Lord's people,
and I think this happens a whole lot oftener than anybody would,
because you know most of us think that everybody else is stronger
than we are, that other people don't have the problems that
we have. that we may be weak and we may lose our courage and
we may be depressed and timid and weary, worn and sad, but
probably nobody else is. We just assume that this is our
problem, that it's a problem that we probably own and own
the rights to and nobody else can have that. But some of God's
own people are occasionally, many of them I should say very
often, subject to a weakness of the heart. They lose their
courage. They do. They lose their courage. and their joy departs from them
and they become very fearful and they become timid living
in this world. And sometimes this occurs when
we are called upon to suffer bodily in this world. Pain does some unusual things
to people. Pain does unusual things. It'll make you lose your courage.
If you have a splitting headache for four hours, I'm going to
tell you, you're going to be less courageous at the end of
that four hours than what you were to begin with. I'm going
to tell you, you're going to get timid when you suffer in
the body. I've seen strong men who come
down with an ailment and it wasn't long until they appeared outwardly
very humble and very weak. by the experience. And so when
we suffer bodily pain, many, many times we lose our courage. And also I think this is true
in the battle of life, in the battles of life. My friend, there's
great struggles to make it in this world, to make it in this
world, to face To face it and to stand it in this world is
a battle and a struggle. Now some of you younger people,
you may not believe that. You may not believe that, but
not all young people are as well off as you and as fortunate as
you are. I have read recently, and I don't
know whether you're in the habit of following the obituary columns
or not, but I have recently read of two young men, 121, and And
one, 22 or 25, I forget which it was, who just took their lives,
self-inflicted gunshot. And these were young men who
you would think would never do a thing like that. And then we
know of younger people than that. We read recently of one who was
14 years old here in Great Falls, an honor student who took his
own life. And you wonder about that, and
you say, well, why would anybody do a thing like that? Why would
young people do a thing like that? Well, my friend, I believe
it is because they've lost hope. Whether they ever had a well-grounded
hope, I'm sure they didn't have. But yet whatever this thing is
called hope, they lost it apparently. Apparently they don't have it
anymore. Apparently the battle of life and the struggles of
life was too much for them. Now then I read of some in the
Word of God. In Ezekiel chapter 37, if you
want to turn there in your Bible, look there with me and listen
to what the children of Israel were saying. Then he said in
verse 11 of Ezekiel 37, he said unto me, Son of man, these bones
are the whole house of Israel. They were in that valley where
those dry bones were and the Lord had brought them back to
life. Behold, they say, our bones are dried and our hope is lost. We are cut off for our parts. Therefore you prophesy and you
say unto them, they've said our bones are dried and our hope
is lost. We don't have any hope. You prophesy and say unto them,
Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O my people, I will open your
graves and cause you to come out of your graves and bring
you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am
the Lord when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought
you up out of your graves. And so I read this because these
people had lost their hope. and said, we're cut off. Our
bones are dried up. We're cut off. Our hope is gone.
But the Lord said, I still got something for these people. I
mean, their bones are out here bleached in the sun, but I still
got something for them. I'm still going to do something
for them. I'm going to open their graves and I'm going to bring
them forth. Never, never, never. Listen to
this psalm. Turn with me to Psalm 71. Psalm
chapter 71. And I want you to look here at
verse 14, where the psalmist said, but I will hope continually. I will hope continually. What
do you mean by that, David? Well, what I mean by that, David,
would say, whenever I get up some morning and everything is
against me, my enemies are all around me, when men are speaking
ill of me, when I've got all kinds of problems that I don't
have any solutions for. David said, I'm going to hope
continually. Whenever it just seems like there's no use to
live any longer, David said, I'm going to hope continually.
I'm going to keep on hoping. I'm not going to give it up.
I'm just going to keep right on hoping because tomorrow things
may change. Tomorrow may be a different day. God is able to come and to do
something in your life. It may not always be as it now
seems it will be. The Lord can do something. Never
give up. David said, I will hope continually
and will yet praise you more and more. The day is going to
come when I'm going to have reason to praise God for more than I've
ever had to do it in the past. And so I'm not going to give
up today and say this is it. I cannot face another day. I'm
not going to give it up. I'm going to hope continually.
And I'll tell you what we must do. We've got to get a hold of
that kind of a faith and that kind of a hope that just believes
that the God of the Bible can do miraculous things, that He
can do things to change our situations. And we've got to believe Him
to do it. And we must trust Him to do it and not give up the
battle. But sometimes, listen to me,
sometimes when we face these situations, And we know that,
boy, it's going to be, whether we can make it out of this or
not. Oh, we must listen to Joel. Joel
3 and 16. Let me find that right here.
Joel 3 and 16. Listen. It says, The Lord also
shall roar out of Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem, and
the heavens and the earth shall shake. But the Lord will be the
hope of His people and the strength of the children of Israel. I
mean when the heavens and the earth are shaking, the Lord will
be the hope of His people. And the heaven and earth is still
pretty stable right now, at least in most places, especially where
we are. It's very stable. And I'll tell
you, the Lord is the hope of His people, regardless of what
happens. And so never, never give up trusting
and hoping in the Lord. Now, also in the time of temptation,
I think we lose our courage and sometimes, you know, listen,
We think of the words of the old song, tempted and tried were
oft made to wonder why she'd be thus all the day long. Tempted and tried. Now, many
are like Lot. You remember Lot, his soul was
vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked from day to day.
And some people here in this world, you've got to live around
certain people that just literally are hard to live around. And
they vex your soul. They bother you. They torment
you. And they tempt you. And you have
all kinds of problems because of these individuals. And then,
of course, of your own nature and your own flesh. And hard
to handle. Hard to handle. Like a runaway
horse. Hard to handle. Your own nature. And you're tempted
many, many times to say things and do things and get involved
in things that you ought not get involved with. And you lose
your courage fighting all the time. You say, well, why couldn't
we have a day of rest? Why couldn't I have a day when
I'm not bothered about this particular thing? Why am I always tempted? Why am I always bothered with
this or that or something else? My friend, be of good courage.
Be of good courage. We sometimes have a weak heart.
And we sometimes have to deal with these situations. And then
also I think that in our labor for the Lord, we often times
lose. We lose it. And we lose that
courage that will cause us to go on in our labor for the Lord
because we do not enjoy the success. that we would like to have or
even expected that we would have. We thought, well, surely it will
be different with us. We do not expect ever to build
a great tabernacle and have a great following. But still, we expected
maybe more than what we have received. And sometimes, boy,
let me tell you something, I can tell you this truthfully,
my heart has nearly failed me in this place on many occasions. I thought, well, it won't do
any good to preach again. Surely, it won't do any good
to go again. Will it do any good to have another
service? Will it do any good to preach
the gospel to these people anymore? Well, sometimes we have a weak
heart, and that is implied in the text. And the text says,
Be of good courage, and the Lord will strengthen your heart. The
Lord will strengthen your heart. Now, even David became weak and
faint on various occasions. And I thought about Samson. And
after Samson, you know, had said with the jawbone of an ass, Heaps
upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass, I have slain a thousand
men, yet for want of a drink of water he was ready to lie
down, and to faint, and to die for the want of a drink of water.
After having great success, Then he was ready to lie down because
he needed a drink of water. What is it we need this morning?
Our heart does get weak and it does get faint. Well, why should
we wonder about this? The best of men are only men
at the best. lose their courage. They're just
men. They're just made out of the
dust of the earth. That's all. And we're just men
at the best. Now this weakness restricts our
service unto God. How many good resolves and holy
projects never come to anything? We could weep. Could you weep
in your own life? Listen, what goes undone for
the want of courage and for the want of confidence in God? There's
a lot of people that just literally can't do anything really in life. They're afraid to do anything
because they just don't trust the Lord. They're so weak of
heart, and they can't do anything. Well, I would go over and say
something to so-and-so, but, you know, really, I mean, I'm
pretty weak myself. Well, that's a problem. That's
a problem. You're weak yourself. You ought
to be, listen, be of good courage. The Lord might strengthen you
and use you to do that. I say how many good resolves
and holy projects never come to anything. Never come to anything. There's some of you here that
could do a whole lot more than you do. I mean in the things,
in the service of God Almighty. I mean, there's going to come
a day when somebody else is going to have to stand in this pulpit.
There's going to come a day when somebody else is going to have
to go and deal with different problems that the Lord's people
have. And we ought to have a holy resolve
that we're going to be of good courage, we're going to take
up the task, we're going to do whatever we can do in the service
of God. But this being timid, it restricts
us in the service of God. Man says, well, I can't give
that dime because I may never see another dime. That's unbelief. It's what that is. That's all
that is. It's unbelief. Man says, I can't get too involved
in the things of God because after all, I mean, I can't afford
to do that. I can't afford to do this. Listen.
For the want of courage and confidence in God, we restrict our service
unto the Lord. And this makes it a very, very
serious problem. And may God deliver us from this
faintheartedness, lest we fail to magnify and glorify the God
that we claim to believe in and worship by withholding our service
unto the Lord. We must magnify and glorify this
God. Be of good courage. The Lord
will strengthen your heart. your weakness of heart then is
what I find here in this text that we need to deal with, that
needs to be dealt with. Now the third thing I want you
to notice the exhortation in this text and that exhortation
is be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart.
Be of good courage. Now I like the way this is put.
It does not only say just be of good courage, there is an
and And with it, and he shall strengthen your heart. There's
an end here that says, and the Lord will strengthen your heart.
Now what this means to me is that God requires us to be of
good courage and at the same time, that real good courage,
the Lord is strengthening our heart. It just seems to me like
something that happens at the same time. When you're of good
courage, the Lord is strengthening your heart. And this is incumbent
upon us. Be of good courage. Be of good courage. Now do not
sit and rub your eyes and say that you cannot help it if you're
faint hearted. You must not be so. You must
not be so. In the name of God, the God who
loves us, the God who sent his son to die on the cross in our
room instead in place, the God who has provided for us all the
days of our life and brought us into this good hour, has commanded
us in this text to be of good courage. The Lord has commanded
us to do it. Put your trust in God and take
your harp off of the willow tree. You say, I cannot play it. God
give you grace to play it. God give you strength to play
it. God give you the ability to play it. God deserves to be
trusted. What has the Lord done to cause
us to doubt Him or to believe that somehow or other God's brought
us out here, got us in this fix that we're in, and He's going
to desert us? that He's going to forsake us.
The Lord will not forsake His saints. The Lord will preserve
them forever. They will not be forsaken. Now
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 do you expect to get out
of it? What good is going to come? What will happen to us
if we're not of good courage? I'm getting older. And you have
dependent children. You've got a family to raise.
You've got obligations. There are situations ahead of
you. What are you going to do if you're not of good courage?
What are you going to do? Now listen to me this morning. We must not be cowards. You say,
Pooch, I'm no coward. I'm no coward. I just have a
retiring disposition. Do you know that in wartime they
shoot people for having a retiring disposition? They call it desertion. That's what they call it. People
that are cowards, that won't face up to their obligations,
their responsibilities, their situations. People that will
not stand and face what life brings. My friend, you can say
if you want, you have a retiring disposition, but I say that it's
sin. And the Bible here says be of
good courage and you need to be of good courage because God
has commanded you to be of good courage and has given you the
promise that He will strengthen your heart as you stand and as
you face life and as you deal with it. Is God with us? Is he
with us? He said he would be. He said,
I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Didn't he say that two
or three times? He said, I will never, never, never leave thee
nor forsake thee. He said, I won't do it. He said,
you can boldly say the Lord is your helper. And you don't need
to fear what man shall do unto you, because the Lord has said,
I will never forsake you. I will not leave you. So then,
listen, God alone can strengthen the heart. This is a very cheering
promise to me, is that the Lord will strengthen our hearts. He
will strengthen our hearts as we are courageous. Now, as we
said, God alone can strengthen the heart spiritually. Listen,
the mercy is that God who made the heart understands the heart
and he who sees its weakness knows how to strengthen the heart. The Lord knows how to do it.
Now, you don't have one excuse to stand on. You can say, well
now you know, I just don't know whether the Lord knows me well
enough to know how to help me or not. The Lord knows you as,
listen, there ain't anybody that knows you as well as the Lord
knows you. Let me tell you that. And all things are naked and
open unto the God with whom we have to do. God's eye is on you
and He knows you. He knows you. And now that can
be a very, very... I think sometimes that, especially
for hypocrites, that can really cut you to the heart to know
that God knows you. After reading anything hidden
from the Lord, He knows you. He knows your situation. He knows
your heart. He knows your heart. Now then,
how does God strengthen men's hearts? I thought about this
a little bit and I want to offer you some of the ways in which
God strengthens men's hearts. This is important that we see
this. Sometimes the Lord strengthens
men's hearts when they are in very difficult situations, when
they're in trouble, when they have problems, when there's great
trials in their life. The Lord strengthens them by
a gracious providence. by a gracious providence. Sometimes
very unexpected things happen. They do. Very unexpected things
happen. Now, in this message this morning,
and I want it to be so every time I preach, if you walk in
this building and you hear me preach and you are not encouraged
to some degree by what you hear me say, then I believe I failed
your soul. I mean to encourage you, if I
can, under God. Now listen to me. I'll say that
sometimes very unexpected things happen. Now I expect the unexpected. That's why I'm still here. I
expect the unexpected. I have expected the unexpected
for a long time, and let me tell you another side of the coin,
I always will. And when the day comes that I
am not expecting the unexpected, then I will have lost my hope. I will keep on expecting the
unexpected, and that'll keep you from putting a gun to your
temple. That'll keep you straight. You
believe that the God of the Bible can and will do unexpected things,
and you must continue to believe that. Now, listen to me. I get
into tights. Do you ever get into a tight?
Sometimes I get into deep water. I get into deep water, and my
feet won't touch the bottom. Sometimes I get into situations
that I just don't know how I ever got into, and I sure don't know
how I'll ever get out of. I do not know. But listen, I
have a simple dependence on the God of the Bible. I just trust
the Lord. That's all I know to do. I just trust the Lord and I expect
God to deliver me. He always has. I expect God to
deliver me. I could never tell you how He's
going to do it. I just believe that's up to him,
and I think he knows how. I think he knows how, and I just
believe him to do it. I do. I just believe him to do
it, and I know that don't sound very wise. That don't sound like a very
wise way to live a man's life in 1993, but that's the way that God's people are to live. Simple dependence upon the God
of the Bible. God will deliver His people.
I know that God has went before me many, many times when I didn't
even know what was going on. But later on I found out that
God, way back there a few years back, He was going before me
right then. And then later I discovered my
soul. Here's something way out here
in front of me. God has worked everything all out. He's been
out there in front of me all the time. God forbid that I should
lose courage. That I should throw in the towel.
that I should give it up. Come on, quit ye like men. We must believe God and we must
trust God. We must be of good courage. We must. The Lord is strengthening
our hearts. And now the old Puritan said,
and I've told you this before, but he that looks to the providence
of God will never want for a providence to look to. The providence of
God is God outworking and doing that which He purposed to do
in old time, and the fulfilling of His covenant, giving covenant
provisions to His people. That's the providence of God
in its outworking. Now, I want you to notice this,
number two. I'm talking about how does God
strengthen His people sometimes Very unexpected things happen. Sometimes God's gracious providence
supplies. That's the first thing. Number
two, the Lord has a way of strengthening men's hearts by the fellowship
of friends. Paul was often refreshed by Christian
associates. He said that he was often refreshed
by Onesiphus. Often refreshed. The Lord has
a way of doing that. Now the Lord can send somebody
around with a word. He can send them around. Somebody's
been in trouble before. I mean not enormous, but somebody
knows what trouble is all about. He can send that person around
and that person can have a word fitly spoken. That's the way
the Bible speaks of it. In the Hebrew that is, a word
upon wheels. A word that is from the Lord,
and it's a word that is fit for your situation, and it's not
dragging heavily. It's on wheels. It's a word that
will assist and help you. It comes just at the right time.
The Lord gets it there. It's on wheels. It gets there
at the right time. Have you ever been helped that
way? Well, I have. over and over again. And I'll
tell you this, that when I get around somebody who I know knows
the Lord, and somebody who I know and feel has a burden for my
soul and is interested in me, I listen to what they got to
say. I listen to everything they say. And I can most generally
tell you what you've said to me, even though there's several
of you past me out here by the door, and you tell me, I listen
to what you say. I listen to what you say. Because
I'm always looking for a word from the Lord. I'm always looking
for a word that will help me, strengthen me in the Lord. And whenever I'm talking to a
believer, a friend in the Lord, I listen to what they're saying
because many, many a time my whole soul has been helped and
what I, I mean it's precious to be helped. by somebody just
giving you a word and somebody just encouraging you in the things
of God. It's like apples of gold and
baskets of silver. Such are goodly words brought
to us by men of faith and experience whom God sends to us. The Lord sends them to us. Now,
the third thing is this. I'm talking about how God strengthens
men's hearts. You interested in this? I'm sure
that you ought to be. If you're not, then God help
you. Now the third thing is that God sometimes does this by giving
you a precious promise, a text of scripture. And what a wonderful
power there is in the Word. What a wonderful power there
is in the Word. The Lord said, One time when
I was in a great dither, woke up in the middle of the night,
and the Lord said, be not faithless, but believing. And the next few
days were glorious. I'm telling you they were glorious.
The Lord sent me on a trip, and I went on a trip, and the Lord
opened doors before me. It was a hallelujah time. Praise
be unto God. Be not faithless, but believing.
I wouldn't have went a step. I wouldn't have went out the
door. You couldn't have got me to fart off the engine. I wouldn't
have went. But the Lord said, you don't be faithless, you go.
You go. And the Lord went before me.
I'll tell you, there are many, many a time the Lord gives us
a text of scripture, says something to us out of the word, says something
to us sometimes even out of a song that we're familiar with, which
is based on scripture. The Lord will give you a word.
I'll tell you why. Some of us are not in enough
trouble to experience some of these things. Some of us never
get in enough trouble. Some of us are not looking to
the Lord. We're not crying to God. We're not seeking God. We
just throw up our hands and we just make a, we just, well, we
just, well, I don't even want to try to describe what we make
out of ourselves whenever we get into trouble sometimes because
we just will not get down on our face before God and cry to
God until we get some help. and until God strengthens us
and gives us a word, gives us something that will help us out
of our problems. So then the Lord might give us
a text. Okay, and then the fourth thing is that the Holy Spirit
has a secret way of strengthening the courage of God's people which
none of us can explain. And I don't have the ability
to explain how it happens, but I felt it. Have you ever felt
it? Now listen, you may go to bed
at night and you may be sick. You may be sick of heart and
you may be weary, worn, sad, depressed. You may just feel
terrible in your soul, but when you wake up in the morning, you
may wake up refreshed, and you may wake up ready to face the
day, ready to tackle whatever's out there in front of you, ready
to go, ready to deal with whatever you have to. Well, what happened?
Well, the Lord, you say, well, I guess it was a good night's
sleep. Well, I think it's a little more now. I think it was the
secret operation and working of the Divine Spirit in your
heart and in your life during the night. And perhaps God may
visit you in the middle of the night. He may wake you up like
He has me on a number of occasions and say, I've got something to
say to you. I've got something to say to you. Here's something
that you've overlooked. Here's what you need to believe. You need to believe this word
or that word. And so you feel suddenly that the Lord has strengthened
you by the Holy Spirit so that you're perfectly resigned and
satisfied and you're prepared, you're ready, come what will,
you're ready to deal with it. The Lord has visited you. I remember
reading about men who were in a real perplexing situation,
faced, meeting. One man's here, another man here,
and this Christian was overwhelmed by what this individual was saying,
what he was presenting, and the Christian said, you'll have to
excuse me just a moment. You'll have to excuse me just
a moment. And he turned and went in the
other room and bowed his head before God and said, Lord, I
don't know how to deal with this. This is overwhelming. I don't
know how to face this. How do I deal with this? And
the Lord gave him peace in his soul and he came back out and
was able to deal with it. He said, now go on, go on. Tell
me what you will. Say what you will. I'm telling
you, the Lord, by the Spirit, can mildly strengthen you. And
if you're faced with a difficult situation, don't hesitate to
say to the people that you're dealing with, say, just a minute.
Just a minute. I got to go off here. Just a
second. I got to have a minute or two.
I got to look to the Lord here. I got to have some grace. I got
to get some strength here. I got to deal with this thing.
And I want to deal with it rightly before the Lord. And so give
me a moment. Now then, do not give up. You
need not be a coward. Do not say, I must. I mean, it's
inevitable. I'm beat. And I'm going to continue
to be beat the rest of my life. It's inevitable. I must always
be despondent. Now your immune system is going
to hear all of that, that's going on in your system, and that's
not going to be good for you. Listen to me now. You cannot
give up. Listen. You needn't be beat.
Pray. Be of good courage. The Lord
will strengthen your heart. Has he ever failed you? Has he
ever failed anyone that trusted him? Has he? I want you to turn
with me quickly to Jeremiah chapter 17. And I want to read here a
couple of verses to you, Jeremiah chapter 17, and begin with verse
5. You just listen to these verses
here. I'm going to let you out, I'm just about finished. Hold
on. Verse 5 of Jeremiah chapter 17,
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 inhabit it. 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 leaves
shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought,
neither shall cease from yielding fruit. What a marvelous portion
of scripture that is. Blessed is the man that trusteth
in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. Has he ever failed you? Has he ever failed any who trusted
him? Can any? stay his hand, or keep him from
fulfilling his promise, or denying his promise, or retract his word? Can any cause him to do that?
No, absolutely not. If you'll trust him, he'll be
better to you than your largest hope. You lean too much on your
own wisdom. You do not know what's good for
you. You do not. Now the Bible says
that it's not in man that walketh to direct his steps. You lean
too much on your own wisdom. The Bible says in Proverbs 3,
5, and 6, lean not to your own understanding. But in all of
your ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct your steps. You
do not know what's best for you. And that's why you're murmuring
and complaining about everything that happens in your life. You've
got to come to the place where that you'll say, we'll see. We'll
see. Somebody says, that's good. Well,
you best say, we'll see whether that's good or not. Somebody
says, well, that's bad. Well, we'll see whether it is. You best wait on the Lord and
you best trust Him and not lean too much to your own understanding.
Listen, stay yourself upon the Lord, lean upon his bosom, lean
hard, lean hard, lean all your weight there, leave your burden
there, the Lord be with you, the Lord bless you, blessed are
all those who put their trust in the Lord, be of good courage,
and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the
Lord. The Lord be gracious to every
one of you. I want to read this poem to you in closing. Years ago I read this poem, I
think once, But the title of this poem is, When is the Time
to Trust? When is the time to trust? Is it when all is calm? When
waves the victor's psalm of joy and praise? Nay, but the time
to trust is when the waves beat high, when storm clouds fill
the sky, and prayer is one long cry, O help and save. When is the time to trust? Is
it when friends are true? Is it when comforts rule? And in all we say and do we meet
but praise? No. But the time to trust is
when we stand alone and summer birds have flown and every prop
is gone, all else but God. What is the time to trust? Is
it some future day when you have tried your way and learned to
trust and pray by bitter woe? Nay. But the time to trust is
in this moment's need. Poor, broken, bruised, reed,
poor, troubled soul, make speed to trust thy God. What is the
time to trust? Is it when hopes beat high, when
sunshine gilds the sky, and joy and ecstasy fill all of the heart? Nay, but the time to trust is
when our joy is fled, when sorrow bows the head, and all is cold
and dead, all else but God. That's the time to trust. Father, we thank you for your
word.