If you would please turn back
to the book of 1 Peter. 1 Peter chapter 1. I'd like to read verse 3 through
verse 9. Verse 3 through verse 9. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled,
and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. who are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last time, wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for
a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold
temptations, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious
than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire,
might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing
of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen ye love, in whom, though
now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the
salvation of your souls. I want to speak this morning
primarily on the seventh verse, on this phrase, the trial of
your faith. The trial of your faith. Now there are some who I have
read after and listened to who paint a picture of the Christian
life as a life that is undisturbed a life that is quiet, a life
that is what we might say that's just a life of unfailing joy. It's a life of peace and unfailing
joy. Now there's no question after
having read our text this morning that there is joy unspeakable
and full of glory in the Christian experience. And it's also true,
as we've discovered before in our reading and preaching, that
there is a peace that passeth understanding that the people
of God enjoy in this world. But the pilgrimage that the people
of God are on, on their way to glory and to heaven, is not always
as a tranquil sea. It has many, many trials, many
difficulties. Now I remember reading in Bunyan's
Pilgrim Progress about Pliable. Do you remember Pliable? Well,
how he ran toward heaven when he heard of its glories and rewards. But when the first encounter
came with adversity, then he even ran faster in the opposite
direction. He was greatly moved when he
heard of the glories of heaven, and heard of the rewards in heaven.
But whenever trouble came, and when trial came, and difficulty
came, struggle came, then he ran in the other direction. And
there are many who have this idea of the Christian life that
we mentioned earlier. A picture has been painted for
them that the Christian life is a very quiet, undisturbed
life where there is no pressure and no heartache, where there
is no difficulty and sorrow and trial. But yet when things happen,
as they will happen, because there is a trial, that will come
to faith, to false faith as well as to true faith. There is a
trial that will most definitely come. Now then, the Christian
life is not without cross, it's not without burden. And so I
want to tell you up front, if you're in any way believing that
you're going to join up, as it were, with the Lord's people,
if you're going to join yourself to that heavenly band, the children
of grace, those that are the living family that are marching
on to glory and to Zion, if you figure to join up with them,
just expect that along the way there's going to be some difficulty
and trial in your life. But we know that this difficulty
and trial and struggle that comes into the life of the believer
is there because there is still sin in the believer. there is
still sin in the believer. And because you have sin in the
life of the believer, there is sorrow, there is toil, there
is difficulty, there is adversity, there is suffering in the life
of the believer. Now then, the path to heaven
lies through a very dark veil where enemies prowl and try,
if it were possible, to destroy the child of God. Now, this is,
I'm sure most of you are aware that there's an enemy that lurks
out there in the world, and we, as the people of God, often experience
some very definite oppression and persecution, not only from
within, but we have it from without. And we know that this is what
we must expect. Now there is, in the New Testament,
no belittlement whatsoever in regards to these things. In regards
to those who renounce the world, in regards to those who are forsaking,
as it were, the devil's camp, as those who would wage a daily
warfare against sin, there is no belittlement in the New Testament
of the fact that these people That as it were, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and walk with Him and commune with Him that
these people are going to have definite trial and affliction
in this world. And that their experience and
their voyage to glory is not going to be on just a glassy
smooth sea. Now I read in 1 Peter chapter
4, listen to these words. I want to read a couple passages
of scripture to you before we get into the message. In verse
12 of 1 Peter chapter 4, it says, Beloved, think it not strange
concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some
strange thing happened unto you. And so don't be, listen, don't
get caught into a frame of mind. I remember reading about a young
man who made a profession of faith, and he came to love the
Lord, and the Lord blessed him, and he had great joy of life
and soul, and he was having wonderful victory in his life. And suddenly
things changed and he succumbed to temptation and he got into
a state of mind where he didn't really know whether he had anything
or not. And those were his words. I come
to the place where I didn't know whether I had anything or not. And he met up with an old Christian.
And this old Christian could tell by his countenance that
something had changed in his life. And the old Christian said
to him, he said, I see that you have been called up to war. And it is true, beloved, the
people of God, they often start out with faith, confidence, joy,
peace, and they just feel that their mountain is going to stand
firm and that they will never have any of those experiences,
those fiery trials that will try their faith. They feel they'll
escape all of that. but suddenly things change. And
we know that God allows sometimes us to begin well and to have
these joyous experiences where we're living on the mountaintop
and we just have great expectations and the Lord just comes and draws
near, greatly blesses us, gives us answer to prayer and fellowships
with us very close. And then this of course is to
prepare us, and we can prove this out of scripture if we had
time to do it this morning, that this is to prepare us for the
valley. The valley that we're going to
walk through. And through the trials that will be on our way. to heaven and the Lord as it
were just just gets us ready and Blesses us and prepares us
so that we will be able to endure What is coming our way now the
trial of your faith the trial of your faith now? It's a great
thing If you're able and if you can truthfully speak my brother
my sister about your faith Do you have faith? If you have faith,
it's a wonderful thing that you're able to claim faith in our God. Because all men have not faith,
and wherever faith is found, It is evidence that God has been
there working. If you have true faith in your
soul, it's the gift of God, it's the gift of divine favor. God
has blessed you with that faith, and if you've got faith, if you've
got some faith to be tried, What a wonderful thing that is. What
a blessed thing it is that anybody has faith. If anybody's got it
here in this building, oh, we're among a blessed company if we
have faith. Because God has visited us and
he's given us this faith. Now in every case where faith
is found, we know it is the operation of the Spirit of God. If it's
true faith, God's been there, God has been working by the Spirit. And it's called in the Bible,
like precious faith, because it is the faith of God's elect.
It is the mark of eternal election. What I'm saying is that if a
man has faith to be tried, that faith that he has that God's
going to try is a mark of his having been chosen of God in
old time. It's a mark of the fact that
God has set his love and affection upon that man's soul from old
eternity. And that man is one of God's
elect. It is the sign of a blessed condition. It's the forecast, if you please,
of a heavenly destiny. Isn't that a marvelous thing?
If a man can say, I've got faith. I have some faith. It's being
tried, preacher. My faith is greatly tried. It's
being tried like gold in the furnace. But I have faith. That, my friend, is a great blessing. It's the evidence of life in
the Spirit. It's the evidence that we are
alive toward God. It's the prophecy of eternal
glory. It is the dawn, listen, it's
the dawn in our souls of an endless life with God Almighty throughout
eternity. Isn't that glorious? If you've
got faith. If you've got some faith, you're
a very rich person. If you have faith, you have infinitely
more, I think, than he who has everything his heart could desire
in the world. And yet he has not faith. If
you have faith, you've got more than this individual out here
that you might admire or that you might envy. You have more
than they have. Blessed are those who believe
God, who have God-given faith. And to him that believeth, it
is said in the Bible, all things are yours. So don't feel sorry
for yourself this morning if you're one of these that are
being tried. Your faith is being tried because
the fact that you've got faith is a glorious and blessed thing. Faith is the assurance of sonship,
is the pledge of the inheritance, it is the grasp of a boundless
possession. Faith, listen, in faith lies,
as we said, glory. Glory lies in faith, and we have
been delivered. We read here in Peter about this
deliverance and about the inheritance and these things and about the
salvation that will be revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ, this
salvation that He has bought for us. Listen, this is glorious. We are going to have glory by
and by. Somebody said you don't look
like that you're going to have any glory ever. But my friend,
we're going to have it because faith is glory as we as we would
describe how that the oak sleeps In the acorn, if you've got faith,
then my friend, glory is asleep as it were and soon will burst
forth. You're headed for eternal glory. Now if you have faith, you don't
really need to ask for much more except that your faith might
grow. and that your faith might be alive to the promises that
have been made to it in the Word of God. That your faith could
grasp what God has spoken to faith in the Bible. And I would
like to make mention of this, that the Bible is addressed to
faith. It's not addressed to reason,
it's addressed to faith. And so the thing we need to pray
for is not more, as it were, of this world's goods, but that
our faith would be alive to the promises that God has made to
that faith. Blessed is he that has faith,
because the Bible says in Hebrews 11 and verse 6, it says that
without faith it is impossible to please God. It is impossible
to please God, and they that come to Him must believe that
he is God and that he's a rewarder of those that diligently seek
him. So if a man has faith, he is one that pleases God. He can
please God and he does please God greater than anybody else
that can. You say, well, I know somebody that's more moral, preacher,
than most Christians. You may, but they can't please
God with their morality. You see, a man pleases God by
faith. He pleases God when he believes
God. And it's impossible for a man
to please God any other way than that he pleased God. You say,
preacher, if a man gave God a million dollars, don't you think that
would please him? My friend, unless a man gave
that money in faith, To Almighty God, that would not please God. Faith pleases God. And faith
in a poor man pleases God as much as faith in a rich man. Faith pleases God. You believe
Him, you trust Him, that's what God wants you to do. And God
will never upbraid any soul for trusting Him because He's taught
you to do it. Trust Him. Believe Him. Depend
upon Him. Have confidence in God. He has
taught you to do it. And He'll never fail you. You'll
never be ashamed by trusting God or for trusting in the living
God. Blessed is the man that has faith.
A faith to be tried. Isn't it marvelous, okay? Because
this man that has this faith, he's justified before the throne
of God. You can't be justified any other
way. You have faith and you're justified. The Bible says, therefore be
justified by faith. We have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5 and verse 1. Now, we
also, if we have this faith, we have full access to the throne
of grace. I was hearing this week, Hal,
that over in Jerusalem they have Now the ability to hook up with
a telephone company there, they have the ability, you can call
from anywhere in the world and fax a prayer to Jerusalem and
then they take that and they have a courier who takes that
out to the wall, the weeping wall there which was supposedly
part of the old temple. And they take and stash those
facts that they received, those prayers, and put them in the
cracks in that wall for you for a certain figure, certain amount
of money. And they feel that in that respect
or way you can get your prayer before God. And that God will
hear what you've got to say. Now my friend, it isn't necessary
to do all that. It is necessary and all to do
that. That isn't going to help at all.
Let me tell you something that the man who believes God The
man or woman that trusts God, the man or woman whose soul has
been purged and washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
has access to the throne of God at all times. And you can come
to God, and you can make your request known unto God, and you
can pray to God, and you can pour out your soul to God, and
God will hear you if you have faith, if you believe God. if you trust God. So I thought
to myself, and I was talking with David as we was listening
to that, a little segment on the news, and I said, well that's
a bunch of foolishness. It is necessary for a true living
child of God to do that. But dead religionists, it sounds
mighty good to them. It sounds like the very thing.
They'd like to have the ear of God. But you see, the secret
of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and those who know
Him, and God's people know They know they can go and they can
speak with God at any time. Now, also we have the preparation
for reigning with Christ if we just have faith. Say, Preacher,
there's so much lacking in my life. There's so much that I
need in my life. But if you have faith, my friend,
you have the preparation. that you need. That's what you
need in order to be able to go yonder and live with Jesus Christ
and to reign with Him. You say, Preacher, I don't exactly
have faith, but I've got a few other things. But the other things,
my friend, are not worth mentioning. They will not prepare you. You
say, I had a good upbringing. There's people in hell today
that was brought up better than you and I. There's people in
hell, don't you see, that they're there because they have no faith. They're not a believer in the
living God. Now so far then, everything is
delightful to a child of God if he has faith. But then comes
these words here, and these are like, as it were, the thorns
on the roses when he says, that the trial of your faith, this
faith, which we've been talking about, that makes us so blessed
and so honored by the Lord, this faith that puts us in line for
so many, many choice blessings in time and eternity, then here
is some thorns on the rose bush, the trial of your faith. Let
me tell you this, that you cannot possess faith without experiencing
trial. There's no way. You've got to
have the trial. There are two things that are
put together in the Bible, two things that are inseparable. and that is faith and trial. The two come together. You can't
have the one, you cannot have faith without that faith being
tested, without that faith being tried. I want to talk to you
a little bit about this this morning, your faith. Let me say
number one, it will surely, it will surely be tried. Rest assured of it. Rest assured
of it. You may have heard of somebody
that had faith and they seemingly were without trial. It seems
that they escaped it or missed it, but no man ever had faith
and was all his life, no man ever truly had faith and all
of his life escaped trial, the trial of that faith. It's impossible. Conrad and I were talking about
this the other day and I said that God chastens every son that
he receives, he scourgeth every son that he receives, and if
a man doesn't have this chastening, this trial of his faith in this
life, then he is an illegitimate son. He doesn't belong to God. He is not God's true child. You're going to have this trial
of your faith. Now listen, faith in the very
nature of it, it implies trial. Faith? Listen, now when we have
faith, that means that you believe what God said. And you believe
the promises of God. Now listen friend, there are
times whenever we have to wait, wait on God. There's times whenever
we have to wait for the fulfillment. of the promises. There are times
when there's delays, don't you see? There's times when you get
in a hurry but God isn't. There's a time when you think
that something must be done and done hurriedly and it doesn't
happen like you think or in the time frame that you set up for
the situation to take place and this is the trial, don't you
see? It's a trial of your faith. Has
God ever said anything to me? If God has told me what I think
He has told me, then why doesn't this happen? Why isn't God doing
this? Why isn't this thing coming to
pass? Well my friend, this is the trial of faith. It's the
very nature of faith to have test and to have trial. I do
not see how that faith can be faith at all if it is not tried
by its own exercise. It's got to be tried, don't you
see? And be not mistaken about it, God never gave us faith as
something to talk about, play with, or something that we could,
as it were, wear in a parade. Something that we could show
off on the parade grounds. If God gave you faith, He gave
you faith just like you and I, if we had a neighbor that came
into our house one night, and it was so dark, pitch black outside,
and this neighbor had to walk a mile or two to get home, and
you would give that neighbor a flashlight? You would give
him a light or a lantern to walk by? Listen, God gave you faith
for just exactly the same reason. You're going to need it. You're
going to need it. You've got to have it. You can't
live in this world as a child of God with your peculiar circumstances
as a Christian and as God has decreed certain things to come
into our lives and we're to experience as He would teach us to know
Him better and to love Him more on the way to glory without this
faith. And so God gave it to you for
that reason. Now then, to whom God has given
faith, the very gift of faith, it is a hint to you and I that
we're going to want it, that we're going to need it. Has God
given you faith? You say, I've got some faith,
preacher. It's weak. Well, God's given it to you because
you're going to need it, brother. God gave it to you because you're
going to need it, sister, down the way, at various points in
your life. You're really going to need what
you got. And you say, it's just real comfortable
to believe God. Well, my friend, yes it is. It's really comfortable to believe
God. But just remember this. There's
going to come days when if you didn't have that faith that you
would not be able to survive it. You just couldn't. And there's
been many of us that have come to places in our life where we
said we just cannot stand it anymore. We just cannot deal
with life and the things of life anymore. But we are still dealing
with them and still contending for the faith, still going ahead
straight on toward glory. Well, it's because God has given
us a measure of faith. You cannot live without faith
as a believer because again and again, at least four times over
in the Word of God it says, the just shall live by faith. That's how a child of God lives
in this world on the pilgrimage. He lives by waiting, believing
God, and believing that things are going to be alright, and
when things look bad and they look most wrong, he just keeps
on believing God, and trusting God to work all things out. Trial is the very element of
faith. You know, listen, what a fish
would be without water or a bird without air, that would be faith
without trial. I mean, it's the very element
of faith to be tried, to be tested. And so don't think that there's
something peculiar happening to you, that some unusual thing
is happening to you. The great keeper of the treasure
admits no coin to his coffers without testing first. without
testing. Now faith thrives only in such
an honor of faith to be tried. Abraham, you know, he was that
one and I like old Abraham. I identify with Abraham. I don't
know, there's certain characters of scripture that you just seem
to identify with more than others. And I identify more with old
Abraham because Abraham was a man who believed in hope when everything
was against him. He just kept on believing when
it looked like everything was against what he was hoping for. And things just kept coming,
kept coming that just made it look impossible for anything
to ever work out for him. And he just kept right on hoping
and kept right on believing. Now listen to me. It is the honor
of faith to be tried. And you just keep on believing,
friend. You say it's looking worse every
day, but just keep on believing. Can you do that? Will you do
that? True faith, my friend, well just keep on. Remember old
Abraham, the father of the faithful. He got older and older and older
and older and God said you're gonna have a seed. He got so
old, he got a hundred years old. And it was impossible, but it
wasn't impossible. All things are possible with
God. You just keep on believing it. and trusting God and quit
making yourself sick by fear and unbelief. You just believe
God and you trust Him and God will prove to be the God of His
Word and He's never told you anything and told you a falsehood. When God tells you something
it's true and you believe it and you trust it. Now then There
are some reasons for these trials that I want to quickly give you.
Number one, I think these trials prove the sincerity of our faith. Listen, if our faith won't stand
trial, then what good is it? What good is it? Now, you see,
the Lord's knowledge of us is a complete knowledge. He knows
us. And he said, there will be no
testing taking you, but such is common to man, I'm faithful,
I'm faithful, I'm watching this thing. I'm better than a physician
standing at your bedside. And I got your temperature. I
know what your situation is. And I know exactly what's coming. And how this thing is going to
work out. And he said, I'm faithful. And I will not allow you to be
tested above what you're able. But will with the testing. I'm
going to make a way of escape that you might be able to bear
it. I'm going to be with you. Now you see, listen to me this
morning. The sincerity of our faith is brought out. when we
just stand and trust God and show that we are truly confident
that God is the God He says He is. and that he's too wise to
err, too holy not to do rightly. Now you cannot be sure that your
faith is true faith until it is a tried faith. You talk all
you want to, and I hear people talk, but I just sometimes have
to just say, well, we'll see down the road. Somebody said,
well, I, preacher, I just, oh, I just trust God. Oh, well, bless
the Lord. I'm glad. But listen, we'll see
down the road whether you do or not. Let me tell you something.
There's enough in this world. There's enough trouble. There's
enough trial. There's enough affliction in this world. There's
enough tragedy in this world. There's enough traumatic experiences
in this world to prove the sincerity of your faith. And it's going
to prove it, whether you got it or whether you're not. To
prove its strength. Now, we think our faith is strong,
but it's very weak. How are we to know whether it
be weak or strong till it be tried? Now, God would not have
us form a wrong estimate of ourselves. He would not have us to say that
we're rich, increased with goods, and had to eat of nothing, when
we're just the opposite. Therefore, He sends these trials
to our faith so that we may know how weak we are in and of ourselves
and how weak our faith really is. Now, the trial of our faith
is necessary, I think, to remove the dross. to remove the dross. In other words, there's a lot
of dross. Like in gold, it mentions here that this gold is tried. But the trial of our faith is
more precious than the trial of gold, which is tried, because
when in trial, the trial of our faith, it removes the dross. And a great deal of what we think
we have of real Christian experience and Christian knowledge and zeal
and Christian patience is only supposition that we have these
graces and it's not the real possession of these graces. We just suppose that we got it. We suppose that we got it. Now,
so the fire gets hotter and it gets hotter And the mass in the
furnace grows smaller and smaller. And is there really any loss
to the gold? No. The mass gets smaller and
smaller, but there's no loss to the gold. I don't think there
is. You see the dross. The gold loses
nothing by the removal of its dross. And all that is left is
that which is worth having. And so brother, sister, when
you've been through a real trial of your faith, whatever is there
when you're finished, when it's over, it's what's really worth
having. Your faith, your confidence in
God that is there when God's brought you out on the other
side of it and got you through the furnace and what you got
then. My friend, it's the real, it's
the real thing. That's real faith. You say, well,
a week ago, preacher, I was singing. A week ago, I had full assurance
of faith. Now I cannot tell whether I'm
a child of God or not. I cannot tell where I'm at now
because I've had so much that's happened in my life. Now you
know how much faith you really have. a week ago when you were
singing and when you were really rejoicing and you thought you
had full assurance. Now you know that at that time
you were somewhat deceived in yourself because the dross had
not yet been removed. But now the dross is removed
and you know now what you really have. You've lost, as one fellow
said, the froth off of the top of the cup, but what is worth
having is still there in the cup. It's still there, but you've
lost all that froth off of the top. Earthly things cannot kill
true faith. Brother Baker called last night
and we were talking a while, and I was talking to him about
this thing of believing God and trusting God. And I've often
said that true faith is not a hothouse plant, and you don't have to
keep it in a hothouse. True faith in God, you can't
kill it. And things of this earth cannot
kill true faith in God. Many, many, many hard things,
but true faith cannot be killed, nor can it take away one true
particle of that faith. Now there's a needs be for every
trial that God has sent to you. And God in His wisdom, He'll
give faith as faith needs. And as these trials are needed
in your faith, God will give them to you. Portion them out
to you as he sees and your trial will be your life and faith will
be tried I think variously not everybody's trying to like Everybody's
I think all God's people experience different things and different
kinds of trials one person's got a healthy body and they have
little affliction and as far as their body is concerned, but
they have afflictions in their children, they have afflictions
maybe in their marriage, afflictions in other ways, they have afflictions
and trouble and trials, or in their business, or some other
way, many things. And then here's a poor child
of God and they seem to have everything else worked out and
going smoothly, and here they have a weak body, afflicted,
body and tormenting anguish of body and suffering in that respect. And so faith is going to be tried,
I think, variously and not everybody alike. And I thought about how
that also that faith is often tried in our communion with God. You know, Long ago, I remember
back probably after I'd been a Christian for maybe two or
three years, and having a few seasons of time in really praying
and God answering and God speaking to me through His Word and so
on, communion with God. Now, if a man walks with God,
if he walks with God and lives in fellowship with God, You cannot
retain in your heart much falsehood and fancy that you're alright
if you walk close to God. Because you're going to be reminded,
I think, all the time, as you draw near to God, by your walk
with Him, you'll not be able to retain a false opinion of
yourself. This is a trial of faith. You know, we somehow or other
have the idea that, you know, me and God, we've got a good
thing going and everything's alright between me and God. But
people that talk that way and just bandy about these terms
about how near to God they are and how close to God they walk
and all this and that. Those people don't really walk
close to God, I don't think, because I believe that when you
walk close to God, you just somehow or other, you stay humble and
you're careful about what you've got to say about this business
of you and God and what a relationship and all that you've really got,
you see. And so this communion with God,
it's a trial, brother, and if you ever really Walk with God,
talk with God, and fellowship with God in prayer and the study
of the Word and all. And you ever really get near
to God, whenever you're not, you know it. You know it, and
it's a trial to your faith when God seems to hide His face, and
you're not able, as it were, to get through to the Lord. Remember
that God is a consuming fire, and He's not going to let somebody
walk near to Him and let that person walk in pride, and let
that person be belligerent, and let that person just do as they
want to and live like they please. No, no. God will take the hand
to them. He'll whip them behind the door.
God's going to bring them near to Him and humble them and humble
the pride of their hearts. Now the Lord then frequently
tries us by the blessings that He sends us also. That's sometimes
a trial of our faith, riches. Now, I read one time where one
person fails through poverty for every 50 people that fail
through being blessed abundantly with the world's goods. Now people that have a whole
lot, they're tempted more. People that have the means to
do things, they're tempted more than people that are not. They
have more trial. And sometimes what God puts into
your life and the blessings He blesses you with are a greater
trial to your faith than the poor man down the street. His
faith isn't tested that way. He's rich in faith. but his faith
is not tested like yours are. Now then, the comforts of life
and the various things and even health itself, you know, can
be a real trial to a person. He has health, strong, able,
vigorous, real, he's really, you know, able to just do whatever
he wants to do sometimes. That gets a person in trouble.
Where if a man is afflicted and tried, sometimes it keeps him
more in touch with reality, and in touch with what's really,
really right. And that man stays with that.
Well, see the Lord knows how to look out for us. Well, I think
that, let me just say this, the trial
of your faith as the people of God in New Testament age, in
this dispensation, if you want to call it that, of grace, I
think that it usually, and you will judge whether this be true
or not, it usually comes in the form of affliction. It normally
comes. Now, Matthew Henry made this
statement. He said that the seal of the
Old Covenant, speaking of the Old Testament, was prosperity. Man walked with God, he lived
for God, he lived for the glory of God in the Old Testament time,
he was blessed with prosperity. In the New Testament, the seal
of the New Covenant is affliction. It's affliction. The lover of
our souls, he uses test that it may be seen whether or not
he really has our heart. You say, Lord Jesus, I love you.
You're my best beloved. Well, says the heavenly lover,
if it be so, then what about the child? What about this child? What about the wife? What about the husband? Well,
if it be true, then why are we so reluctant to let
things go? if the Lord really has our heart. The Lord hath give and the Lord
hath taken away, Job said. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
The Lord is very jealous of our love. That is of the Lord's people. The more he loves, the more he
tests. The more he tries. Whatever it
may be with us, poor creatures, and however we act when we're
jealous, However that may be, it is so that His love, the love
of the Lord, goes with His jealousy. The Lord's love goes with His
jealousy. If God loves you, He's jealous
over you. He's jealous over you. You say,
Preacher, I dislike things for being different than what they
are. Well, the Lord loves you, and He's jealous over you. You
say, the Lord won't give me things that He gives other people. It's
because He loves you. Because He loves you. See, that's
what our mothers told us, wasn't it? They said, we won't give
you that because we love you. We don't want you to get, you
know, this to happen or that to happen. So He takes away what
we're leaning on, so we'll lean the more on Him. So we'll trust
more fully to Him. Samuel Rutherford, he wrote to
a lady one time that had lost five children and her husband. And he said to her, Oh, how Christ
must love you. He would take every bit of your
heart to himself. He'd have every bit of your heart.
So he took your five children and your husband. He would take
every bit of your heart to himself. He would not permit you to reserve
any of your soul for any earthly thing. And beloved, that is a
tough test. There's no question about that. Well, I'm going to close. I've
got enough preaching here to go on for another half, three
quarters of an hour, but I'm just going to let it go. And
we'll stop right there. Enough, I think, has been said.
Maybe we'll take up the rest of it later, but I hope that
we can stand the test. If you've got God-given faith,
you'll be able to stand. You'll be able to stand. And
having done all to stand, we're told in Ephesians, there's a
good verse over there, and I'll just close by reading a couple
of verses here in Ephesians. He said in the 6th chapter in
verse 10, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord. and in
the power of his might, put on the whole armor of God that you
may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places, Wherefore, taken to you
the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand
in the evil day, and having done all to stand, stand therefore,
having your loins gurned about with the truth, and having on
the breastplate of righteousness your feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith
wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of
the wicked. May the Lord bless the message
to your heart this morning. Mike, do you have a handler?