If you would please turn back
to the 8th chapter of the book of Romans. The book of Romans
chapter 8. I want to begin reading this morning
with verse 16 and read down through the 28th verse. Verse 16 through
28. The Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children,
then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. If so be that we suffer with
him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the
suffering of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest
expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the
sons of God. For the creation of the creature
was made subject to vanity not willingly, but by reason of him
who has subjected the same in hope. Because the creature itself
also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into
the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves
also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption
of our body. For we are saved by hope, but
hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth
he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see
not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise, the Spirit
also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should
pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth
the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he
maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. Let us pray. Our Father, we're
grateful and we're mindful this morning of your tenderness, your
love, and your mercy toward your people. And we thank you, Father,
for your sweet spirit that comes and comforts our hearts. We're
thankful this morning that you do help our infirmities. And as we come before you, we
are mindful that the Lord Jesus Christ, our great High Priest,
is making intercession on our behalf. And we pray you this
morning, our Father, that you might be pleased to look upon
us and to see the desperate needs of our hearts and our lives.
We come to you this morning, and in the words of the song,
we need thee every hour. Thou dost know, our Father, our
thoughts, and you know our hearts, and you're mindful of our needs.
And so we look to you and we lean heavily upon you and your
sufficiency this morning that you'll give us a blessing in
this meeting and that you might bless those that are our Father
afflicted and tried and we pray that they might be lifted up
and encouraged in their souls today. And we do pray that each
one of us might find strength in the inner man that we might
go forward, and that the blessed ministry of the Holy Spirit,
that it might be a reality, Lord, in every one of our lives. And
then, Lord, we're conscious that there are those here this morning,
under the sound of our voice, who have not the Spirit of Christ. And because they have not the
Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Him. They are none
of His. And our Father, we ask that you
might be pleased, Lord, to work salvation, deliverance, conversion,
regeneration in their hearts. Bring them, our Father, to thyself
according to your divine purpose of election. Bring them, our
Father, unto thyself. Own them as thine own, if it
be in your good pleasure. And we ask, our Father, that
you might be pleased to bless the testimony of this church
Our Father, may it be an effective testimony near and far, and may
the gospel of your grace run well in our day. We ask for cleansing
and forgiveness of sins and shortcomings, and we pray for the liberty and
the free flow of thought this morning by the Spirit. In Jesus'
name, Amen. We read in verse 18 where Paul
said, For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed
in us. Our subject this morning is the
sufferings of the present time. The sufferings of the present
time. A child of God oppressed suffering
sorely, often driven to his wit's end. What a strange thing that
is. What a strange thing. Adjoint
heirs, we're told in verse 16 and 17 here, of our text this
morning with Jesus Christ, financially embarrassed, poor in this world,
wondering where his next meal is coming from, what an anomaly. Think of it, a child of God,
a joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ, an heir of God. An object of this, an object
of the Father's love, His everlasting love, and distinguishing favor,
tossed up and down upon a sea of trouble, with every apparent
prospect of his frail bark capsizing as he moves along in this world. What a perplexity that is to
the child of God. Loved by the Father, redeemed
by the Son, his body made the temple of the Holy Spirit, yet
they are left in this world year after year to suffer affliction
and persecution to mourn and groan over innumerable failures,
to encounter one trial after another, often to be placed in
far less favorable circumstances than the wicked, to sigh and
to cry for relief, yet for sorrow and suffering just to increase. What a mystery that is, the sufferings
of this present time. True believers have to face the
force of these things that we're talking about here this morning. Now, it was to cast light, I
believe, upon this pressing problem of the sorely tried believer
that the eighth chapter of the book of Romans was written. If
we understand anything about what Paul is saying here, we
truly and surely will have some light shed upon why these things
are so. Now in verse 18, the apostle
shows us that the sufferings of this present time are not,
and I want to emphasize that, are not inconsistent with the
special favor and the infinite love which God has for his people. You know, the perplexing problem
is that we cannot understand how God could possibly love us
and yet allow or permit suffering to come into our lives. But we
must understand that it is not inconsistent for God to both
love us and to allow us to be tested and tried with those trials
and tests such as are common to man. God will allow his people
to be tested. God is interested, and I've said
it a number of times, more interested in our character than he is in
our comfort. God has many things that he has
deemed to teach us, that he's purposed to teach us, ordained
to teach us, that he will teach us by the rod by chastisement
and by suffering and by trial in this world. Now, I want to
say, first of all, that this is so because by the sufferings
of the Christian, the child of God is brought into a personal
and experiential fellowship with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Verse 17, notice it, And if children,
then heirs, and heirs of God, and heirs with Christ, if so
be that we suffer with him, If so be that we suffer in Him,
if so be that we suffer as the children of God while believing
in Him, and while trusting in Him, and while relying upon Him,
that we may be also glorified together. The people of God are
an afflicted people, a troubled people, a sorrowing people, but
they also are a believing people. They're a trusting people. They
trust in the Lord. In Philippians 3 and 10, Paul
said, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection
and the fellowship of His suffering. The fellowship of His suffering
being made conformable unto His death. Now I do not have to tell
any red child of God, any child of God who is a student of the
Bible, any child of God who reads the Holy Scriptures about the
sufferings of our head, the Lord Jesus Christ. All of us are aware
of the agony of that awful agony that our Lord Jesus Christ experienced. He was a man of sorrows, the
Bible says, and was acquainted with grief. Yes, He truly was
acquainted with grief. He knew what sorrow was. He knew
what grief really was. And so, beloved, to experience
this suffering with the Lord Jesus Christ, and to experience
somewhat what our Lord experienced is to bring us, I think, to be
conformable unto Him. And so may the Lord bless us
in our suffering and in our affliction. And number two, listen, severe
and protracted as our affliction may be, yet there is an immeasurable
I say an immeasurable disproportion between our present sufferings
and the glory that is going to be revealed in us. Future glory. Beloved, I want you to notice
that here in verse 18. He says, I reckon that the sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in us. He said it's not worthy
to compare what you're going through in the present time and
what your sufferings are, whatever they be, however protracted and
severe they are, it's not worthy to compare that suffering and
that affliction with that glory that's going to be revealed in
us. Now that's a wonderful thought.
It's a glorious thought because we believe in the hereafter,
we believe that God has prepared a place For His people, we believe
that God's going to send forth His angels and gather His elect
from the four corners of the earth and bring them home to
Himself. We believe that the Lord Jesus
will bring home all those that the Father sent Him into this
world to redeem and rescue from sin. And we believe we're all
going to be with the Lord and there's coming a day when the
glory of our God is going to be manifest and revealed and
you and I are going to be there and share in that glory because
we're going to be in Christ. in that glorious and triumphant
day. And so that's future glory. And
we're looking forward to that. My friend, if in this life only
we have hope, we're of all men most miserable. It is because
we believe in future glory. It's because we believe in a
place where there's going to be no more weeping, and where
there's going to be no more tears, and where all the former things
are passed away. It's because of our conviction
of these truths that we are able to rest ourselves this morning
and have what we call some real spiritual hope. And then number
three, our very sufferings provide, I think, an occasion for the
exercise of hope and for the development of patience. Look
in verses 24 and 25. I'm telling you that the sufferings
of the present time are not inconsistent with the love of God. He is for
love for His people, He is predestinating mercies toward His people, a
suffering is consistent with God's love and God's favor. And so we see that in verses
24 and 25, it says, for we are saved by hope. We're saved by
hoping in the Lord. And it says further, but hope
that is seen, it's not hope. You can't call something that
you see already, something that you already have in your possession,
as something that you're hoping for. Something that is not seen. That's how we're saved. We're
saved by hope. And for what a man seeth, why
does he yet hope for? Why would he continue to hope?
If you have deliverance this morning, there's no need to continue
to hope for it. But if we hope for that, we see
not. And beloved, often deliverance
is near. Often it's close, but we don't
have it yet. We don't have it completely and
entirely. And we will see in a little while
that there is a redemption of our body. And we're going to
experience that. down the road, somewhere down
the road we're going to receive a complete deliverance from this
fleshly body and this body of ours will be made like unto the
glorious body of the Lord Jesus Christ and it'll happen according
to the power of Him who is able to subdue all things unto Himself
according to the power of Almighty God. But now this hope that we
have, we have this in our sufferings This provides us an occasion
for the exercise and the development of patience and hope. Now, hope
is a sure expectation of God making good His promises. Now, beloved, it's a marvelous
thing that we're able to believe God at all. It's a miracle that
any man believes God. Now, God is not a man that he
should lie, yet men that are fallen in nature have not the
ability to believe a God that cannot lie except God give them
faith. And so it's a miracle that we
believe God, that we're able to trust Him. And this hope that
we have. Now, beloved, we know that faith
is the substance of things hoped for. And it's the evidence of
things not seen. When you believe God, it's the
evidence of things that you've not yet seen. And it's the substance
of that which you hope for in your soul. It's there in faith. You don't have it yet, but you're
looking for it and you're hoping for it. And this hope, I believe
God will make good His promises. I believe that God is a God of
His Word. I went to sleep last night believing
surely that God would make good upon every promise that He has
given unto His people. There has not failed one good
promise which God has ever given to His people. And God is a God
of His Word. I was reading recently the testimony
of George Mueller. And George Mueller said he often
received letters. He was the man over in Old England
that had many orphanages and just raised the money by faith
in God and raised the food and all the support and care for
all of the orphanages that God had enabled to be raised up under
His ministry. And he said people would write
to him and say, Mr. Mueller, how is it that you have
this great faith and I would like to have the great faith
that you have. And he said that's foolishness
for anyone to think that I have a greater faith or that I have
something that the ordinary child of God cannot have. Any believer
who believes that God is a God of His Word and believes that
what God promised He's able to perform and believe and expects
God to make good on His promises will see God fulfill those promises. We'll see that God is faithful
and that He will come through and that He'll make His promises
good. And so, beloved, when we suffer, We have that opportunity,
that occasion, for the development of hope and for the exercise
of patience, waiting upon God to make good what He tells us
in His Word. Now the fourth thing that will
show us, I think, that the sufferings of the present are consistent
with the love of our God is that He's given us AIDS. various divine
aids and supports that are furnished us under our afflictions. That which will minister to us
in the time of affliction, enabling us to wait for the deliverance
from our afflictions. Now, I want you to look, if you
will, in verses 26 and 27. These verses have been a tremendous
blessing to me, and I would like for you to look at them with
me. Likewise, it says in verse 26, the Spirit also helpeth our
infirmities. The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. Now the Holy Spirit helpeth our
infirmities. God's people are afflicted and
they have many infirmities and they need help with these infirmities. They need help. Have you ever
thought about, you just wish that some way, somebody could
get near enough to you to know you well enough to really be
able to help you, to support you, to give you some aid in
your time of need? Well, beloved, listen. The Holy
Spirit, we're told in verse 16, bears witness with our spirit.
That's how close the Spirit of God is to the Lord's living family. The Spirit of God is in the Lord's
people. Those that know the Lord, the
Spirit of God dwells in them. And their body is the temple,
we're told in the Scripture of the Holy Ghost. And so the Spirit
of God bears witness with our spirit. That's how near. the
Holy Spirit is to us, that we are, that we belong to God, that
we're the Lord's people. And I believe that's one of the
greatest comforts in all the world. There are people today
that would give their right arm if they just could hear the voice
of the Spirit of God speaking in their souls, saying that they
belong to the Lord, that they truly are His. that the Beloved
One belongs to them, and they belong to the Beloved One, that
they belong to Christ, that they're truly the Lord's children. Have
you ever heard from the Spirit of God within, bearing witness
with your spirit? Now, as we think upon this, The
Holy Spirit, the blessed comforter, He's called in the Bible the
paraclete, the one who comes alongside to help, the one who
draws up near, as it were, the orphaned children of the Lord. The Lord is in heaven and we
upon earth. We're as orphans here in this
world, but the Spirit of God comes and draws near. And He
comes near us and He comforts and preserves the believer so
that the believer will never be totally submerged by his doubts
and his fears and his anxieties. Now, beloved, the spark of faith
is maintained Despite all of the fierce winds of Satan which
assail us, we wrestle not, Paul said, against flesh and blood.
We need that one would draw nigh and that one would comfort us
and sustain us and have a word to say to our souls. And by the
enablings, and I might say the mighty enablings of the Holy
Spirit, the harassed, The groaning, the child of grace is kept from
sinking into complete skepticism and abject despair and infidelity. The people of God are kept from
these things by the work of the Holy Spirit. How many times would
we have maybe lost our minds if it had not been for the Spirit
of God drawing near? How many times have we been kept
from just throwing in the towel, as the expression is, and giving
up the fight if it had not been for God drawing near by the Spirit
and whispering in our ear and giving to us that help that we
needed. By His power, hope is still kept
alive and the voice of prayer is still, even though faintly,
it is still heard coming forth from our soul. I'm yet among
the praying this morning. I'm yet among the believing this
morning. I'm yet among those that fear
God, that seek God, that believe God this morning. And it's a
miracle of grace. Because this experience of conversion,
regeneration, took place in my life many, many years ago. And through many troubles, quarrels,
and snares, I have already come. And grace has brought me safe
thus far, and grace will lead me home. And it's by the comfort
of the Divine Spirit that I've been able to overcome to this
hour. Why is it? my afflicted brother,
my distressed sister this morning, that we have not made shipwreck
of our profession long before this? Why is it? Is it not because
of these spiritual aids, this divine comfort, this help of
the Holy Spirit, what has kept us? from just giving over to
this repeated temptation of the flesh and of the devil to totally
abandon the good fight of faith and take an easier path through
life. What is it, brother? Well, it's
the good Spirit of God in us that has drawn near, that helpeth
our infirmities. Why has not your many infirmities
annihilated your little faith? and destroyed that hope that
you've had in your soul and made you feel that there was nothing
really in your future but unrelieved gloom? Why is it that that's
not the case? Have you ever been depressed?
Have you ever been brought into a state of mind where that you
didn't feel there was any longer any hope for you and any help
for you? Well, beloved, listen, it's then.
The answer is, given, I believe, the Holy Spirit, it helps our
infirmities. We don't know what we should
pray for as we ought. We're in a dither and we're somewhat
perplexed and many mysteries about our lives and what's going
on with us. But we don't know what to do,
but the Spirit of God helps us even to groan out a prayer which
God hears from heaven and the Lord undertakes according to
His will for us. And so because of the Spirit
of God, silently and invisibly, yet sympathetically and effectually
helping us. That's the reason we've not thrown
in the towel. That's why we've not been annihilated
and our faith destroyed. That's why we've been kept. That's
why we're able to go on. The Spirit of the Lord helps
our infirmities. The Spirit of God has come and
sealed some promise to our heart. Some promise. Made that promise
flesh. Made it live to us. A promise
of His Word. And there's been some comforting
view of the Lord Jesus Christ that has been given to our soul. We were blessed with the Gospel
anew and afresh. And we had some comfort administered
by the Spirit along the lines of our past life being put away
and forgiven. Or something along the line of
our sins being blotted out, never to face us again in the judgment.
Along the line of there being no judgment awaiting those that
are in Christ Jesus. Some comforting view of Christ
that we'd never had before. And then there was some whisper
of love that was breathed into our ear. There was some melting
of our heart. There was the love of God coming
anew and afresh, being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit,
which is given to us, that has sustained us and kept us. Now the pressure was lifted and
fresh courage came over us. And we were able to go on another
day. We were able to face another hour. We were able to press on
in the way. This is the work of the blessed
comforter. And it may be perplexing, but
listen, the suffering of a child of God is indeed consistent with
the loving purpose of God for our lives. And I want you this
morning to be encouraged to believe that and to expect that in the
hour of your deepest trouble and trial that the Spirit of
God is going to come. God's going to pay you a visit.
And not even God can deliver somebody that's not in trouble.
God would have no reason to speak a comforting word to you if you
were not distressed, if you were not perplexed, if you were not
bothered if you were not in depressive state. God would have no reason
to draw near and to lift you up. How can God lift a man up
that's already up? God will lift up those that are
fallen and God will deliver those that are in bondage and those
that are afflicted. God will speak mercy and peace
to them. Well, how can we who are so weak
in ourselves and so inferior in power to the enemies of our
soul bear up under our trials, which are so numerous, so protracted,
so crushing? Well, we cannot in and of ourselves. We don't have the resources,
but by the help of God, the Spirit supports our hearts. The Spirit
of God helps with our infirmities and keeps grace alive in our
hearts. Many times I thought, surely
the grace of God would die out in my heart. Surely, but God
keeps that grace alive. We have in our days of darkness
done battle for life itself. I know what I'm talking about
this morning. And I hope that we'll be able to receive some
comfort from these thoughts. Now, if you will, turn back in
your Bibles to Psalm 77. And I want to just deal with
an aspect of this that I think that must be dealt with this
morning. I think it must be dealt with. After considering what
we have here together today and showing you the consistency of
the love of God with our sufferings in this life, the question is,
what can I do, preacher? What can I do when I'm miserable,
when I'm discontented, and when I feel so low, and I just feel
that somehow or other the providence of God is against me? Well, I
believe in Psalm 77 here we can find some things. I don't know
what his trouble was, but he was in deep trouble. He was in
the deep water of trouble. I do not know what wood he had
become entangled in. I don't know what his real afflictions
were, but it's certain that this was an afflicted man. This is
a psalm of sorrow and distress and trouble. But listen, he cried
unto God. And let me say that any situation
that Why things turn out good for the people of God is because
they're a praying people. They cry to God. They cry out
to God. And the first thing you ought
to remember in your affliction is that God will hear you because
he does not despise the cry of the distressed. and the cry of
the afflicted. God will hear prayer. And if
it begins, if your affliction is sanctified by prayer, it's
bound to come out all right in the end. It's bound to be all
right. And here the psalmist said, he gave Aaron to me. He
said, in the day of my trouble, I sought the Lord. In the day
when I was afflicted, I sought the Lord. My sore ran in the
night. It was not something that I quickly
got over, he says. My sore ran in the night. It
was a real affliction. It was a real trouble. And ceased
not. This affliction, I didn't get
over it. This affliction continued to plague me. It was a protracted
affliction. And he said, my soul refused
My soul refused to be comforted. Now, the first thing then would
be crying to God with your affliction. And the second thing, when you're
miserable, and when you're discontented, and when you feel that providence
is against you, cry to God. And the second thing is, don't
refuse for your soul to be comforted. This man He says, my soul refused
to be comforted. Now in this refusal to be comforted,
the psalmist is not to be imitated. He is not to be imitated. His
experience in this instance is recorded rather as a warning
Then as an example, there is no justification for the people
of God who suffer bereavements or temporal losses in this world
to refuse to be comforted. After all that we've said earlier,
I think you can see that God means for you to be comforted. Now listen, we have heard of
those who made mourning for the dead the main thing in their
life, years after their beloved relative had entered into rest.
Like the heathen, they worshipped the spirits of the dead. Now,
beloved, we have a right to mourn. We have a right to be sorrowful.
We have a right, my friend, to, in our hearts, to agonize over
various situations in our lives. But listen to me. When we are
bereaved, we have a right to mourn. I think Jesus Christ himself
has sealed for us that right. The scripture says Jesus wept,
you remember, at the grave of Lazarus. But that right to mourn
when we are bereaved or afflicted is abused into a wrong when protracted
and when it makes a person unfit for their daily duties. When we're so obsessed with our
loss and our crosses that our soul refuses to be comforted. Now beloved, this smacks of rebellion
when a soul refuses to take the comfort of the Word of God and
the Spirit of God and refuses to enjoy those blessings that
God has been pleased to pour out upon them. Charles Spurgeon
says, the sediment at the bottom of our tear bottles is usually
unholy rebellion against the Most High God. That's what it
is. Now I think that's very important.
Sullen repining and protracted lamentations indicate the existence
of idolatry in the heart. Surely that which we have lost
must have been, I mean if our souls refuse to be comforted,
surely what we have lost must have been enshrined in the throne
of our heart, which is the Lord's alone or else the taking of them
would not have stirred up such an unsubmissive spirit. Now you
see what I'm trying to say? I'm saying, beloved, that if
we're in our misery, what we must do is cry to God and then,
beloved, not allow our souls to be uncomforted by the word
of God and the truth of God. The psalmist said, he said, my
soul refused to be comforted. We must endeavor as God's people
to avoid excessive grief at our losses because it puts us, I
think, on the verge of two sins. I've mentioned them both, idolatry
and rebellion. Rebellion against God. Now we're
all idolaters by nature. We all are flesh worshippers
by nature. We all look at things, listen,
O sad calamity, one writer said, of a jaundiced mind to see nothing
as it should be seen, but everything as through a veil of mist. and
how true that is. We just look at everything in
a wrong way. God's ways are not our ways,
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways above
our ways, but yet we look at things in a way which we should
not, and all complaints against the providence of God proceed
from weakness and the infirmity of human reason. Remember that. All complaints against God. If
you was as wise as God, you would order everything in your life
and the life of those around you just exactly as it is. It's exactly what you would do.
And I know that flesh cannot sympathize with that statement,
but it is the truth as I understand the word of God. Now, whoever
else is dead, God is not dead. He is not. God is very much alive,
and sorrow deserves sympathy, but when it comes from a want
of resignation to the will of God, then it must always be censored. And I think the first person
to censor it is for us ourselves to censor it. Censor it in our
own hearts, not wait for somebody else to come along. Because,
listen to me, every one of us know when our Sympathy for ourself has gotten
out of line. Every one of us knows that. And
so we should censor ourself. Now when a child of God refuses
to be comforted, they act, I think, like men of the world, like alien
sinners. They act like those who have
no hope and without God. Now the unbeliever He has an
excuse, I think, to act the way he acts when he loses earthly
comforts and creature goods and when he loses his health and
all, because they lose all when they lose what they have. They
lose everything. They don't have anything in the
world to come. They lose all. But for the believer
to pine and sigh in inconsolable anguish over the loss of creature
good, is to belie his profession and to degrade his good name. Remember that. We've got to trust
God, my friend. He believes, the believer believes
that his trial is of the Lord. It is the Lord. It is the Lord. It is the Lord, Eli said. Let
him do what seemeth good unto him. It is the Lord. Surely,
God must be in our case. Now listen, the believer calls
God his father. Why would he do that? Well he
does that because God is indeed his father. God is his spiritual
father. the God and Father of the Lord
Jesus Christ in whom the believer has life. God is our Father and
He knows, the believer does. We read it here this morning
out of Romans 8 and 28 that all things ultimately work together. for the glory of God and for
the good of his own life. He is persuaded that a far more
exceeding, eternal weight of glory is being wrought out, worked
out for him, and then how can he sit down and refuse to be
comforted, even though he has all of these trials and these
situations. You must be comforted, my friend.
You must be comforted with the word of God. And so I say that
this is the second thing we've got to deal with, and that is
don't get into a state where you say, I will not be comforted.
I heard the other day someone mention about a certain lady
who has been, I think, in a wheelchair for a number of years. And she
was so put out with providence and with fate, or whatever she
would call it, that she of all people would end up in this kind
of a situation. that she said, well, if that's
the way it's going to be, then I'm going to be put out the rest
of my life. And I'll be a miserable creature
and miserable to everybody around me, miserable to everybody that
I've got to deal with. And she's been just that kind
of a person. Is that right? Just that kind of a person. And
so, my friend, you see what I'm talking about. We must We must,
we must not refuse to be comforted in our situation. We must be
happy in the Lord and rejoice in the Lord. Now surely the truths
that we claim to believe, sooner or later, is going to be worked
down out of our heads into our hearts. And we must believe that
it's going to happen. Some way or another, God's going
to get out of your head what you believe and get it down into
your heart, brother or sister. and you're going to die believing
in and rejoicing in an all-sufficient God, one way or the other. Beloved, listen to me, with such
a faith as ours, We must play the man. We must. We must be
courageous. We must be bold. We must stand. Listen, if in the furnace we
find the heat of affliction, and the Bible says that God's
people are chosen in the furnace of affliction, then let our faith
be strong in that furnace. If our burden be heavy, then
let our patience be more enduring, let us practically admit that
he who lends has a right to reclaim his own. Whatever he has lent,
he has the right to take it back. He's got the right to do it.
Now then, as we have blessed the giving hand, Let us also
equally bless the taking hand. At all times, let us praise and
worship our God. Though he slay us, as Job said,
let us trust him. We'll trust him. Much more, let
us bless him when he only uses the rod, the rod of correction
in love. God will in his own way. Beloved,
as we said, appear to every one of His children, and He will
deal with every one of them, teaching them what He wants them
to know, using their lives, and I've told you before, you don't
have to go out and make a cross for yourself. God will make a
cross for you. He'll make a cross for you, and
He'll give you that cross, and through the bearing of that cross
you can best serve and glorify the Lord. And He will not spare
us the grief, He will not spare us the agony, He will not spare
us the suffering, because He will give us that which I think
is best for us. We must hurry. We take note then,
the next thing that we're to do, the third thing, is this. We find it over in the last part
of verse 6. He says this, I call to remembrance my song in the
night, that's his past experience. He said I commune with my own
heart. And we ought to do that. We ought
to commune with our own heart. But then listen to this, and
my spirit made diligent search. My spirit made diligent search. I began to study this matter.
I began to think about this matter. I became wise in my own soul
as to what was making me miserable and what was making me discontent
under the hand of God. I began to deal with that. And
listen to him. This is some of the questions
that he asked. when he made diligent search
in his spirit. And it's a blessed thing to have
grace enough. I say to have grace enough to
look at such questions in the face, for their answer, I think,
is self-evident. And these, as we find the answers,
it'll fit us, I think, with cheer in our hearts toward the Lord.
But it's a blessed thing to be able to ask these questions and
to face them. And look at these questions,
and we'll close just quickly here. And here's the question
of unbelief in the heart. And he said this, I think he's
telling us here that these things that he was dealing with when
he was making diligent search. He said, will the Lord cast off
forever? Will the Lord just cast off His
people, those that He's chosen in old time, those that He gave
to the Son, those that the Son redeemed? Will the Lord ever
come to a place where He'll cast them off forever? No. The answer is no. And will the
Lord be favorable no more? Has all the favor of God been
spent? By the Lord's people, have I
spent all the favor of God toward me? Have I spent it all already?
Is God not going to be favorable ever again toward me? Is His
mercy clean gone forever? Is God never again going to show
mercy? He that delighteth in mercy,
has He gone out of business? Has He hung a shingle on the
front door saying, gone out of business? Is God not going to
be merciful anymore? Does His promise fail forevermore? Has God cancelled all of His
Word and said the Word isn't good anymore? The Bible is not
to be relied upon. No longer trust My Word. Has
God said that? No. Absolutely not. Has God forgotten
to be gracious? Has He forgotten that ancient
practice? Has God gone out of business
in this business of being gracious? Has God given up on grace? Is He no longer going to bestow
grace upon His people? Brother, the grace of God, what
a treasure it is. And we depend upon it. Every
day we depend upon God's grace. Oh, to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be. Well, has God forgotten to be
gracious? Let me ask you this. Has God
ever forgot anything? Has He? No. God Almighty never
forgets. He never forgets. The only thing
God forgets is the sin of the elect. They're under the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, but God don't forget His own. He
does not forget His people. And the Lord has not forgotten
to be gracious, and hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies? Well, you know, we sometimes
feel this way, and this is the way the psalmist felt. But he
made diligent search, and he said, this is the reason why
I'm miserable is because I believe some of these things. I believe
this. I believe these questions. I
believe this. That's what was in my heart.
I believed it. And we need to expose these things
and to deal with it. Well, somebody says, you know,
I think that God has not forgot to be gracious except to me. I think the Lord is gracious
to all you other folks here, but to me, the Lord is forgotten
to be gracious. Well, if he forgot to be gracious
to one, he most surely would to all. If it loves fails to
one, it will to all. If one sheep of Christ perishes,
all the sheep of Christ will perish. I tell you, God's not
forgotten to be gracious. Well, let me just close like
this. There's some questions that I
think we need to ask ourselves. Have we forgotten to be grateful
for the many mercies that God has bestowed upon us? Have we
forgotten some things? You know, I prayed for my son and my daughter
the other day. And in praying for them, before
I could pray for them, I had to have a season of thanksgiving.
For the many years of mercy, pure mercy, that God has bestowed
upon my family. And his goodness, and the health
that we've enjoyed through the years, and the blessings that
God has so richly poured out. How can we ignore that? We can't
ignore that. And the best place to start praying
about our affliction is to first of all remember our mercies. Remember our mercies. So have
we forgotten to be grateful? Have we forgotten to be believing?
God's word is true. Is he a liar? Has his promises
failed? Certainly not. So have we forgot
to be believing? Have we forgotten to be reverent?
Should we imagine? and say such things as we just
read here, these questions? I mean, isn't that irreverent
for a person to think that way? Really, for a child of God, this,
Carl, this is irreverence is what this is. Shall a living
man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Should we not be
ashamed? Sometimes in our conduct we owe
everything to Him. The grace which has kept us out
of the pit, the very breath in our nostrils we owe to Him. Have
we forgotten all the Lord has done? Arise from the dunghill
of despair. His mercy endueth forever. Believe
it. Believe it. Now that's what you
do and these are words for the most miserable and those that
are less miserable among us. These are words that we need
to deal with and face and take into our system and to look at
as the people of God. Now I've told you, I've not spared
you folks, I've told you all along that the day would come
when those things that are happening to people around us would happen
to us. I told you that those situations
that the phone is always ringing in somebody else's home or the
other family is afflicted, somebody's loved one is being killed all
the time on the highway, things are happening, and I've told
you that one day it was going to happen to us. And we just
simply need to understand what the Word of God teaches. And
as a child of God, listen to me, the sufferings of the present
consistent with his love, believing, and see that there may be an
opportunity for every one of us to grow in the grace and knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ, to know him better, and to be more
hopeful, and more patient, and may God bear up every one of
your souls unto the dawn of eternity. In the name of Jesus Christ,
amen. Mike, would you