Is that better? I don't want
to hurt your ears. If it gets too loud during the
preaching, just tell me. Raise your hand and tell me.
I don't mind you doing that. Acts chapter 11. Let's turn there
and begin reading the last few verses of Acts chapter 11. It's
not been long ago. I'm not for sure even when, but
we looked at this passage. It's been on my mind for a few
days now, so I thought, used to be I was very conscious about
preaching a message the second time. Wayne said something one
time, and I'm sure he didn't know that he reproved me when
he said this. He didn't intend to, but he did.
And he said, I can't understand these preachers not wanting to
preach the same message again. He said, if it's a good message,
preach it. You don't remember telling me that, but you did.
But it's the same way with singing it. We sing the same songs, and
they're good. So this may be somewhat different,
but I was thinking about the day in which we live, and man,
what's coming. We can see the writing on the
wall, as they say. And these are some things I want
to remind you of concerning Peter. And Peter was the one that kept
saying, I call you to remembrance. I want to remind you of some
things. We'll look at this this morning,
but let's read it first and then we'll just look at it. The story
really begins here in Acts chapter 11 and around verse 27. And in those days came prophets
from Jerusalem unto Antioch. And there stood up one of them
named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should
be a great dwarf. a famine, throughout all the
world which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then
the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to
send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea, which also
they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas
and Saul." So there you have your awful drought, your famine.
And here's another persecution that came against the church.
About that time, Herod the king stretched forth his hand to vex
certain of the church, certain people in the church. And he
killed James, the brother of John, with a sword. And because
he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take
Peter also. Then were the days of unleavened
bread. And when he had apprehended him,
he put him in prison and delivered him to four quarterings of soldiers
to keep him, intending after Easter to bring him forth to
the people. Peter, therefore, was kept in
prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God
for him. And when Herod would have brought
him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers,
bound with two chains, and the keepers before the door kept
the prison. And behold, the angel of the
Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison. And he
smote Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from
his hands. And the angel said unto him,
Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And he said unto him, cast thy
garment about thee, and follow me.' And he went out and followed
him, and wished not it was true which was done by the angel,
but thought he saw a vision. When they were past the first
and second ward, they came into the iron gate that leadeth unto
the city, which opened to them of his own accord. And they went
out and passed on through one street, and forthwith the angel
departed from him. And when Peter was come to himself,
he said, Now I know of a surety, that the Lord hath sent his angel,
and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from the
expectation of the people of the Jews. And when he had considered
the thing, he came to the house of Mary the mother of John, whose
surname was Mark. where many were gathered together
praying. And as Peter knocked at the door
of the gate, a damsel came to Archon named Rhoda. And when
she knew Peter's voice, she opened up the gate for gladness, but
ran in and told how Peter stood before the gate. And they said
unto her, Thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that
it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel,
his ghost. The Peter continued knocking,
and when they had opened the door and saw him, they were astonished,
surprised. But he beckoned unto them with
a hand to hold their peace, declared unto them how the Lord had brought
him out of the prison, And he said, Go, show these things unto
James and to the brethren. And he departed and went into
another place. Now as soon as it was day, there was no small
stir among the soldiers what was become of Peter. And when
Herod had sought for him and found him not, he examined the
keepers and commanded that they should be put to death. And he
went down from Judea to Caesarea and their abode. And Herod was
highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sodom. But they came
with one accord to him, and having made Blastus the king's chamberlain
their friend, desired peace, because their country was nourished
by the king's country. And upon a set day Herod, arrayed
in royal apparel, sat upon his throne and made an oration unto
them, made a speech. And the people gave a shout,
saying, It is the voice of a God, and not of a man. And immediately
the angel of the Lord smote him. And because he gave not God the
glory, and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost. But the
word of the Lord grew and multiplied." I wanted to look at this passage
because I think really it teaches us so much of the trial that
most commentators Teach us, we'll come upon the church in the last
days. We were in the last days when Christ came, but now is
the latter days. The latter days. They'd never faced a trial like
this. This was the most devastating trial the church had ever faced.
Two things that they'd never faced before. They'd always faced
the religious persecution of their day. The Pharisees hated
them. The Herodians hated them. But
they'd never had a drought like this. All their food supply had
been shut off and those who had food were getting it together
and sending it to the poor saints there at Jerusalem. And one of
the reasons they were doing that is because we're told in chapter
12, the persecution from the government. And this is the first
time this had happened to the church. For the first time the
civil government had turned on them. before the civil government
protected the church. One of the reasons that the Sanhedrin
could not kill these guys as they wanted to is because they
were afraid of the civil society. Rome would not allow the Sanhedrin
to put a man to death. And that saved the church up
until now. But now, the civil government
had turned against the church. This was the toughest time the
church had had in her early existence. So I was thinking about this
and what seems to be coming upon us in the latter days, and I
jotted down just a few things Just a few facts concerning the
latter days because it really does not pertain that much to
what I have got to say, but the Scriptures talk about in the
latter times men shall be lovers of their own selves. Now there
is nothing wrong with a man loving himself. I love myself. No man
ever hated himself, but that is not what that means. That
means he loves his lust. He loves himself well. He loves
himself above and beyond all that's good and right and honest. He loves himself better than
his family, his wife or his children or his neighbor. He's in love
with himself. And he lives to himself, to satisfy
himself. Now you can imagine, and we've
seen this, haven't we? We've seen this attitude, and
that's going to be the prevailing attitude in the last days. Men
shall be lovers of their own self. Disobedient. That's another characteristic
of the life state. Disobedient to the parents. You
know if you raise a bunch of people that's disobedient to
the parents, have no respect or honor to the parents, you
know those same kids are going to grow up and be disobedient
to the state, disobedient to their teachers, disobedient to
law enforcement. One of the things that's going
to characterize the last days is chaos, lawlessness. That's where we're headed now,
isn't it? We've already reached that for the most part in our
inner cities, Anarchy. And thirdly, the Scripture says
in the last days, because iniquity shall abound. Iniquity shall
overspread. Iniquity shall rule. It shall
reign. God will pull back His hand and
let iniquity win the day. And when iniquity wins the day,
what happens? Even in our large institutions,
corruption. Where iniquity abound, corruption
abound. And that's what we see in our
institutions. All of our institutions are filled and are filling up
with corruption. Our court, our civil society,
the school system, marriage. We're losing our institutions,
aren't we, that hold society together. Why? Corruption, iniquity
is about it. And he said, the love of many
shall wax cold without natural affection. without natural affection. Since you and I gathered here
this morning, I just wonder, in the hour and a half that we've
been here, I wonder how many people have been killed. I wonder how many women have
been raped. I wonder how many people have been robbed and defrauded. And it comes down to this, without
natural affection. I just don't care about those
people. I love myself without natural affection. And he said
this of the latter days in the book of Revelation, the world,
he calls this world Babylon, rebellious Babylon, shall become
a cage of every unclean spirit and every hateful bird. That's demons. The world is becoming
full of demons. The Bible says in the last days,
Satan knows. Something is revealed to him,
it's this, that he's got just a short time left. And because
of that, he does all the havoc that he can do in the short space
of time that he has. Full of demons and a cage for
every unclean and hateful bird. And another characteristic of
this last day is this, there will come a falling away. A falling away. Haven't we begun
to see that? We begin to see that, haven't
we? How many places do you know that truly preaches the gospel
of the grace of Jesus Christ that are full of people this
morning? Go listen on your TVs, your radios,
read the messages that's being preached today, and see if there's
not a great falling away from the truth of God's Word. Not only from the doctrine, but
from the manner of life that people live, that profess to
be Christian. Just about anything goes, does
it not? There's a falling away and you
don't dare say anything about it. If you do, they'll crucify
you. They'll call you a fanatic. Evil men and seducers will wax
worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. The last day
is going to be characterized, Martin Luther said, by this,
awful, dreadful diseases. He said, when sin increases,
diseases increases. We'll probably see that. We're
seeing it now, aren't we? Joe and I counted the drugstores
that we have in our little town here. I've forgotten how many
drugstores we have in our town. Why do we need all these drugstores?
Because we're all sick. We're all sick. And it's going
to increase diseases and deception. Luther said these two things
would increase in the last days. Diseases and deception. And that's what we're looking
at. And here's why I wanted to say that. I was listening to
this preacher and he was preaching along these lines he was telling
us about the last days. And I jotted down the little
statement that he made. He said the trial coming on the
church from the government itself is going to subdue not only the
citizens, but it will subdue the church by force. Citizens
and the church by force. There will be a financial breakdown. Mass starvation will ensue. And he gave these three remedies.
Now here's the three remedies this man gave. These aren't mine. What's going to happen in the
last day? All of these things are coming. And he said, here
is the three remedies. First of all, don't let them
have your gun. Now that's the first one. Don't
let them have... I don't want to give my gun away.
I've got a gun. I've got a pistol. I've got a
shotgun. I used to have some more guns. But listen, if the
sheriff comes to my door and says, give me your gun, I'm not
going to fight with him. I'm not going to fight with it.
That's the first thing. The second thing is this. He
said, stock up at least three months of food. I don't know
where you're going to stock this up at. And listen, that may be
great. We've got a whole cellar full
of green beans and I can live off of that probably for six
months and that's fine. But listen, what are we going
to do when a starving neighbor brings their children to our
door and say, can you help us? Are we going to pull out our
guns and say, listen, we're Christians, but you better leave us alone?
It just won't work, will it? It just won't work. And the last
one was this. He said, you better keep some
gold on hand, silver and gold on hand, so you can make it through
the financial crisis because the financial system is going
to collapse. Now, what did Paul say about
these things? Here's what he said. He said, Brother, our warfare, the weapons of our
warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God to the
pulling down of strongholds. And here's what the church will
find. You find this in the Old Testament. You find it here in
the New Testament. When God puts the church through
trials, He removes all of these props. that we trust in. He's not going to bring a trowel
upon you and let you keep a little prop to prop yourself up with
and depend upon. He always kicks the props from
under us, doesn't He? Well, here comes the trowel,
but we've got plenty of food. Man, the gardens did great this
year. So at least we can take some comfort in knowing that
the cellar is full of green beans and potatoes. The drought came. The drought came and they had
no food. Well, at least the government
is going to help us. At least we have some food stamps.
At least the government is going to make sure we have some food
brought in. They are going to protect us from our enemy. The
government itself turned against them. I tell you, that could be bad.
Could that not be bad? What would happen, brothers and
sisters, if our nation If we had one year of drought in our
country, where there was nothing that would grow, what would happen
just one year, especially to our inner city? What would happen? The Lord doesn't have to do anything
but just wiggle His little finger and all kinds of devastation
will come. This is what happened here. But
I want you to notice what the Apostle Peter was doing. The
worst trial that they had faced. James had already been killed
with a sword. The next morning, Peter was going
to be brought forth to the people. He knew what was coming to him.
He was going to be killed. What was he doing? He was sleeping. He was sleeping. Here's the thing about this man.
Boy, he was... I don't know the medical term.
Joanne can tell you the medical term. He was a compulsive fellow. He was a compulsive fellow. He
got scared so easy. If he thought he was in trouble,
if he thought he was going to get hurt or suffer, he would
lie. You know what he did? He even
denied the Gospel one time. That was the little maid, and
the Lord Jesus was going to be taken up by the Sanhedrin and
persecuted. And the little maid came out
and said, this guy's one of them. He said, I'm not one of them.
She said, you're one of them. He said, I don't know that man.
Why did he do that? He was scared to death, wasn't
he? He was down in Antioch and they were fellowshipping with
the Gentiles and eating with them. Some of the Jewish legalists,
self-righteous, come down. And Peter knew they were going
to tell him, it's not lawful for you to eat this with these
Gentiles. What did he do? He got up and separated himself
and went and ate with the Jews. And Paul said, you've denied
the gospel by what you did. Peter was a man who was afraid
of people. And here he lay, chained between
these two soldiers, knowing the next morning they were probably
going to cut his head off, and he was sleeping. He was resting. Could you do that? Could you
do that? And here's why this is so important,
brothers and sisters. If he did that during this devastating
trial, you and I are going to want to know the secret of this
rest. I want to know how my mind can
be so calm when the government does take over this mess, when
we are persecuted and things look dire. I want to know how
I can lay down and rest my mind just like this man did. And I
want to give you these seven things again, and I've given
to you not too awful long ago, but I want to give you these
seven things again that the Apostle Peter knew and believed that
enabled him to rest. I don't know what's coming. I
don't know what's coming. I'm no prophet. I don't know
what's coming. But it appears to me some troubled
times are coming. And get these things in your
heart. I'm not asking you to fill your heart with a bunch
of things to remember. I'm just saying here are some
things Peter believed and knew that I believe helped him to
rest. when the persecutions came. And here's the first one. These
all pertain to Peter. Here's the first one. Here's
what he knew. Here's what he believed. First of all is this. He knew the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the first thing. You remember
when the Lord asked him one day, Peter, who do people say that
I am? And he said, some are saying
you're Elijah, some are saying you're Elias, or one of the prophets.
He said, Peter, who do you say that I am? He said, well, you're
the Christ, the Son of the living God. I know you. And he said,
flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father which
is in heaven. And upon this rock I'll build
my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
He knew the Lord. Twice he professed Christ. Another time when the Lord Jesus
said, Peter, will you go away? Everybody else is. And He said,
Lord, to whom shall I go? You have the words of eternal
life, and I believe and I'm sure that thou art the Christ, the
Son of the living God. Now that's not just knowing doctrine,
brothers and sisters. A man may know doctrine, and
Peter had a lot of doctrine. And thank God for doctrine and
thank God for those who are willing to study doctrine. But a man
may know a lot of doctrine in his head and not know the Lord
Jesus Christ. This is what the covenant of
grace said. They shall all know Me. All My people are going to know
Me from the least to the greatest. And how do we know Him? He is
in heaven, isn't He? And we are upon this earth. But
He's revealed to us by His Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God makes
Him real to us. And here lay Peter between these
two soldiers. And what does he remember? I
know the Lord. I know whom I have believed.
I know Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I know Him. And what
does He do? He calms his mind. And he lays
down and he goes to sleep and he rests. Do you know him? Do you know him? You say, Bruce,
I know so much about him. That's not what I'm saying. Do
you know him? Oh, Bruce, I can articulate all
the doctrines that I believe. That's wonderful. That's good.
But do you know him? Has the Holy Spirit made Him
real to your heart? You say, Bruce, how can I know?
This is one of the ways you know. The knowledge of Him is precious. Before, all you knew was about
Him and what people told you about Him. But when the Spirit
of God reveals Him to our understanding, He becomes precious. Isn't that
excellent knowledge? Paul called it, didn't he? And
I tell you, the more you get to know Him, the more He's manifested
in your heart, the more excellent it is. When my wife first met me, I
think she was just overwhelmed that she knew me. You know, I
know this guy. But you know something, once
she got to know me better, she wasn't so overwhelmed. But it's
not that way with Christ, is it? Oh, when the Spirit reveals
Him to us, it's wonderful! He's wonderful! But He just becomes
more precious the more you know about Him. I know the Lord. Clarence has a little plaque
on the outside of his door, on the right-hand side of his door.
And if you walk up the knock on the door, there's that plaque.
Do you know my Lord? Do you know my Lord? That's the
first thing. The second thing is this. Boy,
this is something to believe and understand in your heart.
Peter not only knew the Lord, but secondly, he knew what Christ
Jesus had done for him concerning his sins. Listen to what Peter
said in 1 Peter 2.24 and 3.18. Here's what he said. Who his
own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree. Now you think of this. And I
hope your mind is often here because during trials, sometimes,
boy, you start feeling unworthy. Sometimes guilt is involved. And when guilt is involved, Satan
comes and he plays upon that and he'll almost drive you to
despair. One of the reasons that you and I get down and we're
afraid of dying, we're afraid of eternity, is because of our
sins, is it not? I don't want to face God. in
my sins." I don't want to face God with one sin laid to my account. And this is what enabled Peter
to lay down and rest. He said, He bore our sins in
His own body upon the tree. And what's he saying? He said,
God took my sins and put them upon His Son. One man said this,
And I love this commentator, but he said this, he says, it's
impossible to transfer sins. That's what he said. It's impossible
to transfer. It's impossible for you to do
it. It's impossible for me to do
it. But with God, all things are possible. And listen, if
He leaves our sins upon us, we're going to die. He's going to judge
us for those sins. He has to. He's just and He's
holy. But if He takes them from us
and puts them upon His Son, then we're not responsible for them
anymore, are we? He's responsible now. And there
He hangs upon the cross. And this is the second statement
Peter makes. Christ hath once suffered for
our sins the just for the unjust. We have to be so clear about
this. Satan comes to us and he says, you are the sorriest sinner
in the world. And you can't disagree with him,
can you? You can't argue with him. He's got evidence on his
side. He'll start proving it to you.
And what you say is this, I am I am. Look at the sins I've committed. And the half has never been told.
But tell him what Luther used to tell his congregation. Jesus
Christ stood as charity for me. He took my sins and He suffered
for my sins. And in suffering He satisfied
the justice of God for my sins. We've got to know this, brothers
and sisters. We've got to believe this and
live in the faith of this. Because if our sins are charged
to us, I don't care what else we have. I don't care what else
we hold for. We're goners. But if we can see
our sins put on the Savior, and by His merit, put those sins
away before God put them away, then that brings us rest in our
conscience, doesn't it? Somebody's going to say, Bruce,
I still feel my sins. I feel the working of them in
my heart. I still have this knowledge of
them. I do too. I do too. But here's what I convince
myself from the Word of God. Feelings don't count in this
matter. What I feel doesn't count. It's what God says that counts.
And Peter says, He took our sins and bore them in His own body,
and by suffering for those sins, He atoned for them, He put them
away. So fillings come and fillings
go. But those fillings are deceiving.
Our worth is the Word of God. All else is worth believing.
Do you believe He took your sins and atoned for them by the sacrifice
of Himself? Then when God looks upon you,
He sees that precious blood. He don't see the sin. He doesn't
see the sin. He said Himself, I'm God. And
when I look at my people, I can't see their sin. Search, He said. Search. Search diligently. He said, I've searched. And I
can't find their sin. And the reason He can't, they're
gone. They're gone. I think if I can live in the
faith of that, I think I can rest, don't you? I think I can
rest. And I don't have to go to the
pantry to see how much food's left. I don't have to make sure
I've got enough shells in my magazine or whatever. Christ bore my sin and they are
no more. Peter knew this. I'm thinking
the things that he knew himself. He knew this, and this is so
important in this dark world. He knew that he had an advocate
with a father to plead and maintain his cause. Remember how he said
this? He said, Lord, I'll die with
you. I'll die for you. And the Lord said, Peter, before
the cock crows, you're going to deny me thrice. Three times
you're going to deny me. And he said, Satan has desired
to have you, that he may sift you like wheat. You remember
the old grinders, the old sifters? Some of you are not as old as
some of us. But my mother used to have one
of those, I guess they called them the sifter. They put the
flour in and meal, and it had so much of this rough stuff in
it. They'd sift that flour through that, but darn it, that's what
Satan wanted to do to Peter. He wanted to put him in his sifter
and sift him. And the Lord Jesus said, But
I have prayed for you. That's your faith, Belmont. What
was it saved Peter? He had an advocate with the Father,
didn't he? And Peter lay here upon this concrete or dirt or
wood floor. And I don't know what his thoughts
were while he was laying there. He may have thought how unworthy
I am, how bad things are with me right now. And I don't know
how much I'm going to suffer tomorrow. And if I can even hold
up, things was bad upon earth. But
listen to this, brothers and sisters, things were well in
heaven. Things were well in heaven. And if things are well with me
in heaven, what does it matter how it is with me upon this earth?
And things are well with heaven because we have an Advocate with
the Father. Christ is not entered into the
holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself, now to
appear in the presence of God for us. He's never lost a case,
has He? Everybody He's pleaded for, He's
brought them off from the dangers and condemnation that they're
in. So Peter laid down and rested. Things are well in heaven. It's
well in heaven. Here is how David said it. Thou, O Lord, art a shield for
me. You are my glory and the lifter
up of my head. Therefore I lay me down and slept. I awake, for thou hast sustained
me. I will not be afraid, though
ten thousands of people or trials or troubles shall arise against
me." Why? The Lord is on my side. We have
an advocate with the Father. And if you've got an advocate
that's good and has never lost a case, you don't care to go
stand before the judge, do you? All you are doing is setting
there. And He is pleading your cause and maintaining your cause
before the Lord. Fourthly, consider this. I want you to read this. This is
so important I think. Look over in 1 Peter chapter
3. I want you to read this one for
yourself. 1 Peter chapter 3. And look in verse 21. This is
so important. We forget this so easy. You and
I are so disturbed and upset about this election coming up,
aren't we? We talk about we've never seen a political mess like
we're in right now. Those who are for the one person,
scared to death of the other person. Those who are for the
other person, scared to death of the other person. And both
sides are saying, this is it. If their man gets in, this is
it. If their woman gets in, this is it. It's a mess. And we're
scared absolutely to death. We're distressed out over this,
aren't we? Who is Donald Trump anyway? Who
is Hillary Clinton anyway? I would contend this morning
that they're nothing but pawns in the hands of our sovereign
Lord Jesus Christ. That's all they are. The King's
heart is in the hands of the Lord. And as the rivers of water,
He turns it wherever He will. Whoever is our next president
will be installed by the Lord Himself. And they have a chain
on them, and they can do no more than He allows and permits them
to do. They're His pawns. Doesn't that
help you to remember that? Look what Peter says. Here he
is sleeping, and here's why he's sleeping and resting, because
he believes what he writes. Talking about water baptism,
the like figure does now save us in verse 21, the last portion,
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He's not dead. He's arisen,
and look where he is. Who is gone into heaven. Jesus
Christ is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God,
angels, and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him. They are His subjects. His obedient
subjects. Unwilling subjects, but they
obey His purpose. The Lord Jesus talked to us about
when we see all these things come to pass. When you see all
of this come to pass, He said, don't be troubled. Don't let
your heart be troubled because these things must come to pass.
He has a purpose behind it, doesn't he? And Harriet sent the word down.
Tell that old fisherman he's going to stand before me tomorrow.
And I can see the guy going back up and saying, Harriet, I was
going to tell him, but I didn't want to wake him up. You better
go back and wake him up. Okay, I'll go back and wake him
up. And tomorrow you're going to stand before the king, Peter.
They are going to bring you out to the King Harry tomorrow, and
you know what a rascal he is. Peter, wake up! What is it? You
are going to stand before Harry tomorrow. Who is Harry? He is the King. I beg your pardon. Jesus is the King. He is the
King I will answer to. And He is the King over Harry.
And because of that, brothers and sisters, we do not have to
fear. We respect The authorities, we obey the authorities, we don't
have to fear the authorities. We don't have to. I tell you,
the Lord rules His enemies so easy, doesn't He? What happened to Harriet all
of a sudden? Everything just turned upside down, didn't it?
Harriet was the boss. He said who lived and who stayed
alive. But who was the ruler over Harriet? The Lord just touched
him and down he went and said, Worms, you can have him. I'm
finished with him. You can have him. Can you see
these soldiers laying there, one on each side of Peter and
all of them guarding? About 16 of them guarding this prison
over one little fisherman. There was that concern. And all
of them were saying to themselves, Don't you feel sorry for that
poor old fisherman? I wish you'd just let him go. I wouldn't be
in his shoes for nothing. But who was safe? Peter or those
fellows. Every one of them died the next
day and Peter went free. Why? Because on the right hand
of God sits Him who rules the universe. Jesus Christ the Lord. When you get in a trial, brothers
and sisters, when you don't know where to turn and what to do,
remember who's ruling. We have a sovereign Lord and
He is our dear and loving friend, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Fifthly, Peter had this precious
promise just before the Lord Jesus went back in Matthew chapter
28. He gave Peter and those with
him this promise. He said, I am with you always. even to the end of the world.
I am with you. Okay, Lord, I'm not afraid then.
If He's with you, there's no need to fear. The Lord is with
me. But Bruce, you're talking about
a dungeon. I'm down in a dungeon. He's with you? Sometimes you
read the Fox's Book of Martyrs and most of the martyrs were
put to death out in public. And they had all kinds of support
there. Their friends and relatives would
come and say, God bless you, brother. Hang in there a few
more minutes. The Lord's good. You'll be with
Christ in just a few minutes. And they encouraged them while
they suffered and died. But I tell you, they put some
of them to death down in the dungeons. They cut their heads
off in the dungeons and nobody was there to encourage them. Christ was there. I am with you. Always. even to the end of the
world. That will help you during your
lonely nights, won't it? He's with you. He's with you. Sixthly,
think of this. Experience. This wasn't the first
time Peter had been in jail. Acts chapter 5, remember he was
there before? He was in jail just like he was
now. They had him shut up in jail
and an angel came and let him and John out of jail and they
went and preached the gospel. So here sat Peter, and he says,
You know something? I know my Lord. I know what He's
able to do. If He's pleased, He can free
me this time just like He did last time. And so he rested and
waited to see what the Lord was pleased to do. Here is why I'm
so thankful the Lord saved me at an early age, and here's why
one of the reasons I encourage young people to come to the Lord,
seek the Lord, is because All of these experiences you have
with Him. Looking back on 20 years or 30
years, I have learned by experience, the Lord is faithful. He has
never failed me. And taking my experience of how
faithful He is, I know now, I can rest in Him now. Because He's
never failed me before, and He'll not fail me now. His promises
didn't fall to the ground 20 years ago when I was in trouble,
and they won't fall to the ground again. He's faithful. And that gave Peter courage to
just lay down and rest. And old Newton said, through many dangers, toils and
snares, I have already come. "'Twas grace that brought me
safe this far.'" So he concluded, since grace has brought me this
far, grace will lead me home. That's a good conclusion, isn't
it? He's faithful, brothers and sisters. Experience tells us
that. Seventh and lastly is this. Look
at this too. 2 Peter. 2 Peter chapter 1. 2 Peter chapter 1, and look in
verse 13. Yea, I think it fit, I think
it right, as long as I am in my body, this tabernacle, to
stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing this, that
shortly I must put off this, my tabernacle. He's going to
die. How do you know that? Even as
the Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. You're something else in
you. It's very solemn. And you and
I need grace to face the same thing He faced. We've only got
a short time, brothers and sisters. At best, we've got a short time.
I know we can't think upon this. We can't begin to grasp it. But
today may be my last day in this world. Today may be your last
day in this world. Shortly, you're going to put
off this tabernacle. And when devastation comes to
yourself and to your family, just remember what Wayne was
talking about this morning. These trials are short. They're light in the light of
eternity. And if you could just remember,
another week at best, I may not be here anyway. Why worry? Why fret about what's coming
next year or ten years down the road? My life is so short, it's
just a vapor. I'm not going to be concerned
about it. I'm leaving it with the Lord and resting. And in the light of that, Peter
said two more wonderful things, didn't he? I love this, and boy,
you ought to get a hold of this. Here he was between these two
soldiers and not knowing how he was going to react. Peter
knew before, don't get built up too much, Peter, because you
know how you fell before. So he probably will end up saying,
I really don't know how I'm going to do tomorrow. I don't know
what I'm going to do. When they get out that sword,
I don't know how I'm going to react. But he said this, how confident
this is. He said, you are kept. You are
kept, and the word means preserved. You are kept by the power of
God unto salvation. That's why Peter rested. I don't
know what's coming tomorrow. I don't know how that's going
to hurt. I don't know how I'm going to be tempted to deny the
Lord again. But God will keep me by His power. And he said this, there's laid
up in heaven for me a kingdom reserved for me. And I'll be
partakers of that glory that shall be revealed. That's what
He said. So put all of that together.
Tomorrow may be my last day in this world. But I'm kept by the
power of God. And there's laid up for me in
heaven. Boy, that settles it then, doesn't
it? God help us then to get these things in our heart. Hang on
to your guns as long as you can. Fill the pantry full of food.
Lay aside some gold if you've got any. I can't afford it. But
don't depend on that stuff. It will fail you. It will fail
you. Let's pray.