I see a person frightened by the rain, got out anyway. I heard about a fellow who professed over the phone to his girlfriend that he was very fond of her, that he would go through fire and water for her, and if it wasn't raining, he'd be over this evening to see her. I'm wondering sometimes that we are in a little bit too in our love toward the Lord. when it's so difficult to get out if things are just a little bit unpleasant. I'm glad to see you folks made it anyway. I think you all know that our studies this week have to do with the miracles of John's Gospel, which we're told in chapter twenty, were given for the purpose of convincing us that Jesus is the Christ. the Son of God and that believing we might have light through his name. Tonight we're to take up from the sixth chapter of John two of these miracles. They are connected. I would rather spend an evening on each of them, but since I don't have the time, I want to get over them in the time that I'm with you. So we'll consider these two connected miracles tonight. Tomorrow night we will take up, Lord willing, the glory of God in Revelation, how God reveals Himself. This is one of the characteristics, we might say, of God, one of the attributes of God, that He makes Himself known. We'll see this in the ninth chapter, and I'd like to suggest that you read the ninth chapter through sometime between now and tomorrow night. Then on Friday night, the last of my time with you, we'll take up from the eleventh chapter, the glory of God in restoration. Tonight the glory of God in provision and the glory of God in deliverance. Let's read the first fourteen verses of John chapter six. After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias, and the great multitude followed him because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the Passover a feast of the Jews was nigh. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company coming unto him, he saith unto Philip, When shall we buy bread that these may eat? And this he said to prove him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here which has five barley loaves and two small fishes, but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them were sat down, and likewise of the fishes, as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, and nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world. Referring, of course, to what Moses had said back in the Pentateuch, unto you shall God raise up a prophet like unto me, to him shall you hearken. And this was understood by the Jews to be the Messiah. So these people were convinced by this sign that this was indeed the Messiah. This was indeed the Son of God. This was the one for whom they waited. They were convinced of this, mentally at least. They recognized in what he did, a demonstration of deity. Now God is known in Scripture as the great provider. You see this in creation. When God made this world, he provided everything that was needed. The seed of all plants, all growth, was in the earth. The atmosphere contained the right mixture of gases to sustain the kind of life that God put here on this earth. And in spite of our attempts to poison the stuff, we still are able to breathe after all these centuries. It's marvelous how God has kept a balance. He is a great provider. God has provided everything that we need to keep our bodies in constant repair. He made our bodies out of the elements of this earth. And it is from the elements of this earth that we get our food. The elements are all found, of course, in the chemicals of the earth. in the ninety-three elements. We don't need all of them for our bodies, but among those we find the elements that we need for our bodies. Excuse me, at ninety-three you need to revise it. That's the way it was years ago. Now they've discovered that there are several more than that. In any case, all of the elements from which your body is made and which your body needs to repair itself are found in the chemicals of this earth, in the soil. And then these in turn are taken in by the plants, and by this process of photosynthesis, the plants take up the elements, and you eat these plants and you get what you need to repair your body. Or if you prefer a steak, you can let the animals eat the plants, and then you can eat the animals. But in any case, you're getting the same thing that you would have gotten if you had eaten the dirt to start with, only more palatably. Now God has provided everything that the human race needs. He has provided us with an environment which is ideal. If our earth were to drift a million miles closer to the sun or a million miles farther away, we would find it absolutely impossible for life to exist. And here we are, and some fraction million miles away from the sun, we've stayed right in there for all of these ages. God is provided for us. Everything that we need is provided for us. And of course we're shielded from things that we don't need because as a good provider he protects as well. And God is protecting us from many things which would be most harmful. The Van Allen belt that we feared so much. It's still a very dangerous thing. We've just learned how to get through it, going, sending men into space. We've learned how to avoid the worst radiation. We have learned that of all the waves of energy that come out from the Sun, perhaps only one billion of that energy ever reaches the Earth. and much of this is screened up by the atmosphere, and it's a good thing it is. This is why our astronauts have to wear protective clothing when they go out beyond that atmospheric protection, protective belt. God has seen to it that we not only are given all we need, but he sees to it that we are protected from all which might harm us. It's wonderful when you think of God's care, God's concern. God even knows when a sparrow falls not to the ground, on the ground. There is a difference. If a sparrow fell off of a telephone wire to the ground, even I'd notice that. But if a sparrow was just walking along on the ground and fell over, I'd never know it. God says he knows when the sparrow falls on the ground. I think his choice of prepositions there was a bag. I think it's wonderful to know that God cares even about sparrows. I think it's wonderful that God has numbered the very hairs of our heads. I think it's wonderful that God sees to us that we have what we need, though we seldom know ahead of time ourselves. Just today, Brother Patterson said as we were driving along, the Lord answered that prayer before we had a chance to pray it. And this is the way God does. Before they call, I will answer. You can look back over your life and see that God has met your needs time and time again before you ever knew such a need existed. I remember one time at the children's home, one of our girls, our Christian girl in her teens, she was a senior in high school, came to my wife and said, Mother, I don't like to ask for anything else. You've done so much for me. But the teacher told us that all of the girls who are serving as ushers for some kind of a school function, are supposed to come to school tomorrow in gray suits. Well, Mother said, Betty, we don't have the money to go down and get it, but let's tell the Lord about it. And they kneel down together and ask the Lord to see that Betty had a gray suit. And the mail came that day, and there was just one thing in the mail. It was a gray suit, and it was brand new, and it fit Betty without any alteration. And it had been in the mail for four days. It came from South Carolina. For four days that had been in the mail, and Betty just learned that day that she needed it the next day. I told the fellow this, and he said, well, that's just a coincidence. Well, I said, I can't prove that you're wrong. I can't prove that you're wrong. If you want to believe that that's a coincidence, I can't prove that you're wrong. But I said, all I can tell you is we sure have a lot of coincidences at our house. Our father does care. Our father does provide. And you and I know that we have a providing God. In fact, that's one of his names. In the book of Genesis, Abraham was asked to offer up his son Isaac for a sacrifice. You remember the story, the twenty-second of Genesis. And when he took that son up on the mount, the same mountain which later on became the scene of David's sacrifice and then of the very spot in which they built the temple, Solomon's temple, when he went up on that hill and God spared Abraham the pain of seeing his son die, God was willing to give his son, but he spared Abraham that pain. And Abraham turned around and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. And he took that ram and sacrificed it in place of his son. And he called the name of the place, you remember, don't you? Jehovah Jireh. Now, the word Jireh in the Hebrew language has two meanings. as most Hebrew words do. There are only eight thousand words in the entire Old Testament in the original Hebrew. And that's a pretty small vocabulary. They say that the average high school graduate knows about twenty-five thousand words. That's besides language. And so if this is the case, this would be a pretty small vocabulary. Consequently, many of these words have to be used for several different things. This is true of the word Zairah. It means he sees And it also means he provides. And the Hebrew would say, I see your need. And you would understand that he meant, I'm going to take care of it. And this is very apt in the case of God. When God sees the need, this is a guarantee that he'll take care of the need. And that's what his name means. Jehovah Jireh. Jehovah is his name as the covenant-keeping God. The God who is the Savior. the God who cares about his people. This God sees, and because he sees, he provides. Jehovah Jireh, a lovely name for the Lord. I hope you get hold of this, brother and sister. We are living in days when people do not trust God. We are living in days when it's considered to be kind of impractical to trust God. A man took me to lunch. few years ago and he said, John, I have thought of a way that you can really put the children's home on the map. I thought it was already on the map, but I was willing to listen to his story. I said, all right, what is it? Well, they said, I tell you what to do. He said, when you get home, you get the women, the church women of that town together and organized guilds, he said, in every church in town, women's guild. Man, he said, what they couldn't do for you? And I played ignorant and I said, well, we really don't need that because the women from our assembly meet once a month and do the men the... Oh, I said, I'm not talking about darning socks. I'm talking about raising money for you. I said, now look, you've known me a long time. And you know that we've never done anything to raise money. We've told God our needs. We believe that he is Jehovah Jireh. I use that very name in talking to him. We believe that God will meet our needs. He said, don't give me that old stuff. If you don't raise the money yourself, somebody's got to raise it for you. That's the modern trend. And you watch it. Your own heart will be drawn in that direction. And you will begin to think, it is most impractical to expect God to do things. We've got to turn the crank ourselves. Let's arrange it. Let's organize another committee. We're organized clear up to our ears now. But this is what many of these men want to do because they say it's impractical to count on Jehovah Jireh. Is it? Anything else is impractical. We have a God who not only sees every need and sees them before we even know they exist, but we have a God who will meet them. I love the twenty-third song, and I'm sure you do too. And the twenty-third psalm tells us, he prepareeth a table before me in the presence of mine enemy. It tells us my cup runeth over. It tells me his rod and his staff, they comfort me. It tells me that the shepherd really cares about the sheep. Sometimes when I'm talking to boys and girls, I say to them, what does sheep need more than anything else? and all the boys think they need food. Immediately that comes to a boy's mind. Why? They need something to eat more than anything else. And then the girls will argue a little about that. They think maybe they need a place to rest or they need the water or they need something else worse. And finally, somebody in the crowd catches on and says what they need more than anything else is a shepherd. And when they have the shepherd, they have the food, They have the water, they have the protection, they have the rest, and all the rest. And you know it, and you'll have a shepherd. The Lord Jesus is our shepherd, and we shall not want. A little girl was learning that for Sunday school, and she couldn't get it straight, but I don't think her version is too bad either. She said, the Lord is my shepherd, that's all I want. I hope you'll say that, brother and sister. We have a great provider. God cares about it. Now the psychologist objects strenuously to what I've been saying tonight. They say that's the trouble with Christianity. It takes a man's independence away from him. It attaches him to somebody else. He isn't grown up. When he was a child, he had mamas and daddies. Now he's grown up, so he needs a heavenly father instead of standing on his own two feet and taking care of himself. If you're conceited enough to think you can do it, go ahead and try it. I'm not worried about what the psychologists think. I'm thankful that I have a heavenly father. I'm thankful that I'm not on my own. I'm thankful that I have someone to whom I can take these problems. I learned a long time ago I'm not smart enough to make these decisions myself, and I'm not mighty enough to carry them out when I do. Resources, yes, we've got all the resources we can want. That's the subject of the first fourteen verses of the sixth chapter of John. The Lord Jesus is a great provider. Look at the scene, look at the setting here. We must remember that this is probably the most important miracle a Lord Jesus performed. And my reason for saying that is that this is the only miracle which is recorded in all four Gospels. All four of the Gospels record this lone miracle. So I say it must be the most important of all of them. This is a miracle that tells us about a totally hopeless situation. They not only have not brought food with them except one boy, count on him. You'd expect a boy to remember to bring his lunch. Nobody else had brought any food. They have crossed the lake, the Sea of Galilee, and they're over on the Jordan side, Jordanian side, which is mostly desert wilderness. There are no towns close by. It's just a great open space where the people can assemble. Some of them walked around the edge of the lake, but it was a long wash. Others came across in boats. There are long, long ways from any place where you could get food. Even in a raw state that could be prepared, there is absolutely nothing for the people. And the Lord said, what are we going to do? Well, Lord, we'll have to organize a committee. Or we'll have to write to New York, to Chicago or some way. What are we going to do? We don't have any food. But it says the Lord himself knew what he would do. Oh, brother and sister, the next time you're in a jam and you're going to be there, that's the way life is. You just say, my Lord, you know what you're going to do. I don't. But I'm going to trust you. I'm not going to worry about it. You know what you're doing. If it's five thousand men beside women and children that need to be fed, you know what you're going to do. One of these men said, well, if we had two hundred penny worth, now a Roman penny or a denarius was a day's wages. This is not two dollars, two hundred pennies. This was two hundred days' wages, and figuring at ten dollars a day, that would be two thousand dollars. Now he said if we had two thousand dollars worth of bread, where are they going to get two thousand dollars worth of bread? They couldn't carry it with them if they'd tried. And there's no place to buy it, and where are they going to get two thousand dollars? That's like the man said if we had some eggs, we'd have some ham and eggs, if we had some ham. So this is a pretty iffy kind of thing. They don't have a thing in the world. There isn't anything to begin with. He's only talking. My friend Andrew is a practical kind of fellow, and he said, well, Lord, there is a boy here who will eat lunch. Almost apologetically, you can almost hear him say it. Well, I hate to mention it, Lord, but at least there is something here. Maybe he just kind of hoped that the Lord might do just what he did. And the Lord said, That's our answer. Make them sit down. I'm sure this boy must have offered his lunch. I can't imagine the Lord Jesus taking the boy's lunch away from him or taking anything away from anybody. He's not going to take anything you've got unless you're willing to put it into his hands. Now that boy could have eaten his own lunch that day and had enough to fill his own little belly, and we've never heard of it. But instead of that, he put it in the Lord's hands and the Lord did a marvelous miracle and it's going to help the Lord's people ever since. And besides, the boy did all right. He was one of the crowds. You can be sure about that. And if he hadn't been, there were twelve baskets full of fragments left over after the rest of them had eaten. This was a marvelous deal. I love to read it. The Lord... in this miracle surmounted the insurmountable difficulty and supplied in such a simple way exactly what they needed. And the results are so satisfied. Man's way, two hundred penny worth of bread, and everyone can take a little. Go easy on this. Go easy on this. Take a little. And the Lord said, You make the people sit down and I'll feed them. And when he fed them, it said, What did it say? And when they were filled. Andrew said, No, not Andrew. Philip said that everybody might get a little. And the Lord said, I want to fill them. That's the difference. The Lord's way is to fill, to satisfy, completely. And then don't waste any of the fragments. That would be a good thing for all of us to remember. We're a very wasteful nation. This is practical. We're a very wasteful people. We throw more away than the average family eats in many parts of the world today. We ought to be exercised about it. Don't waste anything. Now the lessons to be learned from this are many. I want to hurry through them because we still have another story to consider. You can see the gospel illustration here. No bread. That means dead. Oh, not right away. But eventually. That means dead. That's the state we're all in. You may not die right away. You may not go to hell right away. But without the bread of life, that's where we'll all end up eventually. That's the state of these people. And then... The second lesson that I see in this for the unsaved is that bread comes to us by way of death. How do we get bread? We plant wheat. What happens to a grain of wheat when it falls into the ground? It dies. That's what the twelfth chapter of John says. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. These people are about to die. for lack of bread. But in order to give them bread, there must be death. But not their death. The death of the grain of wheat. And then there must be the heat of the oven. And the Lord Jesus went through the suffering of Calvary. Provide us with what we needed to save our lives. That's the gospel story, isn't it? The death of the Lord Jesus and his resurrection in our place. And then the application of the story is that each individual had to eat for himself. They held nobody's noses and stuffed it down their throats. And don't you be a partner to that kind of evangelism. You lay the bread out before them. Spread the bread out before them. Don't give them funny stories. Give them the bread of life. Don't give them psychological ranting. Give them the bread of life. Young man, when you're asked to share a gospel meeting, don't be ashamed to get up and talk on John five and twenty four or Romans chapter three. Give them the bread of life and then let them do the ease. If they're hungry, they'll eat. Somebody asked me a while back, what do you do for children who won't eat? And I said, wait till the next meal. But don't let them have anything between meals. It's just that simple. They're not ready to eat. You can't make them eat. No use in making the fuss about it. But don't give them anything between meals. And I tell you, the next meal or one soon after that, you won't have to urge them. Nature will take care of that. Let spiritual hunger bring people to the cross. And then notice that the Lord provided them enough to sustain them until they got home. This is what he does for us. The gospel does not simply save us from hell. The gospel gives us a place in his family and provision from now on. But I want you to think about Christ as the bread of life. Now later on in this chapter, these people could not understand what he was teaching by feeding them. They said, well, he'd make a good king. We'd get free meals every day. Maybe we just make him king. He said, you missed the whole thing. You're not interested in what I really have come to give you. I'm here to give you the bread of heaven. Well, he said, that's what we want. He said, I'm the bread of heaven. And he says that three times in this chapter. And finally he says, in verse fifty, this is the bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood. You have no life in you. No wonder they got offended. That's a pretty hard saying. What do you mean by this? He said, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Well, he said, you must eat my flesh and drink my blood. Now, he also said, I am the door. That means he's got hinges on one side and a knob on the other. What did he mean when he said, I'm the door? Why, anybody should have known what he's saying is, I'm the way of entrance and there is no other. What did he mean when he said, I'm the bread and you must eat my flesh and drink my blood? Well, flesh and blood separated is dead. That's the only time the man's flesh and blood are separated. Mine have been together ever since they can remember. They're quite attached to each other. When you find the person's flesh and blood separated, that person is dead. And that's what happened to the Lord Jesus. And when a person eats, he appropriates or takes to himself what he needs from this supply. That's exactly what we do when we accept Christ the Savior. We accept the death of the Lord Jesus and appropriate it to ourselves. Now, if a person hasn't done this, he isn't saved. I don't care how many verses he believes. I believe John three sixteen ever since I remember hearing him. Believing John three sixteen never saved anybody. Believing John five and twenty four never saved anybody. I believe the whole Bible. As the old fellow said, down in the Ozarks, I believed the Kiver too. It says, Holy Bible of. I believed it from Kiver to Kiver and I believed the Kiver. But I wasn't saved. I wasn't saved until I appropriated to myself the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the verbs in the part that I have read to you, section that I have read, the verbs are in what is known as the hourist, which means a once and for all act done once, and the results continue. And this is what salvation is. You receive Christ once and for all, and the results continue. But beginning with verse fifty-three, fifty-four, you have a change in the verb. And now it's the present participle. And the present participle means something which happens and happens and happens and keeps on happening. It's like the word sin I just taught in the young man before the meeting. the word sin in first John chapter three. He that sinneth is of the devil. That's the present participle. It means he who sins and keeps on sinning. He who habit habitually practices sin is of the devil. That's what he's saying here. He's saying he who eats and keeps on eating. Let's read that. Verse fifty four, whoso eats my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, now this means eats and continues to eat my flesh, and drinks and continues to drink my blood, dwells and continues to dwell in me, and I am him. See, the Lord not only gives his life through the bread of heaven, but he sustains that life. You and I were born of the Word of God. Isn't this right? First Peter, chapter one, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. So the Word of God gave us birth. Now, the second chapter of First Peter says, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby. How did you get your life through the Word of God? How has this life kept going? Through the Word of God. The mother is the nurse. That's the thought exactly. It's what he's saying here. You receive life through the Lord Jesus. Now that life is going to be sustained by your continuing to appropriate to yourself. That doesn't mean continuing to get saved. That doesn't mean that you accept Christ over and over and over again. It doesn't mean that you come to the Lord for continual cleansing in the blood. That's not taught in the Scripture. What he is saying, though, is That if you continue to appropriate the death of Christ, that is to appreciate, to understand what he has done, and to save yourself over and over again, he did this for me. This will keep you close to him. Could you get up in the morning and spend a little time thinking about what the Lord Jesus went through to save you and then walk out and do something dishonor? Well, hardly. But when you get up in the morning and forget all about him, and think of your own selfish desires. That's when you dishonor. But there's something more. In verse fifty-seven, there's a change now. He's not talking about the blood and flesh, but he says, As the living Father, if you mark your Bible, you ought to put a line under that word living. As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, not my flesh and blood now, but me, the living one, he shall live by me. When the Lord Jesus was here on this earth, how did he live? He lived by drawing on his Father. He lived by remembering that his Father was there in heaven for him. He lived by remembering I belong to the living Father. I'm representing the living Father. The Lord Jesus was sustained by thoughts of his Father in heaven. I said, I want you to do the same thing. When I go back to heaven, I want you to be sustained and held up by thoughts of your living Lord in heaven. You should think about the Lord Jesus as our advocate. First John chapter two, verses one and two. Christ is our advocate is the one who restores us when we see him. You should think about Christ as our high priest, the book of Hebrews. Christ as our high priest is the one who keeps us from sinning, and that's better than being delivered after we see him. In other words, if you really look to the Lord every day and told him your weakness and depended upon him, he would keep you from sinning. And then we should look to him as the coming one. Remember that he is the morning star. And say this might be the day. This morning I talked to a sister on the phone. There are problems in the home, sickness, stress of one kind and another. And she said, well, today might be the day. And you could almost see the smile come into her voice. Or almost hear it come into her voice. But she said, today might be the day. This will sustain me. This is living by the living Christ. So you see, the Lord wants us to enjoy what he himself has given. Now, one more thing about this. The Lord says that this to you is like the manna which came down for the children of Israel. I want you to read a couple of verses with me about this in verse twenty-seven. Labor not for the meat which perisheth. but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you. Now I'm going to read that again and put the verb in. The verb labor is understood in two phrases. Labor not for the meat which perishes, but labor for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you. Now this is a gift and you're told to labor for it. Now how can you work for a gift? I don't say it can't be done because the Lord Jesus said to do it. He said to labor for this which is given unto you. How do you do it? What exactly is they did to man? Verse thirty-one, Our fathers did eat manna in the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Was the manna a gift? Sure it was a gift. Did they labor for it? Do you think they sat there with funnels in their mouths? They had to go out and gather it up a little piece at a time. It was like coriander seed, small and round and white and sweet, and lying on the dew, and they had to get there before their sun got hot. They had to pick this up a piece at a time, and they had to have as much as a quark a piece to sustain them. And that took a while. Labor? Certainly they had to labor for it. Do you want to be a well-fed Christian? Well, don't sit around like a big baby bird with your mouth open. If you want to be a well-fed Christian, you learn where God's kitchen and pantry is. If you want to be a well-fed Christian, you learn how to feed yourself out of the Scriptures. how to find Christ because Christ himself, not just the Bible, but Christ himself is the food for our soul. And if you ought to be a well-fed Christian, you learn how to find Christ on every page. And when you do, you will find him as the great provider. But now look at the next story here. When Jesus was therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force to make him a king, that's verse he departed again into a mountain himself alone and when even was now come his disciples went down into the sea and entered into a ship went over the sea toward Capernaum and it was now dark and Jesus was not come to this and the sea arose by reason of a great winded blue so when they had rode about five and twenty or thirty furlongs they see Jesus walking on the sea and drawing nines of the ship and they were afraid but he said unto them it is I Be not afraid. Then they willingly received him into the ship, and immediately the ship was at land where they went. That a wonderful story. The glory of God and deliverance. As soon as the Lord had fed these people, he separated the believers from the unbelievers. That's one of the first things the Lord does when he saves people. Don't be afraid of the teaching of separation. The Bible teaches us. from Genesis to Revelation. Christians are to be separated people, not isolated people, not insulated people, but separated people. We're to be here on this earth, remembering that heavens are whole, not getting our roots down here. He separated them. He sent the believers away in the ship, and he sent the crowd home, and then he began to pray for them, because they knew they were going to need it. And the next thing he did was to test it. That seemed a little strange to you. When you got saved, didn't you think troubles were all over? Really now, didn't you? Most of us did. When you accepted Christ as your Savior, you didn't you think, now everything's going to be lovely from now on? And you even thought you'd be different, didn't you? And then you found out that you had the old nature in you still. And you found out you still had problems. And you said, well, I just don't understand. When I told the Lord that I trust Him and I want to trust Him from now on, why would He give me such a hard time? Well, brother and sister, how else are you going to learn God? These people would have known that the Lord could provide, that they wouldn't have known that the Lord could deliver if He hadn't put them in a situation where they needed deliverance. I believe that you and I needs to learn God's ways by testing. And then the Lord came to them and comforted them. Storm is still going on. He comforted them by His presence. And then He delivered them. They were at land. What do we learn from this story? Well, we're to learn, first of all, a little about God's own character. God is the deliverer. The reason you and I need deliverance all the time is because of sin. There wasn't any trouble in the world until sin came in. Adam and Eve lived an Elysian existence in the Garden of Eden. It was lovely. But sin came in. And we've been having problems ever since. And your problems are not all because of Adam. I think you know that, don't you? Some of your problems are just because of your own feelings. And this is why we need deliverance. We need God's help. We need daily deliverance. We don't all need the same kind. I haven't need anybody to take care of me in the storm at sea now for quite some time. I have been in the storm at sea. I have prayed God's blessing. I'm afraid that my head flat on the bed, too, keep them being seasick. But I haven't needed that kind of deliverance for quite a while. But I need some other kind. I don't know what your weakness is, but you've got one. And maybe the Lord has to deliver you from the problems that your own weakness and your own sin bring you into it, constantly. We need to learn that. We need to learn that he is capable of doing this. Another thing we need to learn is that God's method of deliverance is not always what we would expect. First of all, all deliverance is predicated upon sacrifice. I mean by that, the only way, the only reason, the underlying principle or basis for God's deliverance is sacrifice. Don't ever go to God and say, Lord, you know who I am. I'm sure you'll be glad to help me out because I'm John Walden. Nothing of that kind. Don't get a conceited notion that there's something about you that's so appealing, so irresistible that God feels that he has to have you. Don't ever get that idea. The only reason that God can bless you and me is because Christ died for the ungodly. And that's basis enough for any deliverance. And you can count on it for that same reason. God who spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not, with him also, freely give us all things? So you can expect deliverance for that reason. Now, deliverance, of course, is in stages. The word salvation, incidentally, is a very large word. We use it very limitedly. We speak of salvation as though this is what happens when we're born again. But salvation is something which is happening every day. I was saved from the penalty of sin when I received Christ back in nineteen eleven. I am being saved from the power of sin by the Lord's deliverance day by day, and I shall be saved from the presence of sin when Christ comes back again. Now, there's past, present, and future. You get those all three in second Corinthians one, ten. So you and I can expect daily deliverance. But let's say just a little bit about initial deliverance, the first time that you were delivered. You can use this for an illustration if you want to preach the gospel from this. Here are some people who are in desperate trouble, and they know it. Some people, some people drown at sea, and they never know what hit them. They're asleep. when the storm hits. Or they're drunk when the storm hits. And they never know they were engaged till it's too late. I'm sure the world is filled with people who don't know how close they are to going down. Aren't you glad you found that out? Aren't you glad that the Lord awakened you to see that you were in danger of spiritual ground These people cried out to the Lord after they had done everything they could do. Must have been a hard job to roll against that wind and how many people there are trying their best to work out their own deliverance. And then the Lord comes along. And instead of welcoming the Lord, they were scared silly. This is often the case. An unsaved person is brought face to face with God and he's like Jacob who says, When he woke up in the morning, he said, God is in this place, and I didn't know it. This was a terrible place. What's so terrible about that? That was really the beginning of Jacob's blessing. And when the Lord appeared to these people, they were horrified. They thought he was a ghost. Never seen anybody walk on water. And the Lord said to them, It is I. Be not afraid. Do you know how they got their deliverance? They heard his voice. Will you get your deliverance? We read last night, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and deleteth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, shall not come into condemnation, but is passed out of death and to life. We heard his voice. We heard his word. Now, you're not going to hear an audible voice. Don't listen for voices. But you will hear his word. As you read the word, and this would be the means of your deliverance. Another thing that I noticed in this was there had to be a personal acceptance. They had to receive him into the boat. In another passage it says there were with him also other little boats. Now if this boat hardly survived, with the Lord Jesus in it, what do you think happened to those other little boats? Well, I have a sneaking suspicion. They went straight to the bottom. I don't know how they ever would have made it. I hope you receive the Lord Jesus into your boat, into your life. I don't quite like this into my heart business. It seems that this has been overdone, especially in dealing with children. Would you like to let Jesus come into your heart? What does that mean? I'm not sure that it means anything. You can give it some kind of a meaning, but it isn't a scriptural phrase. But receiving him into your boat, now I can understand that. That's taking him into your life. That's letting him come in and take over. This is what you do when you accept Christ. It's not that you accept from the Lord a kind of fire insurance policy and tuck that into your pocket with a self-satisfied smile and say, well, that's fine, Lord. Now I'll meet you up in heaven. Not any of that at all. When you receive Christ, He takes over if I shall confess Jesus as Lord. That's what Romans ten and nine really said. Look in the revised version or in the margins. Confess Jesus as Lord. Let Him take over. You did that if you're saved and you know the wonderful result. But I want to think of it more as a continual deliverance because There are lots of storms. Somebody said the Lord actually calmed thirteen storms this night, one on the sea and one in the hearts of each of his twelve apostles. And life is full of storms. You've had a lot of them. You've had different ones from mine. But I've had some that you haven't had. And we're going to have some more. But we don't need to fear them. Because we can count on the delivering power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because he is God, we can count on deliverance. That's the only reason. Because he is God. I would hate to put my trust in a priest or a rabbi or a minister. Wouldn't you now realize? Isn't it awful to think that some people are dependent upon a man when we can depend upon the Lord Jesus Christ? The great deliverer. I hope you count on it. Now you're going to face different kinds of storms. And the reason you're going to face them is because faith needs to be tested. You say you believe God? How else are you going to find out whether you're really trusting God or not? Except through trial. You're not going to know that you're trusting God if you're never... faith any storms. How do you tell if a ship is seaworthy unless you get it into a storm and try it out? I don't think I'd want to take a maiden voyage on any ship, no matter how well it's built. I'd like for it to be tested out in the storms at sea before I take a ride on it. But this is the way it happens in our lives. Our faith has to be tested. It has to be tried. you will have to face up to the problems of life. There are two things that I think every Christian needs to learn. First of all, he needs to learn what he himself is. And you really don't know your own heart. Do you remember what Jeremiah, seventeen nine says? The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Well, you say, I know it. Oh, no, you don't. The next verse says, I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the rings. Who knows your heart? Only God. When you find out what's your life? I remember a young lady came to me many years ago, and she said, I am so disappointed in myself. And I said to her, do you think God is disappointed? Well, she said, he must be. Well, I said, if God is disappointed, then he didn't know what you were like, did he? Well, that couldn't be because he knows. Well, I said, if he knew what you were like, then how could he be disappointed in you? But she said, you've got me all mixed up. I said, you've just got yourself mixed up. You really think that God is disappointed in you. You're disappointed in yourself because you didn't know what you were. But God knew when he saved you. He knew you'd failed. He knew you were no good. But he loved you anyway. And he took you up. And he undertook to land you in heaven. And not only to get you there, but to make you like Christ in the process. And the Lord is going to get that job done. You need to learn yourself. Now the second thing you need to learn is to learn what God is like. How else are you going to learn? I think it's wonderful. And husband and wife. can spend years together and still be free. I think it's wonderful when two people can grow together by going together through the storms of life. My wife and I have endured some desperate things in our lifetime. I remember when we were first married, I had never been more than two jumps ahead of the world in my life, and so I wasn't afraid of it, but I didn't want my wife to have any difficulties of this kind. So I warned the Lord ahead of time. I told him, now, Lord, she's not used to this, and please see to it that she never has to suffer a need. Please see to it that we have enough money so that she will always have what she needs. He paid no attention to it. He let her get down to where there wasn't anything in the house to eat. There wasn't any gas in the car. And I went out and cried my eyes out. I had married this girl. I had undertaken to care for, and I was totally helpless. I was having meetings up in the mountains in Colorado. There was no money, and there was nothing, nothing we could turn to. And then God delivered. And I was still a little bit mad at him about it. Until about a month after that, we were visiting my mother in Denver. And I came in the back door, and I heard mother and my wife talking. They were the best of friends. They were like mother and daughter and daughter and daughter. My wife had lost her mother, and so my mother was mother to both of us. And I heard them talking, and I stopped in the kitchen and listened. She was telling, my wife was telling my mother about this experience. And then she said, you know, mother, John had had experiences like this. He's told me about them. He had had a chance to test God and to learn God's faithfulness. But she said, I've never had any experiences like this. And I needed to get acquainted with God. And she said, I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for that experience. So then I went back out in the backyard and wept again. What a fool I was. God knew what he was doing. God was teaching her lessons that are invaluable. And I didn't want her to go through it. We pray that our children will never have the hard time that we have. How else are you going to develop character? Unless you go through difficulties. The state of Kansas has for their motto inscribed on their flag and on their state seal, Ad Astra, Ad Astra, Paraphora, to the stars through trouble. How else are you going to get there? The Lord wants us to learn, day by day. He wants us to learn that our fears are wrong. Perfect love cast without fear, First John IV says. That's not my perfect love. That is perfect love. That takes the fear away. Though I pass through the valley, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Why? Because there aren't any there? Why, full of them? But because I've learned that thou art with me. Is it possible to be in the valley that's full of fears and not have any? Of course it is. Some of you have done it. I went to see a dear lady in Denver some years back. She had almost every trouble that anybody could have. And on top of all the rest of it, while she was in the hospital, hearing the doctor's diagnosis that she would soon die from cancer, her little girl who was being cared for by the grandma drowned in a stock tank. And they called me to preach the funeral. And all the way to the hospital, I cried to the Lord for something to say. What am I going to tell this poor mother? How can I face this poor mother? And I dragged my feet up to her door. And I stepped in the room and saw her in bed as a face of an angel. Before I could say a word, she said, John, come here. I want to show you what the Lord gave me. And for fifteen minutes, she comforted me. He's the God of deliverance. But, brother, don't you tell him that you want to be delivered from these troubles? It might be his way to deliver you through these troubles. And it's much better to go through the trouble, whether you, than to avoid the trouble and not get acquainted with it. Benefits, you know what the benefits are. How wonderful it is. to learn God, to learn him as a great provider and as a great deliverer. Let's pray. Our Father, we are so glad that we know thee through thy Son, that thou hast sent the Son to be the Savior of the world, and that he is the bread of heaven, that he has given us life, and that he sustains our life. that He has delivered us from the wrath to come and that He is daily delivering us from this present evil world and from sin and from self and from an empty life and from all that would be harmful and that He is bringing us through these trials and teaching us thy ways. Now, Lord, we ask that the blessed thy dear people here, our needs are all different as our faces are different. We look to thee that we may be drawn closer to thee, that we may accept from thy hand the difficulties, problems of life, that we may patiently wait on thee to provide and deliver. Bless us as we go to our homes, protect us, and take our thanks in the name of the Savior. Amen.