Bring hard causes to me (Quality: Good)

[0:00] Again, in complete dependence upon the help of the Lord, I will direct your attention to the book of Deuteronomy chapter 1 and some words you will find in verse 17.

[0:31] The book of Deuteronomy chapter 1 and some words you will find in verse 17. And the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me and I will hear it.

[0:46] And the verse reads, you shall not respect persons in judgment, but ye shall hear on the small as one is the great, shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God's.

[1:04] And the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me and I will hear it. It has a cruel sparing upon the reading in the 18th of Exodus.

[1:21] And as the book of Deuteronomy in part at least, it is what we might say a rehearsing.

[1:31] As Israel will now come into the close of their wilderness journey, a part of the book of Deuteronomy was a rehearsal over the way of which the Lord had led them those 40 years.

[1:52] Their privations, their deliverances and their judgments. But in this particular part of it, it is respect to the raising up of judges, or as the 15th verse tells us, captains over thousands, over hundreds, over fifties and over tens and officers among your tribes.

[2:20] And they sat, as it were, and heard the complaints of the children of Israel. But I feel that's enough of history.

[2:32] What we have here is a word that honours Jesus Christ. Honours Jesus Christ. And what we have here is a word which I hope you'll understand is descriptive of the pathway of the spiritual Israel of God.

[2:54] Where did you ever find a child of God that hasn't got hard causes? Where did you find one that allegedly fears the Lord, that doesn't need the Lord to appear for him in everything?

[3:10] I don't find, and I tell you straight, I don't find a part-time God. I find I need a God every day, every moment, and in every circumstances.

[3:23] And that's the provision that the Lord has made for his dear people. I think, you know, if you read the scriptures, and especially if you are taught of God, you will find that there is one description that is evident wherever you read of the true family of God.

[3:45] And they are wholly dependent upon a gracious God. I'm reading, I'm referring here to a psalm.

[3:58] Psalm 40. I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

[4:13] And he hath put a new song in my mouth. Even praise unto our God, many shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the Lord. What does he say when he gets to the end?

[4:27] But I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. Thou art my help, and my deliverer, and make no tarrying, O my God.

[4:39] One thing is very certain. In the life pathway, experience is all who fear the Lord. That their pathway, spiritual, temporal, there will be those things which we say they shall come into, experience.

[5:01] And I feel it's right to say, for this purpose, that they shall learn to call upon me in a day of trouble. Why are these promises left on record?

[5:15] Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. Call upon me in a day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

[5:31] How many of the experiences of the people of God in Old Testament and New, has been hard causes, difficult things, impossible things.

[5:44] And through it all, and out of it all, there's been a blessed way made. And Christ is honoured and glorified, and the people of God humbled. I don't find, dear friends, that there is a surplus of word here.

[6:02] It may be some people would say, well, it isn't always too hard. The cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me and I will hear it.

[6:15] Do you find that there is some causes that isn't so hard? Do you find some causes that you can well manage? Do you have things coming in your life, your experience, your soul, that are, shall we say, not so great?

[6:33] Not so difficult? And so therefore there's no help in God, because there's help in self? One of the experiences, I suppose, of those who do not fear God, is that time and experiences will find a way out of many difficulties.

[6:56] But that's the difference between an unregenerate person and a regenerate person. Because as I find it, and I trust that you will also agree with me in this, that the pathway, since I trust God has called me by his grace, is a pathway, as I remember one minister coming to Hanover saying in his discourse, if you want to know whether you're in the right way, it's a way you can't manage.

[7:23] And I find it every day. You might remember this, dear friends, that in every respect, in every way, there is a need of the appearance and the help of the Lord in your pathway.

[7:42] The cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it. That's a wonderful provision, and it's also a wonderful promise.

[7:56] Because it takes despair out of the pathway. None of the children of God will ever die in despair. They may die in very difficult circumstances.

[8:12] They may have great privations. We look at it in the nation that we live, and we have the promise, have we not, that the things are going to be hard and more hard.

[8:26] So what and where do those who fear God turn to? They turn to this blessed and gracious God, and the provision that he has for his people.

[8:40] They are coming to a king. I looked at it just now in the vestry. They are coming to a king. Large petitions with thee bring. For his grace and power is such that none can ever ask too much.

[8:55] The cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it. And what then grace taught sinners is the cause that is too hard.

[9:08] What has he laid upon you that he hadn't laid upon you when you was in the world and of the world? Well, you didn't fear God, nor man.

[9:19] What was it that, what was the pathway like then where you could manage it so far as you was able to do so? But one of the things that I proved, and you will prove, if you fear the Lord, is that he has put you in a pathway you can't manage.

[9:37] And what is that pathway? The pathway of grace. That's the pathway. And you can't manage it. You know, there's one of the things which people do not like, the preaching of sovereign grace.

[9:54] And why don't they like it? Because they don't like it because they've got no hand in it. But the mercy of God's grace and his sovereign act of blessing his dear people is that he's the provision for them.

[10:10] And in everything and all things, they will be brought to wait upon him. There's a word, you know, in one of the Psalms.

[10:22] It's a very familiar word. And it reminds us of the sufficiency of God.

[10:33] They shall call, and I will answer. They shall call. The Lord's people are a praying people. And I don't know a true child of God who's got something to pray about every day of his life, every part of his pathway.

[10:50] Because I know this. If once you get into this state and condition of the Laodicean church, what was it that Jesus said?

[11:02] They were rich and in need of nothing. And I believe in the days in which our life is being spent, these are the days, the days of the Laodicean church.

[11:16] But the true church of Christ is not in that condition and that place. Now, what is it, therefore, that he will bring you and I into?

[11:30] And that will cause that you will be brought unto him? What is this day of trouble that we read of in the Psalm? Call upon me in the day of trouble.

[11:41] Jesus said, you know, in the closing verses of 16th of John, In me you shall have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation. But be of good cheer.

[11:54] I have overcome the world. The cause that is too hard. It may be that some people would take advantage, as it were, of a word like this and think of all the things that they want.

[12:12] I said today that the word was given me a week ago tonight or in the early hours of the Monday morning of the Apostles' words that my God should supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

[12:31] And though we cannot stand here and, as it were, bring before you all your need. We can indeed, as the Holy Spirit helps us, be able to touch upon one or two of the things of which the Lord will bring you in need of.

[12:48] And how many here, dear friends, I say it in love. I say it in love with concern for your soul and mine. The need of mercy. How many come in with the good publican.

[13:03] God be merciful to me, a sinner. You see, I was going to say there's a contrast there, isn't there? There's an opposite.

[13:14] Mercy and a sinner. And a sinner doesn't deserve mercy. But a sinner under grace deserves mercy. No, a sinner under grace will seek for mercy and will pray for mercy.

[13:31] Dear friends, the blessings and favours that flow to the dear people of God are undeserved blessings and favours. They don't deserve the mercies of God.

[13:43] But they are the provision of God for them. You contrast a gracious soul then. If you're a gracious soul, think of the things.

[13:53] Think of those. And you don't have to think of them as though you were adding them up as it were. But they'll be brought to your mind where you need mercy. And if you're a gracious soul, you'll start with your soul.

[14:08] You'll need mercy and that will be the cry. And the Lord provides mercy to cause that is too hard for you. Bring it unto me and I will hear it and there's this provision.

[14:19] The provision of mercy. What is the provision of mercy? It's Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's the provision of mercy. And the dear children of God, you know, come to want Christ in all His offices.

[14:36] If you're a praying soul, you'll need His office as a mediator for all that come to God by Him. Salvation, He demands, points to their names upon His breast and spreads His wounded hands.

[14:50] You'll need Him who stands between in garments dyed in blood. How can you and I approach a holy God, a just God, a sin-hating God without that there's a mediator?

[15:05] Often you read, you know, in the travels of the children of Israel, how that Moses stood in a breach. how he stood in a breach.

[15:18] I think of the chapter in Exodus where they made an idol of the jewels that are gold and silver given to them.

[15:31] They worshipped the idol and said, this be thy God, O Israel. And what did Moses do? God, as it were, pronounced judgment upon Israel.

[15:43] But Moses stood in a breach and pleaded, what will thou do with thy great name? Oh, there were thousands destroyed by the anger and judgment of God for their idolatry.

[15:58] But Moses stood in a breach as he did often. The cause, this is too hard for you. This glorious person as the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

[16:14] You know, it's a common saying, sadly. It's a common saying, it's used so often. What's the common saying for Jesus' sake?

[16:25] That's a common saying in religion. But if you view yourself as a sinner before a holy and a just God, that's the only ground upon which you can draw near to him.

[16:39] And the grounds of the person of Jesus Christ. Oh, what a mercy, dear friends. If you, out of Christ, almighty power can do nothing but devour.

[16:52] But our God, the apostle wrote, is a consuming fire. But he's not to a coming sinner. He's not to a needy soul. Blessed are those provisions then in the person of Jesus Christ as a mediator.

[17:09] He perfumes the prayers of the children of God with his merit. Because you and I haven't got any merit. We're undeserved. We're sinners but we're undeserved of his favour.

[17:23] The cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me and I will hear it. In those days, of course, in the 18th of Exodus, he dispensed judgment upon the matters, the difficulties.

[17:40] And what was needed was righteous judgment. And it may be that righteous judgment was not so frequent in those days as it would be in gospel days.

[17:56] Because the judgments that are sent of God in Christ Jesus are righteous judgments. they take no account of flesh. They deal with sin in its solemn sense of awfulness.

[18:13] And the children of God are chastened for their sin. The cause that is too hard. And a call by grace, you know, will bring many such causes.

[18:27] We brought into the knowledge of sin, as I said, you will need mercy. Have you viewed mercy in the person of Christ?

[18:40] You will find mercy in his sacrifice. You will find mercy in his blood. You will find mercy in his prayers. What did he say to the apostle Peter?

[18:54] I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. Have you ever prayed of an interest in the prayers of Jesus? All those blessed petitions that go up from his heart for his own dear people in the way.

[19:10] What a wonderful mercy, you know, when you experience, or you come to experience, mercy in Christ Jesus. Everything that is about the Lord Jesus Christ, his provision for his church, and what he accomplished on their behalf and for them, was mercy.

[19:29] mercy. I don't know any other name. I can't describe anything of Christ Jesus to a sinner as anything but mercy. It's free, and it's full, and it's sufficient, it's undeserved.

[19:45] In the book of Judges, there is a word that is a very sweet word to me, and some years ago I heard it preached at Hanover, and it concerned Manoah and his wife.

[20:01] Manoah and his wife, as you know, were the parents of Samson. But there came a time in that chapter where there was a sacrifice made, and God, as you know, sent an angel.

[20:20] And these are the words which are particular I want to quote. The angel did wondrously, and Manoah and his wife looked on.

[20:32] Wonderful words they are to a sinner. Wonderful words. Oh, I did hear well that night. I can listen to preachers who preach about sin and salvation.

[20:43] I can go on with ministers of the gospel who tell us the way of mercy is in Christ Jesus, and undeserved mercy.

[20:55] And I thought of that experience, dear friends, if you're a sinner under grace, you can't put your hand to God's work. You have to wait upon him.

[21:08] I was thinking when you sung that hymn just now. He sees me often overcome and pities my distress, and bids affliction drive me home to anchor on his grace.

[21:21] That's the way the good hymn writer expressed these words. Now, if you are brought into the need of mercy in your own soul, the pardon of sin, the putting away of all your iniquity, the cleansing of your soul from sin and iniquity and transgression, can you do something?

[21:47] You see, the Old Testament saints, and they were saints, some of them, they brought a sacrifice, and they presented it to the priest, and he offered it on their behalf.

[22:03] That's what the order of the Old Testament saints were, and do you not, and have you not brought a sacrifice? What sacrifice, you say?

[22:16] How can we bring a sacrifice? Well, you can do nothing else but bring a sacrifice, when you pray for Jesus' sake. You see, in the provision of the work of the Spirit of God, we read, you have been quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.

[22:36] So what does the quickening effect of the Holy Spirit do? It reveals the need of mercy. It reveals to the eye and the heart the stain and weight and enormity of personal sin.

[22:54] You see, there's only one way of peace and pardon, dear friends, and that's through repentance and confession. We spoke about the prodigal this afternoon, and about how it was that he was brought into want, and the only way back into his father's house indeed was the way of repentance and confession.

[23:15] I will arise and go to my father. Dear friends, whatever is your lot in the work of divine grace, when you come to know the wickedness of your own heart, one thing you desire is mercy.

[23:30] mercy. And you have revealed by the Spirit, do you not? It's not what you read in the Word of God, it's what has been revealed to you of the way of mercy and of peace.

[23:44] But it's all found in the person of Christ Jesus. It's not do this and live, it is what the holy law of God demands. Because a sinner can do nothing, and so therefore hopeless is his case.

[24:00] But when he's brought into a knowledge of sin before a holy and a just God, and it's our mercy if that same blessed instructor, the Holy Ghost, reveals the things of Christ as the way, the truth and the life in the way of salvation to the people of God.

[24:21] That's the cause that is too hard. That's the cause that you have no, you cannot have any effect, you'll deal with God in the removing of the burden and transgression of your heart.

[24:35] It's a cause too hard. But you see, that cause is not too hard in this respect that the church of Christ is saved eternally by the merits of that sacrifice at the Calvary.

[24:51] Did you ever come into this experience? This is a burden, this is too hard. God, the soldiers pierced his sight is true, but we have pierced him through and through.

[25:04] Does that not bring guilt to the conscience? Oh, you know, it's very simple, but it's solemnly true, isn't it? When you read such words as this, concerning the sacrifice of Jesus, that thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin.

[25:26] There's a hymn in this book, which is, you probably heard me say something like this before, because it's very sweet.

[25:38] I was trying to prepare one, oh, it's a long, long time ago, I was trying to prepare my thoughts for an ordinance hymn, and this dropped in, if I loved my Lord before, I would love him ten times more, drop into his sea outright, lose myself in Jesus quite.

[25:58] And I looked the hymn up, you know, and it's eight verses, and the fifth verse begins this, sinner, thou hast done the deed, thou hast made the Saviour bleed, justice drew his sword on thee, pierced my heart to pass by thee.

[26:16] That's mercy. And the cause that is too hard for you, ring it unto me, and I will hear it.

[26:28] It's a daily requirement of sensible sinners for forgiveness. What is it that we close the Lord's day with? What is it that you close the Lord's day with?

[26:41] I don't know what you close it with. I know what I do. Oh, that the Lord will wash the services in Jesus' blood from all sin.

[26:52] We used to have a minister, you know, who used, and he's gone to glory. He used to say, bless what's thine, forgive what's mine.

[27:04] Forgive what's mine. The cause that is too hard. Guilt and shame on the conscience. sin and iniquity, troubling and distressing.

[27:15] The cause, it is too hard. Oh, Mr. Hammond used to say, I think it was him, I'll tell the Father in that day, and thou shalt witness what I say.

[27:27] I'm clean, just God, I'm clean. Now, how can you be clean, sinner, but through the blood of Jesus being applied? And sin's day in consciousness can be washed.

[27:42] And the people of God are the witness of this provision. Washed in Jesus' blood, cleansed from all guilt. But you see, it's a cause that's too hard. Don't you have to bring it before him often?

[27:55] Don't you have to lay it before the Lord? Do you not justify your sin, do you? Justify his judgments against you. You're chastening your hand against you, surely.

[28:07] But you can't justify your sin. You're coming guilty before God. The cause that is too hard. Wonderful provision this word is to sinners, you know.

[28:19] With my burden I begin, Lord, remove this load of sin. The cause that is too hard. Jesus Christ in the sinner's place and stead.

[28:31] You know, people make all sorts of views of what it is to be a Christian. What it is to be a believer and follower of the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

[28:42] I sometimes think, and I was often, you know, the ordinances of God's health, and if you understand my word, dear friends, are pleasurable ordinances.

[28:54] They are pleasurable ordinances. You know, the ordinance of believers baptize them is a pleasurable ordinance. It's a sacred one to be involved in. It's a sacred one to walk in.

[29:06] And it's a sacred witness to the mercy of God when grace-taught sinners walk in the ordinances of God's house. Wonderful times those are to the believer.

[29:19] The believers, the provision of the Lord's Supper. Oh, it's a sacred ordinance, isn't it? It's where sinners gather. It's where sinners under divine teaching are brought to think of his broken body and to meditate upon his precious blood.

[29:37] Beautiful ordinances of God's, of the word of God, and it's poor sinners that enjoy them. But have you ever looked at the spiritual side of those ordinances?

[29:51] Nobody ever got wet, you know, I was made a Christian. That's not the provision, that's not the purpose of the provision. But those who by grace and love to Christ Jesus walk in the ways of his command, what sacred truths, view the right with understanding, Jesus grave before you lie, be interred to his command and after his example rise.

[30:18] Baptizing services are infrequent, but if they are conducted in the spiritual sense, they reveal the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[30:31] The Lord's Supper, that despised ordinances, the Lord's Supper, reveals the death, the sacrifice of Jesus, the broken body and the shed blood.

[30:45] The cause that is too hard, you see. And who's it for, these ordinances? I'm not here to speak about the ordinances for any particular reason but this, that it is the provision in the gospel for grace-taught sinners.

[31:04] That's the provision. Do this in remembrance of me, is what Jesus said. The cause, it is too hard. It's the way, it is the means the Holy Spirit reveals the person of Christ in salvation and in his suffering and his death.

[31:23] This provision which takes away the iniquity of Christ is the provision which takes away the iniquity of his people. You know, there's one thing that I believe that a child of God comes into the need of.

[31:38] This word speaks about the cause that is too hard. You and I have a gospel to listen to which describes the means and the way of salvation.

[31:55] Everything in it is recorded in Holy Scripture on our instruction. Now, there's a question to ask. What do you know about the way of salvation and the experience of it?

[32:10] Not in the understanding of it. You can fill your mind as it were with the understanding of the sacrifices of Jesus. And if that's all you know, a head knowledge of these truths, dear friends, it's not sufficient.

[32:24] One thing is needful and that's the experience of those sacrifices. Jesus Christ in the sinner's place. The comfortable hope raised up by the experience of the cleansing effect of the blood of Jesus.

[32:41] It's not to say that the word of God is insufficient in instruction, but to walk out these experiences by precious, not only revelation, but application of the mercy of those sacrifices.

[32:58] that sacrifice is indeed the blessing of that time of salvation. The cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me and I will hear it.

[33:11] I want to come to the pathway that the child of God walked. You see, these Israelites had to walk 40 years, not 40 miles, 40 years.

[33:26] They traveled, they followed the pillar of cloud or the pillar of fire. They followed it 40 years from Goshen to Canyon.

[33:40] And the Lord has given his people a pathway to walk. What it is to be a Christian, what it is, dear friends, to be a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus.

[33:54] We heard last week the word of God last Wednesday, and he led them forth by the right way that they might go to a city of habitation.

[34:05] And the right way was described as a way of need and time of dependency. Dear friends, if you are in the way to glory, it will be a time of need 40 years, more than that perhaps.

[34:20] More than that. It will be a time of need. The appearance of the Lord in bringing your soul into the way of everlasting. The appearance of the Holy Spirit in showing you the way.

[34:33] followers of the meek and lowly Jesus. Put into the way by grace and mercy. Putting you in a way you can't manage. Putting in a way where you will learn utter dependency on a good and gracious God.

[34:48] Because it is too hard. Who can win the battle and the victory over sin and Satan?

[35:01] Do you find it easy? Walking in the ways of grace? Walking in the ways of God? Do you find it easy? Have you not got opposition?

[35:13] You know the church of Christ has always had opposition. Because they are the church of Christ. That's the condition of opposition and persecution. persecution. But where is the opposition and the persecution of a believer?

[35:30] We are not talking about those outward persecutions and tribulations that past seasons of the church have walked in.

[35:41] You don't have to wait till there is a rising up against you in a physical way. If you are a believer in Jesus you will have opposition for it will come from within.

[35:54] That's where it starts. You know your greatest enemies I have told some of you years ago. The greatest enemy is your own self. Oh that's a cause that is too hard.

[36:06] And you see what believers must know is this and what some people who think they're believers don't know. Is that you can't shrug this enemy off. You can't say well he doesn't really trouble me because he's so so infrequent troubling me.

[36:25] If you've got a real religion your old nature will trouble you. And suggest to you. If you're a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus you know the greatest the greatest opposition that Christ Jesus endured was from religious people.

[36:43] I don't believe that the tribulation of the way of Christ was always from unbelievers. More from believers. Followers of Moses was more or less the greatest enemy that he endured.

[37:00] Tradition was an enemy to Christ. Now you see the child of God brings his enemy with him. He has it within his heart. It's his old nature that falls out with God because of the tribulation of the way.

[37:19] You know when the apostle Peter preached at the day of Pentecost and so effectual was the preaching and such application of the truth was found working upon the consciousness of these hearers.

[37:36] And we read that they said men and brethren what shall we do? Have you got a pathway that you find that the enemy within is the greatest enemy that you have?

[37:47] You won't find many tribulations so great as it is from within. And you say well why is it the greatest?

[38:00] Because it's not going to glory. Your old flesh isn't going to glory. And if God puts you in a way which is tribulation, which is distress, which is dependency upon him, which brings you to cry night and day for his appearance and help, your old nature will find fault with that sort of walk.

[38:22] You know that's why some religious people get on so well. Because their religion and their flesh are hand in hand. But to those who are grace-taught sinners, you know they find opposition all the way.

[38:36] And from self that greatest enemy. But then you'll find, as I remember finding, when the Lord brings you to feel the influences of his love, and draws your affections unto him, and so you draw near to him, and you are given grace to bow to his will, and you find that the way of mercy is in having the presence of the Lord Jesus with you, what's your enemy then?

[39:18] You know people talk about Satan as though he was some complaint. But if he had the power, he would confine you and me to an eternal woe.

[39:31] You know when Job was in the midst of his troubles, we read of Job's wife that said, or gave him as it were, this piece of advice, curse God and die.

[39:44] Where did she get such a temptation? But you see there was mercy and safety and preservation to Job. Though he was in the midst of trouble.

[39:55] Troubles that none have ever experienced. Deep troubles. Oh, Satan's not slow in taking advantage of the hardness of the way.

[40:08] It's not, I don't know whether you find this, but I find this, that he occupies or tries to work my mind, even in reading the word of God, you know, I have to complain before the Lord that he might pardon the sin that goes on in my mind when I'm trying to read the word of God at home.

[40:28] Oh, he intervenes, interjects, and suggests all sorts of things to take your mind away from the truth. The cause, this is too hard for you.

[40:39] Difficulty. Difficulty is the pathway of the Lord's people. But it's this provision that we mustn't lose sight of in this text.

[40:51] We can describe causes. The work of grace will bring many causes that is too hard. But let us look at the provision. Bring it unto me and I will hear it.

[41:07] He doesn't say, bring it unto me and I will think about it. Or bring it unto me and I'll decide sometime or other in the future. This is a word from the Lord for his dear, dependent and completely state of the people of God.

[41:26] They wait upon him and they wait for answers. See, when the Lord deals with his people and bringing them into places where the cause is too hard and then encourages them as it were or draws their affections to the throne of unchanging grace, there is this desire for his appearance and his deliverance.

[41:50] Now, there is also to be known in this mercy the mercy of grace. We've just lost a member at Zor in his early 60s and his widow said to me, you know, what I need is resignation.

[42:11] What I feel to need is resignation. To give to God, to give to the Saviour without grudge, the purchase of his blood, that's what's needed, resignation.

[42:23] and I thought when I said that to the Apostle's words in the Corinthians and he said unto me, my grace is sufficient.

[42:35] There are a lot of views given over to prayer and answers of prayer and there's such a lot of false expressions.

[42:47] expressions. But you see, what the people of God are brought to realise and to know is the will and purposes of God.

[42:59] He brings tribulation in your path. You like the Apostle and you like me, I would suppose that you would directly go to the throne of grace and seek the Lord's deliverance from it.

[43:13] But you see, there's instruction in that second epistle to the Corinthians. Thrice did I pray, I'm sure a thorn in the flesh, whatever it was, was something to pray against.

[43:25] But instead of removing it, he was given grace to bear it. Such was the grace of God to that dear soul you know, he gloried in his infirmity.

[43:38] I don't mean he boasted. I can't imagine anybody infirmity boasting about infirmity. But what he would have us to understand was, though his infirmity was such that he felt to pray against it would be the way, yet the goodness and mercy of God in the tribulation was his blessing.

[44:03] My mind went to the book of Daniel there and they said to the Hebrew children, the three Hebrew children, you bow to the idol or you'll be put in a furnace of fire and they were put into the furnace of fire and that's to be spiritually considered the furnace of fire.

[44:27] The fire should try every man's work of what salt it is. But that was the place of blessing, the furnace of fire. That was the place where they had the presence of Christ.

[44:40] Oh, wonderful mercy. You know, when you read such truths as that, none of us want furnaces, none of us want a religion that's tried with fire. We don't advocate, we don't look for it.

[44:52] We shall have it if we've got a real religion, it will be tried by fire. But you see, like those Hebrew children, they had Jesus in the fire and you tell us something else, they had liberty.

[45:05] Did we not put three men bound into the fire and I see four men and they're walking? That was the purpose, that's the, that's the purpose of that chapter in the book of Daniel.

[45:21] Doesn't it encourage the troubled people of God? Doesn't it encourage those who have a cause that is too hard for you? This is the way and this may be the way where the Lord will indeed find, the Lord's people will find Christ is in that pathway.

[45:39] It may bring them this hard thing that is too difficult for you. It may be the place where you'll find Christ. And liberty, wonderful when you consider it, you know.

[45:52] A tried child of God is a burdened child of God. Professors don't understand this walk and pathway. They don't know it and so they don't understand it.

[46:06] But the true family of God have a pathway to walk that they can't manage. It's too hard. But in the blessing of that pathway of the grace of God is the presence of the Lord they find.

[46:20] Why did the man say, in thy presence I am happy? In thy presence I am secure. In thy presence all affliction I can easily endure.

[46:31] Do you know what it is to have a bed of affliction? affliction? And your old man, your old nature is fighting against affliction and it's nothing more than a tribulation to bore your poor soul.

[46:45] But on the other hand, do you know what it is to have a bed of affliction in Jesus Christ? Amen. Amen. Amen.