Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.heritagesermons.org/sermons/66154/the-good-work-performed-to-completion-quality-very-good/. Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions. Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt. [0:00] as the Lord helps me I would like to direct your attention to some thoughts found in the book of Philippians chapter 1 and verse 6 that's the epistle of Paul to the Philippians chapter 1 and verse 6 being confident of this very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ being confident of this very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ in this particular statement friends we see a blessed testimony of the apostle Paul regarding not only the Philippians but of course regarding all of those to whom he had begun to see a good work of grace now looking at it to begin with on the part of the apostle now the apostle friend was well grounded into the truth and if we are well grounded upon the word of God and upon its truth and have right instruction then we may believe that faith has a good ground to work on therefore Paul knew this of a surety and he was confident in this that as he looked upon the Philippians and had begun to see something of the work of grace some as it were in the beginnings some as it were well progressed and others as it were firmly believing in what they had to experience but yet as he looked upon to them all he knew there was this one thing that he was confident about and that what the Lord begins he finishes it oh there are many things naturally friends we might have tried to begin [1:58] I have but I found that I was not capable to finish it and had to lay it aside or there are some other reasons friends of which I was not able to fulfill it but isn't it a mercy when it comes to the work of God in the soul friends we have an almighty God one who is not limited in power not limited in grace but as we would say there is no limit to his power there is no limit to his grace and when we think of the power to which is set forth in the creation of this world when we look at the power to which is set forth in this world to maintain its order friends I've never heard of one star clashing with another I've never heard of any as it were planet exploding and bringing out many more planets like some people want to say but everything is there under the absolute control of God and when we look upon the powers of nature when we look upon to the powers that he overrules even hearts man men's heart how there we may even say some great men have been raised up into this world [3:04] I mean great wretched wretched men who brought much devastation and feared upon the face of the earth but yet friends they were nothing more than little puppets in the hands of an almighty God now when he looks upon to this theory he says I'm confident of this but not only upon to the might and the power of God was he had great confidence but Paul also had a little glimpse of that eternal covenant which took place in the councils of eternity and he realized that nothing could stand in between that covenant because it was built upon to the sure mercies of God himself it was that covenant which was ordered by God it was that covenant which the Lord Jesus and the Father were in united with it was an iridesolvable covenant so he looked upon not only that covenant but he looked upon to the faithfulness of God to the one thing that God has said he will perform he is faithful to the end he will not go back upon his word nothing shall alter the words of his mouth so friend it is a mercy when we can all begin to begin with to take a good confidence in God to realize that he's not fickle like you and I that his love is unchangeable it is eternal in its nature ah friend [4:27] I believe one of the first things we might well know and it is something we have to be taught it is to be able to take a good confidence in God knowing that he never alters he never changes oh he would have put his face as flint to go to Jerusalem he wouldn't be turned back all the gates of hell and the thought of the hiding of his father's face would not turn him back from Calvary and so fine friend it is a mercy when we can look upon to the blessed attributes of God and that we can rejoice in them knowing that they are sealed in his very covenant of grace another thing of which we can make well confidence in God especially when it comes to this good work of which we hope to trace out to this evening hour and it is of all a free grace not any merit not any respect or to persons but it's free free sovereign sovereign grace grace that's what we may have a confidence in ah sometimes can you take a confidence in the fact that God works irresistibly can you take a confidence in the fact that it is of grace and grace alone you will take a confidence in it friends when the Lord brings you to see something of the fickle minded of self the other inability to save yourself and then you'll take a confidence in God in his attributes and what he is now what a mercy friends when we can as it were in the very beginnings of works of our soul we know what it is to have a confidence in God [6:03] I didn't say to the salvation and the full assurance of faith but to know there is an unuttered plan in God I cannot help but friends I look back to my own experience and if you'll bear with me once again I believe there was a day in my life when I began to take confidence in God I knew that if he did it it was for sure I knew that if he would speak it would be for sure and I knew that I would hear if he did speak now the first thing that I I mean not the one thing that I desired in this beginning was this if I only knew it was a work of grace something had taken place but I couldn't seem to fit it together it didn't seem to match always as what I thought according to God's word or to other ones experience here and there yes but it was such a shattered such a thrown about as chips here and there I wouldn't say chips some little jewels here and there which from time to time sparkled before my eye and I began to wonder whether they were real but I had this confidence in God oh friend [7:10] I'm not talking again about a full assurance do you have confidence in God that if what he says will take place and that if he will but begin a work of grace I know that it shall prosper it shall perform or in the margin it says in our Bibles it shall be finished ah what a mercy when we can come to this place and say I must cast myself in the hands of an almighty God I must cast myself upon his mercy upon his grace because I can go to no other place ah it is this confidence which is brought about when we are beginning to sink in the confidence of self when we are beginning to think that everything round about us is sinking sand as well as our maybe possibly our own experience and we dare not take a confidence in anything else ah then again and then we are brought to have this confidence in the Lord that's a good place isn't it and I don't [8:10] I can't I can't help but believe friends I didn't go very high with it did I but isn't it a mercy that if that confidence is there there's going to be a little sweet rest of faith I didn't say an inactive faith but an active rest of faith now how can that be an active faith and yet a rest of faith but it is because there is that faith which believes that God is and he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him and therefore I know that he is I can see something of the glory of his attributes I know that he is a faithful God and all that he says will do and if I diligently seek him I know that he shall hear me and I know that it shall be well oh that faith which begins to lay a hold of the promise that faith which lays hold of the of the unchangeable nature of God and the being of God it's a precious rest and yet active it is that faith which was found in Jonah our friend it was firm and yet trembling in spite of all of his besettingments it was still there he says [9:21] I'll look again and perhaps the Lord will show himself perhaps the Lord will hear and answer me upon any goodness of I myself no but upon the ground of his grace upon the frown of that free grace now the apostle says being confident of this very thing that he ah friend that's God himself isn't it that's a little glimpse of the glorious trinity isn't it oh this is that he of whom Peter says Lord to whom else can I go thou alone has the words of eternal life it is that he of which our faith begins to settle upon and longs to see and longs to desire because the verity nature of his seeking soul is this Lord I want thee to work I can't take the confidence even in the most surest Christian here upon the face of the earth they may as it were say a little glimpse and they can say [10:22] I can see there's work within you but Lord I want the word from thee I can't take it from anyone else it is why no love friend who is brought to see there's no confidence in free will because often we have tried it no confidence in our good deeds but confidence in he that is that mighty God now when it comes to this he friends I suppose in one respect we can look upon to the whole of the Trinity because we can see what a mercy maybe not at the beginning but what a mercy we can trace out something when the Lord brings us as a word into a comfortable hope for ourselves we can trace it all back to the glorious Trinity to me believe that the Father chose me the Son redeemed me and the glorious Holy Spirit quickened my soul and taught me these glorious truths ah friend then we can have a confidence even in the beginning as a word in the glorious Trinity of person three in one and one in three he ah he singles himself out above all others doesn't he and he brings us to settle there and only there our faith our hope and our confidence for salvation being confident of this very thing that he which hath begun a good work ah let's look at what this good work is to use a simple illustration friends and this came to me in my meditation if you had wanted to build a good home and so you went out and you purchased some wormwood timbers all rotten and decayed and you got to the plumbing it was all rusted and all shattered all twisted up and you got a furnace which was completely rusted out and you got mortar and it was only sand and you got some sandstone which could never stand up at all against any test but if you got to the best of the carpenter the most highly trained man to build a house and you would say to this man build me a good house he would say I cannot build you a good house on such flimsy merchandise [12:38] I'm sorry with all my skill with all my technique with all my knowledge of being the greatest builder that ever existed upon the face of the earth I cannot do it take the other way if you had to the best of the material the finest of brick the most solid timbers that could ever be purchased and you would ask of me will you build me a good house I would say I could build your house but it would be far from good understand friend now what can this good work be but to the Lord is going to perform I'm going to ask you a question now in the work of regeneration and into the work of conversion remember God must have all the glory is that going to be a good work then what he's going to do by reforming the old man by making him as it were far better than what he was well friends that can't be because all of our best is stained with sin and death and all of our righteousness the best of it is only as a filthy rags in his sight ah here is a mercy friends when he wants a good work that is in the work of regeneration and being born again he brings from above he sends as it were the Holy [14:02] Spirit and he quickens that soul into divine life he puts an implantation of a spirit a nature a life a budding which was never there before it's not reforming the old and thank God now who are those who can truthfully thank God it isn't the reforming of the old because they have found out that their reforming of themselves had never worked and the work of God there would never compromise with our good works it would never compromise with our efforts it would never compromise with our own will ah God is so jealous over his work he puts a divine principle within there a new life and then friends there is that life and then there is a good work in other words it is the work of God regeneration being born again quickened by God to the Holy Spirit a new and divine principle placed within the soul and friends when it comes to these things the flesh will always stay flesh and that which is the Spirit thank God will always stay Spirit because it is Christ in you the hope of glory ah what a mercy friend if in the very beginnings of the work of grace oh I'm not going to put it that way what a mercy that in the very beginnings of the exercises of your soul you can say [15:34] Lord I want Christ in me the hope of glory I want no other sound I want no other hope I want no other person I want that so we find that this good work is that which the Lord performs that which the Lord does now there is true that if there is that good work it is that powerful work it is that irresistible work it is the work of grace within the soul it is the implantation of that divine life which is all which is faith which is there ready to reach out and to grasp and to go on against every obstacle friends that's the good work isn't it because this is what you want the Lord to do now let us see if we can help ourselves a little here if we can trace out something of what this good work is to see if we can find some of its evidences you remember when man fell friends it was a tremendous fall the very day that he ate of the fruit you remember when God came with his curse upon them they died and I told you so many times it was a threefold death and to show friends I'm going to use three things of what's going to show you how totally depraved and totally lost man became and how that needs these quickening powers of grace in order to I suppose put to these things alive in our soul first of all without a doubt we can look upon that man lost his understanding there was a time when [17:17] Adam heard the voice of God and he leaped out to see him to converse with him not maybe he didn't see him with a physical eye but at least well I won't use the word see at least to hear him and I would believe there was a sweet fellowship between God and Adam there was no need of a mediator they had access with him all they had already seen much of the Trinity I don't know we won't get into that but there was fellowship upon the ground of creation upon the ground of a created righteousness on the ground of a wondering working God yes he understood that of which he knew was given to him after all he was made in the image of God further then we see then he lost that how in what way do we prove that Adam lost the understanding when the Lord called unto Adam foolish Adam he sought to hide from God his understanding was so dark and he thought he could hide from an almighty [18:24] God an all-seeing eye his understanding was so corrupted and faded that he began to make a righteousness of his own and a covering of fig leaves his understanding was so corrupted and so fallen that he even started to make an excuse of God thinking it might hold as it were some confidence in self his understanding was so corrupted friends that he even had no desire no prayer no want even to return to his God you talk about an understanding corrupted friend there's Adam's and yes we were born in Adam in his fallen state because we were born outside of the garden after the fall let us further look upon another type another thought here that comes to me about this fall and about what is so corrupt where was Adam's will he was not willing to be saved he was not willing to make any confession he was not willing to follow his God but he was certainly satisfied to follow the will of the dictates of his flesh the course of this world his will was corrupted it was fallen and there was no will to be saved at all found in the man further let us look upon his affections his affections now were to the things of this world instead of having a love unto God his glorious creator whom he knew once friends we didn't know [19:59] God before the Lord quickened our soul we weren't once in that blessed state of Adam but I wanted to show you to that terrible fall of man in other words we find his affections without a doubt growing to his wife growing to the things which are round about him he looked upon the tree which he had eaten and he had no guilt at all that he had taken the fruit his conscience had been seared and he loved the things of this world the links of time and sense and there wasn't a speck of love unto God there to by nature now friends here's a mercy such not here's a mercy before I come to that expression such are all of us by nature our understanding darkened we know not neither do we want to know our will is corrupted like the wild ass of the field following the course of this world willing as it were by nature to go into the very pit of hell and our affections is through the things of this world ah why do we have the empty seats here tonight is it not because they love this world [21:14] I hope that some of them I'm not speaking about any maybe there's something good I don't know but I'm speaking about where is it oh where are there affections through the day and not because you hear it I'm not going to say your affections are right I hope you came with the right affection not to satisfy the minister but to hear of Jesus but nevertheless there they are now here what has to be a mighty work a good work all a good work that which is by God himself because there's only one good therefore friends man's will and man's corruptions and all that he has is never good there is none good but God so now it is that good work it is the working of God the Holy Spirit it is the Holy Spirit beginning to take up a residence in a vessel of clay and to work in that soul and I would say isn't it a good work oh it's good when you are brought to see it when you're able to trace something of God's work in your soul you say oh it was good when the [22:24] Lord began to open mine eyes to see something of my sins and of my shame and what I am it was a good work when the Lord began to open to my eyes that he's a God in heaven that he's just and he's holy and I have sinned against his face oh it was a good work when he directed my heart and spirit to look to the word of God to the truths of the gospel it was a good work when he brought me to Asainia and I heard the thunderings of his mighty law it was a good work when I began to pray and sigh before the throne of grace oh it was a good work and sometimes friends it may be very frail in this beginning and I've often said what a good thing it is when we can take the language like the hymn writer who says uneasy when I feel the load of my sin putting a word in there but now uneasy at times when I don't feel it ah it is a mercy friends when the Lord makes you miserable if you know something of grace you wouldn't have exchanged those days of your misery now for all that how golden this world could have held a good work a good work when the Lord let me see the vanity and the emptiness of time things a good work when he showed me the things which were drawing my soul onto him and away from him into this world it was a good work when he allowed me to weigh my heart and my soul in the balance of [23:49] God's sanctuary and I found that I was wanting I come short ah it is a good work when the Lord begins to open our understanding when we see ourselves but isn't it a good work when the Lord begins to open our understanding and we begin to see something in the word of God which gives us an inkling of a hope a little touch here and there but oh he did call unto Adam even with Adam's all of his sins he called him oh it was a good work when the Lord came to Abraham there in the land of the earth and says Abraham get out oh it was a good work when the Lord passed by Jericho and found there that miserable Zacchaeus and he found blind Bartimaeus oh it is a good work when I can trace out to the love of Jesus coming to this world to seek and to save the righteous nobody came for sinners it's a good work friends when we have a little glimpse of the glory of the gospel isn't it yes a good work when he opens our understanding and he works effectually within our soul and things begin to look different and the things of this world begin to fade away with all of its glitter and when you can say in a measure like those [25:11] Greeks of old sirs I would see Jesus of good work because it's of a good man of a good God of a good trinity because it is a work of which we see in our beginning confident that if it once begins it shall never fail I realize friend in those beginning days you could only wish that it might be the work of God at times you're able to believe there's some evidence some marks traced out in your soul sometimes when the Lord as it were gives you a little hope in his mercy a little hope at gospel's door and you have a little measure of a confidence and then you hear the Lord allows you to see some of the boilings of his iniquity and the boilings of sin and some of the sins and some of the things of which were so strong upon you once had lost its appetite and lost its desire you begin to see as a little attractive and you take them as a little compromise and as I well I don't know if I should say it but I come across the statement of [26:19] Philpott and I thought could he have been such a wretched thing like me even with grace how he says on there sometimes we can think past upon something we didn't do and sometimes in our wretched wretched thoughts we could have wished we might have done it I wonder what would have happened a little venture here and there instead of thanking God that we were kept from it our friend is that such as man I'm sure he didn't stay there in that state long I wouldn't think that man did it all but yet to know we have those thoughts ah I know we want the understanding cleared up we want our evidences traced out more in our soul we want them to confirm to by the authority of God's the word we want to know that we are in the right way yes the understanding now I always told you friends that I'm a poor one to follow as it seemed to any order but now coming to that next about that wretched will that fallen will I often quote that hymn determined to save he watched on my path as Satan's blind slave I sported with death my will to follow the broad way to destruction my will to follow the ways of sin my will to have my will but confident one thing there is that new divine life not of man but of God that free grace the quickening mighty power to the Holy [28:06] Spirit which begins to show you the wretchedness of your will and you ask the Lord that you might conform your will to his will and that if it might be his will that he might save you and that he might save you from self and from your polluted will you ask him that he might turn your feet around and turn them to science hill you ask him that you might look in your eyes hitherward that you might ask the way where you might find the Savior you ask him that he might then draw you by his irresistible grace because your will is determined to say to condemn your soul but I want a will above all other wills a will that makes me willing to be saved by grace and grace alone and that's a good will isn't it yes that will of which now is turned about by that mighty power of grace that infusing of the divine life that principle of life which has come now by divine regeneration that of which is the the which we call conversion which is the effect of regeneration that will all the affections once towards this world and the love of this world blinded our eyes the love of man the love of fame the love of money the love of the future of upon the face of this earth but now the affections are beginning to turn and you see the corruptions and the emptiness and the vanity of time things and you realize these things are only for time and so that I could gain the whole of this world and lose my soul I would profit nothing it is my soul in eternity but all what a mercy when the Lord gives you a love to his word he gives you an affection towards the truths which are found there and you find that you would be found in the word of [30:09] God even though you can't understand it you find your experience like Job though he couldn't get a word of the Lord though the word was silent he says I am I desired his word above all my necessary food I could only know that I might have a glimpse that I could find him knowing that if you would find him you'd bring your arguments you would bring your needs you'd crawl at his feet and say save me Lord all these affections and then when the love grows so cold and the world becomes the joy of your heart once again and then the love of the Lord comes again and comes with a prick of conscience or comes in a trial into temptation into your pathway and you begin to realize I have lost my first love I have surely departed and oh the solemn word of which the Lord says upon those who depart from his first love they will remove the candlestick and fearful lest you shall go the rest of your life in a cold dead state of which you are binding yourself in and the very nature of your affections to Christ ah you may say they're so poor but what are some of the evidences some of the marks of affection to the Lord it is when you again come to him and says Lord I have sinned I am certain that true repentance is the groundwork of love [31:33] I didn't say the embracing love it isn't coming to know the affections of him our love who we love and can say I love him because he first loved me but it is those affections of which now I began to change and you tell the Lord say draw me from this world let me not have its joys let me not be taken up with all of its tinsel but draw me by thy love and by thy mercy and that I could love thee more and even in the midst of some of your backslidings and some of your departings you can come with those words Lord thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee ah you dare not say it to a soul but faith enables you to say it to Jesus to the Lord because there is that love there is the affection and you will join with another hymn writer and say oh that my soul could love and praise him more his beauties trace his majesty adore yes those affections once now brought about by divine regeneration being born again are confident and so even in your slips and your falls that confidence something about it friends it don't fail does it it isn't maybe strong as one time or another but [33:07] I will put that confidence as something by faith of course but I'll put this confidence again like an illustration I always use it is like the compass you can twist it and turn it and if you let it settle the hand will go back and forth back and forth and finally it settles upon the north confidence confidence and so in spite of all of your besetments you've got this confidence that if the Lord begins he shall finish I have this confidence if he will but teach me then I will know if he but gives me a right understanding and oh what a blessed thing it was when the Lord came to those apostles and he breathed upon him and he says he opened to either understanding and they begin to understand the scriptures and when the Holy Ghost came upon them at the day of Pentecost oh the understanding of the assurance of faith the understanding of all the prophecies of the scriptures and they could see begin to see Christ in them all instead of being a sealed book it become an open book there was a godly woman she was there following the course of this world and when the [34:21] Lord began to her work in her soul she went to church and she used to come home and says I got a new Bible she meant to find there was things in the word of God she had never seen before as a minister begin to expound to the scriptures there have you got a new Bible are you seeing new truths is the Lord opening more to your understanding certainly of self but we can't stay there but the knowledge of self will drive us to the fountain the knowledge of self will drive us to the word of God the knowledge of self will drive us to the precious promises in the word of God we see a beauty in them and so we might know what it is in some measure to say I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my supplication all that understanding and then friends there was the trial of faith which further makes us more confident ah the Lord will always try what he gives and whatever he gives friends you're going to know what it is to hold on to it may have a lot of darkness over but there's something about it you begin to ponder about it but in those trials and when the Lord passes through the trial then we begin to see more and more of our confidence in God I'll use even that great saint people there was times without a doubt when he was at current court mainly I'm speaking of he had fears he wondered what it meant and then finally the Lord says fear not Paul for I have much people here but I'm putting it this way ah when he went through that trial of fear and when he went through that time of trouble he knew what it was now more and more to have more confidence in his [36:09] God when the Lord laid a when the Lord seemed fit that allow Satan to put a thorn in his flesh to buffet it to rebuke him and to as it were taught him he wondered why he cried mightily unto the Lord to remove it but the Lord knew there was a right balance in Paul Paul I don't want you to run away in the flesh I don't want you to make confidence in what you've known and what you've experienced I put to this there by my sovereign love and mercy and my grace so that you might know something what it is to know my sufficiency of grace ah more and more Paul was brought to realize it is by grace that must keep me grace which must maintain me throughout the whole of my pilgrimage can you see the confidence it is the trial of which we must pass through in order to put us more confidence in our God our poor pilgrim friend he was ready to slip the stream was too deep he thought and then oh hopeful come along and says be of good cheer friend I feel bottom it's good oh when he felt that bottom it was good to our pilgrim confidence in his God and not himself and so there was that confidence which must be built up again and again in our own soul's experience upon the person of the [37:36] Lord Jesus oh my sins are many oh they're black they're filth and ah what confidence one begins to know what it is but I see a fountain I see it flowing and my confidence is this if I were bathed in that fountain I shall be made whole and so there's a confidence in the fountain there's confidence in the need and then when the Lord comes and washes you and cleanses you and lets you bathe in that fountain ah then you got a confidence of which no one can take away even then yes a confidence because you know by experience the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin confidence ah this confidence then is built up in the hours of trial and the hours of tempting and so Job's confidence grew more and more and stocked in his God when all the accusations come against him his confidence was this though he slay me yet will I trust in him yes that's confidence I know that my Redeemer liveth that's confidence and yet friends you may say oh now you're going way above our experience way above our heads but let us strive for that let us ask the Lord that we might grow in grace and more and more be brought to the sure knowledge that [38:59] Jesus died for me he's mine he's my portion he took my sins he took my sorrows and he made them his very own this is the language there's my confidence being confident of this one thing that he will never leave me nor forsake me he will never let alone the works of his hand that little touch of grace a little promise a little clinging a little sigh that you never forgot a little lifting up of your heart in prayer you never forgot confident if it's thy work Lord this is one thing I know you will not leave it alone I will finish it now what is this finishing and as we look here in the words of our text a good work will he perform or finish until the day of Jesus Christ well I'm going to give you two thoughts on this I would believe [40:02] Paul has in mind as it were that final day when the soul will fling itself and when the soul will depart from this temple of clay and to be with the Lord forever in other words there's going to be that confident that the Lord will keep that soul even in the midst of trial and even in the time of death and in the time as it were where comes comes to the cross in Jordan he'll get entered into Jesus and there's the finished but I believe there's something else we might think about and I know that I'm confident of this even though God some when and put it this way I believe every seeking soul longs to know more and more what it is to have sealed to his conscience that it is a work of grace I believe there's many strugglings in the child of God in this beginning but I do believe there's a time when the Lord often reveals himself in a special manner and that soul looks back again and again to that time resting upon the fact that he may believe it was there the Lord set them at some liberty now it may not have been even the forgiveness of sins at the time because there's such a thing as being pardoned and forgiven and hardly know who took my sins or where they are because I believe sometimes there's that time and I say for myself there was a time when as if I felt they were forgiven I didn't know who took them I didn't know where they went but they weren't there it was for a short time nothing there nothing came against me no accusations nothing I didn't say long but for a while but it was later I was brought to see it was the Lord who took them but coming back there's a time I believe when the Lord gives that pestle seal to the soul and the soul may believe in the sweet rest of faith that it was the Lord's work which had begun and [42:07] I trust that he shall finish it or it can be some sweet revelation of the Lord Jesus overwhelming the soul sometimes we can refer to them as a special day the day when the Lord Jesus revealed himself let me possibly give you a little illustration well let us take Simeon you remember he longed for the sight of Christ now he's seen him by faith don't you ever think he wasn't a gracious man and could have died he could have died in that state he's seen Jesus by faith but yet the Lord God had given a special word that he would also see him in his glorious humanity so Simeon waited for that day that he would see him not only by faith but he could see him in his glorious humanity now when Simeon went up and embraced that child I believe there he seemed the day of Jesus Christ he seen the fulfillment of all of his desire he filled all sound all that he had longed for centered in that one person now you may quarrel with me on my next statement but there was John the Baptist oh friend he longed to see Jesus and the day he did see him and then he shouted out this my joy is fulfilled I've heard of the voice of the bridegroom ah you may say what about the time he was in prison when he was brought into those fears friends that are always going to be there sometime but yet at the time he had seen Jesus Christ the day the shepherds the wise men and others on to their pilgrimage have had some glorious revelations of Christ but these are only little tokens small and comparison yet of which waits for the all of those who are in that confident found secured in Christ when they shall depart from this world and when they shall see him face to face there to behold him in all of his glory in all of his accomplished work odd is a mercy when we can be brought to Calvary here when we get a mercy when we can be brought to see our sins laid into the sepulcher but yet pilgrim was never satisfied until he had seen him face to face he longed for that time when he would go over I know he feared [44:38] Jordan but yet friends what a mercy when we can come to this place from time to time I may be troubled I may be harassed I may be tempted I may be filled with doubts and fears but praise God a day is coming when I shall be loose from these all when this miserable character that I'm coming around with myself shall be laid in the grave and we shall see him face to face yes Paul was confident that to the Lord which had begun in these Philip Philippians he would also finish it he would keep it until that final day and there would be none ever to be plucked out of his hands the blessed security the blessed preservation of all of those who are found in Christ ah being confident of this very thing that he which hath begun a good work a good work in you a dead sinner hell deserving sinner in you who have no right who have no claims in you will perform it to the day of Jesus Christ amen shall we then conclude our service by the singing of hymn number 339 hymn 339 oh my distrustful heart how small thy faith appears but greater Lord thou art than all my doubts and fears did [46:26] Jesus once upon me shine then Jesus is forever mine hymn number 339 and his list ruined makes hold that hole of the hymn number 349 Damn 통 Oh greater or for Christ than all life else can live If Jesus comes the life in each time as He is the last thing [47:27] Forever one I will give the Lord his name However we must pray His loving heart is still In her valley of state I have loved you We'll carry on And learn when we were born [48:29] Our worth of healthy life Give me a simple word It is not all I'm here Still in heavenfall My spirit pray Amen and love And necessary The love of my grave After fifth reading, Lord I still see thy grave And feel that God is love [49:33] I know in this life I'm not a girl I trust my strength He's in heaven Amen O Lord, again we would seek of thee That thou would follow with thy blessing And that thou would forgive all That thou hast seen and heard amiss And that the grace of the Savior And the love of the Father And the communion of the Holy Ghost Rest upon all Now and forevermore Amen Amen