Waiting on God

[0:00] This week on our church WhatsApp services page, I guess it is, we tend to share matters for prayer.

[0:14] ! And I shared a prayer in its longer form that you will be familiar with most of the serenity prayer.

[0:25] And it was created for Alcoholics Anonymous many, many years ago. But it was actually a prayer of a Lutheran pastor called Reinhold Niebler.

[0:41] And it was in the aftermath of the Second World War that he wrote this, where they had seen immense suffering. And where Christians were trying to make sense of where is God in all of this suffering?

[0:55] And I thought we would start here, and then we'll stop to pray before we come to Habakkuk. Because Habakkuk is asking the same question. It's been asked many, many times throughout the centuries.

[1:08] Where is God when people are suffering? So let us all pray. And as I pray this prayer, this may really resonate in your heart, because you may be suffering.

[1:25] Or somebody you love may be suffering. And you're asking God, how long? How long? God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

[1:41] The courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time.

[1:53] Enjoying one moment at a time. Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace. Taking as he did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.

[2:09] Trusting that he will make all things right if I surrender to his will. That I may be reasonably happy in this life. And supremely happy with him forever.

[2:23] Amen. And Lord, I want to pray today for any in this place. For whom that prayer resonates very deeply.

[2:37] Because they're suffering. Or their loved ones are suffering. And they're asking you, Lord, how long? Perhaps facing a crisis of faith.

[2:49] Perhaps struggling to hold on. In the darkness. Perhaps like Jesus saying, why, oh God? Why?

[3:02] Why have you forsaken me? For any in that place, oh Lord, we pray that your peace. And your comfort. And your grace will be given them today.

[3:15] That like the disciples on their maus road, their hearts will be strangely warmed by your presence. And Father, we thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus.

[3:30] That after suffering, there is glory. After death, there is life. And just as Jesus entered into his kingdom, so we shall be with him in paradise.

[3:45] Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right. So we're going to be in Habakkuk chapter 1 and through to chapter 2.

[4:04] Habakkuk is a minor prophet, but as Andy reminded us last week, not minor because he's less important than a major prophet. Just minor because the book size is smaller than Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, etc.

[4:18] So, Habakkuk chapter 1, we're reading from verse 12 to the end of chapter 2, and it will come up on the screen. O Lord, are you not from everlasting?

[4:37] My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O Lord, you have appointed them to execute judgment. O Rock, you have ordained them to punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil.

[4:51] You cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler.

[5:07] The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks. He catches them in his net. He gathers them up in his dragnet. And so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore, he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet.

[5:22] For by the net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food. Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?

[5:32] I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts. I will look to see what he will say to me and what answer I am to give to this complaint.

[5:44] Then the Lord replied, Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets, so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time.

[5:56] It speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it. It will certainly come and will not delay. See, he is puffed up. His desires are not upright.

[6:08] But the righteous will live by his faith. Indeed, wine betrays him. He is arrogant and never at rest. Because he is as greedy as the grave and like death is never satisfied.

[6:19] He gathers to himself all the nations and takes captive all the peoples. Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn, saying, Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion.

[6:34] How long must this go on? Will not your debtors suddenly arise? Will not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their victim, because you have plundered many nations.

[6:45] The people who are left will plunder you. For you have shed man's blood. You have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them. Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain, to set his nest on high, to escape the clutches of ruin.

[7:02] You have plotted the ruin of many peoples. Shame in your own house and forfeit in your life. The stones of the wall will cry out and the beams of the woodwork will echo it. Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by a crime.

[7:17] Has not the Lord Almighty determined that the people's labor is only fuel for the fire? That the nations exhaust themselves for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

[7:35] Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors, pouring from the wineskin till they are drunk, so that he can gaze on their naked bodies. You will be filled with shame instead of glory.

[7:46] Now it is your turn. Drink and be exposed. The cup from the Lord's right hand is coming around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory. The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and your destruction of animals will terrify you.

[8:03] For you have shed man's blood, and you have destroyed lands and cities, and everyone in them. Of what value is an idol, since a man has carved it, or an image the teacher's lies?

[8:16] For he who makes it trust in his own creation, he makes idols that cannot speak. Woe to him who says to wood, come to life, or to lifeless stone, wake up.

[8:27] Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver. There is no breath in it. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him.

[8:42] Amen, and the Lord will bless to us his holy word. It's a terrible word, isn't it, in many ways. I was thinking of Johnny Cash as I read it. God's going to hunt you down.

[8:54] It's a bit like that. God's going to hunt you down. Well, we're a church of dog lovers, and apparently a nation of dog lovers, so some of you might recognize the next slide.

[9:09] Especially our guests from Scotland there. This is Greyfriars Bobby, who stands in Greyfriars Churchyard in Edinburgh.

[9:20] And I was reminded of this story earlier today because I was thinking about, what does it mean to wait? And then I remember visiting Edinburgh once and going into Greyfriars Churchyard and seeing this wonderful statue of the Sky Terrier named Bobby, who was the dog of John Grey, who in 1850 moved to Edinburgh in the hope of continuing his profession as a gardener, but he couldn't get any work, so he eventually became part of the Edinburgh Police Force.

[9:52] I suppose that's a kind of a different set of priorities to modern day life, isn't it? But there we go. He became part of the Night Watch, and he used to take his dog with him to work, and so he would do his rounds at night, and Bobby would be there at his feet following him obediently.

[10:12] And then John eventually got tuberculosis, and he died in 1858. And he was buried in Greyfriars Churchyard.

[10:24] And his dog dutifully went to the funeral and sat by his grave and then stayed there till he died many, many years later.

[10:37] That little dog never left his master's side, even in death. It's quite a thing, isn't it? They did try to get rid of it, I'm told, the groundsman, the grave digger at Greyfriars, many times sought to chase it away, but it kept coming back.

[10:55] And then the local people were very kind of tender toward it, and so they fed it and looked after it all those years. But every day, Greyfriars Bobby would come and sit next to his master's grave until eventually he died on the 14th of January 1872.

[11:15] Having been given before that a license, when they had to be licensed, the Edinburgh City Council decided, and also a lovely engraved collar with his name on.

[11:26] And Bobby still remembered for his willingness to wait and to be faithful to his master.

[11:39] Here we have Habakkuk having something of the spirit of Greyfriars Bobby waiting upon the Lord and being faithful to his master, even when everything else seems to have gone wrong around him.

[11:53] Habakkuk, as we heard last week, is writing at a time when the Babylonians are threatening to destroy Judah.

[12:06] They were the superpower of the time. They were the equivalent of America of their day, and they had conquered all of the nations around. They defeated Egypt, and then they turned west to attack in the Near East and then into Israel.

[12:22] They took the northern kingdom, whatever was left of that, and then they attacked the southern kingdom. And various kings sought to hold out against them, but they were no longer able to.

[12:39] Habakkuk was a contemporary of Jeremiah, who was not the kind of easiest guy to be around, the weeping prophet. He lamented an awful lot. You read the book of Lamentations.

[12:50] It's part of that whole kind of story of how difficult it was to be a child of God and a servant of God at such times.

[13:01] Lamenting was an appropriate response to the suffering and the hardship that the people of God were experiencing. And we get that wonderful chapter, don't we, in chapter three of Lamentations, which talks about Great is Your Faithfulness, and we think that would make a good hymn, except somebody did think of that, and produced a really good hymn.

[13:22] And we love to sing it, don't we? Great is your faithfulness, O God, my Father. There is no shadow of turning with thee, et cetera, et cetera. And we love to sing that hymn, but it was such a difficult time to be faithful to God when God seemed so far away, when everything bad was happening, when people's lives were on the line and people were literally starving because of this great army that was besieging Jerusalem, to be able to cry out and say, God, Your faithfulness is great and You every morning.

[13:56] Well, that takes great faith. And Habakkuk felt that dilemma. We noticed in chapter one and verse two, he asks his first question, How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but You do not listen, or cry out to You violence, but You do not save?

[14:17] Do you know what that feels like? Lord, why am I keep praying about this? Why aren't You answering my prayer? Lord, I'm in great need.

[14:27] We're in great pain. We're suffering terribly. Why are You so indifferent to my prayers and my cry? Perhaps that's in your heart today. Perhaps you feel that God is not answering your prayer, that He's not interested in your concerns, and that you are suffering and struggling as a result of that.

[14:48] It takes faith to hold on to God at such times, and certainly faith to say, great is Your faithfulness, new every morning. So that's his first dilemma.

[15:00] And then his second is expressed in verse 12. O Lord, are You not from everlasting, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. O Lord, You've appointed them to execute judgment.

[15:12] O Rock, You've ordained them to punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil. You cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do You tolerate the treacherous? And then He pours out His complaint.

[15:24] Why is it, God, that You seem to be willing to use those who are more wicked than the people of Israel to bring about Your judgment?

[15:36] And why do it to us? We've not been the best and the most loyal of Your people, but we're better than those Babylonians. So even perhaps when Habakkuk was praying, Lord, I want You to turn the hearts of the people of Israel back to Yourself.

[15:54] I want You to let them see that You're crossed with them. I doubt He ever imagined that God would do that by effectively saying, right, I want to wipe them out by using a terrible nation that are much worse than you Jews.

[16:12] That would leave you with a bit of a dilemma. Yeah. It's like kind of, you know, emptying the prisons of the worst of all possible criminals, the most violent, the most dreadful and wicked offenders, and say, right, you go and become the police force out there in the city.

[16:31] We would be mortified and horrified that anybody would suggest such a thing. Let alone God, who is of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look, cannot tolerate wrongdoing.

[16:49] You see the prophet's dilemma? God is good all of the time, isn't He? Except He does strange things that appear not very good.

[16:59] And there's no point in us trying to kind of sugarcoat this and say, this is easy to work out. It really isn't way easy to work out. This is what we call the problem of evil.

[17:12] The problem of evil. Many, many years before Christ, 400 years before Christ, around about, Epicurus, you might have heard of him, Epicureanism, asked this question, Is God willing to prevent evil but not able?

[17:31] Then He is not omnipotent. That means He's not all-powerful. Is He able but not willing? Then He is malevolent. That means He is evil.

[17:43] Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? If He is willing and able, there would be no evil. Is He neither able nor willing?

[17:55] Then why call Him God? Epicurus thought that was a gotcha moment. He thought, yeah, you can't believe in a God who is all-powerful and all-knowing and explain away the existence of evil.

[18:09] It's called the problem of evil. It's a long, well-debated, philosophical problem. It's not right, but it's challenging. There have been various defenses.

[18:24] God created us with free will. And we live in what's called the best of all possible worlds. In order for us to understand good, we must understand what evil is.

[18:35] In order for us to do good, there must be a possibility and a capability of us doing evil. So those two things go hand in hand. God could not create a world of free agents which were not free to disobey Him.

[18:50] But if they're free to disobey Him, they're free and capable of doing real evil. And that's a problematic thing to fix. Have you ever been involved with people's problems and you try to fix them?

[19:02] They become very complicated problems, don't they? Yeah? Was it Shakespeare who said, oh, what a tangle web we weave when first we practice to deceive? And so, kind of, you know what that's like.

[19:14] I'm not sure it was Shakespeare, but there we go. And then, of course, there's all this problem of how do we overcome evil? How do you and I mature in the face of evil?

[19:28] It's called a soul-making theodicy. A defense of God that says, God is trying us, testing us, challenging us. How are we going to deal with the problem of evil?

[19:40] Very easy to say, God, you should do something here. But what about us? We are stewards of this earth. We are agents in God's hands. We are called to overcome evil with good.

[19:53] We are called to face, full-frontage, the problem of evil and seek to deal with it, to correct injustices in the world, to walk humbly before God. That is our challenge.

[20:06] But it's not easy. You imagine being God and balancing seven billion people's free will and still making sure that the world doesn't fly off into chaos.

[20:18] I think that's going to be tricky, isn't it? If you've ever watched Bruce Almighty, you know that Bruce at one point decides he's got all of this power, so he's going to answer everybody's prayers. But then he kind of thinks, this is really awkward because he's hearing all these voices in his head and he thinks, this is just so confusing.

[20:33] I'm going to develop a computer system and I'm going to answer everybody's prayers. And so he gets them via email. But there are so many of them he can't cope. So he just says yes to them all. And everything goes wrong.

[20:47] The whole world ends up in chaos because everybody wins the lottery, but they all get about one cent each or something. It's like, who wants to win the lottery if that's all you're getting? And everybody got an answer to prayer, but they got awful answers to prayer as well, which allowed them to commit adultery and do all kinds of wicked things.

[21:02] You see, God cannot just say yes to all of our prayers. He's got a tough old job managing this. And so he does some very strange things.

[21:17] One of them, Habakkuk discovers, is that he uses a wicked people to bring about his judgment on the earth. But he does not approve of the wicked people and he is going to hunt them down too.

[21:32] In the purposes of God, in the judgment of Israel, his intention in the end is to redeem them. In the purposes of God, in the judgment of Babylon, it is not.

[21:44] And Babylon does not exist anymore. Although, you will find its ancient ruins in Iraq. God has his purposes and what Habakkuk needs to discover is, it is not for him to question God's purposes.

[22:00] So what does Habakkuk do? Well, he wonders and waits on God's ways. He says, God, I don't understand why you do these things. I don't understand why you're silent in the face of suffering.

[22:13] I don't know how you, a God who is pure, as you look on evil, cannot tolerate wrong, will allow these things to happen. I don't know why this all happens. I don't know why all of these wicked people do so well.

[22:24] They've got the best economies. They've got the richest billionaires. You know, they not only have fish in their net, they have so much fish in their net that nothing's going to kind of cause them to be hungry like we are hungry.

[22:36] You know, they're in their ivory towers. Nobody's going to touch them. If there's a crash on the economy, they're still going to make money out of it. These richest people in the world, we think, oh, they must have done something right.

[22:48] They must be so blessed. Poor little, oh, you must have done something wrong because look at you, you're on a scrap heap. It's not like that in the real world, but that's how people think. And God says, don't you worry about it.

[23:01] I'm going to deal with it. But Habakkuk thinks he's got God in a bit of a dilemma. Chapter 2, verse 1, I will stand at my watch and station myself in the ramparts.

[23:13] I will look to see what he will say to me and what answer I am to give to his complaint. I've got it sorted. I've got God in an intellectual trap. Yeah, like these atheistic sort of apologists who like to debate Christians and they've got their killer arguments.

[23:33] It's always been going on. But this is not an atheist or an agnostic. This is a theist. This is a believer who doesn't understand God.

[23:46] Welcome to the club. It always worries me when I meet people who think they've got God all sorted out.

[23:57] And it should worry you if you've got problems and you say, can I just share my problem with you? And it's, oh, that's an easy one. Well, it isn't easy to me. Yeah, that can be very dismissive.

[24:10] Trite little answers that we give to people when they're suffering, when they're going through turmoil. Why does God allow me to get cancer? I don't know. Why have I suffered all of these years?

[24:24] Why have things gone wrong in my life, in my family, with my kids, et cetera, et cetera? You know what it's like. You have all of these dilemmas. You did your best. You did everything you were told to do. You prayed for them.

[24:35] You read the scriptures to them. You brought them from the faith and then they've gone away and you think, why did that happen? I did what I, what I, God knows. I was seeking to honor him. Why? Why?

[24:46] When it didn't happen to such and such. I don't know. And nobody does. God calls us to do our duty, to walk obediently with him, but he doesn't guarantee that everything's going to turn out well if we do.

[25:05] he just tells us we've got to trust him and we've especially got to trust him when everything begins to go wrong. That's why I love the book of Job, don't you?

[25:17] Even if he slay me, yet will I hope in him. I haven't lost. Even if he slays me, if he kills me, I'm still going to hold on. I haven't got anywhere else to go. I don't know what to do.

[25:29] My instinct is to trust him even though I don't understand him. Even when, if I'm honest, I get angry with him.

[25:41] You ever get angry with God? You ever get angry? Get frustrated? You ever read some of these psalms and think, wow, I'm not sure we'd let him into membership if he speaks to God like that?

[25:56] I would, by the way. I would. I love that kind of raw honesty, don't you? Why, God? Why? Why? Don't be afraid to ask God why.

[26:07] God's got broad shoulders. He doesn't get upset. He knows your heart. He might not give you an answer, by the way. But like Andy said to us last week, we need to bring our why questions to our Heavenly Father.

[26:21] My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Even Jesus asked that. God's got broad shoulders. So, here he is on his watchtower and he's asking God, why, why, why?

[26:36] Matthew Henry said, those that expect to hear from God must withdraw from the world and get above it, must raise their attention, fix their thoughts, study the scriptures, consult experiences and the experience, continue instant in prayer and thus set themselves upon the tower.

[26:55] I think I had a quote there but let me just kind of slowly go through it. Those that wait upon God, so you go to your watchtower, you bring your why questions to God in prayer, you must take time out to do it.

[27:14] If you're suffering, if you're in trial, take time out with God to ask him why. not because he'll necessarily give you the answer but because you'll find comfort in his presence.

[27:28] Even as you pour out your complaint to the Lord, you will find comfort in his presence. Have you ever seen a child who has been naughty, a little child, very little child, who's been naughty and then mom or dad tell them off and then they sob their hearts out and what do they do next?

[27:49] They run to mom or dad for a cuddle. Now as an adult, that always seems irrational to me. You just told me off I'm going to speak to you, horrible mom or dad. Little children don't do that.

[28:01] They're naughty, they accept their naughtiness, they feel sad and frustrated and bewildered, perhaps even angry but they then go to the only place they know to find comfort. Take time.

[28:13] If you've got the why question in your heart, take time, spend time in the presence of God. You don't have to necessarily say anything to Him. You just have to feel. Just feel.

[28:24] Let Him know how you feel even if you're just feeling. Even if it's just groans. Oh, God. Because that's all you can do.

[28:36] Fix your thought on God. What is He doing? What may be His purposes in this? Study the Scriptures because it's full of people who've been in this dilemma.

[28:47] consult your experiences. So just be honest about how you're feeling and the experience. Talk to people who've been through it as well and they will help you.

[29:02] Set yourself upon your tower. There's a little word from Habakkuk. Find a watchtower. Find a place to wait.

[29:13] Find a place with God. Find a place to be honest with your soul. That's a really important thing for you to consider. And let me remind you of Psalm 37.

[29:27] Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong. For like the grass, they will soon wither. Like green plants, they will soon die away. Trust in the Lord and do good.

[29:39] Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him and he will do this.

[29:49] He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn. The justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

[30:01] Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. It will be okay in the end. Don't worry. Be honest.

[30:13] God will sort it even if you don't know how he's going to do it. He's very clever and he works it out in the end. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

[30:26] And the second part of this passage is when Habakkuk writes, warns and witnesses to God's glory. So he has this dilemma, this gotcha moment in chapter 2 verse 1.

[30:37] He says, and then it says, then the Lord replied, write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it for the revelation awaits upon a point in time.

[30:48] It speaks of an end. So God says, look, I want you to write this down. I want you to make it plain so that it's not just for you, it's for others as well.

[31:00] And I want you to know that I'm going to do something. Hooray, says Habakkuk. He's going to do something. Hooray. Hey, let's have a parade. Except God says, but not now. Later.

[31:13] How much later, Lord? A long time later, Habakkuk. Hmm. You just rained on my parade. And that's the thing about God.

[31:27] He doesn't operate to our time scale. He's working it all out. He's got an end point in view. Things have got to line up. The nations have to line up.

[31:39] His judgments have to line up. It has to line up with his purpose for the whole world and for its end point. Yes, there will be an end point. And therefore, everything that's happening is happening for that end point.

[31:56] God has an end view for the nations. He has an end view for your life and mine too. His end view is that we are going to be transformed into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ.

[32:11] We're going to be made like him, as glorious as he is. And the pathway to that transformation may include suffering. It usually will include our deaths.

[32:28] And so when we're praying to God and asking God to deliver us from things, the problem is that that thing that we want to be delivered from might be vitally necessary.

[32:41] in order that we might be transformed into likeness of Jesus. And haven't we discovered that really? We always think, you know, my best life would be a trouble-free life.

[32:54] Well, it would if you want to become self-indulgent, a little selfish, and a little bit, spiritually speaking, over fat.

[33:07] Jeshurun, wax fat, and kicked. when Israel was at peace, it was facing its greatest danger. Because the problem with rejoicing in the things that God gives us is that it can make us spiritually lazy.

[33:25] And there's nothing like testing and trial to make our spiritual muscles grow. So Habakkuk wanted a certain specific answer in a certain and specific way.

[33:36] And God says, I will give you an answer, Habakkuk, but not the one you want. Ah, God, I really dislike it when you do that to me. So what should I do when God gives me an answer that I don't like?

[33:51] Well, he tells us in verse 4, the just shall live by faith. There's your answer. See, Habakkuk wanted an answer which involved, I will destroy the Babylonians.

[34:04] God says, here's your answer, Habakkuk, you just live by faith. whatever will happen will happen, but you must live by faith. Whatever will happen will happen, but you must live by faith.

[34:18] Now, that's easy for me to say. It's not so easy if you're facing a terminal illness. It's not so easy if you suffer the loss of a loved one.

[34:29] I get that. It's not so easy when everything around you seems to be going wrong, but it's still the answer. Whatever is happening in your life, whatever seems to be going wrong around you, live by faith in me.

[34:45] Trust me. Trust me. I've got it. It's sorted. It will all work out. And then God gives them a vision of all that's going to happen.

[34:56] Five wars. There are five wars. Just put them up on the screen, please. Five wars. Just ignore this slide. I'll come back to that. And that one. Oh, you can't see that one.

[35:07] There you go. I'll tell you what that says. It says in verse 6, War to him who increases what is not his. In other words, God is condemning those who cheat and steal from others, taking what is not rightfully theirs.

[35:22] Now that could be criminals in society. It could also be corrupt governments. War to him who covets evil gain for his house. Verse 8. Condemns those who make a dishonest living at the expense of others.

[35:36] War to him who builds a town with bloodshed. You know, the mafia leaders, the violent, condemning violence and unjust oppression. War to him who gives drink to his neighbor to get them drunk, to take control and manipulate them.

[35:52] It could equally apply to drug pushers, et cetera, in modern estates. War to him who says to word, awake, to idolaters, to those who worship what they have made.

[36:03] God says, look, I know what they're doing. I know they've done wrong. I am going to judge them and the earth is going to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. I am in my holy temple.

[36:16] They are not in control. Donald Trump is not in control of the earth's destiny. Putin is not in control of the earth. God is in his holy temple.

[36:27] He is controlling everything and the earth is going to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. That's encouraging, isn't it? But in the meantime, when everything looks to be out of control, live by faith.

[36:46] When Habakkuk wrote those words down, little did he know that the Apostle Paul would take those words and write a whole book on it in the book of Romans.

[36:58] And little did he know that a German monk called Martin Luther would take that statement as the basis for his 95 thesis and nail it in an act of vandalism to a cathedral door.

[37:09] He'd go to prison for that if he did that nowadays. But in those days, it was a common way of kind of publishing a notice. And that led to the Protestant Reformation. And little did he know, back to that quote, John Wesley, that Wesley would go to Aldersgate Street and hear somebody read the preface from Luther's commentary to the book of Romans.

[37:31] They didn't know how to entertain you in those days. And then about a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.

[37:48] I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for my salvation. And an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

[38:00] What a wonderful, wonderful testimony to the saving power of Jesus. For this is what it means to live by faith. It means to live by faith in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ.

[38:12] It means to trust in the merits of his precious blood that was shed on the cross for your salvation. It means that no work of yours will guarantee you salvation, but entirely hoping in him will guarantee you eternal life.

[38:29] And it's his righteousness imputed to your account so that when you stand before God on that day of judgment, he does not see you, he sees Jesus in you.

[38:42] And therefore, you have eternal life. The just shall live by his faith. I'll never be able to cope with all of the demands and trials and difficulties in life, or I would not be able to cope with them unless God was in me and unless he says to me, John, no matter what's going on in your life, no matter how bad it gets, trust me.

[39:14] Trust me. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Is that a message to your heart today?

[39:28] Perhaps you came here with a heavy heart full of trials, full of difficulties, full of dilemmas. You needed to hear a word from the Lord. The Lord is saying to you, trust me. Be still before me.

[39:41] Wait patiently for me. It will all be alright in the end. Let us pray.