I want to speak from Mark chapter 6 and from verses 1 to 6 and the sermon title is the dangers and consequences of unbelief. The dangers and consequences of unbelief. We'll read the verses again as there are only a few just to remind us. And he went out from thence and came into his own country, and his disciples followed him. And when the Sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many hearing him were astonished, saying, from whence hath this man these things? And what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph, and of Judah and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief. and he went round about the villages teaching. So I want really to just draw out one main lesson from this text this morning which is about the danger and the consequences of unbelief in Christ. Of course this passage stands in stark contrast to the previous stories stories about Jairus and his little daughter who was healed, and the woman with the issue of blood, and the faith that they showed, the belief that they put in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus said to the poor woman, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. And yet here we have the contrast with with the lack of faith, with unbelief in the Lord Jesus. And of course, faith carries consequences, good consequences, and unbelief carries consequences, negative, in fact disastrous consequences. And I reiterate a point I made last time that every time an individual or a group of individuals comes into contact with the gospel, which is really coming into contact with the Lord Jesus Christ, a decision must be made whether to believe or to reject the Lord Jesus. And that decision has consequences. The setting for this story is found in the first verse And he went out from thence and came into his own country and his disciples followed him. So the Lord Jesus and his disciples left Jairus' home and travelled to his hometown of Nazareth, which was about 25 miles away. Nazareth was a tiny village. It really was a very insignificant place, apart from the Lord Jesus made it significant, of course. No one would make a day trip to Nazareth. I'm not sure many people would make a day trip to Tiverton. I can say that because I'm from this town. But I've never imagined it to be a place where people would make the effort to drive to. Yet this was where, Nazareth was where Jesus was brought up with his brothers and sisters, mainly by Mary, because it's likely that Joseph had died a long time ago. Nathanael summed up Nazareth by saying, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? It was nothing remarkable. And the Lord Jesus knew these people. He knew the families. And they knew him. They had shared memories. They had a shared history. And these villagers who had come back to see it carried on in the same old way. Those of you who live in villages know that not a lot changes. It just ticks along, doesn't it, from generation to generation. And these people carried on doing their work, bringing up their children, attending the synagogue. And meanwhile, the Lord Jesus had become a famous preacher, noted for his amazing works. And the people of Nazareth would have heard reports of Jesus. And now this man, this Lord Jesus, one of their own, was coming to preach in their synagogue on the Sabbath day. It would have created quite a stir, I expect. An exciting service it would be. One of their own who had done such exciting things was coming to preach, and this is what happens. And so once again another group of people comes under the mighty preaching of the Messiah. But this time to people who were very familiar with him. And he would have preached the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. He would have said the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the Gospel. This was his sermon theme constantly They're confronted with Jesus and they must decide whether to submit to him or to reject him. And in verses 2 and 3 we read of the response of the townspeople. And many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? And what wisdom is this which is given unto him? that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands. Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, of Joseph, and of Judah, and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. And they were offended at him. So their thoughts are expressed in the form of these rhetorical questions. I think that there are five rhetorical questions. And initially, they're astonished, aren't they, at Jesus? Maybe they're impressed. Where's this man got all these things? Look at his wisdom. We've heard of the reports of him in here. We're seeing him with all this wisdom. And yet on the other hand, they consider his pedigree. They consider the family he came from. We all know where this man comes from. Many of us grew up with him. We're familiar with him. And now here he is coming and speaking to us like he's a messiah. And they were offended at him. You see, of all the people Jesus preached to, these people had the most information about Jesus. They had all the data on Jesus. They thought they knew him, but they didn't know him at all. And this is a very serious warning, dear friends, that simply knowing a lot about Christ and Christian things does not necessarily mean that we know Christ in our hearts. Head knowledge is not sufficient without heart knowledge of Christ. You see, these people knew everything about Jesus, or so they thought. that they knew more about his childhood than we do, even from scripture, because there's not much spoken about his childhood. They knew what he did, how he played, how he grew up, how he worked. They had so much information, and yet they didn't know him. And this, it seems to me, can be a risk, especially for those of us who grew up with Jesus, And I put it that way because for those of us, and I include myself, who are brought up in Christian homes where the name of Christ and the words of Christ are the very atmosphere in which we were brought up. We were kind of brought up with Jesus and it's so easy to become so familiar with him that we become over familiar with him. And we think we know him. We think we're a Christian, because we've been soaked in all of this Christianity, and we've been made to go to church, and we've read the Bible, and we know so much. We've got all the data, all the information, and yet really, we don't know him in our hearts. And so it's a good thing to be brought up in a Christian home. Of course it is. But there is a risk. that you really miss knowing Jesus because you need to know him as your own saviour. You can't live off the experience of your family or your parents or your preacher. You have to know him yourself. And so these people were offended at the Lord Jesus. The Greek word Offended here in the text is skandalon, which is the Greek word from which we derive our English word, scandalized. Jesus scandalized the townspeople of Nazareth. They were offended. They refused to believe that someone of such humble and familiar origins could be the one promised in the scriptures to usher in the kingdom of God. to use an old English saying, they thought Jesus had ideas above his station, because they knew him. And Jesus responds with his famous saying, a prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. I believe the Lord Jesus knew that he would suffer the fate of the prophets whose lot was always suffering and rejection throughout the Old Testament. Perhaps Peter, who of course is the source for Mark's Gospel, has this incident in mind when he described the Lord Jesus in 1 Peter 2 verse 8 as a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. even to them that stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed. You see, when the gospel is preached today even, most people are offended at Christ. They stumble over him. When you hear the Gospel, it's a good test of your own heart. Does it offend you? Does it make you slightly irritated and angry, being told that you're a sinner and that you need to come to Jesus and that you can't save yourself? If that's what's rising up in your heart, then you're being scandalized. Jesus is scandalizing you. He's offending you. The gospel is an offense to you. It's the natural condition of an unsaved heart. It's an indication to you that you need to be saved. If the response is, I know I'm a sinner, Lord. I'm so grateful that you've saved me. I know that I could never have saved myself. It's an indication that you're the Lord's. And these people dishonoured Jesus through their unbelief. And it had consequences. Verse 5 tells us, he could do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folks and healed them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief. You see, unbelief in Christ quenches the Holy Spirit, doesn't it? It quenches the operation of the Holy Spirit unbelief. That's why there's no record, as far as I know, of any revival in a liberal church. The Holy Spirit doesn't work or manifest himself. He does not operate his ministry in liberal churches. where the Bible is disbelieved and questioned, because there is this spirit of unbelief. And the Holy Spirit is quenched, he's grieved. And where rationalistic explanations are given for the divine miracles, where earthly explanations are given to kind of bring Christ down to our level, the Holy Spirit won't work in that atmosphere, in that context. You see, unbelief is a matter of the heart, ultimately. Unbelief is found in the human heart. That's where the Bible locates unbelief. Hebrews chapter 3 verse 12 says, take heed brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. And in that same chapter the author identifies the hardened hearts of the Israelites as the reason that God caused them to wander for 40 long years in the wilderness, because they had hardened, unbelieving hearts. And that disqualified them from entering into the promised land, which was a picture of rest, of spiritual rest, the rest of salvation. An unbelief. is nowhere more dangerous than in this matter of salvation, personal salvation. The Lord desires to work a mighty work in you, a mighty work of salvation, but you won't believe in him. That's the case for some people, many people. You won't believe in him. You've already decided, you've already hardened your heart, set your heart against God. And is that you today? You've got an unbelieving, hard heart against Christ. Do you have that sinful, unbelieving heart? You see, the Lord doesn't work in you, doesn't do a great work in you, because you refuse to believe in him. That's the reality for many people. And you'd rather believe in yourself and your works, in the fact that you believe that you can straighten yourself out. You seek to establish a righteousness of your own, and you're full of unbelief in Christ. You have no faith in your heart to believe. It's a very dangerous situation to be in and I want to call you away from it this morning to put your faith in Christ to be your saviour. You see the gospel is described in Romans 10 verse 8 as the word of faith. That's the real word of faith movement. The word of faith, that's the gospel. The word of faith which we preach, Paul speaks of. It is a word that is given in faith and that requires a response of faith. And verse 9 defines this word of faith. and it describes how to exercise the faith, Romans 10 verse 9. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Christianity is not complicated, dear friends. Confess with your mouth, acknowledge that The Lord Jesus Christ is true, he's the Messiah, he's the Saviour and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Not that you might be, you will be saved. It's the word of faith and you have to believe it. You have to put your faith in that. It's a matter of the heart. For with the heart, verse 9 says, with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness. And with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. So unbelief is a great danger for the unbeliever. There must be this confession and this heart belief in Christ and the message of the Gospel. But secondly, unbelief is a great danger for the Christian also. and belief is very dangerous for us as Christians. And it seems fashionable today, I never really understood why, fashionable in Christian teaching to emphasize how healthy and normal doubting God and doubting the Bible is. There may be a grain of truth in that, I'm not sure. But all I know is that in the Gospels, Jesus consistently praises those who show faith in him and consistently rebukes those who don't believe in him. In Matthew 14 verse 31, Jesus rebukes Peter for becoming afraid when walking on the water. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him, O thou of little faith, Wherefore didst thou doubt? Jesus told Doubting Thomas, as he's known, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. Unbelief is a kind of poison that will damage the Christian's faith. And in his mercy, the Lord always rebukes us and chastises us if unbelief creeps into our hearts. Because our Christian lives are supposed to be a kind of clear channel through which the Holy Spirit can flow and have his way in our lives. And faith is the channel through which God's work of salvation, sanctification, and all the Holy Spirit's operations and giftings flow. An unbelief blocks up this channel and inhibits God's grace to us. It's like one of those, unbelief is like, if you let unbelief grow in your heart, it becomes like one of those sort of fatbergs you see and you hear of in these tunnels and you have to clear it out so that the drains can work. There has to be this channel, this channel's blocked and it needs to be freed. An unbelief can block up the Christian's heart James speaks of this in James 1, 5-7. He says, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. This is it. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord. The Lord's here wanting to bless, to pour the Holy Spirit into your life and for the Holy Spirit to flow through you. And James is saying, the man of unbelief shall not receive anything of the Lord. It's blocking the channel, you see. And the Lord takes unbelief seriously in our hearts and he will correct us. And so I ask, is there unbelief in your heart today as a Christian? It's so easy to be self-deceived because indwelling sin remains in us even after we're born again. And we live in a sinful world, a deceitful world, telling us lies all the time. And it's possible, even as a Christian, to have an unbelieving heart. The writer to the Hebrews warns the Christians in chapter 3 verse 12 to take heed, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. See the Christian heart is meant to be pure, dependent, childlike, responsive to the Holy Spirit. but it can become hardened. That which is supposed to be soft and malleable, it can become hard and calloused. Nothing makes the heart harder than sin and unbelief. Sin, in a way, is an act of unbelief in itself because When you sin as a Christian, you cease to believe what the scriptures say about you is true. You see, the scripture says about you and me as Christians that we are no longer under the reign and rule of sin. It's the word of God says that, declares that. We're no longer subject to the power of sin. that we are dead to sin. And there we are as a Christian tempted to this or that, and you yield to the pressure, you yield to the attraction, you yield to the draw of something, and instead of reckoning yourself indeed dead unto sin, as Paul commands, you sin. And of course we all do sin, I'm not saying we don't sin, but when we sin it's an act of unbelief because we're not believing what the word says about us, that sin shall not have dominion over us. It's a failure to exercise faith in the Word of God and you yield to your feelings, to your flesh, instead of yielding to the declaration of the Word of God that God has put over your life. Sin shall not be your master, shall not have dominion over you. But unbelief or sin is not only unbelief in the Word of God, it's also unbelief in the Spirit of God. To truly walk in the Holy Spirit, to walk in step with the Holy Spirit, you have to have faith in the power of the Holy Spirit. To have faith in the power of his operations within you. You must believe that the Holy Spirit is making you holy gradually. He's giving you supernatural, holy ghost power to live a life that you could never live in the flesh. And the Bible says it's the same resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead. That's operating in you. And which in a mystical sense See in a mystical sense we were raised from death, spiritual death, when Jesus physically rose from the dead. And that makes you and me, that declares that you and I are conquerors over sin. And that we're freed from the dominion of sin. But we have to believe in the word of God and we have to believe in the Holy Spirit and what he's doing within us. and sin and unbelief is yielding to unbelief. It's saying I don't believe any of that. You see you have to exercise faith in all these truths and walk in them, operate them, count them to be true in your life and stop listening to the lies of the enemy and what he is saying about you and believe the truth. You see the Satan wants nothing more than to destroy your Christian life and your faith and your joy and your peace and your assurance. We have to believe the truth, consider ourselves free. Romans 6 verse 2, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? You see, that's Paul's method. That's the scriptural method. We believe what the Bible says about us to be true, and we walk in it. We live according to it by the power of the Holy Spirit within us. So, dear friends, we must examine our hearts. There is a rightful I believe there is a rightful and a healthy place for self-examination in the Christian life. There's an unhealthy way of doing it, which can do more harm than good, but I do believe that we need to examine ourselves. It mustn't be a kind of negative introspection that pulls up the roots of Christian assurance. It mustn't be a wallowing in self-loathing which is unhelpful, but there is an important place for self-examination. You see, like cholesterol in the physical heart, which can build up and block the natural flows of the heart, sin and unbelief can build up in our spiritual hearts. And we need to sometimes do a heart check to do a heart examination. How am I? Lord in this Christian life. David does this, doesn't he, in Psalm 139 verse 23 and 24. Search me, O God, he writes, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me. and lead me in the way everlasting. I wonder if you ever do that in prayer. To look into your heart with the word of God open and in the spirit of prayer and let the Holy Spirit examine you. Really look deep within you and ask the Holy Spirit to tell you where sin and unbelief resides. What are we to look out for? There are many signs of spiritual declension or backsliding, doubt, skepticism, self-pity, self-indulgence or mourning. Self-pity is a form of unbelief, isn't it? Feeling sorry for ourselves. God is not sufficient to care for me. Self-indulgence is unbelief. The Lord is not enough for me. And I need to fill my life with entertainment to get my joy. You see, faith says the Lord is all my joy is. He's all my delight and all my springs are in thee, as the psalmist said. The Lord is all my rest. I don't need anything more than Jesus and the Lord. His yoke is a perfect fit for my life. It's an easy yoke and my burden is lightened in Jesus and I find rest there for my soul. His peace is enough for my troubled mind. I don't need anything else but Christ. His peace is enough for my troubled mind and my anxious spirit. You see unbelief tells you you need to medicate yourself with alcohol or drugs or revert to some kind of ungodly relaxation technique like yoga or whatever it might be. It's forcing you to or suggesting that you go elsewhere for your peace and your joy. But faith says Christ is all that I need, all that I want. He meets my every need. You see, when we go to these other things, it's saying to the Lord, Lord, you're not enough for me. You're not sufficient. But what does Paul say in Philippians 4.19? But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory. According to his riches. So I ask, where is your faith today? Now what are you leaning on? Are you leaning on the arm of the Lord or on the arm of flesh? Unbelief will drive you back into yourself. Faith will cause you to look up to Christ. When you're in distress or trouble, where is your faith then? Where do you turn when your heart and mind are overwhelmed with stress? You see that there is no help looking within. I can tell you that for a fact. Like King David in Psalm 61 verse 2, we need to say, when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. You see, David doesn't look in or down, he looks up to the rock that is higher than I. He wasn't looking within, he was looking up. Enormous we as Christians, no matter how much we are struggling with life, there is no lasting help to be found in man. There's no lasting help to be found from drink, drugs, or anything, or any of the pleasures of this world. There's no real help from money or your natural gifts, your cunning, your wits, your contacts, your connections, your knowledge, your education, your physical strength, your youth. None of it will be any good. No, I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help, says the song. And most importantly, My help, your help, comes from the hill of Calvary, doesn't it? That hill upon which the Lord Jesus overcame all the power of the enemy. And through faith in his blood, we can be saved and kept. Well, we've wandered a bit far from our text, but you know, there was nothing in Christ's outward form to indicate that he was the Son of God. He grew up in Nazareth as a tender plant and as a root out of the dry ground. He had no form or comeliness. When people looked at him, there was no beauty that we should desire him. He was from a very unimportant village, a carpenter in the business started by his legal father, Joseph, who probably had died a long time ago. He lived with his widowed mother, and his brothers and sisters. Nothing special to note here. The townsfolk are basically saying, but if they had listened to his word, if they'd heeded to the testimony of his works, if they'd believed in him, If their eyes were open like the Roman soldier at the cross, they would have said, truly, this was the Son of God. Truly this is the Son of God. See, that's what faith says. Jesus is the Son of God. But instead, the people of Nazareth tried to evacuate Christ's word and his words and his works of all divine power. There must be another explanation for all of this, because this is just a local man. This is Jesus. We know his family. He's ordinary. We can explain him away. We can rationalize him. And how many books there are like that, in total disbelief, they try and explain Jesus away. How many theologies there are. Scholastic unbelief, academic unbelief in Christ is the most irrational position to take and yet they use rationalism to try and disprove Christ. Unbelief is the spirit behind the attack upon the Bible, which tries to explain everything away, everything supernatural away from this book. treating the Bible like an ordinary piece of literature and putting it in the mincer of literary criticism, ripping it to shreds, which gets you to a position where bishops in the Church of England publicly cast doubt on the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. See, the unbelief of Nazareth. The unbelief of Nazareth is in the world, but it's also in the Church. There is unbelief in the inspiration of Scripture, that it is the pure, inerrant, God-breathed and perfectly preserved Word of God. There's unbelief in that. You get some churches that subscribe to the inspiration of Scripture, but they don't believe in the sufficiency of Scripture. Those who believe in dreams and revelations and mental pictures and direct words of revelation to modern day prophets to supplement the written word of God, the Bible. Of course, the best charismatic preachers will emphasize that all these things have to be tested by the word of God and don't hold the same status. But to my mind, if the revelatory gifts If direct revelation and prophecies still operate, as they did under the apostles and prophets, then I say the Bible is still being written today. Because every word of God is authoritative and binding upon the conscience. If prophecies and revelations are happening today, as well as the interpretation of tongues, we should be writing everything down. We should be recording them because they are words from God. That's the claim. But we believe that the word of God is signed, sealed, and delivered. The revelatory gifts have ceased to be operative in the church because the word of God is complete and it's sufficient for our faith. Paul emphasizes the sufficiency of scripture in 2 Timothy 3.16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, that's mature, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. The Bible is a living and powerful record of God's word to man. And in its closing verses, it gives a serious warning about adding or taking anything away from this word. This word is sufficient. It should not be added to. These are some of the dangers and consequences of unbelief. For the unbeliever, the consequences could not be more serious. John writes that he that believeth not is condemned already. You must respond to the word of faith. You must believe that if you confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. It's the promise to you this morning. Unbelief is a serious danger for the Christian, although it can never ultimately take away salvation from a Christian. But I do warn you that it can rob you of your comfort and your peace. And when that happens, a kind of insinuating voice enters into your Christian head and whispers that you have no true interest in Christ. That voice says, you, my friend, are a hypocrite. You're presuming to go to heaven, but you're not one of the real Christians. Have you ever had a voice like that in your head? You claim this and you claim that, but you're no different to anyone else in the world really. And Satan will use all kinds of schemes to rob you of your peace and of your joy and of your Christian assurance, your peace and joy in believing. And you know you can't stop that. Satan will always tempt you and try and rob you because he's a robber. But what you can do is you can have faith which shuts the door right in the face of Satan. But if you have a heart of unbelief you leave the door wide open to all these lies. And they'll enter into your mind and they'll rob you of all your peace. And as we rightly and thoroughly and regularly search our hearts for corruption and backsliding, when we do so, and I say that we should and must, do not do this so obsessively that you turn your eyes away from the Saviour. Always say to yourself that there is a remedy for your sin. There is forgiveness and cleansing for every sin. there is an antidote for the poison of your sin. You see the children of Israel in the wilderness, when those fiery snakes bit them in the desert, they weren't saved by obsessively looking at their snake bites, were they? There's a kind of Christian personality which seems to do that. They were saved by looking up, looking out, looking to. That snake that was lifted up on the pole, which was a type of the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ was saved by looking to his Calvary, looking to the Saviour. There's a certain type of Christian who's like the schoolboy. He always likes to show off his latest cuts and bruises on the school bus to everyone. Oh, look at my latest cut. There's a kind of pride in that, isn't there? I'm not saying that we must avoid that kind of introspection. We must say there's a remedy for all my sins. There's forgiveness for everyone. Let the words speak deep into your heart, Christian friend, because all your sins have been charged upon the account of Christ as debts which the Lord Jesus has fully satisfied. See, Satan uses all sorts of schemes. to create unbelief in your heart. It can deceitfully suggest to you that as a true Christian you wouldn't have this struggle with sin the whole time. The enemy will whisper in your ear, now you've been a Christian for a while now and yet you still experience all these temptations to lust and different things. Your testimony must be a sham. You can't be really a Christian. Otherwise, why are you still feeling all this sin and all these temptations? Well, let me encourage you this morning if you're struggling in that way. If we're honest, we all struggle with indwelling sin in the believer. And you can name your favorite Christian hero. I don't care who he is. John Wesley, Whitefield, Bunyan, they all struggled with sin. Within dwelling sin, and if that doesn't convince you, consider the greatest Christian there has ever been, the Apostle Paul. Paul had been a Christian for 14 years when he wrote Romans 7.24, a wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Christian holiness Sanctification doesn't take place all at once. It takes a Christian lifetime. Speaking of this, Thomas Brooks, the Puritan minister, wrote, though Christ has given sin its death wound, yet it will die but a lingering death. As a man who is mortally wounded dies little by little, so does sin in the heart of a saint. The death of Christ on the cross was a lingering death, so the death of sin in the soul is a lingering death. And so don't be discouraged, dear Christian, if it's not all happening at once. You just have to remain faithful, obedient, And believe. Believe what the Bible says about you as a Christian is true. And believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why the Apostle Paul said, I die daily. Because he knew it was going to take more than a day. This was more than a day's work. This was a lifetime's work to be made holy in Christ. Unbelief can arise in your heart through many other ways. And it could go on all day. can arise in the Christian heart through misreading the Lord's hard providences in our lives. Because we expected everything to be a Christian bed of roses at the beginning. All the hymns told us that we could be happy all the day. It hasn't quite turned out like that. Unbelief can set in when trials and tribulations come. And this is a danger for those Christians who have a very weak understanding of divine sovereignty. Why all these troubles? If I am a true Christian, surely I wouldn't have all these troubles. Satan can whisper. An unbelief causes you to look at the wind and the waves instead of the saviour who is always in perfect control. Thomas Watson, one of the greatest Puritans, wrote in his preface to a divine cordial, he wrote these words, and we'll come to a close. There are two things which I have always looked upon as difficult. The one is to make the wicked sad. The other is to make the godly joyful. That's true. Sinners need to be sad and believers need to be joyful and somehow it's the other way around most of the time. Referring to dejected believers, Watson says, I would prescribe them to take now and then a little of this cordial, all things work together for good, to them that love God. Do you believe that? Can you and will you put your whole faith in that promise today? Whatever you're going through, we know all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. May the Lord bless you and keep you. Whatever you're facing today, the Lord will keep you. and the Lord will guide you through. Amen. Feel free to contact us at Sovereign Grace Church in Tiverton. Email us at grace2seekers at gmail.com. That's grace2seekers at gmail.com. Alternatively, you can visit our website at www.sovereigngracereformedchurch.co.uk.