Dr. John Snyder's sermon 'Provision for the Fight' focuses on the critical role of faith in accessing the infinite provision that Christ offers believers. Using Abraham as a paradigm, the sermon delves into the dynamics of faith as a conduit for Christ’s provisions, emphasizing that believers must not waver in faith despite challenges. It highlights the paradoxical biblical statements that Christians must fight to overcome but are insufficient on their own, resolved through Jesus Christ's work and presence. Snyder urges believers to view faith as an active transaction, not merely a comforting sentiment, and to live on God's promises as Abraham did. The sermon underscores the importance of understanding Christ's attributes and his work on the cross, which humiliated enemies, guaranteed pardon, and transformed believers. It challenges Christians to see Christ on the battlefield, alongside them, guiding and empowering their fight against sin and temptation. The sermon concludes with the call for believers to arm themselves spiritually, persisting in their battles with the assurance of Christ's ultimate victory and reward.

If you have your Bibles open to Romans chapter 4, I want to read the description of Abraham as the picture of a believer. There's a couple of things about this that I hope will be helpful in the rest of the sermon. As we think about how do we receive the supplies that Christ has provided. I don't think we doubt that there's infinite supply in Christ. The question is, how does what he is, what he's done, and what he's doing move from him to you in a very practical way.

And so that brings us of course to the issue of faith. Romans chapter 4 and in verse 18 we read, in hope against hope. He believed, speaking of Abraham, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken. So shall your descendants be. Without becoming weak in faith, he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead, since he was about 100 years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb.

Yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised he was able also to perform. Therefore, it was also credit to him as righteousness. Now, not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited as those who believe in him Who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead he who was delivered over because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification Well I this morning, you know, we asked the question as Scott mentioned, you know, how big of a container will we bring? Another question, do you have all the pages of the letters? Would we be okay with a Christianity that just lacked that last comment from the king?

And I don't think that any true believer would say I would be okay with that. I mean we might, you know, through a certain amount of carelessness not really give it the appropriate concentration. But the Lord is merciful to us. He's a father and He takes us by the hand like we do our little kids, and he brings us back and teaches us again. But tonight I want to say that while it is hard to believe, it is one of those truths that's so good, you wonder if it's true.

It is still true nonetheless. That is, that there is such a provision in Christ for your overcoming Christian, that not one Christian has failed to overcome, and nor will one fail to overcome. Regardless of the enemies that you face personally, regardless of your circumstances, it's easy to say that from a pulpit, it's very different to live through those. Regardless of the obstacles and the number and the violence of the enemy's attacks and his cleverness, without one exception, the Christian overcomes. Now, let's take two statements.

Christian, you must fight and overcome if you're to inherit those wonderful promises. And Christian, you are not sufficient to fight and overcome. And those apparently contradictory statements in the Bible are resolved in the mystery of this person, Jesus Christ. In who he is, all that he is, and what he has done for you, and what he is presently doing in you. Now that brings us to the issue of faith.

Faith. When Paul says to Timothy, fight the good fight of faith, it is faith that really is the fight, isn't it? While you are required to do things that are beyond you, every supply will come to you through this issue of faith. But I think that faith is often misunderstood. For instance, you might go to a funeral and there's a Christian who's being buried.

And so there'll be a lot of Christians. And then there will be people who are not Christians, but who think they're Christians, who have some religion in their background. And if you are known as a particularly serious Christian, they may say to you, I'm sure your faith is a great comfort to you at this moment. And That's about as high as the world can think of faith. I know that, you know, your hopeful feelings are helping you at this moment.

But I find that faith is not always a comfort to me. There's sometimes that faith really bothers me. There's sometimes that it's what I do believe about God that interrupts my sleep at night. There are many times that a Christian parent is broken-hearted and just can't make it through the night without going to God over and over for a child. And if someone that was lost asked you, So what is it that bothers you about your kid?

And if you explained it, they'd say, well, it's no big deal Because they don't know But faith is a wonderful thing. It's not hopefulness. It is living on what God has revealed As if God could not lie Think of the picture of Abraham that I just read. Two things are mentioned about Abraham. That Abraham believed when all he had was the word of God and nothing else around him was verifying that.

Abraham, you will be the father of a great nation, not just of one son, but through that son, a great nation. And Abraham is now a hundred years old and there is no physical evidence that God is keeping his word. But Abraham does not waver because he lives on what God says. So faith is living on what God reveals. That's the true.

There's another aspect of Abraham. It says he he doesn't waver And the idea there is he doesn't stumble at the magnitude of the promise How much easier Abraham surely would have thought if God just said Abraham? I'm just gonna give you one son all right instead of saying Abraham I'm gonna give you you're gonna be the father of a great nation that no man could number. Go to the seaside, go to the stars. I mean Abraham was not allowed to say to God, God if you could just reduce those promises to a more manageable size where I can get my brain around them, I think I would be a better believer.

Have you ever said that? When you read what the Bible says about the work of Jesus for the believer when you read the descriptions of a believer And you look in the mirror. Do you not? Do you not struggle and say to God Quietly God if you would just reduce some of those statements I think I could believe them, but when I look at me, and then I look at the word the magnitude of your promises It's a miracle if any of us believe What we're gonna look at tonight I want us to keep that in mind. Faith is living on what God has revealed.

Faith is not stumbling at the immensity of these promises. And When you go to God in faith, I feel like another way of describing faith is that it's in action. It's a transaction. Have you ever heard people pray in a prayer meeting that are just saying a prayer? I mean, I don't want you to be judgmental, but I mean, I have been with young people.

I remember there was a college-age prayer meeting happening in our church I didn't start at a college-age kid started and he wasn't a mature enough believer to be leading it So I kind of took it over. I said, thank you. I'll take it over now So so for the rest of the summer until the kids went back to college, I said, well, fine, if you want to meet to pray, I'd love to meet with you. They were all fine with that. We had a guy in there that I felt clearly was not a Christian.

I was right. Years later, he was converted. He would just say the kind of prayer that sounded like a religious prayer, but there was something missing. All the other kids, and they, I think they had all shown evidence of conversion. There was a transaction in their prayers.

Do you know what I mean? Do you ever hear a person pray and you feel like you're watching a transaction? A needy sinner is going to an all-sufficient and generous God, and there's a transaction, there's a giving and receiving. But this kid just kind of said his prayers. God, thank you for giving me a good home.

God, I pray for all those people that don't have a good home. Help us to be a light to those kind of people out there, and it was all one-sided, there was no transaction, there was no need, there was no pleading, and no receiving. Faith is going to Christ a thousand times a day and saying to him, my God, according to your word, I need you to be all that you say you are and to give all that you say you will give if I'm to overcome today. John writes in 1 John chapter 5 verse 4, for whatever is born of God overcomes the world. Well that's wonderful.

The newborn person overcomes the world. Then there's the other side of it. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. We wage war against sin and temptation and all of its subtle masked forms and everything it offers by filling up on Christ. So here comes sin, it promises us something that we feel would make us happy and we come to the door and we say to it, I'm sorry I'm not interested, I am full of what Christ gives.

The lies of sin are matched by the truthfulness of Christ. The emptiness of sin is matched by the fullness of Christ. The shame of sin is matched by the pardon of Christ. I mean, we could go through the whole list. We go over and over.

And no people with such a captain, no people with such a supply have any excuse for becoming spiritual pacifists in the war. But how do we get what he is to fuel how we live? And that's that issue of faith. Now let's talk about the object of faith. If faith is going to God and saying, I want to live on what you reveal, the real, rather than the apparent, the surface level of life.

And if faith is you going to God and saying, if you'll help me, I will not stumble at the magnitude of your kind words to me. And if you, and faith is coming, you know, empty, and pleading, and leaving full, you know, a hundred times a day. But the object of your faith is really as important as this whole talk about the activity of faith. We often think that the difference between weak faith and strong faith is the big deal, but I think that it's the difference between the object of faith. If you have weak faith, the guy that led me to the Lord used to say to me, John, if you have weak faith, faith enough to walk over a sturdy bridge.

If you just have enough faith to just try it, you'll get across. But if you have strong faith, and there's a rickety old bridge that isn't worth your trust, you're not going to make it. What's the object of your faith? Faith can never be like a boomerang where it goes out and then comes back and focuses on you. You can't be the object of your faith.

You can't say, well I know I'm going to make it because I'm just that kind of a person. Faith always is like a person looking out the window and they look out the window and they see someone walking toward them and you just yell to everybody in the room who are all bothered with the problem you say guys guys someone's coming and there's Christ and every facet of Christ offered to the Christian. I was reading a writer named Henry Law. He was actually an Anglican who lived during the time of Spurgeon. And Law said this, in Christ, every one of God's attributes Comes forth from his war tent as your friend So we could talk about all the attributes of God in Christ and how wonderful that is But I want to be very specific when it comes to faith a vague and general knowledge of who Christ is and what he's done for you is really, it starves faith.

Faith needs fuel. The fuel of faith is reality, not hopefulness. The reality is informed by the scripture, especially the descriptions of the Son of God and what he does think of the new covenant are you well acquainted with the new covenant I mean I would say that for most of my life growing up in church I had a very vague idea of the new covenant, but that won't do it for a believer. The new covenant, the small print, all that Christ says to you about you, all that Christ says to you about him. Have you raked over that like a greedy miser who's reading over his inheritance.

Have you greedily, hungrily gobbled up every word for you? Faith cannot live on a vague view of Christ. Sometimes I go to God and I complain that I'm spiritually dry and I say that my faith is cold and dry. Samuel Rutherford wrote from prison, you know I do really like Rutherford, I named our second son, I got Rutherford in there, right there. I don't know if my wife was on drugs at the time, but I slipped a Rutherford in.

Rutherford, all right, this is what Rutherford said. He said, we complain of our dryness. But he said, we dwell far from the well, and we complain dryly of our dryness. In other words, so we say that we're dry and there's a There's an infinite well of water right there in Christ. Why don't you get up and go drink?

Because it's easier just to complain about how dry you are. Do you ever get like that? Where like, you know, think about going to bed at night and you're kind of thirsty and you think, I wish I had a glass of water. But you know, my wife's asleep, she's not gonna get me a glass of water. I don't wanna get out of bed.

It's a long walk, it's cold. I'm just gonna stay in bed and kind of just put up with a scratchy throat it's a good question for us are do you is it easier for you to complain of a spiritually scratchy throat than to go to the fountain? Faith is living on the realities of Christ. The cure to an anemic, weak faith. The cure to a life that is in the grip of all the world is dazzling in front, dangling in front of your eyes that dazzles you, is that you get a very clear grasp of all that Christ is.

Go back to the fountain. Now I want to tonight, I want us just to simply look at a few portraits of Christ that you can look at on the battlefield while facing the command to overcome. And in going to Christ in each of these scenes, you receive everything you need. So let me give you the first picture. On the battlefield, if you want to receive all you need to overcome, look at Christ on the cross.

Don't think of the cross in a childish way. You know, Jesus died for my sins, so you don't go to hell. I mean there is just so much more to that. Get a full adult picture of the cross. Think of what was accomplished.

I'll just mention three things. First of all, the cross is the place where every enemy that you must overcome was humiliated by your Lord. Colossians chapter 2 verse 14 having canceled out the certificate of dead consisting of decrees against us which was hostile to us. He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When he had disarmed the rulers and authorities, and listen to this, he made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through the cross.

So when you are on a field of battle and you feel that the old enemies have surrounded you and you can't see any way through them, why not cry out and in your mind go back to what he said in Colossians about the cross. And like Abraham, live on what's real, even though at the moment it doesn't feel real. And don't stumble at the promises and ask God to reduce the statement in Colossians to a more believable size. Just say to him, if you will help me God, I will live on these facts. I need the help of the one who has already humiliated these enemies.

Another thing you did on the cross. The cross does of course guarantee the fullest possible pardon and irreversible forgiveness. You know there is a difference between someone saying, well I would pardon you and a person that you love really forgiving you. If you sin against a person you love, you don't want them just to say to you, I mean you come to them brokenhearted and you say, I want things to be right between us. You don't want them to just brush it off and say, look, fine, fine.

Let's just forget about it. No, you say, no, I don't want to forget about it. I want to know that things are right. Christ doesn't just say to you, okay, we'll pretend we didn't see that. But by this, this dreadful act of justice, where the sword of God's Justice penetrates your Savior and on the cross the sword of God's justice Spurgeon said was hammered into a shield for you.

But it's a shield of justice. By a right and full payment, he has made peace. And he looks to us and he forgives us. Think of it. Cleansing from every shameful ceasefire that you call with sin.

Every disloyalty to your king, every treachery that the Christian does, every one of them is washed and forgiven. And when your own conscience or as Job said, when my own mouth would accuse me before God and you would admit it's a right accusation, I have no justification. And you fear that maybe for a man or a woman or a young person like you that's surrounded by so many enemies Maybe the reason life is so difficult is because God is now turned against you and the hope that you thought you had in Christ Is evaporated You look up at the cross and you cry out to the Christ of the cross and like Abraham you believe what he says even if no feelings seem to align and you refuse to ask God to shrink the magnitude of those things and we overcome and we don't lay our weapon down and quit. Let me give you a third thing about the cross. Not only were the enemies humiliated there and pardon was purchased there, but the cross has altered you.

And that certainly is a big point when it comes to overcoming. What happened to the old you at the cross? You were crucified. You don't crucify yourself. Now, Martin Lloyd-Jones on this chapter, I think is just the clearest this can be.

So if you've never read Martin Lloyd-Jones' commentary on Romans 6, it's really worth its weight in gold. I asked an old Welsh pastor years ago, what would you say is like the top couple books ever? And he listed this and I thought, I have other lists. And so me and a group of guys that heard him say this said well why don't we give it a try I mean I'd never read Lloyd Jones on Romans and so this is about ten years ago so we all got a copy of chapter 6 me and about five other guys in the church, and we read through it. Most astonishing commentary I'd ever read.

Just so enlightening. What Lloyd-Jones hammers home, and what Paul was saying there is this. The old you, The old identity is gone. Buried. The one that the enemy held sway over is gone.

A new you has been raised. But the old nature has also been dealt a death blow. And though we still have an old nature and we still can sin, we still are temptable. Something has happened at the cross that has made that powerless or it doesn't have to rule you. Look in your Bibles at Romans 6, verse 6 and verse 7.

And this is where we'll see those two things mentioned side by side. Romans 6, 6 and 7. Paul writes this, knowing this that our old self, that's your old identity, was crucified with him. That's a past tense finished action. In order that, now here's the purpose, this is what's coming, that the body of sin, that's the sinful lifestyle, the nature of sin in us, might be done away with.

Literally in the Greek, rendered inoperative, rendered powerless. That doesn't mean that you're never temptable again, but it does mean that the old nature is weakened so that he goes on to say, we would no longer be slaves to sin for he who has died is freed from sin. So when you're on the battlefield and all around you are the most are your foes and they all wear the face of friendship, you know, and they all say to you, look, if you just let me back in I promise to behave better this time I mean, I know we got in trouble last time, but this time I'll behave better. You know I'll stick to my spot I won't spread over your whole life. I'll be more manageable Cry out to Christ Christ you killed the old me the old master I have nothing to do with him anymore.

And that sin nature has been dealt a mortal wound. I do not have to choose sin. And we overcome. Another look at Christ, not Christ on the cross, Christ on the battlefield. Your pastor reminded you this morning that though Christ is enthroned in Revelation 1, shockingly, we see him in the midst of his churches.

And as I mentioned this morning, Revelation is one of the unique books that you get to look at Jesus in the way that he looks right now. I mean we're used to looking at him through the Old Testament pencil sketches and through the New Testament live footage of what it was like when he was here on this earth, but that is not how he appears now. Of course he's the same and unchanged, but if you want the clearest picture of what, if we could say it humanly, what he looks like now, it's revelation. The glorified Lord on the throne of heaven and earth, ruling over all, unfolding the seals, accomplishing everything the Father still has His desire that would be accomplished, this is the one that stands among His churches. And the churches are on a battlefield.

Christ is still with us. The captain is still on the field. Now I know he's not accomplishing the work that he already accomplished, but in a sense Christ is among us in his spirit accomplishing the battle with us now. In the 18th century, actually 17th century, Welsh, the Welsh people were pretty dark, spiritually dark people. The Puritans called Wales the dark corner of the land.

It had been highly influenced by Catholicism. Many of the, most of the Welsh still only spoke Welsh. So when the Catholics did the mass in Latin, the Welsh didn't know what they were saying. When the Anglicans took over in the Reformation and did their Anglican service in English, the Welsh didn't know what they were saying. Didn't make any difference to them.

When the Puritans came to power, they sent traveling ministers who spoke Welsh all through Wales. And they would ask for reports back. Amazing that the British government sent preachers. So they got reports back. One man named John Penry saw an extraordinary outpouring of God's mercy, a real season of grace.

We call them revivals. And this is how he reported it. He said, the Word of God spreads like fire in the thatch. Thatch, you know, just brush on the mountains. It's gone wild.

Look at Christ on the battlefield. I know why. I'm sorry. I gave you the wrong quote. That was a freebie.

All right. Here's the quote I meant to give you. 18th century Welshman. I got all excited about Wales. All right.

18th century Welshman, Howell Harris, nearly 60 years later, he was sending a report on the work of God where he was. And he said this, The captain has taken the field again and hundreds are converted. What a wonderful statement. What if Scott went to the conference in May and people said to him, How are things in the church? I mean, COVID, I mean, there's so many strange things happened last year.

What if Scott could say yes, but in the last weeks, the captain has taken the field? They would report that more people were converted in a day than some pastors had seen converted in a year. Think about Christ on the battlefield. Have you ever stopped and looked at the warrior pictures of Jesus and applied them? Let me just give you two of my favorites.

Psalm 110 verse 5. This is a description of Christ on that great day of judgment. It says, the Lord is at your right hand. Jesus is at the right hand of the Father. He, our Lord, will shatter kings in the day of his wrath.

He will judge among the nations. He will fill them with corpses. He will shatter the chief men over a broad country. He will drink from the brook by the wayside. Therefore, he will lift up his head." My favorite thing in that is the brook, the stream.

What's that doing there? I mean, you have all this war imagery, literally in the Hebrew. He will break into pieces the world's kings and he will heap up the corpses And then you have this talk about a stream The picture is this a warrior who goes to battle and if you are afraid what if he wearies out and he gets tired before the job's done? Will the enemy, you know, will some of the enemy escape because he just is too tired to pursue the armies? And so in case you're Worried that Christ will not complete the great conquest that the father has given him to do you have the picture that in the middle Of the battlefield the father has sent a stream right down through it And if the Lord Jesus Christ ever got tired in the battle he would stoop down and drink and be revived That is the great hope of the believer.

The Father has guaranteed that the Son will carry on the war through his church now until all is laid at his feet. But it's also the most, you know, it's the most despair-filled news for the unbeliever and the unrepentant. If you think to be the first person that Jesus was just so busy with everyone else on the planet that you kind of slipped through, well you have to remember that there's a stream and The Father guarantees that the Son will have all the strength He needs to bring everyone to His feet. Let me give you my mostest favorite. Alright.

Isaiah 42. At the end of that song, the first song that Isaiah gives us about the coming of Jesus. He talks about him being, you know, gentle with the bruised reed. Wonderful picture. At the end, it says this verse 13, the Lord will go forth like a warrior.

Now, this is not God the father. This is speaking of the Messiah. This is God the Son. Your Lord will go forth like a warrior. He will arouse his zeal like a man of war.

He will utter a shout. Yes, he will raise a war cry. He will prevail against his enemies. When you feel that you are surrounded with so many enemies within and without that there is no hope and you just want to you're about ready to throw out the white flag. Remember Isaiah 42.

Look to Christ on the field of battle. Look there he is The captain is still on the field. Look at the description. God goes forth like a warrior. What does it look like when a man goes forth?

He rouses himself. He works himself up. This is ancient warfare. He gives us great war cry and he breaks the line and he goes out and meets the enemy. That's a man.

What does it look like when a God does it? It looks just like Jesus Christ. It's not just that he's there on the field with his church. Psalm 144 verse one, blessed be the Lord my rock who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle. I think that seeing Christ with you on the battlefield is just as necessary seeing Christ cross for you.

You will fall under blows that the enemy lands on you when you're not careful and that will it'll happen too often and you will at times stumble and you will get weary and there will be times where you drop the sword and there'll be other times that you're not paying attention and your guard is lowered and the long list of regrets and shameful cowardices will kind of stack up in your heart and you'll be tempted to sit down and self-pity and quit. So you're gonna have to look on the field of battle and see a Christ there, unconquered. It's so encouraging that no matter, I mean think about it this way, when you look around the church, Oftentimes we're very encouraged, but nobody can encourage us always. If you think that man is your hope, you'll be disappointed. So you look around and even people that you admire, maybe they're stumbling at the same moment you're stumbling and the enemy just says to you, Do you think that this Christianity is real?

And then you look at the one soldier who's never stumbled. And then he looks to you and in that look of grace and ownership you realize he's not forgotten you, he's not disowned you? Amy Carmichael wrote in one of her poems, turn thy bright face on us and shine and shame our dullness. Now I want to stop and say this. You do need to get the right expectations for battle, alright?

Since we're not ancient people, I think we all have that ancient battle kind of in our mind. It's not modern battle, but here's what I mean. You can't kill any enemy that you face, any old sin or temptation, with a sniper rifle at a mile out. No matter how good a Christian you are. You can do that with a sniper rifle, but you can't do that spiritually.

And you can't call down an airstrike. And you can't have a drone go thousands of miles away and deal with an old temptation. Every aspect of the Christian battle in overcoming is face to face. It's hand to hand. It's grappling.

It's close quarter combat. It's the straining of every muscle. It's coming to the point where you think, I don't know if I can go any further. And you're crying out to the king and he declares victory for you. But You will give and receive many blows.

And no matter how well you fight, you will reach that great day with some scars. Looking at Christ on the battlefield, let me give you one other. Looking at Christ on the throne. Now this morning we talked a lot about Christ ruling so I don't want to spend a long time on that but there are times where the enemy is so obviously so much more than anything we can handle. I mean sometimes we think we can and we can't but sometimes it's obvious And we are so outmatched, outwitted, outflanked, and everything we labor to do seems to come to nothing.

And all we can do is look up and we see Christ on the throne and we pray what one missionary prayed, my King, command deliverance. One of my favorite poems, it's not actually the whole poem because the whole poem's just too long. It's by John Milton. Now that sounds highfalutin when you quote John Milton. You're way up there, but okay, I'm not highfalutin.

I read somebody else that read John Milton and gave me this bit. All right. Then I went and made sure it was right. It's right. John Milton wrote a poem called Samson Agonistes, the agony's sorrows of Samson.

And in the poem, it's just this epic, long, long poem on the life of Samson. And he paints this imaginary scene where Samson's already fallen to the Philistines, and he's always being marched out. And every time he's marched out, the Philistines praise Dagon, their empty idol, for conquering the God of the Jews and his champion and so Samson's filled with regret not only because he's in prison but because Dagon is praised and Jehovah is mocked. And in this poetic scene, Samson's father is visiting him in prison. And Samson says this, and I don't have any tattoos, but if I were to get a tattoo, this would be it.

All right. Here it goes. Samson says this. This only hope relieves me that the strife with me hath end. All the contest is now betwixt God and Dagon.

And Dagon has presumed with me overthrown to enter battle with God. God, be sure, will not linger thus provoked, but will arise and his great name asserts. Sometimes in the Christian life, I feel that I have to quote that. I have to say to God, God, everywhere I look, I seem to have brought dishonor to you or I have failed. I had hoped, I had hoped it would be different, but God, I don't know what to say.

But I can say this, this hope relieves me that the enemy having easily bested John has now presumed to enter the battlefield with Christ. And Christ will not linger thus provoked, but will soon arise in his great name assert later in the poem. There's this wonderful phrase, day gone must stoop. One last picture, Christ on the throne, not ruling, but rewarding. And this is all through those last statements, to him who overcomes, I will.

And we don't have time. You have to go back to the sermons that Scott preached on those and look for yourself at those. It's not that we're mercenaries. Jesus, what are you gonna give me if I persevere? That's not it.

It's love to the King. But it is very encouraging for the King to kindly show us what lies ahead. The Christian life is not one of unending fight. There is a fight, but that is a few days of battlefield and then there is unending time with him in a new creation. Fight first and then perfect family life after.

John Newton in the 18th century gave this illustration of how rightly understanding what's ahead of us How that changes everything about the way we go through our day. He said, imagine a man who was very poor, but he gets notice from his lawyer that a very wealthy relative that he doesn't even know has died, and he is the last remaining heir, and he's going to be fabulously wealthy. So the man gathers up all the little money he can scrape together and he hires a taxi. Now this is John Newton day so this is horse and buggy kind of taxi, all right, that kind of taxi. So he's in London and he's crossing London in this buggy and the horse is going along and as he gets close to the area where the lawyer will meet him at the bank, the wheel breaks off and so it kind of comes to a skidding halt and the taxi drivers apologizing and everything's stuck and he's trying to fix it.

Newton says, can you imagine that man, if he could see the bank just down the road, can you imagine him kicking and cussing and saying, oh, why do I even bother with you? And if, no, He would say to the man something more like this, man, nothing could ruin the day. I am one block from being a millionaire. And he quickly goes, and Newton says, if you know all that lies ahead of you, why are you so easily frustrated? Why so easily distracted?

Why so angry? Why so despairing? Well, let's bring this all together. One of my favorite phrases in the Psalms is when the psalmist says that God is my strength and what else? My song.

I mean, there's a lot of other things. Strength and deliverer. Strength and song, the two I'm thinking of. It's one thing for you, a very weak person, to be brought into the royal family, commanded to overcome enemies far greater than you, but to be promised that God Himself would be your strength. And you may go and receive a thousand times a day what you need.

But it is so much better to be able to say, not only am I in a war and God is my strength, but there is something so good about that, that He is also my song. To go into battle with enough strength is wonderful. To go into battle with so much strength that you're singing, it's hard to imagine, but it's the Christian. What a wonderful balance. Philippians 2, Paul says it, it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

There you find, you know, this, the infinite energy of God, the grace of God enabling you, you by God's help coming to him over and over and saying I will live on what you say and there's that wonderful Transaction your emptiness his fullness your weakness his strength your confusion his wisdom a constant supply I want to close our day with a picture from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Soon after Pilgrim becomes a Christian, the burden falls. You know the story. Then he goes to a guy's house. Do you remember his name?

Interpreter. He goes to Interpreter's house. I actually have been in England to the place that they think Bunyan used as in his mind as the image of Interpreter's house. It was very near where he lived. Big mansion on a hill.

We were flying doing drone footage for one of the Behold Your God studies and the police came. That was the end of the flight. So it's not a very inspiring story I know, but anyway. Let's go back to Bunyan. After conversion, he goes to the interpreter's house.

An interpreter has a very definite task. He needs to teach this young believer some fundamental things that the young believer needs to know before he sets out on this Christian life. So there are all these rooms he goes into and he sees. Do you remember them? But there are two rooms, two scenes that are back to back, alright?

And they have to be kept back to back, but they are very helpful for this whole issue of overcoming and perfect provision. The first scene, he goes into a room and there is a fireplace and there's the enemy throwing buckets of water on the fire and the fire won't go out. He's confused, He's amazed. Interpreter takes him to the other side and like those old houses, the fireplace would be like, you know, in a wall between two rooms. And on the other side of the fireplace in another room, there's Christ throwing fuel, throwing oil on the fire.

And so it just burns all the brighter. Wonderful picture. Next scene, takes him outside, and there's a palace, and people are walking around at the top of the palace. They're dressed in golden clothing. They're happy.

They're singing for joy. There is a man sitting at a desk with a pen and a book, and he's ready to take your name down if you would like to go into that palace. The palace is the picture of eternal life, of the Christian, all that we have. And so, young Christian is confused because nobody's going in until he sees that there's a group of armed men standing in front of the gate of the palace. Anybody that wants to get into the palace has to get through the armed men.

No one goes. They all back up except one man. One man comes and he says, put my name down and he arms himself and he charges the men and they repel him and he goes again and again and he gives and receives many wounds but he will not stop until he has broken through and the next scene shows him on the top and interpreter says do you understand what this means and Christian says I understand what that one means what a wonderful picture Christ fueling the fire within us so that you cannot quit. But you, seeing the prize, arm yourself by the grace of God and charge the old temptations and the old impediments and the new fears over and over and over until you break through and you receive Everything Christ promised those seven churches. Here is all that hope church would need.

A savior pouring oil on the flame and the Christian by grace arming himself and going at the gate until all of you have entered. Well may the Lord help us to do that for his for his own name sake. Let's pray. Now Father we turn to you at the end of a sweet day, a market day of the soul. And we feel God, there is so much more in Christ than ever a series of sermons could even hint at.

But you have Given us your word and your spirit. And we're here not because we're particularly strong spiritual people, but because we're needy people. And you have shown us an infinitely perfect Savior. And so we come again and we ask you as a group, we ask you as individuals, God, turn your face toward us in the beloved, meet us, let those attributes of the infinite God meet us in the person of Jesus Christ, let his sufficiency be all that we need tonight as we go home to love you with all our heart and soul and strength, and to love our families, and to wake up tomorrow morning, and to love those that we work with, even if they're enemies to Christ. We ask that you would work in the souls here, in the believers here, in such a wonderful way that the distinct and unique quality of their Savior would be reflected in their simple, happy, consecrated lives.

Do it God, for your namesake. Amen.