Trust in God Answers Fear

But notice how many times David is dealing with the same issues. Notice how many times he’s dealing, he is repeatedly talking about his enemies. So it just reminds me of the fact that the issues, the troubles, the difficulties and distresses that we have are something like Job said, is something that is a frequent, is gonna be a frequent occurrence in our life. It’s just life, right? It’s just life.

So it’s something that we’re gonna see over and over as it was with David. Verse number three says this, what time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust. I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. Every day they rest my words, all their thoughts are against me for evil. They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps when they wait for my soul.

Shall they escape by iniquity? In thine anger cast down the people, oh God. Thou tell us my wanderings, put thou my tears into thy bottle. Are they not in thy book? When I cry unto thee, then shall my enemies turn back. This I know for God is for me. You know, it reminds me of Romans chapter eight. If God be for us, who can be against us, right?

This is the Old Testament equivalent. Verse 10, in God will I praise his word, in the Lord will I praise his word. In God have I put my trust, I will not be afraid what man can do unto me. Thy vows are upon me, oh God. I will render praises unto thee. For thou hast delivered my soul from death. Wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?

Let’s pray together. Our fathers, we come to your word. Lord, open our hearts, help us to be ready and prepared to receive this truth, Lord, specifically that we’re studying tonight from this psalm. Lord, bless our time, not only those that are here. Lord, help each one to have a heart that’s ready to receive the word, but also those that are listening in, who can’t be with us, but would, and are just struggling with health issues and different ailments and obstacles in their lives.

Give grace to your people. Lord, bless your people with peace. I pray for Brother David and Brother Steve and Samuel as well, Lord, that your grace and mercy would go with them and would provide them healing. Lord, I pray for Ricky and Micah and Jill as well, who’s apparently approaching death. Lord, have mercy on these who are apparently without you and who do not know that they need Christ.

Lord, open their eyes, draw them to yourself, that they might be saved. And Lord, for the rest of us, Lord, we pray that you would help us to grow tonight and to believe your word, to act upon it, that we might have great peace. And so we commit these things to you and ask in Jesus’ name, amen. All right, what you’ll notice is in this Psalm, there are three things that repeat.

There’s three things that repeat. The first thing that repeats, and we’re only gonna look at one of them, one of them, one and a half of them, maybe I should say. The first one that repeats is what the Psalmist says in verses one and two. He says, be merciful and to be, O God, for man would swallow me up, he fighting daily oppresseth me. And then in verse number two, he goes from the singular in verse one to the same statement in verse number two, but in plural.

He says, instead of man, it’s now enemies with an S. Mine enemies would daily swallow me up, for they be many that fight against me, O thou most high. Now, just as a reminder, just as we pass by, I want you to be aware and remember that you have and I have an enemy who is seeking our soul every day that we live. And if for no other reason, I know every day we deal with the flesh, right, and it’s temptation, and that is in a way an enemy, you know, it’s our enemy within, but you also have an enemy, an external enemy, that every single day of your life, he wants to destroy you.

So if you or I, we let down our guard, we can absolutely be destroyed. It is only by the grace of God. How many of you have ever let your guard down on a day? Oh, yes. You know why you weren’t destroyed that day? Is because of the grace and mercy of God in your life. Even when you’re armed with the armor of God, that is also the grace and the mercy of God, but when we slack, we drop our armor, we drop our shield, we don’t wear the breastplate of righteousness, and all of those other things of the armor of God, we expose ourselves.

We expose ourselves to danger. And this is just the reminder that, I know this is talking about David’s physical and literal enemies, human enemies, but this is true also of our spiritual enemies, that every day they would swallow us up, whether it be the flesh or the world or the devil, every day we have to be careful. Every day we have to be circumspect and we have to be wise and prepared.

So that’s the first thing that’s mentioned is the swallowing up of the enemies and daily how the enemies fight against David. So that’s the first thing that’s repeated in verses one and two. The second thing that’s repeated, which I’ll come back to in the end, is this, is verse number four says, in God I will praise his word. And then down in verse number 10, it says, in God will I praise his word, in the Lord will I praise his word.

So that’s repeated as well, but we’ll come back to that at the end. The third thing I want you to see is what we wanna spend a little bit of time on, and it’s found in verses three and four. Notice what it says, what time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. In God will I praise his word, in God I have put my trust. I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.

You notice the trust repeatedly, trust in verse number three, trust in verse number four, afraid in verse number three, fear in verse number four. And then in verse number 11, in God have I put my trust, I will not be afraid what man can do unto me there. Trust and fear are afraid, again mentioned. That’s actually mentioned three times. So if you just take it by the statistics, that’s probably one of the most important parts of this song.

And there’s a dynamic here in verse three, verse number four, and verse number 11 that I wanna point out to you. Notice what time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. So you have fear on one, if you imagine the ideas of fear and faith or trust on opposite ends of a balance or a scale. You have fear, verse three, you have afraid on one side, you have trust on the other, verse four.

In God have I put my trust, I will not fear, verse 11. In God I put my trust, I will not be afraid. So what you can do is you can put these on a scale and you can see that fear affects trust, trust affects fear, and they have a relationship between each other. Faith and fear, trust and fear have a relationship with each other in our lives, in our hearts, and in our minds.

Now we know in this song David’s primary fears in a literal sense are his enemies who are slandering him in verse number five. They rest his words, they plan evil against him in verse number five, and they seek after his soul. That’s what verse number six says. And of course we have enemies, we have spiritual enemies, you might have some physical enemies that have it out for you, I don’t know.

But that’s not something that’s, you know, we’re not in a wartime situation like David is describing here, but we do have fears. We absolutely do have fears, and a lot of times our fears are not in the form of a human enemy, although sometimes that’s the case. More often I would say, and I think you would probably agree that our fears often come under the label of something like anxiety.

Is that not a hot button issue these days? Anxiety is a big, big thing in our world. We don’t talk about fear a lot, but we do talk about anxiety. You know what anxiety is? It’s another word for fear. It’s basically another word for fear.

If you would, look at, hold your place here and come back to Luke chapter 12. I wanna show you a couple of verses here to show you what I mean. Luke chapter 12, verse number seven to begin.

Luke 12, verse seven, or start in verse number six to get the context. He says this, Luke 12, verse six, are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God. The idea is God has not forgotten you. You’re of greater value than many sparrows. We know this is kind of the equivalent to Matthew chapter six about the sparrows. And so God is reminding us, the Lord is reminding us that you are of greater value than many sparrows.

And if God cares for the sparrows, he cares for you. So that’s kind of the background of this. Then in verse number seven, but even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Now notice what he says, fear not therefore. So upon the basis of the knowledge that God has his eye upon you, his omniscience from Sunday school, remember the hairs of your head are all numbered.

On that basis, we’re not to fear. Ye are of more value than many sparrows. Now notice the fear related to anxiety. Now the word anxious or careful is not in these two verses, but that’s the idea. You’re worried about something. You’re afraid you’re not gonna have enough. You’re afraid of what’s gonna happen. Just, and this is the same context again as Matthew six, be careful for nothing.

Look at verse number 32. Same chapter, verse 32. Of course, you know verse 31, which is the answer to Matthew 6, 33, but rather seek ye the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. In context, a little trivia, what are the these things mentioned here? Anybody know off the top of your head?

It’s food and rain, it’s your provision. It’s money, it’s what you need to live. That’s what we’re talking about here. And he says, rather seek ye the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. And notice, so that’s talking, definitely talking about anxiety and carefulness. Worry, okay, now the next verse. Fear not, little flock, for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

So anxiety and fear are just two sides of the same coin. It’s just another way to describe, you might say anxiety is fear in the future tense or something like that. But anxiety is something people deal with a lot. I’m talking a lot, lot in our world. But it’s just fear, it’s repackaged fear. That’s what I wanted to show you from Luke. What kinds of things do we fear?

I mean on a normal basis, on a regular basis. I brainstorm and I want you to think about the things that you know that people fear as well beyond just the things that I list. I’d like you to give me some feedback because I want this to really be in our lap. When we think of fear, I don’t want you to think about an asteroid hitting the earth.

I’m talking about common, regular, normal fear that we deal with all the time. Do we not fear illness? Sometimes we fear getting sick. If you have little kids, if you have little kids, little babies, I distinctly remember, I mean just an example with Nathaniel. That happens and then the next time something happens, there’s gonna be that in the back of your mind, right? Yeah, we had our daughter Abby, the same thing happened, absence of the seizure.

But the fever went up, we could not get it down, didn’t know what to do. Fever was like 100 and, what was it, 105? I can’t remember what it was. Anyway, Abby’s fever went up and we were just, you know, we’d only been with parents a few years, four or five years, and we didn’t really know what to do. That’ll be a cause of fear. That’s just illness.

We fear financial hardship. We fear losing our job, are we gonna have enough money? Or unexpected expenses cause us fear. Every one of us deals with this kind of thing. Oftentimes we watch the news and we fear what the media tells us we should fear. You know, be careful with the news because they design their stories to create anxiety because that is what sends people back to the website to constantly check, is there an update?

Is there something that’s changed because they wanna get rid of the fear? So they stir up the fear and then they kinda keep it there waiting on refresh, refresh, refresh, refresh.

That sometimes causes us fear. Sometimes we fear because we’re afraid our valued relationships are gonna disintegrate or fall apart. Sometimes we fear what the choices of other people, think of your kids, when your kids get older.

We often fear that which we don’t know, unknown things that are in the future. What other kinds of things might we fear? What is that? Failure. Failure, that’s a good one. That’s actually one I thought of after I printed my notes. Yeah, there’s absolutely, that’s something I have dealt with over the years. Not accomplishing that thing you set out to do. What else, anything else come to mind?

Rejection. Rejection, fear of rejection. What else? Other people’s disapproval. Other people’s disapproval, yeah. Anything else? Traffic. Fear of traffic, fear of car accident. Just being around people. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So, what else? Yeah.

Loss. Loss. Missing out. Yeah, FOMO, fear of missing out. Some of us have serious FOMO. Anybody else have something? What else yet might you fear? Any other ideas? The unknown.

You see, fear is something all of us deal with. And see, what I’d like you to do, and I know there’s probably things in your mind, you might actually have things in your mind that are personal to you, that you are thinking about right now. Put that in your mind, because I want that to be in the forefront of your mind. That thing, those things that you often are anxious about, that you fear.

Because that’s what this is talking about. You remember the Psalms, all the rest of the Psalms we’ve covered now? See, that’s the benefit of going, I know, I know, going through the Psalms and we’re reading the same thing over and over and over and over. But it’s there on purpose. It’s there on purpose. And I know we cover a lot of the same ground, but here’s one thing that you might, if you just kind of spot check the Psalms rather than going through them, here’s one thing you miss.

You miss the repetition. And the repetition is one thing that is very valuable in going through the Psalms in a methodical way. Here’s why. What have we seen about David and his fear? We’ve seen it recur multiple times in his life.

And we’ve seen many, many times David has been fear, he’s been in fear of his very life. Over and over, he’s been afraid. His enemies would catch up with him and he’d be dead the next day, right? We see that over and over and over. And what does that provide to us? And I’ve said this before, but I’ll just mention it again. It provides to us an example of an extreme of fear.

Like most of us are not at this moment afraid that someone’s gonna take our life. But number one, there is no guarantee that in our life that will not happen. You know, there are people in Venezuela that at one time were prosperous like we are and now are in fear of their life. You know, there’s people in Mexico right now that were perfectly fine a week ago and now are in fear for their life.

They’re afraid for their life. See, there’s no guarantee that things, well, we live in America, everything’s peaceful. There’s no guarantee that it will stay like that. Now we give God thanks for that, but there’s no guarantee of that at all. There might come a day when we have to exercise what we see in this Psalm in the extreme kind of fear. But for us, thanks be to God, we deal with more normal, regular kind of fear, right?

But one day, listen, but one day you and I both are gonna deal with a fear that every human being has to deal with, you know that? When our life comes to an end, you might know and I might know where we’re going on the authority of God’s word. We might be certain of that, but nobody, none of us is interested in the door that we have to walk through to get there, right?

That’s a fear, that’s a fear. In the Psalms, we see these kinds of extreme examples of fear in the Psalms David wrote, but I wanna explain this to you though, but if David’s trust in God was effective in the most extreme of circumstances and fears, is it not effective also in the lesser circumstances of fears? Is not the thing that assuaged and calmed and comforted him in his fears in the most extreme example effective also in our examples?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, absolutely. It’s like, you know, if you got a bodybuilder, you know, and he can bench 500 pounds or something like, he can bench a lot of weight, do you think he’s gonna have trouble picking up a baby? No way, because his strength in the extreme is enough for the lesser as well. And that’s the whole, that’s the thing you get from studying the Psalms.

David, the Lord in his wisdom and providence allowed David, indeed led David through things that would later then be recorded through the extreme versions of fear to prove that it was effective even in the most extreme circumstance. David recorded it, and now we have that comfort.

So you have this scale in the Psalm, verse three is a perfect example of it. “’What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.’” So you put fear on one side of the balance and you put trust in God on the other side of the balance. As trust in God increases, fear diminishes. And as trust diminishes, so fear increases. That’s the relationship, it’s an inverse relationship.

You wanna know why you have, if you’re a person who has a lot of anxiety, there is a direct, an inverse rather, but there is a direct correlation between that anxiety and your trust in God. It’s right there. And the thing is, it’s not like this. I mean, we’re deceived that we think, well, I have faith, I trust in God in this moment, everything’s good, right? I feel like my fears are relieved.

It’s only gonna be like that like five minutes, okay? And then five minutes later, you’re gonna have to do it again and again and again. It’s not like one and done. That’s not how it works. There’s almost, the only thing that’s like that is when you got saved. Pretty much every other thing in life is not a one and done, it’s a repeated thing. And when you have fear, when you’re anxious, when you’re troubled and distressed over something causing you fear, you’re gonna have to go to the Lord and you’re gonna have to trust God about that thing over and over and over and over.

But what does it mean to trust God? You know what I think? I think we say the word trust God and it’s just religious talk. It’s just religious talk. But to put one’s trust in God is not a feel good statement. That’s not what it is at all.

It’s not some sort of like self consolation, some sort of like, you know, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts. That’s the Christian version of happy thoughts. That’s not what it means to trust God at all. We have happy thoughts. We say, oh, well, trust God to kind of distract us from fear. It’s not self help at all. Putting our trust in God, now listen now, means that we are actively and intentionally choosing to lean upon his word.

And the promises in his word to answer the fear. You know, one thing that a lot of people that have fear and anxiety, and you might, and I’ve been here too, you probably have been if you had to deal with fear, one thing that we find ourselves sliding into is this kind of pit where we don’t wanna hear God’s word. We are content to fear. We don’t wanna hear it.

And Romans 8 28 is quoted, and we roll our eyes, if not externally, definitely internally. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. We don’t wanna hear that. What time I’m afraid I will trust in thee. We don’t wanna hear that. We don’t wanna hear that. So we kind of plug our ears to that and thereby kind of choose to stay in fear.

We don’t even attempt to combat it. To put our trust in God means we lay hold on what he has said and promised. And we lean upon it. We lean upon it. It’s kind of like a battle.

You see trust in, hear me now, trust in God, laying hold upon his word and his promises, that is the answer to fear and anxiety. That is the answer.

In God have I put my trust, I will not fear. In God have I put my trust, I will not be afraid. Fear goes down because trust in God goes up.

You see fear and trust in God cannot coexist. They can’t coexist. They go up and down together like this. I wanna go through some verses with you. Start in Psalm 27 if you would. Look at Psalm 27 and I wanna go through them fast and I have a number of them. I have like probably 10 of them. Maybe 10, eight of them maybe. And we’re not gonna park at any of these but I just wanna show you this is a valid biblical principle that all of us need to get into our mind about fear, about anxiety, about things that trouble and distress us.

Psalm 27 verse three. Though in host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. So if his heart’s not gonna fear, what do you expect to be on the rise? His trust in God. Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. See that?

His heart, fear goes down, confidence in God goes up. Look at Psalm 31. Psalm 31. Verse 13. Psalm 31, 13 says this. For I have heard the slander of many. Fear was on every side. While they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life. But I trusted in thee. See how he answered? Fear that surrounded him, the answer was trust. That’s what he did to combat it.

He said, I trusted in thee, oh Lord. I said, thou art my God. You see what he’s doing? You know what that is? That is an intentional action. You see what I’m saying? He’s laying hold upon the truth that he has. In this case, he’s laying hold on the truth of the word of God, that God is his God and will not forsake him. And laying hold on that, he faces and answers the fear.

Look at Psalm 112. Psalm 112. Verse seven. He’s talking about the man that fears the Lord. Notice verse seven. He shall not be afraid. So fear’s going down, what’s going up? He shall not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.

Look at verse eight, doesn’t end there. His heart is established. He shall not be afraid of evil tidings. He shall not be afraid until he sees his desire upon his enemies. Psalm 119, look at that if you would. Verse 42.

So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me, for I trust in thy word. David was afraid of the reproach of his enemies in Psalm 56. Here, he trusts in God’s word. Isaiah chapter 12, look at that. Isaiah chapter 12.

Isaiah 12, verse two. Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. There it is, see that? Every time you see the word not and fear or not and afraid, you often find the word trust or some cognate of that word nearby because when it goes down, the trust is going up. For the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song. He also has become my salvation.

Look at Matthew chapter eight. This is not just an Old Testament fact, it’s a New Testament fact as well. Matthew chapter eight. Verse number 26. This is when they’re in the ship crossing the Sea of Galilee. Of course, they woke the Lord up because the waves were boisterous. Verse 26 of Matthew eight says this. And he saith unto them, why are ye fearful? So fear has gone up.

So what do we expect? Faith has gone down. Oh, ye of little faith. There it is. Luke chapter eight, look at that. Luke chapter eight. This is the ruler of the synagogue whose daughter was sick and indeed died. Verse 50. But when Jesus, they came and told him that his daughter was dead, trouble not the master. Verse 50 says this. And when Jesus heard it, he answered him in saying, fear not, believe only.

And she shall be made whole. You see how the Lord answered fear? Obviously, they just told him his daughter’s dead. What comes into his heart and mind? Instant fear, right? But the Lord answers the fear with the encouragement to trust him, right?

Hebrews 11, look at that. Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews 11, verse 23. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents. Now stop a second. Moses is not the one doing this faith, is he? No, this is Amram and Jacob, Moses’ parents. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper child.

And they were not, what? Afraid, why weren’t they afraid? By faith, they hid him. They were not afraid. They were not afraid of the king’s commandment. Look at verse 27.

This is talking about Moses now. By faith, he forsook Egypt. Why did he forsake Egypt? Faith, trust, not fearing the wrath of the king. See that? Last one, Revelation 21, verse eight. You’ll go there.

Revelation 21, verse eight. Verse seven says this, he that overcomeeth shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my son. Verse eight, but the fearful and, so if they’re fearful, fear is high, so you expect faith to be low, but the fearful and unbelieving shall have their part in the lake which burnt with fire and brimstone, which is the sacred land.

They shall have their part in the lake which burnt with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. As you can see from the Old Testament to the New, there is a relationship between fear and trust in God.

And that is the answer to our fears. Be they big or small is trust in God. But you can, listen, and that’s why this Psalm says, in God will I praise his word. And then it says, in God will I trust, will I trust him and I will not be afraid. That’s what the Psalm says. You can’t, you and I cannot trust, we cannot learn to trust God unless we know his word intimately.

That is the source of trust. The word of God is the soil from which trust in God grows. You have to know it. If you know God’s word intimately, not just casually, but you know it intimately, as you learn it, you might not even be aware that your faith in God is building. But when the time of testing comes, when the moment of fear arises, you will need and indeed you will have the knowledge of God’s word in your heart and that will be your trust.

He will remind you of those truths in his word, but you have to put it in your heart now. Now go back to Psalm 56 if you would to finish and I wanna read you one thing that is, Psalm 56, verse number three. We’re gonna recite this verse a few times, kinda get it into our memory, all right? All right, we’re gonna say the reference and then we’re gonna say the verse.

We’re gonna say it three, four, five times maybe, okay? You ready? Ready, set, go. Psalm 56, three. What time I am afraid I will trust in thee. Think you got it? Sounds like everybody’s gonna be in Sunday school quoting this verse. All right, do it again, one, two, three. Psalm 56, three. What time I am afraid I will trust in thee. All right, y’all do it by yourselves.

Ready, set, go. Psalm 56, three. What time I am afraid I will trust in thee. Very good, one more time. Psalm 56, three. What time I am afraid I will trust in thee. One more time. Psalm 56, three. What time I am afraid I will trust in thee. All right, very good.

Thomas wants to get in on that action. I’m gonna read you a small portion to close from the Pilgrim’s Progress. If you’re familiar with the Pilgrim’s Progress, you’ll probably know this part. If you’re not, then just hang in there. Basically, Christian has arrived at the river, which symbolizes death. All right, he can see the gate of the city, which is New Jerusalem on the other side, heaven.

He can see it on the other side, but he has to cross the river to get there. It says this, now I further saw that betwixt them and the gate was a river, but there was no bridge to go over. The river was very deep. At the sight, therefore, of this river, the pilgrims were much stunned. But the men that went with them said, you must go through or you cannot come at the gate.

The pilgrims then began to inquire if there was no other way to the gate, to which they answered, yes, but there hath not any, save two, to which Enoch and Elijah been permitted to tread that path since the foundation of the world, nor shall until the last trumpet shall sound. The pilgrims then, especially Christian, began to despond in their mind. Sounds like fear to me, right? And look this way and that, but no way could be found by them by which they might escape the river.

Then they asked the men if the waters were all of a depth. They said no, yet they could not help them in that case, for, said they, you shall find it deeper, talking about their fear now, or shallower as you believe in the king of that place. See this truth John Bunyan wrote in the 1600s, early 1600s. He wrote and illustrated this truth one of the last great scenes in the book.

They then addressed themselves to the water, and entering, Christian began to sink. And crying out to his good friend hopeful, he said, I sink in deep waters, the billows go over my head, all his waves go over me, say la. Then said the other, be of good cheer, my brother, I feel the bottom and it is good. Then said Christian, ah, my friend, the sorrows of death have compassed me about.

I shall not see the land that flows with milk and honey. And with that a great darkness and horror fell upon Christian. See his faith is failing, and so fear is coming in.

So that he could not see before him. Also here in great measure, also here he in great measure lost his senses, so that he could neither remember nor orderly talk of any of those sweet refreshments that he had met with in the way of his pilgrimage. But all the words that he spake still tended to discover that he had a horror of mind and heart fears that he should die in that river and never obtain entrance in at the gate.

Here also, as they stood by perceived, he was much in the troublesome thoughts of the sins that he had committed, both since and before he began to be a pilgrim. He was also observed that he was troubled with apparitions of hobgoblins and evil spirits forever and anon. He would intimate so much by words. However, hopeful therefore, here had much ado to keep his brother’s head above water.

Yea, sometimes he would be quite gone down and then, ere while, he would rise up again half dead. Hopeful also would endeavor to comfort him saying, “’Brother, I see the gate. “’The men standing by to receive us.’ “’But Christian would answer, “’It is you, it is you they wait for. “’You have been hopeful ever since I knew you. “’And so have you,’ said he to Christian. “’O brother,’ said he, “’surely if I were right, he would now rise to help me.

“’But for my sins he hath brought me into the snare “’and hath left me.’ “’Then said hopeful, “’My brother, you have quite forgot the text. “’Where it is said of the wicked, “’there are no bands in their death, “’but their strength is firm. “’They are not in trouble as other men, “’neither are they plagued like other men. “’These troubles and distresses that you go through “’in these waters are no sign that God hath forsaken you “’but are sent to try you, “’whether you will call to mind that which heretofore “’you have received of his goodness “’and live upon him in your distresses.’ “’Then I saw in my dream that Christian was in a muse awhile.

“’To whom also hopeful added this word, “’Be of good cheer, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole.’ “’And with that Christian break out with a loud voice, “’Oh, I see him again.’ “’And he tells me, “’When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, “’and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee.’ “’Then they both took courage, “’and the enemy was after that as still as a stone “’until they were gone over.

“’Christian therefore presently found ground to stand upon, “’and so it followed that the rest of the river “’was but shallow. “’Thus they got over. “’Now upon the bank of the river on the other side “’they saw two shining men again, “’who there waited for them. “’Wherefore, being come out of the river, “’they saluted them, saying, “’We are ministering spirits sent forth to minister “’for those who shall be heirs of salvation.’ “’Thus they went along toward the gate.

“’Now you must note that the city stood upon a mighty hill, “’but the pilgrims went up that hill with ease, “’because they had these two men “’to lead them up by the arms. “’Also they had left their mortal garments “’behind them in the river, “’for though they went in with them, “’they came out without them. “’They therefore went up here with much agility and speed “’through the foundation upon which the city was framed “’was higher than the clouds.

“’They therefore went up through the regions of the air, “’sweetly talking as they went, being comforted, “’because they safely got over the river “’and had such glorious companions to attend them.’” I think John Bunyan knew what he was talking about. Amen. Faith versus fear. Let’s pray.