Let not your hearts be troubled

‘Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.’ John 14:1

Suggested Further Reading: John 16:1–15

Let me say it ought to be a great deal easier for you and me to live above heart trouble than it was to the apostles; I mean easier than it was to the apostles at the time when the Saviour spoke to them and for forty days afterwards. You say, ‘How was that?’ Because you have three things which they had not. You have experience of many past troubles out of which you have been delivered. They had only been converted at the outside three years; they had not known much trouble, for Jesus in the flesh had dwelt among them to screen off troubles from them. Some of you have been converted thirty—forty—what if I say sixty years, and you have had abundance of trouble—you have not been screened from it. Now all this experience ought to make it easier for you to say, ‘My heart shall not be troubled.’ Again, you have received the Holy Spirit, and they had not. The Holy Spirit was not given, as you remember, until the day of Pentecost. His direct government in the church was not required while Christ was here. You have the Spirit, the Comforter, to abide with you for ever; surely you ought to be less distracted than they were. Thirdly, you have the whole of Scripture, they had but a part. They certainly had not the richest Scriptures of all, for they had not the evangelists nor any of the New Testament, and having, as we have, all that store of promise and comfort, we ought surely to find it no hard work to obey the sweet precept, ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’

For meditation: Have you ever wished you had been a contemporary of the Lord Jesus Christ and an eyewitness of his life on earth? That would have been an experience to be valued and never to be forgotten (John 1:14; 2 Peter 1:16–18; 1 John 1:1–3). However, he pronounced a particular blessing upon those of us who have trusted in him without having seen him (John 20:29). We too are able to love him and experience great joy in the midst of trials and temptations (1 Peter 1:6–8).

Sermon no. 730
20 January (1867)