Trust God’s Promises, Not Your Passions

An experience I had years ago when I first began teaching back in 1965, I was a professor at a college and on the weekends, I would fill vacant pulpits. And there was a church across the border in Ohio where the minister became terminally ill and could no longer preach. And so for several months, I preached in that church for his people. And I got a call on a Saturday night and said, “We just heard from the hospital, and it’s likely that our pastor is not going to live through tomorrow.”

And I knew how much these people loved him and what a tremendous burden of pain and grief this was going to be upon them to learn of his imminent demise. The next day we were scheduled to have the Lord’s Supper, and how I prayed my heart out that Saturday night. I said, “Lord, these people need encouragement. They need a word from You that will lift them up from their despair, that their eyes may be upon You in the midst of this crisis.”

And the next day, when I got into the church, I tried to preach my heart out. And everybody in this room who’s ever preached a sermon knows what it’s like to lay an egg. You want to preach, and you’re preaching, and nothing’s working. I mean, it was horrible—one of the worst sermons I ever preached in my life. Then I led the congregation through the Lord’s Supper. And I was overcome with a profound sense of the absence of God. It was awful. So that when I pronounced the benediction, instead of going back to the back of the church and greet people, I wanted to run out the door, find a hole to jump in, and hide. I was so embarrassed because I knew I let them down. And guess what happened?

I’ve never had a response like this, where one person after another came out of that sanctuary thunderstruck, and they grabbed my hand with both hands and said, “Thank you, pastor. I’ve never known the presence of the Lord like I knew this morning.” And one of them after another came out of there, and I’m thinking, Were these people in the same service that I was? And I said to Vesta on the way home, “I’m going to make a vow today, honey. And I’m going to stop being a sensual Christian. And from now on, I’m not going to trust in the presence of God based on what I feel, but on what He promises.” He promises to be there. He promises to attend the preaching of the Word that you give. Live by that.