Then that brings us to chapter 14 In verse one, the apostle the Lord Jesus Christ says to His disciples, not only Let not your heart be troubled, but he adds the command Believe me. Believe in me believe in your father, believe in the Father. Believe also in me. I think there's a bunch of times in which we have that where it is given to us believe me, believe me, believe me. Brothers and sisters, we are unbelieving believers. It's true. We find the disciples did not believe the Lord Jesus Christ, when He told them about the cross and the crucifixion in Matthew chapter 16. They didn't believe even after he was raised from the dead and was seen of Peter or Cephas and he comes to the 11 in the upper room, they still didn't believe. He upbraided them for their unbelief. From the beginning of this Bible to the end, the primary issue is believing God, if it's loving one another, which it is, then the great principle for us is to believe God.

The apostle Paul as he goes through the lessons of, of difficulties and problems and shipwrecks and so forth. He comes to us at the end of chapter 27 of Acts. He said, I believe, God. I asked you, do you? Do you know the promises of God? Have you picked them up? Have you made a list of them? Are there any of them that challenge you? And you say, well, you know, I don't believe that promise. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming again. He that shall come, Will Come. The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout and so forth. And as we see that we understand that the promises of God are going to be kept. Do we live in the light of those promises? You have to believe God, and Paul's announcement at the end of that journey as they came to Malta, and on their way to Rome, with shipwrecks, the loss of the ship the loss of the tackling the loss of all, God said to them, said to him, you will not lose one person but you're gonna lose everything else. Paul says, I believe God. That great book that's in your lap or on your table there, Do you believe it?

We look back to the children of Israel in the Old Testament, and we realized that they did not enter into the land of Canaan, for only one reason. Hebrews tells us, they entered not in because of unbelief. They were unbelieving believers. They had believed God for getting them out of the land of Egypt, but they couldn't believe it the same God would bring them into the land of Canaan. That is so characteristic. I wonder if the percentages in the assemblies and in the church of Christ churches of the Lord Jesus Christ in our world are the same. Let me ask you, how many people came out of Egypt that were over the age of was it 20 or 21? How many of those people that came out of Egypt actually entered into the land of Canaan? Do you know the answer? Two. Caleb, and Joshua, Joshua and Caleb. Here with Joshua and Caleb. The only two among whatever, a couple of million people, everyone under the age of 20, whatever it was 20 or 21. They had a further opportunity to enter into the land of Canaan, by the Jordan River. But all of those who were above that age what does it mean?

Are there percentages I asked you again. The same. Two, out of two and a half million. I don't even know what the what the percentages are. Suppose is one or 2%. If you have 100 people in your assembly are there only two out of the 100 that understand the joy of entering into the blessing of God? They believe in a God who can save them forgive them, but they don't believe in the same God the same Lord Jesus Christ. And take them into the enjoyment and appreciation of the fullness of God, we talked last week about asking the Lord to be with us. That was a problem. That was a problem with the nation of Israel. And yet God said I am with you. As I was with Moses, I will be with Joshua. And so Joshua, our Joshua, of course, is the Lord Jesus Christ, who brings us into the fullness and understanding of all the blessings of our salvation.

I showed you my little book, the devotional blessings, all mine, with 10,000 beside. And the reason I wrote that is because I find so many people who don't believe God. They don't believe the premises of God. If you have a problem in that area, I suggest you make a study go through the New Testament. Write out the promises of God, there are devotions that do nothing but go over the promises of God. And basically, I have done the same thing, but I have used the word blessings. What did we talk about last week? We talked last week. About say asking the Lord to be with us. Asking the Lord to bless us. It's most often in our prayers that we asked the Lord to bless us or bless His word. He has promised to bless us. Galatians says He that those that be of faith are blessed are blessed with faithful Abraham. Yeah, we asked the Lord to bless. Bless the food I don't know what that means. Does that mean if there's something in the food like you know that wouldn't be healthy that God will take it out? because we asked him to bless it. What does it mean to ask the Lord to bless His Word? He's blessed his word. It's a living powerful word, as authored by Godly men, and communicated through the Holy Spirit's and preserved for us and explained to us by the Holy Spirit.

Why do we say, Lord be with us, Lord bless? Why can't we turn that promise around? And I'm going to speak in a couple of weeks on Numbers 6 The Lord bless you and keep you The Lord make his face to shine upon you, the Lord be gracious unto you and live in and so forth. You know what that? Do you know what that benediction is? I hear it repeated again and again. The Lord bless you and keep you do what my understanding is that benediction was fulfilled and is fulfilled in Christ. Of course, take those there are three of them, one for the father, one for the Son, and one for the Holy Spirit back in Numbers chapter six. The Lord bless you and keep you. What are you gonna say about that? My answer is he has. Ephesians chapter one. Blessing be the God and Father, according to his abundant mercy blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.

Why don't we believe God? Why don't we believe the Word of God? Our hearts are filled with anxiety and fear is a terror with uneasiness with apprehension because we don't believe God. If we believe God for salvation, and forgiveness of sins, why don't we believe the promises of God? Why don't we accept what the Word of God says and believe? Accept is true. rest upon it, lean upon it. Act upon it, because God has said to us, our salvation is based upon believing sanctification is based upon believing, John chapter 17. Sanctify them through your truth. Your Word is true. We're not sanctified by what we do. We are sanctified by what we believe. Sanctify them through your truth. Your word is truth. It's as we believe the Word of God. That it transforms our mind our thinking our boldness, our confidence in God in our action shows that we believe God.

Otherwise, we're like so many Christians today with this pandemic terrified. I'm not saying you shouldn't get vaccinated and wear a mask. I'm simply saying your mind needs not to be filled with terror and anxiety. Because of this virus, I believe God, do you? Will you accept and believe God for salvation? Praise the Lord. Amen. Hallelujah, that you have believed the gospel once and for all. A transaction was made when you became a member of the family of God. How thrilling is that? How challenging is that because every day of our life, we are faced with challenges, and we need to respond like Joshua and Caleb did. We can enter. We can defeat these giants. God is with us. Or we can join with the other spies 10 of them. You know, we're like grasshoppers in their sight and we're like grasshoppers in our own sight. We begin to do that. Let's go back to Egypt. Oh, my brothers. It is so perfectly presented to us in the Book of Joshua and the expression of victory over Jericho and eventually over AI, and all the others to enjoy and appreciate and appropriate and defeat the enemies in order that we might enjoy the blessings of our salvation.