Are You a Bruised Reed? — Keith Daniel

I am very grateful to God for this privilege of being here with you very dear people, and I am very grateful to God for your pastor, and obviously a very godly man, and his very godly home, and this very precious word to our hearts tonight.

Thank you, brother. It came from the heart earnest and burdened for the things of God. I am in a different planet tonight, I think, not a different continent. They don't lock the doors here, and I can't get used to it.

When we walk away from a car with us, dear brother, today, I couldn't believe it, because you don't leave a car unlocked in my country, or you come back, it isn't what's inside the car that'll be gone, the car will be gone.

And you don't leave a house open in our country, brother. Oh my. Nothing will be there when you come back. You live in a different world, but you're very privileged in this part of the world, and I am so grateful to be part of it.

I have come to love the American Christian, the godly of the godly, and God has been very good to me, for somehow, in the few times I've come to your land, I think he has given me the privilege of being always amongst the godly of the godly.

And I'm grateful to be here, and may these meetings be something so hallowed and sacred in God's eyes, not because of me, for I know I'm nothing. I know I'm nothing. And he doesn't have to remind me of that.

Excuse me. He is good. Go for a moment of prayer, please. Oh Lord, we do thank thee for thy word. Above all things, let us honor thy word, and we long to let thee do that tonight. Take the word of God, and by the Holy Spirit, make it something holy and precious to all of our hearts.

You're so different in our needs, each one, but we long for God to come and visit us, and so Lord, we ask thee to keep us tonight under the blood of Jesus Christ, and to rebuke thou, the devil, Satan, demons, evil people away from this meeting, in the name of Jesus Christ, to cleanse the atmosphere of this whole hall with the blood, and to protect us, Lord, in thy mercy.

Wash me in the blood. I have nothing, God, to bring thee but the blood. I have nothing to commend or trust in or show thee that will give thee any thought or reason to bless this meeting or to use me, only the blood.

I come to thee, and I need the blood tonight. Wash me. It is my only hope of God taking me up in my weakness. Make me clean, and fill me with the Holy Spirit. Anoint my lips, my heart, my mind, and render heavens by thy mercy, and come and visit us through thy word.

The letter killeth, we know, and no man can give it life. No one. So our expectation is not in men or ourselves, in our ability to know, in our ability to understand. No, God, our expectation tonight is in thee and thee only.

Without thee we can do nothing. The Spirit alone can give this book life. We walk from this place the same unless all of us look to God and him only and have nothing to look to in men or ourselves even.

Come, O God, and speak that thou will visit us, that we leave this building not the same, but changed forever. Do it for thy glory, for as others look at our heart, for the God does not look at the words that proceed out of the mouth.

God, look at the heart. For whence they come, look at all of our hearts, especially mine, Lord, and see our motive. There is nothing here for anything else but the smile of God in our hearts. There is nothing here, Lord, but that God will be glorified for that reason and because we all ask in the name of Jesus Christ these things.

Come in mercy. There are so many beautiful verses in the Holy Scriptures. I don't know how many times you've been through the Bible, but as you go through, you will find, as I have, that suddenly verses that were precious become meaningful and when you go through twenty times, suddenly you understand a little bit of it and you thought you did before.

When you get through a hundred times, two hundred times, three hundred, I can't wait to get through four hundred times because I know there's going to be riches here that I will never see until I've gone through four hundred times.

Now, brother, that means you and I have to get through longing to reach that. I know many people who've read through the Bible over four hundred times and they're quite astounded if you think of or suggest there was a sacrifice or that it must have been difficult, very regarded as difficult, that you didn't get through four hundred times.

If God is central in your life and your priorities are sorted out ruthlessly, that the things that are valued by God are valued by you and you would find it impossible not to get through this book four hundred times if you've walked the road for a long time.

How many times have you been through the book, young man? Think of that. You read three chapters a day, you've got to be through the Bible in one year. Six chapters a day, you're twice through in one year.

You have to be. How many years have you been saved? It's impossible not to get through the Bible four hundred times if you give it central place in your life. It's hard not to. But when you go through again and again, suddenly, verses that were precious, you begin to glimpse what God's saying after many, many times and you realize your poverty, your poverty and how deep this book is when you only begin to grasp after many, many times.

Isaiah 42 and the Servant of the Lord

One of those verses you'll find that took me a long time before I began to glimpse what God was saying. Just catch a glimpse. It's found in Isaiah. And that's chapter forty-two. Speaking of the office of Christ, if you look at the headings in the top of your Bible, if it's a good King James Bible, the ministry of Christ, the office of Christ, where God speaks of this amazing servant.

For he is referred to as a servant, how much more you and I, brother, if that has been written across your life, you're far from God. If that word is not written across your life, you are so far from God, I pity you.

Whether you're a preacher, whether you're a woman, if it was written of Christ and known of Christ, what are you? If you name the name of Jesus, then no one would look upon you as a servant. Behold, look at my servant, whom I'll uphold, my elect.

I love that word elect. So many people get confused about the word elect, brother. They literally bury God's goodness with the word elect. I love the word elect. I'd like to preach a sermon one day on just that word election and elect.

It is beautiful. Nothing to be feared. There's nothing in the Bible to be feared. You just see the beauty and the justness and the integrity of God in everything. Nothing that could accuse him of wrong.

Like some people seem to even preach without knowing it when they take this word elect. But here's God that he chose, this amazing savior of mankind's soul, in whom my soul delighteth. I have put my spirit upon him.

He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. There's something wonderful about Christ, isn't it? Something unique. Every word said about him confounds the savior, the messiah, but nothing about what they were watching for or expecting, though they were the people of God.

Everything that they didn't expect. Everything they didn't... There's something about Jesus that there's no way the mind, beginning to be able to comprehend in truth the depth of his integrity and goodness and love.

The Bruised Reed and the Smoking Flax

There's a bruised reed. That word, a bruised reed. God is so compassionate. You know, in one word, you can just know there's love. God doesn't love, by the way. He is love. When he speaks, there's something there that doesn't love.

It is love. It is love. You and I love, but we're not love. We are not love. Only God is love. A bruised reed. A stubborn word, that, a bruised reed. Shall he not break? Isn't that compassionate? The savior of all men.

The smoking flecks. The flecks of that lantern. We would call it a wick of a candle. Shall he not quince? Isn't that beautiful? Smoking flecks. A bruised reed. Oh, there's something here in the words of God that is so compassionate that we, we can only catch a glimpse of his love, let alone understand fully.

A bruised reed. Shall he not break? And a smoking flecks. Shall he not quince? I wonder how many of us, if we were all to be exposed by God tonight, imagine if he did that. Oh, we would be shocked. You think you know your wife.

You think you know your child, sir. You think you know your pastor. If we were all to be exposed by God here tonight, in one moment, to stand in truth for what we really are, not the way we sing, not the hallelujah, brother, but what God sees in our heart, in our thoughts through the day, in our understanding of what's going on.

I wonder how many of us, how many of us at this point of our lives are bruised reeds, smoking flecks, that God's looking at you tonight. How many of us at this point of our lives are bruised reeds that all God sees?

He sees nothing further than what all the things man sees about you, brother. God just looks and he knows you're a bruised reed, a smoking flecks. A bruised reed, shall he not break? Smoking flecks, shall he not quench?

Lessons from the Reeds

When I was a boy, my daddy, my daddy built us a house, a beautiful house. And it was on the top of a hill overlooking a beautiful valley in our country. And in this valley was a river that was mighty when it flooded, all the damage and the harm that could happen through this river that flowed through this wide valley in the flood.

It was a beautiful river, most of the time, and a beautiful valley. And we as children grew up in that valley. We would run down from the houses into the valley. That was our playground daily, virtually daily, through the years.

And that river, we got to know. We got to know that river. We got to understand something about reeds that go along the river. We found out first that we could make money. There's a beautiful bulrush with the reeds, the flowers, the special parts of the reeds that bring this unique and rare flower that you just don't find in the floral displays of the florist shops.

We found that you could take these reeds, you could take these bulrush flowers and dip them in paint, and the most amazing floral bouquet. And we as children, if there was school feasts where money was needed, or Sunday school feasts and we were asked to do something or contribute something, we found we could make a lot of money.

We just got these reeds and it took time. We knew how to do it. We had our belly. But we also find something about a reed as a young child that we never forgot. We found out that a bruised reed had to break.

There is no healing of a reed. There's something God is saying here that changes the context and the perspective of God. If you know what He's saying here, there's something beyond comprehending of just what God is telling us about us.

We found out that if we were handling the cutting of the reeds before we tied them carefully in the bunch, if in our handling of the reed there was a bruise, if we bruised the reed, it would break. It had to break.

There is no hope. That is the point here. There is no such a thing as any hope of a reed that is bruised ever healing. It cannot heal. It will not heal. Throw it away. Not one reed on earth that is ever bruised will not break.

It must break. It has to. There is hopelessness. Hope has gone. There is no such a thing as one iota of hope left. You can't hope it isn't going to break or will survive. You'll find the bunch before you've sold it.

It fails you. The bruised reed will break and ruin the whole bouquet. Well, God knew that. God knew that when He said this. And God said it. God said it about Jesus. A bruised reed shall he not break.

The smoldering flux, the smoking flux. If you look in the margin, you will find dimly burning in the Old Testament. But you find this verse referred to three times in the Bible. Over in Matthew, and you'll find in the Greek, it brings out not smoking flux, this flux where the flame was once burning is now smoking.

It's smoldering, the Greek says. And that's actually the closest you'll come to what God is saying. There's no hope of the flame reviving. It's reached the point where all that's left now, and God says this about the wick, all that's left is a little glint, if you've got any hope, as the smoldering.

Once a wick starts smoldering, there's no flame. The flame has just gone out. All that's left when it smolders is a little glint, a glow of red, that there was ever life there, that there ever was a flame.

It's beyond the point of reviving the flame. There is no such a thing as taking a smoldering flux and reviving the flame. It is impossible to revive that flame. There's only evidence that there was a flame, and it's just gone out.

At that point, it is extinguishing. There's just that evidence of smoldering. It's just smoke, and a glint that's about to go out. Not a flame, a glint. That's what happened to the flux. There's no possibility of this ever being revived into a flame again.

God's Compassion for the Hopeless

Now, you know God is speaking here to those who are hopelessly destroyed. He's looking here beyond someone who's just grieving, someone who's just going through deep waters, but still hanging on. He's looking here to people who really, there's hopelessness, total hopelessness of ever, ever finding vital reality with God or healing in all their hurt.

They are just hopeless at that point where there's no hope of this ever being revived or healed. God says something. You know, it takes a different context suddenly, a different perspective, when you know what two things God is holding out in front of us and telling us about his love.

There's something here that's so wonderful about the love of God to his children, beloved. Oh, God is great and greatly to be praised. This God of ours is so good, he doesn't love, he is love. A bruised reed, he shall he not break.

You know what the, one of the greatest theologians in the history of the church said about this verse, he said, the most accurate interpretation you could ever place and so of these words goes like this, a bruised reed shall he not break.

He will not allow it to be broken. The smouldering flecks shall he not quench. He will not suffer it to be put out. This is God speaking, not me. This is words God said when he was holding out the beauty of Christ, the majesty, the glory, the office, the ministry, the effect of his ministry, the faithfulness to that which he would save.

No matter what the devil did to hurt them. Oh, God is good. God is perfect in his integrity in these words. You and I have integrity. Some of us have integrity that staggers men. But God's integrity, brother, you cannot even glimpse, if you catch a glimpse you are stunned mentally at the goodness, the faithfulness, the perfectness of the integrity of God to those he loves, to those he bought with a great price.

Do you know how much God paid for you, young man, if you were saved? Do you know what he paid? Do you know how much you were to him? Do you think you've ever bought something expensive? Do you think a millionaire or a billionaire ever paid a fortune for something in his miserliness?

Let me tell you something. A billion times a billion times a billion times ten billion times a hundred billion dollars. A glimpse, it's not even close to what God valued you when he paid for you. Your book is a great price, young man.

The blood of Jesus, do you know what that cost God? He traced the death for every man. He died, he bought you, he redeemed you. Do you think that when you are going through the waters, when you are going through the onslaughts of the devil and all Satan can do, have you any perspective of God's value of what you are?

Do you know what a treasure you are to him? Have you lost sight of what he paid to get you? Have you ever known, have you ever grasped, have you ever looked at what he did to make you his? Have you ever looked at it?

That alone should flood you with a perfect love that casts out all fear. For he that feareth is not made perfect in love. God demands of you a perfect love. The word means trust. Have you got a perfect trust, sir?

Have you? In this God, he demands, he doesn't demand it by word. His integrity, his character demands you to know how much he loved you. And look at the words he says about you. When you are bruised, when you are beyond hope of being revived or healed, which will happen, God says.

Through so many verses, it doesn't mean it cannot happen, it will happen. But listen to what he says now in his ministry to those it happens to. It's God that's saying it. You know, when I was saved 32 years ago, I had a minister.

I was saved in a Presbyterian church. I'm a Presbyterian. Not many people would be willing to say they were saved in a Presbyterian church. Well, I was. And our old minister, he was a Scottish man. He was fiery.

He preached hell fire. Suppose you've got to travel around the world to find a Presbyterian minister that does that these days. But he did. He preached hell and repentance and he wept in the pulpit and called for you to repent from your sins or go to damnation for eternity.

Oh, you tremble when that man spoke. You didn't hear such language easily in the Presbyterian church. We had him. When he spoke, you sat up and you listened and you trembled and you didn't forget. He was so startling.

He wouldn't spare. When we were all saved, there was a whole God who used him mightily. I was wonderfully saved. And he said something to us that I'll never forget. He said, in Scotland, if you're saved, you have to have two books.

Otherwise, you're not saved. And we all sat up. Two books? We all knew about the Bible. He said, yes, you have to have the Bible, but you have to have the Pilgrim's Progress. If you haven't got the Pilgrim's Progress and the Bible, don't dare say you're saved.

No one will believe you. Well, we all ran to find the Pilgrim's Progress, you know, so that we were sure he was saved. He was a remarkable man, by the by. Oh, the Pilgrim's Progress, by the by. Next to the Bible, there's never been another book in the history of the world that has been so printed.

Did you know that? We think the Communist Little Red Book came to something about the most read. No, it came nowhere near, near, not even near looking at what God has done through the Bible, the most read book and printed book in history.

No book was ever read more than the Bible in the history of the world. No book can come near it. And second to the Bible is the Pilgrim's Progress. No book can come near the Pilgrim's Progress, apart from the Bible itself.

How the devil got it right that this generation you find Christians that don't even know about it. I don't know what the devil done to this generation. Where every Christian through hundreds of years would take these two books and the Pilgrim's Progress he went through again and again through life.

It was the book. God honored it in such a remarkable way. Not the Bible. The Bible is never to be in any way compared with. But as a book about the Bible, it's the most honored book in Christianity. Oh, Bunyan.

John Bunyan and Pilgrim's Progress

This man Bunyan, John Bunyan, was in prison when he wrote it, you know. He was cast. You either died, you were killed, you were martyred, a million, 60 million. In that terminal time of sorting out the reform doctrines, 60 million were martyred for not being willing to deny God and Christ and truth.

Darkness stood in anger when truth came and 60 million of our forefathers died. Don't bury what they died for and tell me they died for nothing. Don't you change your mind about what they died for. Stand up and die with them but don't give in to it.

Oh, he didn't die at that stage. He was cast into prison along with many, many people in Britain who dared to preach. They just threw him behind bars because he wouldn't stop preaching the truth when truth was not welcome by the heretics, the true heretics.

Bunyan was imprisoned. But that didn't stop him. My word, the greatest work God ever did in his life was done in prison. Father, if you're in prison, the devil hasn't buried you. Our darkest moment is when God can somehow bring out the greatest thing he ever will possibly be able to do through you.

And he did in Bunyan. My world, the world is still never recovered from that which he did in prison, what God took hold of this man and gave to the world. Oh, praise God for the prison. For the time you and I really think we're destroyed and God takes us up and makes everything precious he could have done in and through us and he reveals it.

Oh, there was Bunyan. And God gave him a revelation, a mighty revelation about a man called Pilgrim. I don't know, I suppose all of you have read Pilgrim's Progress. When I got the book I wept my way through it, you know.

I started reading it faithfully after a few pages I was on my knees weeping. Oh, there was Bunyan taking this man and applying all the scriptures, just multitudes of scriptures. Instead of just the doctrines and the statements of Christ, he applied it to a man's life.

And used illustrations that God gave him that gave such light. But all that he did was the scriptures. I don't know if you know it, but about 80 of the whole of Pilgrim's Progress is the scriptures.

Just God, but applied to some man's life, called Pilgrim. There was this man on the broad road that leadeth to destruction, Jesus says. And many, the most literally, are on it. They go in there at. The most that on the broad road that leadeth to destruction, here's this man going on the broad road and suddenly becoming conscious that there's judgment in this way, in this road.

There's judgment. And you see when the Holy Ghost comes near a man, the first thing that will ever happen in your life, no matter how good you are, if the God, the Holy Ghost has ever come near you, the first thing that ever happens is he convinces you of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.

And this man was becoming convinced of judgment on the broad road that Jesus speaks about. Here he is on the broad road with a multitude and a multitude and a multitude. Even the religious multitudes on the broad road.

The religious multitudes were on the broad road, Bunyan says. And here in his religion he had a church. He's coming under awful conviction of the end of this road, the destruction, the eternal suffering.

There must be judgment, there must be accountability to the God who gave us life. And more and more burden comes on him as the Holy Ghost conviction and conviction until he's carrying this terrible grief and fear and burden upon his life.

He's going along on this broad, broad road with this terrible, terrible conviction and fear of the judgment to come. He tries to find help from his minister, from his preacher, who says to him, man, it's just a phase you're going through.

His family begins to laugh at him and scorn, and his friends and relatives. And says, what's wrong, are you going mental? Everybody looks at him like something was really mentally wrong with him, that he dares to think that this road is something to be feared for being on.

We're religious, we go to church. What are you talking about? And here Bunyan says the man just got worse and worse. Nothing could give him peace because the Holy Ghost was in control here. The Holy Ghost was coming and speaking more and more to him.

He's faithful to a man who really wants to know truth. And here he's coming along, and God is faithful, you know, to these men. And suddenly he sees Evangelist coming along. God made sure Evangelist comes along.

And Evangelist, of course, looks at him and speaks to him. This man says, well, what must I do to be saved from the destruction I know? Evangelist says, believe on the Lord Jesus. And he says, look, point him to the cross.

Make your way to the cross. That's all I can tell you. Go to the cross. And you lose this fear. The only way you're going to get rid of this terrible grief and fear and burden that's upon your back, that you're carrying now as a result of God's faithfulness and showing you, go on to the cross now.

So Pilgrim looks and sees there's the cross. He makes his way, determined to get to the cross. At the cross, nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to the cross I cling. Our lovely hymn says,. And this man, as he clings to the cross and looks to the blood of Christ that cleanses from all sin, all suddenly the Holy Spirit bears witness with his spirit that by grace he's saved through faith in Jesus, the death of Christ, and his burden is gone.

And oh, the rejoicing in his heart of God. Spirit bears witness with his spirit. He's saved from the wrath to come. Oh, he stands. He's rejoicing. He's so rejoicing that the burden he runs back everywhere, just telling he runs into his home.

He runs to everybody, but he finds something confusing. His home doesn't rejoice with him, that his burden's gone. They're confused, you see, Bunyan says. This terrible thing about the broad road, you know, that most people don't realize.

Jesus didn't stop there. He speaks about what happens when you're converted, when you're saved. There's a broad road that leads us to destruction. Many there be which go in there. And there's a narrow road.

Narrow, I like that word. If they don't say you narrow, brother, there's something wrong with you. Jesus said it's a narrow, narrow, narrow road that leads us to life. And few there be that find it. Oh, you might think we're a lot here, but look at the millions.

Look at the billions who are not here. To know how few there be that find it. We're the few that find it. And here, this way, this broad road and narrow road, Bunyan says, don't run parallel to each other, as we see in the picture, in the painting.

No, this narrow road runs exactly the opposite direction to the broad road. That's what makes it a terrible road. Amazingly terrible road to find yourself on in this world. Oh, you run exactly. You turn.

God now commanded all men, I love that, everywhere to repent. Turn. Why will you die? God now commanded all men everywhere to repent. Repent ye therefore, and be ye converted, that your sins may be blotted out.

Unless you've repented from your sins and been converted, turn from them, your sins cannot be blotted out. Whoso confesseth and forsaketh his sins, the same shall have mercy. Brother, there is no mercy in the blood, apart from what you repent from, and turn to God not to forgive you, but deliver you, that you don't go trampling under the flesh with the blood of Christ till the day you die and say, I'm saved.

Oh, you turn. And so he repented. He turned. He turned and he finds now the narrow road is going the exact opposite direction. You can't be hid. You're not on another road over there suddenly. Everybody on the broad road that knows you sees you've turned.

You can't be hid. And everybody is condemned in their heart. Why has he stopped doing this? What's the matter with this man? He always did this with us. Their hearts start to condemn, you know. And God says, oh, I didn't say this, all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

God said that. God said that. Oh, forgive me for saying it if you disagree, but God said it. All who will turn to the narrow road. You can't be hid and your life condemns everybody who's coming along and sees you've turned.

They feel condemned. You can't suddenly just walk past them without giving account. And they won't let you. Do you know how bad it is? The persecution doesn't start when you go out into the wickedness.

The persecution, Jesus says, when you're saved, starts in a man's home. The moment he's saved, his family become the enemies. His enemies. His wife becomes his enemy when he turns to Christ. Do you know, Jesus said, a man's children become his enemies.

A man's wife becomes a family's home. Turn against him. Why? You don't have to go out there to find persecution. You come back home and see what's just amazing. What are you doing? Look what people are calling it mad.

Do you know what Isaiah says about when you get saved? Those that turn from iniquity shall be accounted as mad. Those that turn from sin and evil will be looked upon as something mentally deranged. And right here in the pilgrim's home, they were treating him like mad.

What's wrong with you, man? He began persecuting. They really did, you know. He didn't have people rejoicing with him. He goes along to his minister. And his minister now also comes under condemnation in his heart.

Because this never happened to him. And he's got to preach to this man. And he hears words that evangelists told him. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Evangelists say, sorry, the minister, the preacher, the pastor says, These men, I'm worrying about you.

You're going to cause real divisions in my church. This is a distemper in you. You must leave. How many people are excommunicated because they were born again? They weren't welcomed by the minister because the minister's condemned.

Now everybody's condemned. The broad road, beloved, is not the man with the drink and the prostitute and the evil. It's the religious multitude who will bring more persecution upon you than the damnable evil man out there.

Or you'll be persecuted, be ostracized, you'll be thrown out. You'll suffer. You'll find, beloved, that your own family become your enemies. That's what this world is. That's how bad this broad road is.

They will be your enemies. Though they gave life to you. Oh, it's a terrible thing, this broad road. When you dare to leave it, beloved, in a man's own household, become his enemies, Jesus. If you're truly saved, that is.

Everybody's undermining him. Leave it. Don't be stupid. Don't you become fanatical. You're going to do damage to everything. You're causing trouble. That's all you're doing now. Don't be so stupid. This is going too far.

And so everybody ostracizes because everybody's condemned in the home out. Even in the home, beloved, oh my, you people don't have televisions. I don't think. You want to see when people get saved. Where there is a television today, they can't sit suddenly with the things they were watching, the children and the father and the mother watching.

Suddenly the husband says, no, we can't have this. I can't let the children. Look at this moral decadence, the blasphemy. You can't enjoy it. Suddenly you're condemning everybody. Everybody can't enjoy the TV now.

And so they all get upset with you. And they're not happy with you. And they have no love. They're just in the way. And so on your knees, you're on your knees groaning before God. And they can't even enjoy the moral decadence that they've conditioned to not be self-debt.

Because they know daddy's in there weeping. Groaning, don't you? Everybody's heart's condemning them when you say, beloved, all who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Because men talk.

Do you know what Jesus said? Blessed are they which are persecuted. Blessed be ye when men shall revile you and persecute you. And to say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven.

For so persecuted they the prophets which are before you. Beloved, you also. But you know why you're persecuted? Because you're the salt of the earth. They eventually come you the light of the world. Men see your good works and eventually they'll come to God.

And God has to tolerate the persecution coming upon you. But here now, Pilgrim finds something he didn't expect. No one's rejoicing.

Everyone's against him. His wife's persecuting him. His children look upon him like mad. He's treated like a madman.

Like he's insane in his own home. Everybody's insane to him in the home because of the grief and the talk everywhere about this man. The house feels all rebuked that everybody's speaking about this husband of mine.

And she's fighting him. The church doesn't want you. You can't go in the church anymore. You're getting in the way. You're condemning the minister. The minister doesn't want you. So a terrible thing happens when you get saved.

The Slough of Despond and the Need for Encouragement

And it happens. He was in the slough of despond. Imagine that. On the road to the celestial city on the narrow road. He's just suddenly in the slough of despond. Oh, he's confused. Oh, he's hurting. He's so battered and confused.

And what is this? What's happening? Why? Why does everything have to begin? The minister's against me. The church's against me. Religion's against me. Everybody. There's no one here to comfort me. Everyone thinks I'm mad.

And he begins to doubt and to stagger. He's in the slough of despond. Saved. Brother, you're not in heaven yet? In this world you shall have tribulations, Jesus said. He tells you. But then God's faithful, you know.