Let not Your Heart be Troubled

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John 14:1-4

Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in me.…

We may well feel glad that God's people of old were men of like passions with ourselves. It is not the will of God that His people should "be troubled" in heart; hence these blessed words.

I. LET US TASTE OF THE BITTER WATERS.

1. Jesus was to die. It had finally dawned on them that they were to be left like sheep without a shepherd, and they were inconsolable.

2. He was to be betrayed by one of their own number. This pierced the hearts of the faithful. Of this bitter water the faithful at this hour are also made to drink. Reputed ministers under the banner of "advanced thought" make war upon those eternal truths for which confessors contended and martyrs bled, and the saints in past ages have been sustained in their dying hours.

3. Peter's denial was to cause another pang to the faithful.

II. LET US DRINK OF THE SWEET WATERS, TO REFRESH US. Our Master indicates the true means of comfort under every sort of disquietude.

1. "Believe" not only My doctrine but in Me — a personal, living, ever-present, omnipotent Saviour.

2. Though He was going from them, He was only going to His Father's house.

3. A great many would follow Him to the Father's house.

4. "I go to prepare a place for you," not only "many mansions" for our spirits, but an ultimate place of our risen bodies. We are apt to entertain cloudy ideas of the ultimate inheritance of the saints. Christ went away in body — not as a disembodied spirit, but as One who had eaten with His disciples, and whose body had been handled by them. His body needed a place.

5. The promise of His sure return — "If I go," etc.

6. And then He will "receive" us. It will be —

(1)  A courtly reception.

(2)  A marriage reception.

7. He will place us eternally where He is that we may be with Him. Can we not now, once for all, dismiss every fear in prospect of the endless bliss reserved for us?

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