In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of God's promises and the ministry of encouragement. He references Isaiah and the Old Testament to highlight the rich promises of a mighty Savior. The preacher also discusses the significance of the narrow road and the mansion that God has prepared for believers. He emphasizes the need for encouragement in the Christian journey and the role it plays in preventing people from giving up. The sermon concludes with the image of Pilgrim encountering the keeper of the house, who offers encouragement and rejoices in Pilgrim's conversion.

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 his 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 this 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. But he is good. Can we bow for a moment of prayer, please? Our 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. We'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 with fame, and let 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. For we ask with all our heart 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 God does not look at the words that proceed out of the mouth, God looks at the heart. For whence they come, look at all of our hearts, especially mine, Lord. And to our notice, 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. Amen. 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 times, 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. Don't regard it 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 real poverty. Your poverty. And how deep this book is when you only begin to grasp after many, many times. 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. If he is referred to as a servant, how much more you and I, brother, if that isn't 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 is 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 that when they take this word elect, that He is God, that He chose this amazing Savior of mankind's souls, in whom my soul delighteth. I have put my spirit upon Him. He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry or lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. Something wonderful about Christ, isn't it? Something unique. Every word said about Him confounds the Savior, the Messiah, but nothing of 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 of the mind beginning to be able to comprehend in truth the depth of His integrity and goodness and love. It goes through a bruised reed. I love 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, if something there that doesn't love, it is love. It's love. You and I are love, but we're not love. We are not love. Only God is love. A bruised reed. Staggering word, that. A bruised reed. Shall He not break? Isn't that compassionate? The Savior of all men. The smoking flax. The flax of that lantern. We would call it a wick of a candle. Shall He not quince? Isn't that beautiful? Smoking flax. 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 the smoking flax. 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 flaxes, if 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 flax. A bruised reed shall he not break, smoking flax shall he not quench. When I was a boy, my daddy, my daddy built us a house, a beautiful house. And it was on the top of our hill, overlooking a beautiful valley in our country. And in this valley was a river that was mighty when it flooded. Oh, 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 bleed, 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 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 it 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 smouldering 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 two or three times in the Bible. Over in Matthew you'll find in the Greek it brings out not smoking flux that is this flux where the flame was once burning is now smoking. It's smouldering the Greek says. And that's actually the closest you'll come to what God is saying. It is 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 smouldering once a wick starts smouldering there's no flame the flame has just gone out. All that's left when it smoulders 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 smouldering 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 is smouldering 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. 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 that's 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 say not quench He will not suffer it to be put out this is God speaking not me this is the word 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 loves to those He loves to those He loves to those is just a glimpse it's not even close to what God valued you when He paid for you your book at 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