Robert Crawford emphasizes the comforting words of Jesus in John 14, urging believers not to let their hearts be troubled. He highlights the importance of knowing Christ as the way, truth, and life, and the assurance of His return to prepare a place for us. Crawford discusses the divine prescription for peace in a troubled world, which includes the presence of the Holy Spirit and the power of prayer in Jesus' name. He encourages the congregation to seek a personal relationship with Christ and to be aware of His presence in their lives. Ultimately, the sermon serves as a reminder of the peace that comes from faith in Jesus amidst life's challenges.

You know, here are people that believe in going by the book. Most of you will look comfortable, and I just saw a man get comfortable. I'd like to read a short text. They shall not gird themselves with anything that causes sweat. That's in the Bible. So, if you brethren are uncomfortable, do what we'd like to do, dispense with your jackets. We would, but we're not very presentable by the time we finish trying to preach, and we keep our own on. I'd like to read with you this afternoon, and as we turn to John 14 with me, let me just say on behalf of all of us who are visitors or visiting speakers, we appreciate the kindness of the Lord's people, the supply of the natural needs of our bodies, and kindness in opening your homes, and the Lord bless and reward his people. That's plenty loud, Harold. I think it's a little too fast. Is there? I'm catching it in the left ear. I think a little too. I usually rise in volume as I get started. John chapter 14 and verse 1. Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself. But where I am, there ye may be also. Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and as the Revised suggests, I am the way, the true way, and the living way. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also. And from henceforth ye know him and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. And how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Now for brevity, verse 13. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do. If ye love me, keep my commandment. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, or tutor, or paraclete, or advocate. They're all synonymous words with comforter here. That's better translated, tutor, than enemy. I will give you another tutor, that he may abide with you forever. Even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless. Verse 26 for our final reading. But the comforter which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Now, the Lord will bless to us the reading of his precious words. I'm quite confident that most of you will have detected that the first verse that we read and the last verse we read are practically the same. Let not your heart be troubled is the start of verse 1, and then our last reading was, Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Between verse 1 and verse 27, I'd like to suggest there's a divine prescription to enjoy peace in this troubled world. A divine prescription for troubled lives. As the Lord may help us, we'd like to look at this together. Let me just say for the benefit of younger brethren, there are certain passages you should be very well founded in. One of them is Matthew 5, 6, and 7, the Sermon on the Mount. Another is Matthew 13, the Parables of the Kingdom. Another is the passage in the middle of John where we broke right into today, the Sermon in the Upper Room, together with the actions of the Lord toward his disciples. The Upper Room ministry likely contains more detail of practical discipleship and Christian living than anything that we can think of in the Gospels. Granted, the Epistles are filled with doctrinal teaching as to the Christian life. The Sermon in the Upper Room began by the Lord telling his disciples to take a course to a certain place where he said, There will a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water, follow him. And they did that, but they made a terrible blunder. And men have followed their blunder ever since. That pitcher of water, whatever else you may think of it, that pitcher of water was to be used to wash the feet of the Lord Jesus. And the disciples became so preoccupied with which one of them was going to be the greatest, when the Lord arrived they were not prepared to fulfill their mission, and they lost a great opportunity for they didn't wash the Lord's feet. You see, they were taken up with the head, Who's going to be greatest of us? Who's going to have the top job? And from that day to this, men have been busy taking water that was to be used to wash feet and putting it on the top of people's heads. The only difference is they don't use quite as much. Now, there's scripture for a brother washing a disciple's feet. And some of us, though I'm not suggesting it in a literary sense, we've had the job a few times of washing the entire body of a beloved brother, either just prior to their leaving this scene or after they were dead. It's a real honor, a real privilege, especially if you've known a dear man and you're given the privilege of preparing them for their burial. Mr. Rieger and I were a whole lot younger than we are today. Back in 1934, we had the tent in an area in Georgia. A man came to us one day and he said, Is it true that you men will bury free? You'll bury somebody without pay? Our brother Rieger said, Yes, that's true. We serve the Lord without any fee at all. Well, he said, I'm a member of such a congregation, but the pastor won't touch our little boy of ten who died of dyspheria. He won't take the funeral. So he said, I was told you men preach for nothing. So he said, I thought I'd find out. I'm not going to go into the whole story, but we balanced a little wooden box on the backseat of Mr. Rieger's car and drove 25 miles out into the country. Four or five of us were a handful of shovels, including ourselves, and we dug a hole. We slipped back into our ties and coats and preached the gospel and buried that little fellow for nothing. I think our brother Rieger will remember with me, their name was Parker, and they began to come to the tent meetings, and God reached and saved some of the families. You know, there are men today that wouldn't think of scooping to wash a brother's feet. Now, I know that in the passage in John, it's not a literal foot-washing that's in view. The Lord Jesus said when he had concluded that act, Now, I've done this, that you should follow my example. What was his example? Taking the very lowest place at the feet of the lowest of his disciples and prescribing or helping them. Now, I'd like to try and point out, if the Lord will help me, some key things that go together in heaven's prescription for a troubled world. In the first place, I don't have to make a diagnosis. The trouble is everywhere. It's in the world, it's in the hearts of God's people, it's in the hearts of our friends around us that are perishing without Christ. But I'd like to make the application primarily to the people of God. Divine prescription. I have a drawer at home. If you ever come to our house, ask my wife about it. It's full from one end to the other with prescriptions. Absolutely full. The last time I was at the druggist, he filled six prescriptions. And when he finished them, I said to him, Doyle, if you ever run short of drugs, come to our house and I can help you out, I'm sure. Well, he said, you've tried a lot of things. Well, I said, that's the point where I raise an objection. The doctor will say, now here's something, take this home and try it for two weeks and come back. And you do try it and it doesn't do a thing for you. But you come back and you'll say, well, try something different. If anybody's here that's a medical man, Lord bless you, but I had my own ideas of medicine. My favorite text in the New Testament is, She suffered many things of many physicians and was none the better but rather grew worse. That's my favorite text. Prescriptions, they're all right in their place. But men put things to trial and error. All I have said this for is to try to point out there has never been a Christian taken this prescription. Remark you, I didn't say tried it. There has never been a believer who has taken this prescription but has been immediately and eternally blessed. Do you wonder that I say it's worth taking? It's heaven's prescription. Now, let me note with you what we read in verse one. The Lord Jesus said, let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me. Now, just underline those four words in your thinking, if you will. Believe also in me, and if you share a piece and leave the also out for the moment, believe in me. Now, there is no such a thing as enjoying peace with God. There is no such a thing as having a tranquil conscience and a mind at perfect peace with God until we have the consciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. It's first in order, it's first in importance. There is no use trying to help somebody and prescribe to them when they do not know Christ. I preached a lot of years ago with a dear old man called Mr. George Gould Sr., and he was a quaint man and a godly man, a man of prayer. He used to say very frequently in his preaching, one of the troubles with our preaching is we try to feed the sheep when it's goats we have. Mind you, that's a true statement. There are times we've tried to help somebody hoping they belong to Christ and they're not the Lord at all. Now, it would be very important for me and for everyone in the audience this afternoon just to ask the question, do I really know the Lord Jesus Christ? Am I acquainted with Him? Paul the Apostle knew Him. He said, I know whom I have believed. Then he added that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His suffering. Mind you, it's a real thing to know the Lord Jesus Christ. I could mention a name, and I have permission to mention it. I'm not going to do it. A lady that my preaching brethren from the East know, she's a married lady now and has three sons. Some four or five years ago one Sunday morning at 7 o'clock our phone rang. She said, Bob, this is Ruth. I said, yes, Ruth. You've been weeping. What's the problem? She said, you know what the trouble is. No, I said, Ruth, I don't. She said, well, I was sure you did from the message you gave last Sunday here in Reading, Pennsylvania. I said, no, I'm afraid I don't know. Well, she said, I have been living a lie for nearly 20 years. I am not saved, and I have known it for years, and I was ashamed or afraid to tell anybody. She said, my husband's on a hunting trip, and she said, I've got to get this matter settled. I can't go on as a hypocrite any longer. I went to the home as soon as we were through with our breaking of bread meeting. I didn't stay for the family Bible hour. I found her wringing her hands, and I said, Ruth, sit down. No, I said, tell me, what were you basing your hope of heaven on? What did you tell the brethren when you spoke to them for baptism? She said, well, Mrs. So-and-so came to me one day and said, Ruth, don't you think it's time you were getting saved? She said, yes, I would like to be saved. And she said, that woman said to me, do you believe John 3.16? She said, sure I do. But she said, go tell your father and mother you're a Christian. And she said, that's exactly what I did. But I said, Ruth, have you loved the Bible? She said, no, I can't think of anything I shun more. I said, have you enjoyed the meeting? She said, I hate going to the meetings. And she said, when nobody's looking, I always pass the ambulance by, remembering I'd only be eating and drinking damnation to my soul. I tried the best I knew how to read with her, to point out for her God's way of salvation, having asked a whole lot more questions that I'll not tell you about. So finally I said, Ruth, I have to get back to a meeting. Let me pray with you. And let me mark some scriptures on a piece of paper. And I left her and went home. I wasn't in the house 30 minutes till the phone rang. And she said, Bob, I wanted to tell you, I know that Jesus died for me. As though I were the only sinner in the world, praise the Lord, Jesus died for me. We had the joy of seeing her go on to think God. And mind you, her father gave me an offer of going over to the cove for this experience. And the mother doesn't believe it to this day. And a few others wouldn't. Let me tell you, dear saints and blogs, there are numbers today that are stuck on a word that have never been drawn to the person of Christ. All they have for the ages to come is not the truth of God, is not the Savior of sinners. When somebody told them, you go and say you're saved, don't you ever let anybody tell you to do that. If you don't receive the assurance from heaven, I don't care if you were an apostle, you're not a Christian at all. The knowledge of Christ as Savior and Lord is the first prime importance in the prescription of God. We must sing, as we do sometimes, I must have the Savior with me. Do you have Christ with you today? If you do, you'll find the troubles of life are just a little easier to bear. To be able to put your hand into His and to say, I walk with the King, hallelujah. I talk with the King, hallelujah. I must hurry on, and yet I sing impressed by the Spirit of God to repeat this clause. Do you really know the person of the Lord Jesus Christ? We were in the airport in Philadelphia in January. I said to my wife, come on over here, there's a man I want you to meet. I walked over to a little man shorter than myself. I said, Mr. Perot. He looked up kind of startled. I said, I'd like you to know that we're praying for you for the success of your offer to North Vietnam. He lived in Dallas, and he had offered $300 million to the North Vietnamese to release our servicemen that are held captive. And they rejected it. He's 34 years of age, and at 21 he didn't have a nickel, and at 34 he's a billionaire. Not a millionaire, he's a billionaire. And he says he knows the Lord Jesus Christ. We shook hands and assured him of our prayers. And when we were walking away, a fellow stopped me, and he said, do you know H. Ross Perot? I said, no. He said, what were you doing talking to him? Well, I said, I talk to people that I don't know at all. We just had a casual little acquaintance. Do you know there are people that talk about knowing the Lord, and they've had less to do with him than that? They've never heard his voice. They've never submitted to his word, and yet they speak of knowing the Lord. My dear beloved friends this afternoon, let us all, the speaker as well as everyone present, be mercilessly clear that Christ is in you, the hope of glory, and that you know the Lord Jesus Christ. But I hurry on down the passage. There's a knowledge of this person. Then look at verse 3 with me again. I go to prepare a place for you. I will come again and receive you unto myself. Where I am there you may be also. Now, connected with the knowledge of the person of Christ is the power of the coming of Christ. And I think if we were all honest here today, we would all unite in saying the coming of the Lord is not the power in my life that it once was. Am I right or not? The power of his coming is not what it once was. I bumped into a dear fellow not too long ago, and he attended a meeting, and when it was over he asked me to go to his house. When I got there he said, I'm sorry to see that you've imbibed Dallas theology. I said, what are you talking about? He said, well, you're preaching on the rapture of the church and the premillennial and pre-tribulation coming of Christ. He said, that's Dallas theory. I said, friend, that was taught and believed and practiced before there was ever a spot on the map known as Dallas. And I didn't get it from Dallas. Thank God for every place where it is preached. But bit by bit, and mind you, brethren, I know what I'm talking about when I tell you this, some of our beloved young brethren are talking about no rapture, or some of the saints left behind, or the church going through the tribulation. And I might continue. I am firmly convinced that as we look at that clock that says three minutes after three, my Lord might come and could come before we ever conclude this meeting. As far as I know, there's not one single thing to keep him from calling his people out into the world. And if anybody tries to upset your mind that because you've been an unfaithful Christian you'll be left to go through a kind of purgatory, you just tell them it's rubbish to start with. And I'll tell you what you can tell them. That the Bible says that the coming of the Lord, the people that are going to be caught up are they that are Christ. That is coming. They that are Christ. Faithfulness plays no part in it. The Lord is going to come. Let me just ask all of our hearts quickly, what does the coming of the Lord mean to me today? We were expecting a visit a couple of weeks ago from our daughter and her husband and our little nine-month-old granddaughter. We were having our devotional reading, my wife and I, and we were reading in 1 Thessalonians and we came to some statements about the coming of the Lord, chapter four for example, wherefore comfort one another with these words. I said, dear dear, would you rather the Lord to come or our daughter and granddaughter to come? Oh, I forgot my son-in-law. They always tag along and he's welcome too. But at any rate, she said, you answer your own questions. You answer your own questions. Mind you, I had to say to her, well, you know, we've been looking so for the little one coming. You grandparents can appreciate this. I said, I found myself almost saying, Lord, don't come till they get here. Now, maybe you're not like me, but I believe there are more Christians today saying, even so, come Lord Jesus and everything. I solemnly believe that. With the world in the state it's in, with political things as they are, with earning a livelihood as it is, with educational systems as they are, and I could continue. Beloved Christian, I hope there's not a believer here but from their heart is saying today, even so, come Lord Jesus. And I believe I can add in the fear of God, I would rather to have the Lord come today than for me to even finish preaching. I would rather see my Lord and Savior face to face. Now, you'll not be happy in soul if the coming of the Lord means nothing to you and if you're not taking a part of this prescription. But let me just hurry down to verse 9. Jesus said to him, Have I been so long time with you? Now, underline the preposition, with you. Now, that's the emphatic word that the Lord speaks to Philip. We could single out what he has to say to Thomas, and that's important, what he has to say to Philip and what he says to others. Let me just point out that what Philip was missing in our passage was the consciousness of the Lord's presence. Said Jesus to him, Have I been so long time with you? And yet hast thou not known me, Philip? Philip was unaware, unconscious of the person that he was walking beside and he was listening to. Philip said, Well, if you'd only show us the Father, we'd be satisfied. No, said the Lord, he that has seen me has seen the Father. All I want to point out from this, as I hurry on, is the consciousness of the presence of the Lord should be the daily experience of the child of God. I'd like to be honest on this platform, for we preach things and sometimes we don't practice them too well. I wonder, when did you last know the presence of the Lord? I mean the consciousness of his presence. Paul, the same writer of the epistles, said in Philippians, not in Philippians at all, it's in Timu, that my first answer, No man stood with me. All men forsook me. Then he adds, Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me. What did it matter if the best of his friends and the disciples all left him? They'd done that to the Lord himself and they did it to Paul. All it would have taken would have been two of his friends to stand up and witness to his character and Paul would have gone free. But at my first answer, No man stood with me. Not a one of them. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me. I would like to think that as a result of our days together, we're going to know more of the consciousness of the presence of the Lord. Now, let me look down the chapter with you quickly at verse 13. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do. That the Father may be glorified in the Son, if ye shall ask anything, I will do it. I've read it the way that people read it, and it's not the way it's in the Bible. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. One of the serious tragedies of our age is sectarianism. And there are those dear people, the Lord blessed them every one. God knows I haven't a bitter thought toward one. But there are those that have taken this little clause that's in verse 13 and verse 14, and they have placed it as their position superior to everybody else. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Mark you, if you use that, there are some things you cannot do. What does it mean, in my name? Well, as quickly as I can tell you, it means subject to my authority. If I ask anything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I'll be subject to his authority. Secondly, it means submissive to his will. Have you ever been by the bedside of somebody you loved when they were dying, and you said, Lord, spare their life, raise them up according to your will? Don't we at times find that a hard clause to use truthfully? If we ask in his name, it must be subject to his authority. It must be according to his will, and it always will be according to his word. There are times when we've had to correct people, and they have responded by saying, well, I couldn't find anything in the Bible against it. So you say to them, well, could you find anything in the Bible for it? No, they couldn't. Well, now there are divine principles that govern the entire life of a Christian, and if we ever ask in his name, it's subject to his authority, it's submissive to his will, it's according to his word, and then finally it's in his interest. What does the Bible say? Ye ask and receive not because ye ask from it. Ye ask and receive not because ye would consume it on your own lusts. Selfish interest. If we ask anything in the name of the Lord Jesus, it must be in his interest. Whose interests are uppermost? Yours or the Lord's? Mine or the Lord's? Now, it's important to have confidence in answers first. The Christian who's receiving this part of the prescription is learning blessing from God that's rich blessing. When I was a boy, I was raised on a farm. I'm not a bit sorry for it either. And I went to a one-room school, and I'm not sorry for that either. Maybe it did me some good. At any rate, when the Lord saved me, I was a sophomore in high school, and it was back in the 20s, and money was a scarce commodity. The new rising generation, just listen to me for a minute. You don't know anything about it. Before the Depression and during it, there were many, many families that couldn't put food on their table, and yet they took in us as God's servants to share what they had. They were real days of proving the goodness of God. But as a young believer, in complete simplicity, I got on my knees and I said, Lord, give me a job that I can get some money and get a Bible. I want a good Bible. The next-door neighbor was a Christian brother, and he hired me at 15 cents an hour to ride an old Fordson tractor that had no tenders and no self-starter, nothing but just tore your insides out trying to crank the thing up, and you ate for your breakfast, dinner, and supper what came up over the lugs of those wheels, and you couldn't eat a decent meal. You were full of the dust of the earth, and some friends are looking at me, and if they dared, they'd say amen. We all know what that was like. They weren't pleasant days. Well, I worked for this farmer, and his wife was the bookkeeper. One day he said to me, Bob, the work's all done that I hired you for. Go and see my wife, and she'll pay you off. So, in the meantime, I had had a letter from a preaching brother. I'm not going to tell you his name. He said, I can get you a Bible wholesale for $7.36. You can't get that back in a phone order, man. Bibles have gone up like everything else, and good Bibles are well worth what you pay for them. Get a good one. At any rate, he wrote back, and he said, I can get you a good Bible for $7.36. When this farmer's wife handed me the check, I suppose I don't need to tell you. It was for $7.36. I just endorsed it and sent it off to the preaching brother, and he sent me my first Bible. Now, I learned something. I hadn't been saved a month. I learned that God answers simple prayers. When you lay a hold on God, you should be able to take this prescription of confidence. If he shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. I don't care how difficult it may appear. This is a confident and answered prayer. Let me just close by noting what I cannot cover. Part of the prescription is the comfort of the Holy Spirit of God. There's no word more mistranslated and misused in the English Bible than the word comfort. It's a compound English word, c-o-m, which is a prefix meaning with, f-o-r-t-e in the Latin tongue, which just means strength, forth, with strength. We take it as sympathy far more often than we take it as endurance or strength. Invariably in the New Testament, we shouldn't say that, there are two or three exceptions, in the name it means with strength. Now, the Lord Jesus speaks of the one he's going to send that has power committed to him, and he shall guide you into all truth. Thank God for the coming of the Holy Spirit of God. The one that indwells every believer in Christ. Now, you get that into your soul. I don't care if you've been saved five minutes or fifty years, you're indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God. The one who abides with us, and as the Lord said in our passage, when he's come, he's going to come in my name, there's a third repetition of that same little three-word clause, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Thank God for the teacher, the leader, the instructor, the guide, the comforter, and so we might continue, but my message is not based on the indwelling Spirit of God, it's just to try and let you realize part of the divine prescription, if you're going to know help in a troubled world, you need to know more of the power of the Spirit of God. I do, and you do. Let me come to the last one. The last one the Lord Jesus speaks of is the continuance of his peace. When I was employed in a bank, and I was thinking of it a little bit yesterday, I suppose these things never leave your mind, the things you'd like to forget you remember, and the things you'd like to remember you forget. But at any rate, my job was to write wills and to settle a state, so I have every sympathy of anybody here who's an executive or an estate. I never yet heard a person say thank you when I handed them their checks. Never once. Why? Because it never was as much as they thought it should have been. Their uncle died and said, I leave a thousand dollars to my nephew or niece, and we handed them a check for 650 or 700. And they said, well, I was to get a thousand dollars. What's the matter here? Well, of course, there's a federal inheritance tax. I'm in the wrong bureau. The federal inheritance tax and the state inheritance tax, and some places have a county inheritance tax. Likely next they'll have a township inheritance tax. They all get their share until you hand them a check for about half of what they expected, and they look at you with daggers. Now, what is wrong is simply they didn't get what was left to them. Now, let me try and illustrate. Jesus took his disciples aside and he said, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. He went down into death, the awful death of the cross. He rose triumphant on the third day. Were they in peace? No, indeed they were not. They were gathered in an upper room for fear of the Jews. What did Jesus do? He walked in with the doors shut. He walked in and he said, Peace be unto you. Now, what was he doing? What he had left in his will, I say this reverently, he rose to make sure it was carried out. What people leave you and leave me in their will, they can't come back to see that it's carried out to the very end. But the Lord Jesus can say, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid for my peace I give unto you. Beloved Christians, take the divine prescription. It's the best tranquilizer I know. It's the best sedative I know. It's the best iron I know. It's the best vitamin E I know. And I could go on and expose my ignorance of medicine, but I won't. Get to the divine prescription. I will come again knowing Christ first of all, the power of his coming, the consciousness of his presence, the confidence in answered prayer, the comfort of the Holy Spirit of God, and the consciousness of his abiding truth. The Lord help us. Amen.