Outline 14.

Mourners. - Ask, seek, knock. See Christ’s readiness to receive sinners, to grant petitions, and to exceed them. He upbraids not. OBJECTION. - “The thief had never heard Christ before.” Peter had. Self righteous. - Be not angry at this prodigal entering into paradise at the same door. One way and door.

Believers. - See your privilege. Assurance. Answer to prayer. Knowledge of pardon, and certainty of paradise. Make the best of a short life. Speak for Christ on a death bed. Esteem him the more, for the revilings of sinners. Make a stand against sin. Be patient on the cross. Be humble. OUTLINE 14.

“Beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me,” Matthew 14:30. INTRODUCTION. - Woman drowned.f11

I. Power of faith.

It walks,

1. Upon a sea of iniquity.

2. A sea of temptations.

3. A sea of tribulation and danger.

4. It crosses the Jordan of death.

5. It stands the storms and billows of judgment. II. The behaviour, in danger, of one who hath little faith. “O thou of little faith.”

1. He walks on no more; but begins to sink.

2. He cries out to Jesus, “Lord, save me!”

3. He is happily saved: “Jesus stretched out his hand, and caught him.”

III. The misery of unbelievers, those that sink and cry not.

1. The floods go over their head.

2. They are in the most deplorable condition.

3. They sink as easy as the corpse of the drowned.

4. O that you might lift up your head above the floods of worldliness and ignorance. See your danger and cry out. IV. The misery of applying to any but Christ.

1. No help in the rotten boat of the flesh.

2. No help in many worldly goods, or works, or self.

3. No help in our fellow sinners.

4. No catching at man without disappointment.

5. No crying to man with success.

V. How happy the case of those who fly to Christ.

1. He hath come out of sin, flesh, world, grave.

2. Christ is every where, all love and power.

3. If we lay hold of him he will not be angry. Consider the woman with the bloody issue. “He that comes to ME, I will in no wise cast out.”

4. If we cannot catch him, he will catch us.

Therefore cry to him now. Lay hold on, and stand in his strength, prepared for the worst.

OUTLINE 15.

“There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord! But I hate him, for he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil,” 1 Kings 22:8. INTRODUCTION. - False prophets multiplied. They were destroyed by Elijah. Now again they are four hundred to one. Micaiah. I. The difference of the prophets of God and the world.

1. False prophets and wicked people talk of inquiring of the LORD; but they inquire of their own heart, of one another, and seek to please, and dread to offend, by the disagreeable truth. Therefore, they are many.

2. True prophets have God and the truth on their side; but are rejected by men and hated.

II. Concerning whom we must prophesy good and evil.

1. We cannot but prophesy EVIL,

(1.) To impious worldlings. - Jonah, Noah, Lot.

(2.) To formalists and self righteous Pharisees. - Christ.