As the Lord may help me, friends, I would direct you to the last of the chapters there in the epistle, the 13th chapter, that is the 13th chapter of the 2nd epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, and the verse 11, that is the 2nd epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 11. Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace shall be with you. This word has been upon my spirit from the end of the Sabbath, last Sabbath, the beginning of the week, and we tried to preach from it up at Moden Hill last evening. And it's still with me very strongly, friends, and I hope thus the Lord will help us, give us a door of utterance in it, and we may preach to you, I hope, in love and faithfulness here this night. Finally, brethren, farewell. To me, I feel the Lord opened it up to me. It's not that the apostle was saying goodbye, like we might use the word farewell. It is an exhortation. There are the earlier exhortations in this chapter, particularly, especially the fifth verse, examine yourselves. whether you be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know you're not your own selves. And so on. And lastly, Apostle is exhorting. In the previous chapter he was making mention of how he would find them. His concern as to how he would find them when he'd come to them the third time. And even that he might not use sharpness, which perhaps he might use if he wrote a letter or if he'd come among them, if there was something particularly that he was very sad about, something that had crept in of error, whatever it was. He is dealing with these things of how he would have to rebuild, have to be solemnly ready to be faithful make clear his displeasure over these things. Oh, and examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith, how important that is, friends, especially as we see the day approaching, as we are getting nearer the Aaron article of death. Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith. Prove your own selves. This is how he exhorts in this chapter, and then coming to this word, Finally, brethren, it could be considered he's come to touch upon the most important. Finally, brethren, farewell. Farewell. Not saying goodbye, but farewell. Friends, how are you faring? How are you going on? Could it be said, by the grace of God, you farewell? You continue. You endure. You press forward. Are you pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ? Farewell. Finally, brethren, farewell. I want to try and consider what it is to farewell. I believe it's as we journey. Think of the theme as you journey, sweetly sing. Sing your Saviour's worthy praise, glorious in his works and ways. Can you say this? We are travelling home to God. In the way the fathers trod, they are happy now and we soon their happiness shall see. Have you got, have I, got that favour of confidence of faith? Has God done that in us, wrought in us so by his teaching, his dealings with us and made us to be to have a good hope, a good prospect through grace? Are we taught by the Spirit? Are we concerned as we were quickened into life, born of the Spirit? Has God gone on to be gracious, to teach us, to show us what we are, to show us what great need we're in, what wretched sinners we are, to make us to become self-renouncing and grace-admiring? Has he been working in us, friends, to well and to do of his good pleasure? How are we? Well, the desire, the desire here, fare well, so that as you journey on, you may be faring well. Oh, if we're not favoured to be journeying, following the Lamb, we're not faring well. What is it to fare well? It's to be living on Jesus' merits, living by faith upon the Son of God. Oh, finally, brethren, farewell as you go on, as you journey on. Farewell. Oh, what is the opposite to faring well? It's going back. It's sinning and adding sin to sin. It's wandering from the fold. It's being in a state of neglectfulness and unconcern and all the treachery of unbelief so much in us. But if we are fair and well, it's living by faith. It's following the Lamb. It's walking by faith and not by sight. So I and the live brethren fare well. Oh, as you go on. And how is it that you can, you will? It's knowing the favour of the graces of the Spirit given us. It's the favour of believing, living by faith upon God, the Son of God, as we've said. And Jesus Christ, precious Husband, Priest and King, is Jesus. My all to heaven is God. If we are fearing well, that's what we'll be feeling, that's what we'll be acknowledging. It will be in their testimony. Finally, brethren, farewell. Don't trust yourself. Don't trust in the arm of flesh. That will fail you. One of the emirates says, you dare not trust to that. Finally, brethren, farewell. Don't seek to be going on your own. dictates of your carnal mind. The carnal mind takes different ways and different objects she surveys, different from grace. Finally, brethren, farewell. Be looking to the Lord alone, to be following Him, to be heeding His word, heeding His word as He commands us. Oh, as He set the example, as He marked out the path, Like our glorious leader claims our praise for his own pattern given, while the long cloud of witnesses show the same path to heaven, we consider a great cloud of witnesses. You know, coming to that following chapter in Hebrews, seeing we all so a compass about, we're so great a cloud of witnesses. It's, I believe, profitable. I've felt it so. to sit down and think of all those we've known who we trust are now in heaven, seeing we are all so encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. If I go back my 63 years I've been in the way, thinking of those that we felt had loved doing many years ago, and many are home in heaven, we believe. Oh, we're all so encompassed about. We so great a cloud of witnesses, we know what it states in the Hebrews 11. They all died in faith, not having received the promise, but having seen it afar off. We, living in gospel days, in a sense we have more light than those Old Testament saints, but how are we? Are we seeing this light? Are we walking in light? Are we living in this way? in the favour of what God has granted us to be favoured with in this New Testament days, these days of the New Dispensation. But they're the last time, friends. Oh, are we struck with the solemnity of being in the last times. When Antichrist shall come, we need to be on our guard. In the last days, perilous times shall come. Men shall be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. And we're no better, friends. But has God's mighty grace arrested us? And are we being sanctified under God's mighty grace? Are we being prepared by God for that prepared place in heaven? Finally, brethren, farewell. You want to journey on. You want to endure to the end. You want to gain the fort at last. Oh, there's that, which is set forth in Psalm 107, which is ever so much felt and known by God's people. Wonderfully it states, and he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation. But oh, as we come to different parts of that long psalm, oh, I think especially that most solemn place we come to, oh, Coles, because of their Iniquities because of their transgressions are afflicting. His soul abhorreth all manner of meat. They draw near unto the gates of death. But this is a favour, friends. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble. And he saveth them out of their distresses. And he does everything. He maketh the storm a calm that waves her rubber still. But then are they glad because they be quiet. Oh, favour to be quiet. Wonderful favour God grants his people, quiet in tribulation, quiet in affliction, quiet under the onslaught of the enemy perhaps. Trusting in our God, our Saviour. Trust in the Lord at all times, ye people. God is a refuge for us, sealer. I think of it, thinking of such, what we've just said. I think of a word that comes. One of God's servants came to us at Ashwell with it. In everything give thanks. He'd come to Ashwell with it a little while after we'd lost our son. Told me afterwards, he was thinking, saying, coming along the road, he couldn't come with it, he said to the Lord. I can't come with it, go with it. In everything give thanks. But he did preach very well that night and it was commended to my heart, friends, and to my dear one. Oh, in everything give thanks. It's only by grace we can. Perhaps I shouldn't say only, it's such a wonderful thing that by grace we can. In everything give thanks. Finally, brethren, farewell. It will be in this, friends, that we will be faring well in the pilgrimage journey, enduring and pressing on to perfect day. We can in everything give thanks. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God and to them who are the called according to His purpose. Sometimes in the depths of sorrow and trouble. It's very hard to say that, but when the favour of grace is granted and grace in exercise, we can acknowledge it. We can thank God, praise God. Nothing is out of order. It's God's way. It's God's will. Sovereign God. Sovereign ruler of the skies. Ever gracious, ever wise. Like my godly grandfather, When he was coming down to his end, we'd be able to say, all must come, and last and end, as shall please, my heavenly friend. All favour indeed. Finally, brethren, farewells. God gives thee grace, as he gives thee the graces that is need, so much need. Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect. Be perfect. You know, that which the Lord does have to teach his people is that we are wretched sinners. We're unholy. One of him writes, puts it, that I'm unholy, needs no proof, I sorely feel the fall. Be perfect. What does it further say? Christ has holiness enough to sanctify us all. Be perfect. We must be, we must be looking unto Jesus, looking to Him who is the perfect One, who was the perfect sacrifice, sacrificed Himself, shed His vital blood, the blood of God shed at Calvary. Be perfect. For this we need to know and be in the favour of union with the Lamb. and have fellowship with him, fellowship with God through the mediators, blah, be perfect. Oh, the reality, solemn reality of every one of us is we're wretched sinners. We're leprous, we have to cry out, unclean, unclean. But here the exhortation is be perfect. And we know we need to be. We know we need to be made so, because nothing there shall in no wise enter into heaven, anything that defileth or maketh alive, but they that have their names written in the Lamb's book of life. And they shall be made perfect in Christ, washed in his blood, clothed in his righteousness, thoughtless to stand before the throne of God on the judgment day. Be perfect. It's not that we can make ourselves perfect and we won't just claim we're perfect. Be perfect as we look away from ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ and to Him and all what He has wrought and brought in and done for the Church. Be perfect. Be perfect. All are seeking to know and interest in the Saviour's blood. have pardon signed and peace with God. Have you got exercise? Desire to be perfect, which means also we should acknowledge means complete, yeah, completing Him. To know it, friends. To have the witness of it, the assurance of it. Be perfect. Oh, it's looking to Jesus alone. He's pleasing all what He has done, in your prayers. It's believing He pleads for you, knowing Him as your Advocate, your Mediator, your Great High Priest, or He, your Lord and your life and your all. Let's consider you want to be perfect. To be perfect is the exaltation. And we do need to be made perfect, made complete in Him, washed and cleansed and clothed in His righteousness and justified by faith in Him, be perfect. It's the work of the Spirit of God to make application of Christ's divine atonement to us. All will be cleansed. It's a wonderful word the Lord spoke in John's Gospel. Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. For those disciples he spoke that to. Various words, different words. And you here tonight, the favour, as it is in you, exercise a desire to want to know and be assured of your part and lot in God's great salvation. That Jesus lived and died and rose again for you and is in heaven in his offices for you. You want to know, you want assurance of it. What words has the Lord spoken to you in the past? I see it like this, as the Lord said to his disciples in here, clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. What has he spoken unto you? Hang on to several words the Lord has spoken to me, wonderfully to me. How he so blessed me and favoured me. in earlier days of experience. And oh, if they are true, as we trust they are, you know you're clean, you're washed, you're cleansed, you're clothed in the righteousness of Christ, sin forgiven. Oh, sin forgiven, glory and eternal Lord, be to every incarnate God. Do you have that hope, that favour? Do you know forgiveness? pardon and peace that flows into the soul through the blood of the Lamb applied by the Spirit of God. Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect. Be of good comfort. Oh, friends, we pray for this for our friends that are afflicted, our friends who have lost loved ones. We pray for their comfort. I try to pray for the Lord, to the Lord that he would comfort them with the comfort of his love. But here it's be of good comfort. It's an experience. It's in the path of the child of God. Be of good comfort. It must be, can only be, the comfort of his love. Be of good comfort. Thrive, comfortable, hopeful. that calms my stormy breast, that my Father's hand prepares the cup, and what He wills is best. Be of good comfort. It's the comfort of God love. Do we know anything of it, friends? Have we known it? Do we know it? Do we desire to know it? Be of good comfort, believing in Jesus Christ. Believing to the saving of your soul. Not easy believing, but the true believing of a true born child of God. Believing in Jesus, that he is the son of God. Believing in all what he has accomplished in his life. He's going about doing good. He's keeping the whole law of God, making it honourable on his people's behalf. bringing in everlasting righteousness for the church, his sacrifice, his sufferings in Gethsemane and in the Hall of Judgment and Calvary. Oh, what he went through, friends, what he endured, no tongue can tell, to save our souls from death and hell. But we know a little, friends. We know a little. Oh, is God's sanctified suffering to you? I think of how it's been with one another, how I had it myself when we had so many sores through our skin trouble. Looking in the mirror and sadly taking self-pity upon oneself. And then the Lord coming with solemn conviction in a moment, making me feel how wrong it was to be in self-pity. and then the words. The Holy Spirit, as it were, spoke the word to one. His message was mild, more than any man's. Friends, have you seen your Saviour in such a way by faith? What He suffered for you, what He's done for you, what He bore for you, Oh, the comfort it brings. Oh, the peace it brings. And the Holy Spirit so reveals Christ and makes him to be so adorable, so lovely before the eye of faith. Oh, you can say, my Jesus has done all things well. Wonder of wonders for such a wretched sinner that he's done so much for us. Loved us. Loved me and gave himself for me. Oh, friends, be of good comfort. Seek it, beg for it. Oh, may the Lord grant it. Be of good comfort. Be of one mind. What a favour it is to be of one mind. When we're given to have friends and walk together and love ones In families it would be God's will to bless one another. One of a city, two of a family and bring them under Zion. Favour, walking hand in hand. All those that have been favoured in their souls and favoured to testify what the Lord has done. Hand in hand we would be walking. I and Jesus knew commands of His love would have me talking. till we reach Fair Canyon's land. Be of one mind. One mind in the Lord. This can only be as by grace, friends. Not unequally yoked together as we think of marriage. Be of one mind. Live in peace. Live in peace. Be of one mind. Live in peace. How important it is we should be Zealous for this. Exercise for this. Desirous of this. Live in peace. Oh, what peace. The peace of God. Oh, that peace. Peace. The peace of God which passes all understanding. The apostle was concerned in writing to the Philippians, I think it is, where he said, be careful for nothing. That means, I think, over-careful, wrongly careful. Of course we should be graciously careful for important things. But be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known unto God and the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds by Christ Jesus. Live in peace. Oh, God teaches his people. The way to live in peace is to be in union, in communion, in fellowship. We can't command that ourselves, but how blessed we are when the Lord grants it, when he grants that favour, that we can so walk together and agree together and live in peace. Oh, in this way. all favouring dear, and to know God's peace, and that peace of God which passeth all understanding, and that we'll keep our hearts and minds by Christ Jesus, God's keeping, God's grace to keep his people, his love, his loving kindness, his tender mercies, all the way of God in grace, in and for his people, to favour them, to bless them, and the God of love and peace shall be with you. Is he with you, friends? Is the God of love and peace with you? Oh, we don't want to prompt any to presume or to make any wrong statement, but this is a question we each should ask ourselves. Is he with us? Is he our Lord, our God, our Lord, our life, our all? And the God of peace shall be with you. This is a promise, friends. And the God of peace shall be with you upon the grounds of all what is here exhorted and the favour when it is heeded by the grace of God in the child of God. And the child of God is an exercise, heeding the word as it is here. These exhortations, be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace shall be with you. Sure, this is an assurance in the Word. It will, it's a promise. It's God's statement through His Apostle. The God of love and peace shall be with you. With you. And friends, that's everlasting. It's not just for a moment or a day, that's forever. That's forever. The God of love and peace shall be with you. Oh, with you now. With you when you come to the swellings of Jordan. With you when you pass the river to land your safe home. Oh, favour indeed this is. We desire it for loved ones, for friends and heirs. Oh, live in peace. And the God of love and peace shall be with you, with you forever. So whatever comes, oh, it will be well. Well, while life shall last and well when called to die. And the God of peace. It's given us to be enabled. Where God exhorts in His Word, He doesn't exhort His people to do anything that they cannot do. They can by grace. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. Proving the graces of the Spirit given, the enabling graces, you know, to be in true believing. It's the enabling grace of faith that gives a child of God to be in true believing, in favour of that. And the blessed comfort of His love is known by the way the Spirit works. As we know, in John 14 the Lord said, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. Oh, God's people seek this comfort, be of good comfort. Oh, experiencing the comfort of His love, His presence, His abiding presence, Christ within you, Christ in you, the hope of glory, with Christ in the vessel, our smile at the storm, however fierce and heavy it is. Oh, the storms that we've known naturally coming one day. There was a day I was coming up from Southampton, up the Twyford Downs. And they just opened up the downs with the new road. And there were the new bright metal barriers going right up that hill. And the lightning was striking the barriers. And every one of us were crawling along. I was due to preach at Luton Ebenezer in the evening. I thought I should never get there. But oh, the storm passed and we got on and did get there, but we were half an hour late. Wonderfully, the Lord had told Alan Rayner what to read. I tried to get his son to tell him that he may give the storm a calm, the 107th Psalm. When I got there half an hour late, a friend was thanking the Lord for the help they were continuing to know, and saying to the Lord, we have finished and brought love. And I thought, he has read the 107th Psalm. But when I asked him, his son had had no contact with him. Call me. The Lord gave him the word. Such is our God, friends, and such are we, the subjects of His wise decree. His will, His eternal purposes of love and mercy for His people, His sureness of all His holy will, in all His holy will. He is, though I am blind, too wise to be mistaken, too good to be unkind. So, these words, friends, I hope the Lord will give us each meditation on them, and the God of love and peace be with you. Let us just try to think of our God as the God of love and peace, and His purpose is to be with His people forever, because He's formed them for Himself, chosen them for His praise, He said he would bring them in that way, like as it is in Isaiah, bring them to be his people. They are acknowledged perhaps in a way which some would not want to acknowledge. Beasts of the field shall honour me, the dragon and the owl. I give waters in the wilderness, springs in the desert. This people have I formed for myself. They shall show forth my praise, how humbling it is, if we have some blessed hope. We are among these people, the people of his holy choice, the people who he has loved with an everlasting love and with loving-kindness as he drawn them, and the people the Son of God came to this earth to redeem, to suffer, bleed and die, to bring in for them, eternal redemption, whole salvation, and all what they need to make them right and keep them right, and that they may be taken home to heaven to be forever with the Lord at God's appointed time, and be in that ransom throng around the throne, singing, worthy is the Lamb. Oh, may we be. the shores of our prospect of it, friends. May we know, may we be blessed to be perfect, complete in Christ, and know His comfort, the comfort of God's love, and be in one mind, of one mind, and live in peace. And the God of love and peace shall be with you. With you, dear people here at Cranbrook, You dear people who come from Lambethurst, you dear people who come from any other cause, be with you, O may it be so. May you have the assurance of it. May you know the comfort of his love, the joys of salvation. In that way as the Spirit gives witness, bears witness with your spirits, with our spirits, that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs, joint heirs with Christ. Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect. Be of good comfort. Be of one mind. Live in peace. And the God of love and peace shall be with you. That's forever and ever. Oh, forever and ever. Forever with the Lord. Amen. So let it be. It is so for God's people, may we know, and be assured we're among his people. that she'll praise Him forever in glory. See, Lord, sing more sweet, more clear, and Christ shall be our song. Oh, worthy is the Lamb that died, they cried, to be exalted thus worthy the Lamb. Their lips replied, for He was slain for us. May the Lord and His blessing. Amen.