Thank you so much, Dr. Beal. Let's take our Bibles this morning. Go with me to Mark, Chapter 4. I would go in the Bible to Mark, Chapter 4. Sarah said I can't tell any stories about her, but I got about a million of them. We won't work them into the message. Wait until she comes home this summer. We'll unload on her then. I want to preach a message to you students, and I want to preach this as the message, with Jesus in the storm. Where Mark chapter four, it's a familiar passage, but there's some great lessons here for us if we would take it. Now it's not just for our notebooks, though that's a good place to start, but you're gonna have to relearn this lesson many times if you start out to serve the Lord and keep on serving the Lord. Mark chapter four, we're in verse 35. Follow along as I read. Mark 4, 35. And the same day when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side. And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there was also with him other little ships. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow. And they wake him and say unto him, Master, Carest thou not that we perish? And he arose and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? I remember several years ago I was conversing with a pastor in the Omaha area and he was telling a story about a young man just out of Bible college that had contacted him and said he wanted to start a church. He thought God was calling him to start a church in the Midwestern area. Now I'm a Midwesterner. I was born in Minnesota, went to college in Wisconsin and pastored all in the Midwest and been in Nebraska for these many years. And so this young man went to this veteran pastor, and the veteran pastor said, well, we've got these many towns that are good-sized towns that don't have a good church. Which one would you like to look at? And so they kind of drove around for a while, and they settled in this one town. And the young man said to the veteran pastor, he said, listen, he said, do you think we could go soul winning in this town for a little while? The pastor said, sounds like a good idea. So they went out knocking on doors, no church there, nothing gonna be started, they're just checking it out. And they went, Sony, for about an hour, hour and a half. And they got done, they got in the car, and the young guy said to the veteran pastor, he said, you know what? I don't think God's calling me to that town. He said, why? He said, well, we knocked on doors for an hour and a half, and we didn't get one good response. And the veteran pastor thought to himself, if that's all it takes to discourage you, you probably never better start in the first place. You know, you might knock on a lot of doors and not get many encouraging responses today, friends. But there's a lesson here in the text that Jesus is trying to teach his disciples, and he's also trying to teach us. It's a hard lesson to learn. It's a lesson, doesn't matter how long you've been preaching, how long you've been in the ministry, you have to keep on learning it. And that is that the hard times in the ministry are good times, are times of blessing. Somehow we think, and young people, you can think this, that if I was just a little bit smarter, there won't be any hard times. No, it's not gonna work that way. If I was just a little more intelligent than the generation that had come before me, if I had a better education or something like that, and I was better at technology, then there wouldn't be any problems, wouldn't be any trials, wouldn't be any difficulties. I just don't think it works that way. I think the hard times, the battles, the struggles are where our character is built. And I really believe that the hard times are not a sign that we shouldn't be there. I think they're a sign of God's blessing. David Livingston, old veteran mystery, was going to speak one time at the University of Glasgow. Now, the University of Glasgow was the kind of place at that time where they heckled somebody like Livingston. In fact, the crowd gathered just to make fun of him. They couldn't wait to get a preacher out there. This wasn't a place where they believed the Bible. Livingston was coming because he was kind of a national treasure at that time. And they gathered just to make fun of him, just to hoot at this guy who had spent his life in Africa. And they came to heckle him. That is until Livingston walked out. Livingston walked like a man who had covered Africa, most of it on foot. His one arm hung limply at his side, damaged, in an incident with a lion. His face had literally been rearranged from different things. And by the time he got to the platform, by the time he got to the pulpit, to the lectern, the place was deathly silent. Because while they came to heckle a man, they saw a man who had given his life for the ministry, for service. And young people, that's what God calls us to. I really believe we have a problem today, and that is we are running away from the hard places. We are running to the easy places. And sometimes, you know what, dear friends? I think we are running from a good position, a right position, to an easier position because we'll think it'll be easier. But friends, we can't sacrifice Bible principle just because it's difficult. Just because it's challenging. just because we live in challenging times. And I really believe that's the message that Jesus has for the disciples and it's the message that Jesus has for us as well. There's a couple of lessons I want you to learn with me this morning. First of all in verse 35, number one, God has a plan for your life. Verse 35, And the same day when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side. I'm taking that last statement as not just an event for that day, but God's will for your life. God has a will for your life. God has a plan for your life. God has something for you to do. God has a place for you to be. God has a part of the ministry for you to fulfill. And Jesus is teaching to his disciples, listen, he is teaching them that I have a will for your life, but that will is going to include hard times. He said, let us pass over unto the other side. It's wonderful to be in God's will. There's an old chorus we used to sing. I haven't heard it in a long time. I won't sing it this morning, amen. But it says, there is no peace, no joy, no thrill like walking in His will. Seems to me that a lot of people are talking about God's will, but they don't really, are not really that interested in doing God's will. They wanna talk about it. But here's no mistake what Jesus said is. And I really believe this. I believe when God calls us, When He leads us, I believe that His will for our life is just as plain and unmistakable as it is here in verse 35. I believe that God calls you to do something. How many times does somebody say they are called to do something only to find out it's difficult, it's hard, it's challenging, and then they quit? I tell you what, in Nebraska, the people that have come to start churches, who would stand up and talk about how God had called them, and then 18 months later, they're gone. They've loaded up the U-Haul. They've headed somewhere else. Somebody made a mistake, friends. May I suggest to you it wasn't the Lord? It got difficult. It got hard. It got challenging. First of all, God has a plan for your life. Number two, God's plan will include difficulties. Verse 36 and 37, And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship, and there were also with him other little ships. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. There's gonna be trials. There's gonna be difficulties. I've pastored three churches in my life. I've been pastoring 36 years, and I'll just tell you a little hint. At the second and the third church, when I took it, after being there about six months, my first thought was, who was the nut that took this church? Because it looked one way, and then it appeared a different way after you've been there for a while. Things are like that, you know that? You'll see something, and then when you get there, it looks all different. Difficulties and trials. Our flesh runs away from them. But let me just say, young people, any ministry, any work for God ever built included someone at the beginning that paid a price. Someone that sacrificed. Somebody that went without. Somebody that worked hard. Somebody that got up before somebody else did. Stayed up after other people. That sacrifice that went without. I heard of a church planter started a church and he said in the first five years His wife was never in a service. She was in the nursery every service. That's paying a price, friends. That is paying a price. And sometimes I think the problem is not that there's anything wrong with the ministry, it's just turned out to be hard. It's turned out to be difficult. It's turned out to be something we didn't intend it to be. First of all, trials are a part of ministry. Don't ever forget that, friends. Second of all, trials are a sign of God's blessing. Sometimes we mistake today and we say that anything that's going wrong or a difficulty or a trial or something, then I must not be in God's will. I must not be in God's perfect place. I was reading, that was several years ago, I was reading just about the same time I read two different missionaries, they were both on deputation just getting started, hadn't actually been to the field. And they were both giving, it was like a little blog or something like that, talking about their experiences on deputation. The one said, oh this is so hard, we are traveling, they had little kids, you know, as they would. They were talking about how hard it was to get the kids to behave. They had driven all Sunday afternoon to get to another church and then the kids were restless. You understand it was a challenging time. And all they talked about was how hard it was. The other one said, what a blessing. I'm preaching every service. We're meeting people who are going to pray for us. Do you see young people that sometimes in life it's really how we look at it that makes the difference? So many times, and I really think this is a problem today, people equate trials with it's time to get out. I think sometimes parents have, anytime there's a hard time, they're telling the kid, quit, give up. Nothing's ever been built that way for us. Nothing for God that's ever lasted, that ever made a difference, that ever counted. Everybody had to go through some trials. The great preachers of the past went through suffering, went through trials. Can you do the same? Can you ask the Lord for help to go do the same? Number three, do not run from the hard times, in verse 36 and 37. Oh, young people, I wish we could learn this lesson. I have to tell you, I'm still learning it myself. President Bush Senior, the first one, he had a great quote. I use it all the time. It's deep, so you got to think about it now for a little bit. As you know, President Bush Senior was a deep guy. That's a joke, but anyway, he's a deep guy. He said this, no one said it'd be easy and no one was right. You see, I told you that's deep stuff. It's pretty good stuff though, isn't it? I don't even know if President Bush was actually trying to say that, but it still works pretty good. Winston Churchill said, and we're gonna have to paraphrase this because it was Winston Churchill. And if we said what Winston actually said, we'd go off the live stream and so that'd mess it up, okay? But a paraphrase of Winston Churchill was this. When you're going through a hard time, keep going. That's pretty good. He went through some hard times, didn't he? Hey, can I tell you what? Our world will look a lot different today if Churchill wouldn't have stood. I tell you what, they said, are you going to quit? He says, we'll not quit till we'll be lying bleeding in the ground with the blood coming out of our throat. He said, we will not surrender. I hope you know enough world history to know what a difference that man made. And though he was not a Christian or anything like that, it's still a good quote. When you're going through a hard time, you learn to keep going. You learn to keep trusting. you learn to keep relying upon the Lord. God's plan will include difficulties. I'm afraid so many people in the ministry, anytime something gets hard, any ministry has a little bit of difficulty, they quit. Trying to reach people and turns out to be hard, turns out to be challenging, turns out the people don't appreciate it, turns out sometimes church people don't appreciate it. We say, well, the solution is easy. Let's quit. What's ever gonna get done if that's what we do? if we just quit. Corrie Tenboom said it. She went through some trials in her life, didn't she? She said, there is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still. One time in the concentration camp, whenever they got moved to a new barrack, Corrie Tenboom and her sister would always stop, and they would pray, and they would thank the Lord for where they were at. Now remember, they're in a concentration camp. And they would thank the Lord. They took that verse in everything, give thanks. And so they came into a new barrack, and as they sat down to pray, Corrie Ten Boom's sister said, no, I will not pray that. She said, there's fleas everywhere. You couldn't lay down in the bed without being covered by fleas. She said, I will not thank the Lord for this thing. Corrie Ten Boom said, well, it's in the Bible. We have to obey it. The sister refused to go along, and Corrie Ten Boom prayed, Lord, thank you for this place. Turns out that the fleas were so bad in that barrack the guards refused to come in. And when the guards refused to come in, Corrie Ten Boom and her sister were allowed to give even more Bible studies. They basically just ran a 24-hour Bible study in there. Later on, Corrie Ten Boom said this, thank God for the fleas. Thank God for the fleas. Boy, I've seen people for one one-thousandth of that quit a ministry, quit teaching Sunday school, quit trying to reach kids on the bus, Quit working with teenagers, oh, it's so easy to quit. The second lesson here we have this morning, verse 36 and 37, is God's plan will include difficulties. Don't ever forget that, young people. We never outgrow the challenges. We never outgrow the battles. The third lesson this morning is God's plan will sometimes be lonely, verse 38. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow. And they awake him and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? In one sense, the last part of verse 38 is almost a blasphemous statement. On the other hand, we have to be honest this morning and say there's nobody living here, breathing, that hasn't actually done something with the Lord, that hasn't thought something quite similar to that. See, the problem is this, we have a prayer life, we understand that, and we pray, and we now have the prayer, we know what the answer is supposed to be. But can I tell you something, friend? God's answers are better than my prayers. God knows what's best. Sometime he's gonna say no to your prayer request. You're not gonna understand it. Later on you might understand it. But God's answers are best. Sometimes he's gonna say wait. Sometimes he's gonna say just keep right on going. Not only do we have the prayer figured out, we've got God's answer figured out before He even begins to answer. It's amazing how smart we are. Can you imagine this to the Lord Jesus Christ? They said, Master, carest thou not that we perish? Under this point, number one, trials challenge our faith. Spurgeon, preaching many times, would go on vacation to France And of course, in London at that time, Spurgeon was huge, big name, and the newspaper people would follow him to the train, and we're in the middle of the downgrade controversy. I'm sure you've studied that, but anyway, it's an interesting part of Spurgeon's life and ministry, when many of the people he trained turned on him, and many people went a different direction. And they said, as he got on the train, they said, Charlie, how are you doing in the battle? And Spurgeon turned to them and said, the battle is killing me. He died at age 59. A lot of people say that, you know, it was because of his weight and stuff like that, but he died a young man. I think the battle was killing him, but the thing about it was Spurgeon never surrendered in the battle. He stood for what was right. Trials are going to challenge your faith. One writer said it this way, God wants us to live by faith, but we can only live by faith if we have difficulties and trials that require us to live by faith. Some of us want the faith without any battles. Some of us got all the answers. We haven't heard any very many questions yet. Trials challenge our faith. Number two, our response to storms show our faith or lack of faith. This last summer, last two summers, we took our teenagers, went and did a Bible school. We do that every summer, somewhere in the Midwest, somewhere in Nebraska, or somewhere in the Midwest, trying to help out a small church, trying to be a blessing. And there's a little church in a town in Western Nebraska. Now, Western Nebraska is not the most populated place on the planet, but there's still people there. And there's a little church that was started out of a tent meeting about 50 years ago. They had pastors come in a small church. The pastors would struggle to survive. And so finally, a number of pastors gone and sometimes they're having a business meeting in that church. And they said, you know what? They pointed to one man in the church. And they said to this man, just a layman, the church says you should be the pastor. He said, why, I can't do it. He said, I never went to Bible college. He says, you're the best man in this church. You've held it together. He's a rancher farmer. He's pastored that church now for 20 years. We were out there last summer having a Bible school, and he would go around in the morning, pick up kids for Bible school. He's 79 years old. Take the kids home after lunch. Afternoon, he'd go back to his farm and work all afternoon, come back, pick up kids for teens at night, take the teens home. He's 79 years old. Never had the privilege of a Bible college education. Can I tell you why there's a church out there in western Nebraska? Because that man will not quit. That man will keep on holding on. It's exciting, isn't it? That's what every ministry needs. Somebody willing to fight the battles. Somebody willing to pay the price. Jim Elliott, so many great quotes. from Jim Elliot, but here's a good one. He says, we are spiritual pacifists. You know what the word pacifist means. Not talking about the Pacific Ocean now, we're talking about something else. Non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle to the death. Meekness must be had for contact with men, but brass, outspoken boldness is required to take part in the comradeship of the cross. We are sideliners, coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers. while content to sit by and leave the enemies of God unchallenged. That's pretty good stuff, isn't it? Jim Elliott knew what it was like to be in the battle, didn't he? Never shied away. Some people would say those missionaries killed in January 1956 by the Alka Indians, what a waste. I don't think so at all. The book that was written sent thousands of people to the mission field. They had guns that day, folks. They had decided ahead of time not to use them in response, in self-defense. I'm just saying they knew exactly what the price was that had to be paid. They knew the cost that they were going into, and their whole life, their whole ministry was to take the gospel to people that had never heard it. We need some folks like that today, willing to go to the hard places. Number four, God's plan will include miracles, verse 39. And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. Number one, God is never late. It's going to seem like it sometimes. You're going to be in a hard spot on the mission field in a church, challenging times, difficult situation. You're not going to figure out why things aren't happening, why this isn't going to take place. God's never late. Number two, if you'll stay faithful, you'll see some unbelievable things. You'll see some things you can't ever explain. God is still in the miracle working business today. God is still in the business of answering prayer, of seeing people saved, of seeing the hard cases saved. We need to ask God to do amazing things, but we have to have somebody with enough character to stay in the place long enough to see what God wants to do, to see what God can do. Oh, there's a lot of places we could see churches started. But we got to have somebody with enough character to stay 10 years, not 10 months. A guy called me up. He was going to start a church in Nebraska. It didn't work out that he could have a meeting. And so he said, you got any pieces of advice for me? I hardly ever get that on the phone, so we dumped the whole truck on the guy. I said, number one, if you're going to start a church in Nebraska, don't come unless you're going to stay 10 years, because it can't be done in less time than that. I said, number two, don't think anybody's gonna come from their church and join your church. You're gonna start from scratch and win people the Lord and disciple them. He said, when I got off the phone, he said, I was so mad at you. I wasn't trying to get him mad, I was just trying to help him, because sometimes everybody thinks everything can be done in three years. A ministry can be built. They think they're gonna be running 1,000 in five years. No, they're not. But I tell you what, that guy came. And he stayed, he's been in Nebraska now eight years. He's doing a great job. I think they probably had about 40 or 50 there Sunday morning. They're doing a great work. Hey, for the Midwest, that's great stuff. First of all, the fact that he stayed. Oh, we need some folks that'll do that. Here's number five, our last lesson this morning. God's plan will include some important lessons, verse 40 and 41. Now Jesus talks. He turns to the disciples and he said unto them, verse 40, why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith? And they feared exceedingly and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" A lot of things today in the Lord's work are challenging our heart. Maintaining our position, independent fundamental Baptist position, it's hard. Winning people of the Lord, it's challenging. Working with teenagers, it's difficult. Still be done though. Jesus rebukes them and he says to them, why are you so fearful? He's right there. Can't you trust him? Can't you rely upon him? My grandfather was led to the Lord by a young preacher boy, his first church. Minnesota, a long time ago, there was country Baptist churches all over the landscape. One by one, they're closing now, as the economy changes and our lifestyle changes. But this man pastored two churches. He was a graduate of Northwestern Schools. W.B. Reilly was his mentor. And this man came out to a rural area, and he went sowinning at five o'clock in the morning, when the men were milking cows. And that man stepped into my grandfather's barn at five o'clock in the morning. Now friends, the barn is 10 miles from where that man lived. And that man, my dad said, never owned a car the whole time he was pastor there. I don't know how he got out there. Over a period of a couple of months, coming every so often, he led my grandfather, Nick Luke, into the Lord in the barn while he was helping him milk cows. And my dad said, you go all over that whole area. And you can hear he could tell you of other men that that man led the Lord. That's the 1930s. They're still talking about that man today. Do you know why he stayed? He had character and he was a soul winner, even though it was hard times. I can hear a lot of people say five o'clock in the morning. Are you kidding me? But you know what was out there? There were souls to be saved. I find it a rebuke that Jesus said to the disciples, why are you so fearful? It's a good lesson for us. How is it that you have no faith? There's a call comes ringing o'er the restless way, friends. Send the light, send the light. Will you go? It's gonna be hard. It's gonna be challenging. Anything done that lasts is gonna take somebody that's willing to stick it out. Ride out the storms. Take the good and the bad and trust the Lord. It's a great lesson for us all from Mark chapter four. Heavenly Father, thank you for the word today. Take and use in our lives, Lord. We need your help. We need your instruction. And Lord, we see in these pages a great lesson from the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, teach it to us today. Teach it to me. Continue to teach these young people as they go out to serve you, Lord. And I pray your hand of blessing would be upon them in Jesus' name.