I tell you what, let's begin
our reading in chapter 42. Let's begin our reading in verse 22.
Scripture says, but this people, talking about us, this people
robbed and spoiled. They are all of them snared in
holes. They are hid in the prison houses.
Therefore pray, and none delivereth for a spoil, and none saith restore. Who among you will give ear to
this? Who will hearken and hear for
the time to come? Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and
Israel for the robbers? Did not the Lord, He against
whom we have sinned, For they would not walk in his ways, neither
were they obedient unto his laws. Therefore he poured upon him
the fury of his anger and the strength of battle, and it hath
set him on fire round about." Notice this, yet he knew not. Who can be on fire and not know
it? Who can have the Lord set Himself
in battle against them and they not know it? Me. I was robbed and I'm spoiled. I was set for prey and none said
restore. And the Lord was against me and
I didn't even know it. and burned him, yet he laid it
not to harm. I know this, you're outside of
Christ today, you're not laying any of this to harm. You don't
have any interest in this. This is the next verse, but.
But now. But now, thus saith the Lord,
that created thee, O Jacob, that formed thee, O Israel, this is
the new birth. You that have been born again,
you have a new creation. Listen to what He says to you,
because you have laid it to heart. What does He say to you? Fear not. Don't be afraid. Why? Here's why. I have redeemed
you. I've already done it. Isn't that
wonderful? Don't be afraid. Why? I have. Not I'm going to. I have. I have redeemed you. And then
what'd he do? I have called thee. Which one
came first? Which one came first? I've redeemed thee, and then
what'd I do? I've called thee. Same thing Paul said. He said
he saved us, and then he called us with an effectual calling,
holy calling. I have called thee. Listen, by
thy name. What's your name? My name's Jacob.
What's yours? It's Henry. Call me. He called
me by my name. Then he called me another name,
Israel, Prince. He called me a sinner, true. Then he called me a prince. I've
called thee by thy name. Now listen, when thou passest
through the water, not if, just when, when you pass through the
water, what's our hope? I will be with thee. And through
the rivers, they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through
the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
on thee. Why? For I am the Lord thy God,
the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. You know what a Savior is? The
Savior is someone who actually saves. Not someone trying to save. That's
not a Savior, is it? The Savior trying to save somebody
is no Savior at all. The Savior is somebody who actually
saves. I'm your Savior. I'm your Savior. And that's what
I did. I gave Egypt for thee thy ransom,
and Ethiopia and Seba for thee. because you were precious in
my sight. Are you precious in your sight? Kevin, you look in the mirror
and say, how precious. But I don't need to be precious
in my sight. I'm precious in his sight, because I'm in his
son. He's precious. I'm precious in
my sight. Dallas been honored. But I don't say something ain't
true, is that right? Is he lying? I don't feel honorable. You are. In him, you're honorable. In
him, you're honorable. And look, I've loved you. I've loved you. Therefore, what
are you gonna do? I will give men for thee, and
people for thy life. Fear not, for I am with thee. Without question, and without
merit, I'm with you. I will bring thy seed from the
east and gather thee from the west. I will say to the north,
give up, and to the south, keep not back. Bring my sons from
far and my daughters from the ends of the earth, even everyone
that is called by my name, the Lord, our righteousness. Isn't that your name? It is. It's his name. For I have created him for my
glory. There's a reason. You want to
know why he saved you? There it is. I did it for my glory. I have formed you. Yes, I have
made you. May God have the blessing of
reading this word. Let's go to him in prayer. our most gracious Lord and Savior,
our God, our King, our Sovereign, gracious, full of mercy and compassion. We thank you that you have given
us this time together, this opportunity to come and bow ourselves before
you, sing your praise. hear your gospel,
honor Christ for what wonderful things he has done for us. He
has saved us and called us and keeps us. We pray for the grace and power
of thy spirit upon the hearts of these men that you have called
to preach the gospel to us today. that you would, in power and
demonstration of your spirit, give them liberty, function of
thy spirit, no glory to themselves, but all glory to Christ. And
we beg for us who hear that you, by the same spirit, would open
our hearts and minds to see our Savior, praise his name, and
glorify His perfect work. I plead that you cast out the
cares of this life. Give us a moment, a glimpse,
of what is waiting for us in glory. Worship, praise, and honor
Christ, our Savior. Forgive us our sins. and cleanse
us of our unrighteousness. We plead these things in the
name of our blessed Redeemer for His sake. You've got your bulletin. If you don't have one, there's
one there back on the table where we're going to sing from. Turn
to your first hymn here, Not All the Blood of Beasts. Sing
this to the Let's stand together and sing this. the peace on Jewish altars slain. Could give the guilty conscious
peace, or wash away its stain. But Christ, the heavenly Lamb,
takes all our sins away. A sacrifice of nobler blood than they. My faith would lay her hand on that
dear head of thine. While like a penitent giant I
stand And there confess my sin My soul looks back burdens thou didst bear, when
hanging on the cursed tree, and knows her guilt was there. Believing we rejoice to see the
curse removed. We bless the Lamb with cheerful
voice and sing His I think you may be seated and
turn to your next page there in your bulletin and we'll sing
at Calvary. Years I spent in vanity and pride
Caring not, my Lord was crucified. Knowing not, it was for me he
died at Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace
was free. Pardon there was multiplied to
me. There my burdened soul found
liberty at Calvary. By God's word at last my sin
I learned. Then I trembled at the law I
spurned, till my guilty soul, imploring, turned to Calvary. Mercy there was great, and grace
was free. The burden there was multiplied
to me. There my burdened soul found
liberty at Calvary. Now I've given Jesus everything. Now I gladly own Him as my King. Now my raptured soul can only
sing of Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace
was free. Pardon there was multiplied to
me. There my burdened soul found
liberty at Calvary. Oh, that love that drew salvation's
plan. Oh, the grace that brought it
down to man. Oh, the mighty gulf that God
did spend at Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace
was free. Pardon there was multiplied to
me. There my burdened soul found
liberty at Calvary. I'm sorry. It's cause to rest if all of
them, they'll match us free eternal
ways. And gave thy song a high. The Prince, the God who rules
the sky By God with hands of twenty-five Beside the mention of his name
Round to seek a hiding place Then wrapped
in picky jeans And bond of darkness more than
one. Madly I ran this sinful race. Secure without a hiding place. But thus the eternal misery. I felt the arrows of disgrace
And found I had no other choice To Sinai's fiery mount I flew But justice cried with proud
voice This mountain is no hiding place Ere long a heavenly
voice I heard And mercy's angels Who led me on through the ages
Through Jesus Christ, my highly praised On Him, almighty vengeance
prayed Who loved to sing this world
to end He bore it for his chosen race, and thus became my hiding place. Thunder, roar, and shake this
earth from pole to pole. No flaming wolf shall daunt my name. For Jesus is my hiding place. A few more setting suns and moons
Shall land beyond fair Canaan's coast, Where I shall sing of
summer days. My Jesus is my highest praise Surrounding me with steadfast
love and grace And I shall never see this light. How'd you enjoy the gospel so
far? Nothing like songs. I don't like
catchy songs. Songs with meaning, purpose.
That's one. That's a great one. I didn't know you could go sing
that. That's just one of my favorites. I love that. Kevin, I think you're first today. Please pray for him. Ask
God's mercy upon him. Give him labor again. Fill his
head and his mouth and his heart with God's word for you. And
pray for yourselves, that God would open this to our hearts
and minds. Bless us with His presence. Heaven
come preach to us. Good morning. If you will, let's
turn to 1 Timothy. And so I prayed the Lord to give
me wisdom before. I know how that comes. And as
the trials came and came and came, I said, I think I've learned
my lesson. And then it got worse, and I
thought it couldn't. This is rock bottom. I'm never going
to say it can't get any worse. It can. He knows how to teach
his people. But I want to have wisdom. good things to tell my children,
I want to have good things to tell you and good things to think
on. And my wisdom, or man's wisdom,
isn't gonna do me any good. I used to keep a book of quotes,
and silly things like if you're not mad enough to bare knuckle
box, you're not mad. Spend less than you make. And
ain't what you make, it's what you say, little financial things.
But I, it's not that you, I need wisdom. And so the Lord wrote
through Paul, this is the inspired word of God, things that are
wise, that are good sayings, faithful sayings. And I want
to look at four of them today. Four times in the scriptures,
Paul writes, this is a faithful saying. He writes it three times
to Timothy and one time to Titus. And that'll be my text. What's
Paul getting at by using a word like that? This is a faithful
saying. That means it's trustworthy. It's from God. This is as sure
as sure can get. You can rely on this forever.
Write it down. Read it often. Take notice. Behold. This is a faithful saying. These
four statements, it'll be a great comfort to a sinner in need.
It'll be a great comfort to those in trial. It'll be a great comfort
for those in a time of great comfort. When you're very comfortable
and content, this is a good thing. It's a faithful thing. It's a
good thing to hear. This is the Lord's word, and
it's worthy to be accepted. If he said it, accept it. We ought to, all mankind, he
is worthy for his word, accept it. That's right. He said it,
that's right. if he'll teach us and make us
understand what he says, not take it out of context or something
like that. But understand, these are simple things. First one,
here in 1 Timothy 1, look at verse 15. This is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom I am chief. This is the very
foundation of our salvation. Here's where we start. This is
a faithful say worthy of all expectation. Acceptation that
Jesus Christ Jesus came in the world to save sinners of whom
I'm chief. Jesus Christ came into this world. He came in the flesh. He left
his throne in glory. He descended to this sin cursed
earth for the purpose of saving sinners and glorifying his father.
Of whom? Out of all those sinners, this
individual with him. So and so don't need to hear
this either. Out of every sinner that he came and shed his blood
for, I'm the chief. I've said it before. If you was
inside of my brain, you'd quit eating lunch with me. You would. I'm the chief. Are you the chief?
This tribe has nothing but chiefs. That's so. Who came? Simple things,
five W's, who, what, where, when, why. Who came? The Messiah. The prophet that Moses wrote
about. The priest after that order, Melchizedek. He's the
king that David was picturing through all those things. He's
the Lord of glory, the Christ, this same Jesus. An angel told
Joseph, said, bring forth a son, and he shall call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sin. This is him. that one Isaiah wrote about,
said, the Lord himself shall give you a sign, behold, a virgin
shall conceive and bear a son, and thou shalt call his name
Emmanuel. What's that? God with us. That's who came. The savior of
his people, the Lord, our Lord, came to do the work. What did
he do? He came into the world. The creator
came to his creation, the very world he created. And you know
what? That world knew him not. I've
heard people say that they, I was just really studying a whole
lot, and I came to the understanding of the gospel in my basement.
No, you did not. By nature, we won't have it.
That's what touched me so much yesterday. He said, I'll bless
you. I'll kneel you. I have to be made to do that.
I won't do it by myself. So he came to a world that knew
him not, and this condensation It's easily looked at, well,
he came to save those sinners. He came to save this sinner.
That's who he came to. He came to us, and we didn't
even know it. I wasn't even here yet. I wasn't
even born yet. I had nothing to do with it.
He purposed it, and he did it. He performed it. He came to this
world where I live, where you live. He came and walked on the
dirt that we walked on. He drank the molecules of water
that might have passed through our bodies. He came here. He
walked among demons perfectly. He walked among sinners. He walked
among Satan. Satan was next to him. Perfectly.
The entire time. Honoring the Father in everything.
Why? Well, the Father deserves it.
And that's what's required of me. An absolute perfect holy
life. And I'm everything but that.
And that's exactly what He did. And you talk about People talk
about, well, you gotta be strong to face adversity. That's adversity.
He knew what sin was. I drank it like water. I don't
even know, I don't know what I don't know. And I've said that
little catchphrase for a long time, and that gets bigger. I'm
learning that there's a whole lot more that I don't know that
I don't know about. He was completely aware of the sin and willingly
came to this earth I'll get to it, but you ever done something
gross? Like a septic tank backs up or something? Oh, much infinitely
worse than that for His people to save them. Because those He
came to save must be holy. They must live a perfect, God-honoring
life and honor the Father in all things. He said, I'll do
it. That's how we're saved, substitution.
He was the substitute, because we can't do it ourselves, and
there's complete satisfaction in Him. That's the gospel. Substitution and satisfaction. The almighty Godhead in a body
came to this world that He created, lived as our substitute, punished
the punishment that we earned. And He died the death that I
earned. And he's risen from that tomb
and us with him. When he was back, I pray that
never gets old. He looks at John the Baptist.
He said, I need you to baptize me. He said, Lord, I need to
baptize you. He said, thus becometh us. Us. Oh, that's good. If I said that
means nothing. I'm on your team. Well, maybe
he don't want me on his team. But if he says us, that union. Who is this for? Well, you have
to find some good people. This is a faithful saying worthy
of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners of whom I am chief. That's what Paul's telling. That's
witnessing. Witnessing ain't printing up
things or making cartoons about Jesus or something like that. I'm just gonna tell you what
I saw. I'm the chief, and in spite of myself, the Lord blessed
me. He was pleased to do so and smiles upon me. He gets all the
glory. Just tell you what I saw. Nothing's
left for me to do. He was made sin, willfully, and
made me the righteousness of God in Him. What's left to do? Thank Him. Thank Him. Man asked me one time, he said,
that's like socialism. You just expect people to bow
constantly to everything that God does and just be happy and
thank you for it? Yeah, yeah. You're in submission
to him whether you know it or not. Trust him. Look to him. Thank him. He's worthy to be thanked. I
think that's worthy of all acceptance. That's reasonable. It's completely
reasonable. Who did he come to? Sinners,
right? Christ sat down to eat lunch
one day, and he sat down with some dirty people. Kim and I
was watching a movie, and in the movie, there was this widowed
man, and he couldn't sleep at night, so every morning at 2.30
a.m. or something, he'd go to this
little diner in the city, and there was a harlot. We think that's
a Disney character nowadays. A lady of the night came in,
and she would come in on a break or whatever and eat a piece of
cake or something. And they got to talking. Finally,
one day, she sat down with him and ate a piece of pie. And I
thought, man, if Kimberly walked into a diner, and I'm sitting
there with a prostitute eating a piece of cake, I'm in trouble. My lord did that. He would with the homeless and
the whatever. Whatever you think's bad, think
of that kind of person, he came to sit down with. Eat after him. Pick up their sandwich after
they took a bite. Take a bite. He came with Republicans, sinners,
prostitutes, fishermen, crippled folks, blind folks, lepers. He touched them. And those self-righteous
people, they saw that. Those prideful men, they looked
on, and they said, why do you eat with Republicans and sinners?
And just as plain, and as clear, and as simple as could be said,
he said, they that are whole need not a physician, but they
that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance. He came and called them. Who
would not be called? Who would not call on Him? And
He said, I'll call them. I'll come right where they are.
He came to this earth and died for sinners, the very chief.
Now, are you a chief of sinners? Are you the worst sinner that
there ever was? He's talking to you. To you,
this is a faithful saying. This is a faithful saying. Second
one. A couple pages over, 1 Timothy 4. and one pays for me. What do sinners contribute to
this work of salvation? 1 Timothy 4 verse 8. For bodily
exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto
all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that
which is to come. This is a faithful saying worthy
of all acceptation. Is the Lord writing through Paul
and telling us we don't have to exercise and do push-ups and
run? Is he saying, you know, godliness is profitable. That
means you got to obey the law and do all these things. And
no, he's telling us that physical exercise of religion, of going
through the motions and the ceremony and the pump. That's we was talking.
Faith Porter one time as a cop wrote down, I hate religion.
And on the cover said me too, baby. I do. I do. People called
and asked me questions. Boy, would I do this? Would I
do that? Would I make somebody come up and confess they were
a sinner? And I said, I don't know how to tell you this. I
just ain't that religious. I don't like it. I can't stand it. But he's saying all that exercise
of religion, all that doing. Look up at verse one. Now the
spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times, that's these
times, some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing
spirits and the doctrine of devils. speaking lies and hypocrisy,
having their consciences seared with a hot iron. What will be
the product of that? Works. Verse three, forbidding
to marry and commanding to abstain from pains. Well, if you're going
to get married, you have to go through my six-month counseling
program. Who am I? What do I know? Kimberly would go tell him, she
said, don't listen to him. He don't know what he's talking about.
To abstain from meats. Oh, you can't be a believer and
eat that. You can't have a BLT. Peter was eating that pulled
pork sandwich one day. It matters what table we sit at. What about these restrictions?
What about these meats? Read on. Which God hath created to
be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know
the truth. You that believe, you know better.
Get married, it's fine. It's a picture of Christ. That's
why we have it. To show him and his bride. Go
get your hand, Maurice, you say, it comforts me. Go eat a ham
sandwich underneath the tree somewhere. Calm down. Eat your
ham sandwich. You'll be fine. Eat what you
want. But that exercise has nothing to do with salvation, does it?
Eat what you want, as long as it's received in our bodies with
thanksgiving, knowing that God provided it. You're starving
to death and you only got two dollars and the false church
down the road has a fish fry for two dollars. Go eat it. It's
fine. God provided the fish. It's his fish. You gotta worship
with them folks. It ain't gonna hurt you. It has
nothing to do with your salvation. Christ is the one that saves.
For every creature, verse four, of God is good and nothing to
be refused if it be received with thanksgiving. For it's sanctified
by the word of God and prayer. Lord, thank you. Thank you for
this food. He said, as often as you do this, remember me.
Well, that's not once a month, is it? Do we only remember him
once a month? Do we only think about him on
Wednesdays and Sundays? He's our life. Lord, thank you for Christmas.
I'm thankful for Christmas. There's a day of the year that
the majority of this world has to admit that Christ came to
this earth. And people say, well, others abuse it. Well, those
people that abuse it don't live in my house. We're going to be
thankful that day. Lord, thank you. What ought we to do? That word
ought means out of a debt of love. Not just what you should
do. It's completely reasonable. Out of love, because he first
loved us, what ought we to do? What's profitable? Godliness.
Witnessing the truth of Christ and the truth of man. Avoiding
that flesh religion of ourselves, of our vain minds, and looking
to the Redeemer. It says in verse six, If thou
put the brethren in remembrance of these things, your sinner,
Christ became a safe sinner. Look to him. Look to him. Love
him. Thou shalt be a good minister
of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of
good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. But refuse profane,
oh, wise fables. All these conspiracy theories
and these things, oh, I think this is happening, that's how,
oh, what are they doing? Oh, stop. Look to Christ. He's on
His throne. He's not lying. He's telling
the truth. Believe Him. Believe Him. Bow to Him. Worship
Him. And exercise thyself rather unto
godliness. If you want to do something to
serve the Lord, that Lord that saved us, do it. Here's your
chance. Serve Him. What is that? How
can sinners saved by grace serve the Lord in godliness? Remind
them of Christ. point them to Him. Love one another.
That's all through first joint. Believe Christ, love the brethren.
Believe Christ, love the brethren. Over and over and over and over.
Why does He say it over and over? I need to hear it over and over
and over. I'm so prone to wonder. So prone
to leave the God I love. And I need to be reminded. Kiss the Son. That's what we
need to do. And then forgive. What's the
most godly thing we could do? Forgive. Forgive. It takes the
power of God to do something. And then look to Him and ask
Him, Lord, make me forgive. You have to do everything. Everything.
We're a needy people. Be kind, gentle, meek, all those
gifts of the Spirit. I want those things. I want to be made like Christ.
My whole life, people spot me on predestination. It means being
conformed to the image of Christ. Don't you want to be made like
Christ? If you know Him, you do. I'm not, I look in the mirror,
there ain't nothing about me that I see that causes one of
those beatitudes. I ain't a one of them. And as
I see that, I have to have Him. He has to be everything to me. That's a good place to be in. Verse eight, for bodily exercise
profiteth little. Everything I can do profits nothing but
Godliness. Trust in Christ, look into Him.
It's profitable unto all things. Having. You already have it. Having promise of the life that
now he is and of that which is to come. It's already saved.
This is a faithful saying worth all acceptation. It's faithful.
He's done it. It's finished. Look to it. Put
away all that religion. Put away all the superstition.
Just forget about it. Don't follow it closely and see
what it's doing. Ah, drop it. And believe Christ
and love the brethren. There's a faithful saying worthy
of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners of whom I'm chief. And if you're a sinner, it's
worthy for us to bow fully. He's faithful and he saved his
people. For bodily exercise profiteth
little, but godliness is profitable unto all things. Having promise
of the life that now he is and of that which is to come, this
is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. I didn't
save myself. I didn't perform an exercise
to be saved, to be made more holy, or to stay that way. Christ
did. Believe in God, love in Him,
love in our brethren. As Christ loved us, and He served
us, and He laid down His life for us, that's worthy of being
accepted. That's profitable. Thirdly, turn over to 2 Timothy
2. Verse 11, 2 Timothy 2, 11. It is a faithful saying, for
if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer,
we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will
deny us. If we believe not, yet he abideth
faithful. He cannot deny himself. If we died with Christ, All of
my hope of satisfying the Lord was nailed to that cross and
that person of His body on that tree. We're alive with Him. And we'll spend eternity with
Him. And in a very real sense, I'm with Him there now. Like
Greg said, we'll wake up and realize we've been there the
whole time. We don't understand eternity. You try to think about
those things in infinity and all, you'll go crazy. Our brains
can't handle it. They can't. That's how long we'll
be with Him. When Christ came to this earth
and He lived, we lived in Him. And He died, we died in Him.
And now we live because He's on His throne. We're with Him
now. If we suffer with Him, what's that? Well, in this life being
counted with Christ, and you've had your family go against you
and your friends, or your people mock you, and why in the world
do you drive so far? There's so many churches between here
and there. There's a thousand things we could list up. That's
a little bit of suffering, isn't it? But also to suffer, with
him and what he did. You go into that garden of Gethsemane.
Doesn't that break your heart? Go read Matthew's account of
the crucifixion of Christ. How do you feel at the end of
that? And that was for me. To understand,
to enter into just a part of it. It falls off through a glass
dimly. What do you think I see? Not much. He's revealed that
to me. If we deny him, he'll deny us. I try to make it simple. Explanations
are complex things sometimes, and I'm not always good at it.
But if you have children and grandchildren
and a spouse and your loved ones and your parents, deny me. Because
I don't love you. We could say those things. We
might be able to go through the motions of those things, of harshness.
And I wrote them all. No, you don't. You love them,
ain't you? You love them. You'll keep us. You can say it, but it's not
so, huh? But our trust is not in our ability to not deny Him. If I haven't denied Him, that's
a work. When I was younger, too, man,
I made a work out of not working. I did. It was a terrible thing. It was looking at myself. But
in Christ, look at verse 13. If, and this is just like when
John said, if any man sin, it's when, so when, when we believe
not, Yet He abideth faithful. He cannot deny Himself. We're
one with Him. We're made one with Him. At one
moment. The God. What a thought. He's the faithful. People say,
well, my faith's strong. My Christ is strong. My faith
is He's faithful. It has to be. Faithful saying
means precious. There are times when we're not
going to believe. We have unbelief. Lord, I believe, help thou mine
unbelief. In those times of darkness, and I thought to myself, what
if I get hit in the head? I don't know my own name. Or come down
with a disease and have Alzheimer's or something, and I don't know
who my family is, and I don't remember nothing. He's faithful. Yeah, he abides faithful. When
our faith is as small as it can get, it seems naught against
this that Christ abides faithful. He'll never deny himself. And
we were made one way. That's the chief of sinners.
The Lord said during the Psalms, he said, I'll give the heathen
for your inheritance. Can you imagine if somebody told
you that? I'm going to give you heathen. I don't want them. Can't
I get good ones? He said, I'll make them just
like me. Make them just like themselves. Last one. Turn over
to Titus 3, just a few pages. This is a faithful saying, Titus
3 verse 8. This is a faithful saying, and
these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they
which have believed. You already believe. You that
are the Lord, he's given you life, and he's given you eyes
to see him, and he's shined his face upon you, and he's kept
you, and that just makes you happy. Your face shines back.
That's who he's talking to, they which have believed. in God might
be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable
unto men. Here's the fruit of faith. I've
learned something about fruit. We've planted fruit trees every
place we've ever lived and got, I think, two lemons ever in 20
years. The trees either die or maybe
I shouldn't be a farmer. But Christ is the root. He's
the vine. And we're a branch. And through
Him, fruit's fruit is. Go to an apple tree. and don't
eat anything. And let all them apples form
and all those apples fall. If you own that tree, you know
what you've got to do? You've got to get the apples out of there. It's
not for the tree. It's for something else. It'll
be too much chemicals in there that'll hurt that tree. We've
got to get the fruits for something else. But it says that fruit
of faith is good works. Maintain good works. What is
that? The same as doing Rochester. Believe in Christ. love in the
world. And I want to, don't you? That
law is beautiful. It's glorious. But I find a law
in me. Every time I want to do good,
I can't. And everything I don't want to do, that's what I do.
Oh, wretched man that I am. But I want to. I saw a fellow
one time. He was leaving Costco, and you
have to show your receipt. And he was fighting them people
and arguing with those people. over showing his receipt. And
I told him, I said, one time I was leaving, I showed him my
receipt, and I said, oh, that charges you too many bags of dog food. I got $25 back. The Lord's true. Those people are there to even
reign over our receipts. It's for my good. And I thought,
you know, if I sit there and argue with that manager at Costco,
and at the end of it, I say, hey, you want to go to church
with me? He'd say, no, why in the world would I want to go?
There's probably people just like you down there. I don't want to be a reproach
on the gospel. I don't. and rude and crude and everything
else that I don't want to be. But I don't want to bring reproach
on the gospel. I don't want to be a reason that
somebody won't come here by Christ. And I want the Lord to teach
me those things. And that's reasonable, isn't it? For His sake, not for
mine. I already believe. They which already have believed.
I want that for my brethren's sake and for His sake, His glory's
sake. You who believe, you want to
be careful to not bring reproach on the gospel of grace and not
to bring approach on the brethren, His grace, and it's profitable
to all men for that. The Lord gave nations for us,
as Fred read earlier. And when you start realizing,
well, my barber's from Seba, and the guy at the grocery store's
from Egypt, and that hits home. This isn't something that happened
somewhere else. When that's a reality, you care for people's souls.
If the Lord gave you to see the value of your own soul, you care
for those around you. I pray that the Lord would love
me That way I can love. He would give me joy so I could
be a joy to somebody else. Give me peace so I can calm others. Be long-suffering with me. Show
me what that is so I can suffer long with my breath. Be gentle
to me so I know what gentleness is. These are faithful sayings. Christ
came to save sinners whom I'm cheating. I didn't do anything
to merit it. It was all of grace. I'm dead
to sin. I'm dead to death, to hell, and
in Him I live now and forever I'll be with Him. And when I'm
weak in the faith, when I would perish, He's faithful. Now, believe
Him and love Him. Thank you, Lord. That's reasonable,
isn't it? That ought to be accepted. It
should be. I think you do. I see your face is smiling. Father said, let us hold fast
our professional hope without wavering. For he is faithful. I'm so glad he left these for
us to read. Thank you for his faithfulness. His faithfulness. His faithfulness. Give praise for it, God. We'll be dismissed for however
long it takes. And then when you hear the music,
come back, we'll hear the gospel message.