I want to read you all something,
if you will. Turn with me in Numbers, Chapter 12. That sound board in the back,
that's Set, an anathoid. Let's turn to Numbers chapter
12. While you're turning, the Lord
sent out His disciples two by two, didn't He? Can you imagine
Paul and Barnabas going to a town, and they see Paul and they hug
him, and they love him, and they say, Oh, Paul, we love you so
much. Oh, Paul, we're so thankful to have you. Paul, we couldn't
make it without you. And then Barnabas comes in and
they throw hot coffee in his face. of us. Put him to work. He don't need to be up here studying
the Word of the Lord. He ought to be out there tent
making. Get him doing something else. How long do you reckon
Paul will stick around? We're all grown when we sack
bucket. Numbers chapter 12. We all need to read it. We'll
get there. Numbers 12 verse 1. And Miriam,
that's Moses' sister and heir, and spake against Moses because
of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married. For he had married
an Ethiopian woman. She was black. You get that? And they said, hath the Lord
indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath he not spoken also by us? That's what the sons of Korah
said. We have God. The Lord's with us. We got princes. Hath he not spoken also by us?
And the Lord heard it. Did Moses hear what they said
about his wife? It don't matter if Moses heard
what they said about his wife. Would he be mad? Would Moses
be mad if he heard what they said about his wife? You better
believe he'd be mad. Something far worse than that.
What if Moses was six foot four, 255 pounds? You think they'd
have a problem on their hands, his little brother Aaron? It's much worse than that. The Lord heard it. Is that what
your Bible says? The Lord heard it? The man Moses was very meek.
He wasn't timid. He wasn't weak. He knew what
he was. He was a sinner. He was black
on the inside. Above all men which were upon
the face of the earth, he knew it. He knew he was the chief
of sinners. And the Lord spake suddenly unto
Moses and unto Aaron and unto Miriam, come out ye three into
the tabernacle of the conversation. Y'all get out here, I'm gonna
talk to you. And they three came out and the Lord came down in
a pillar of the cloud and stood in the door of the tabernacle
and called Aaron and Miriam. And they both came forth. And
he said, hear now my words. Well, that's something if man
says, hear the word of the Lord, and they have their incenses
and their things and they chant stuff. If God came down on a
pillar and looked you dead in the eye, and he said, you hear
what I got to say to you. Oh, buddy. If there be a prophet
among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known unto him in
a vision. I will speak unto him in a dream. If you're gonna be
my prophet, I'll come to you and I'll talk to you. But my
servant Moses is not so. who is faithful in all my house,
not my faithful servant, he's not like that. He doesn't get
visions in these dreams. With him, while I speak mouth
to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches, this ain't
gonna be confused. It's gonna be plain as a nose
on your face, I'm gonna talk to him. And not in dark speeches
in the similitude the Lord shall behold, shall he behold. Wherefore,
when then, when you're not afraid to speak against my servant Moses,
and the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he
departed, And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle, and
behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow. Why? Because she
thought she was a little bit clean already, and she was just
better than Zipporah. She's self-righteous. And the
Lord said, you want to be white on the outside? I'll make you
white on the outside. Cover you in leprosy. And Aaron
looked upon Miriam, and behold, she was leprous. And Aaron said
to Moses, Alas, my Lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us. Wherein we've done foolishly,
that's a repentant heart, isn't it? What we did was wrong, we're
fools. And wherein we've sinned, we've
sinned against God by doing this. Let her not be as a dead one
of whose flesh is half consumed when he come out of his mother's
womb. And Moses cried, this meek man that knew what he was, that
knew he was foolish, that knew the sin that was in him. What
restraint God gave him. What grace God gave him to pray
for those ones that cussed his wife. And he cried unto the Lord,
saying, Heal her now, O God. I beseech thee. Lord, please. She did wrong just like I did
wrong. Heal her. Heal her. The prayer of a righteous
man availeth much, doesn't it, Bob? Not here. Verse 14. And the Lord said unto Moses,
If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed
seven days? That was a shame. The father
would spit and talk to her, right? What are you doing? Get onto
her. I'll tell you what, if her father would have spit in her
face when she's a kid, might not had these problems when she's old. Got bent over his knee pretty
good. The Lord said unto Moses, verse 14, if her father had but
spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? Let
her be shut out from the camp seven days. And after that, Let
her be received in again. And Miriam was shut out from
the camp seven days, and the people journeyed not till Miriam
was brought in again. They didn't go nowhere. They
didn't move forward. The train stopped. You get that? And afterwards, the people were
moved from Hazroth and pitched in the wilderness of Paran. Now let's pray together. Father, we're full of blackness
and we know it. Grow your people so they don't
pick at the blackness of us and of others, of our brethren. We're not so concerned with the
whiteness of our outsides. Lord, in those that aren't our
brethren, there must be heresies among us. There must be divisions
among us. We know your word. Lord, give us patience. You must defend us. Give us the
grace to pray for those that despotfully use us. You must do these things. Lord,
in this hour, let us put the concerns of this world beside
and bring us, we can't come, gather to Gather three, as you
see fit, here in Bethel, here in the house of God, Lord, and
teach us, grow us, and shut our mouths up to sin. If you have
a family here, Lord, make us a family that loves one another. Forgive us for what we are, Lord,
and forgive us of our sins, and your will be done. To Christ's
name I ask, amen. All right, brethren, if you will,
let's turn to Genesis 35. YouTube's been down nationwide
today. They're having problems, so if somebody's tuning in, we'll
get it uploaded as we can. My prayers have been hindered.
As Peter said, my prayers have been hindered this week. And
then I thought they'd get easing up. And then I got hindered a
little more. And then the next day I was hindered a little more.
And like we looked at pruning Wednesday, I knew that was going
to come. I ain't a fool. And I got pruned down to where I
just can't get pruned no more. And then I got pruned a little
further. So I hope the Lord's with us.
I may be very brief here, but Genesis 35, we'll look at verse
nine. And God appeared unto Jacob again
when he came out of Padneram and blessed him. And God said
unto him, thy name is Jacob. Thy name shall not be called
any more as Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. And he called
his name Israel. And God said unto him, I am God
Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation
and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come
out of thy loins. And the land which I gave Abraham
and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee
will I give the land. And God went up from him in the
place where he talked with him. And Jacob set up a pillar in
the place where he talked with him, even a pillar of stone.
And he poured a drink offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon. And Jacob called the name of
the place where God spake with him Bethel. And they journeyed
from Bethel, and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath.
And Rachel travailed, and she had hard labor. And it came to pass when she
was in hard labor that the midwife said unto her, fear not, thou
shalt have this son also. And it came to pass as her soul
was departing, for she died. She called his name Benoit, but
her father called him Benjamin. His father called him Benjamin.
And Rachel died and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which
is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her
grave. That is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day. Where did the Lord come to Jacob? He come to him in Bethel, didn't
he? What happens in Bethel? I didn't say what happened in
Bethel. Present tense. What happens in Bethel? What's
Bethel? That's the house of God. Not church, not where a bunch
of people found someplace and we're going to clap our hands
and wave our hands and sing songs and have health and wealth. No,
the true house of God. What happens there? What happens
there is what always has happened there in the house of God. What
happens right now in the house of God and what shall happen
until the Lord comes in his house where he's worshiped. Verse 10,
it says, and God said to him, thy name's Jacob. All flesh is grass, isn't it? Come on now. So Henry said, come
on now. That's the first thing we're
going to cut to. Your name's Jacob. Supplanter, plotting,
deceiving, conniving, evil, wicked, unworthy to be in God's presence.
You can't do it. He can't have an unclean thing
in his presence. That's who you are. That's who I am. If we're
going to be in God's house, that's the first thing that's going
to happen. What's gonna happen if God convicts
us of sin and we know that's all we are? That's the noun.
Not sins, not a verb, not a bunch of theological junk. I'm sin, I'm the man, not you. My name's Jacob. What's gonna
happen? He's gonna speak to the heart. If he does that, not just,
oh, my moan, I'm so wicked, and all that's fine and garbage.
No, if you're convicted to sin, you'll be shut up to sin. You'll
bow to God. And he says, thy name shall not
be called anymore Jacob. You know what you are? Now I
ain't gonna call you that no more. And ain't nobody else gonna
call you that. Like with Zipporah, don't you
dare call something unclean that I called clean. That's what I
told Peter with them things, didn't I? He's talking about Gentiles,
wasn't he? That's a child of God. Don't
you dare speak to him like that. You ain't gonna be called Jacob
no more. But Israel shall be thy name. When you die, when
this life of sin and death and this body that ain't worth nothing
is gone, you're gonna be a child of God. You're gonna be with
him. You're gonna be a prince with God. You're gonna have power
with God and with men. You're gonna judge this world
with him. You're gonna sit right there with him on the throne.
Y'all are now, but we're trapped in time. But you shall be called. And what happens else in the
house of God? We know our end, don't we? I'll not have any fear
about telling any one of y'all what God's word says. I know
my end. Here's what it says. Now, buck
or bow, there's going to be division. I have this for next hour, but
I'm going to set it now. There must be division, Paul said. There's
going to be division, San Diego Grace Fellowship. There must
be. How can we hedge against it?
I want to go against division and I want to go for unity with
everything in my being. How can we do it? We're going
to bow to the word of God. Let's meet up, see what God says,
and then bow. Not, here's what God says, yeah,
but, but. Now, you get to wiggling and
walking and strutting and butting and knock it off. That's divisive. That's what God says, that's
what we're going to bow to. We're Jacobs, that's all we are. We ain't going
to be called that no more. He saved us, he bought us. We're
not our own. We're bought with a price. We're going to be called
Israel. But he called his name Israel, right then. Holy. Now you make a big old list of
all the Old Testament prophets and kings and all that stuff.
That was God's people. That was just squeaky clean on
the outside and just perfect and just all white and correcting
over the others. Oh, I'll show you how to do everything.
Hold on. Do you come to me? Ain't a one
of them. They're all Jacobs and they knew it. Go down the line. Hosea, David, Jonah. Jonah was mad. The Lord saved
half a million people. He got up on and says, I knew
he was going to save them. I told you that the other day, you need to tell
it again. His prophet was profitable, not out for profit. He was profitable. That's what happens in the house
of God. And I'll tell you what else happens. Do we just, we're aware
of these current facts that yes, I'm seeing that God saved centers,
salvations of the Lord. You bet it. But it goes further
than that. Verse 11 says, and God said unto him, I am God almighty. That's who we're dealing with.
You ain't dealing with Kevin Thacker from meat house, Kentucky.
You ain't dealing with one another. You ain't dealing with your neighbor.
You ain't dealing with grandma and grandpa and mom and daddy.
You're dealing with an almighty God. He gives a command, be fruitful,
multiply. What does he tell everyone of
his children? Spread the gospel all over this world with everything
in you. Give your life for your brethren. Does that mean give
a little bit? Give your life, we'll sit with
you. That's personal. Number two, the Lord brought
him to Bethel. That's what happens in Bethel.
Over the course of Jacob's life, Jacob's about to watch his wife
die to give life to the son of his, one of his family members.
He was given a wife, he was given children, and then she was taken.
We remember going through this months ago when Jacob was out
there looking for a wife and all them lazy sheep herders were
out there. Well, we can't just, we can't
move the stone over the well to water the sheep until we get
a bunch of us here. It's union break time. I guess we'll give
it a little while. He saw Rachel and that 70 year old man went
up and picked that whole stone up and moved it. He said, water
them sheep. Good-looking girl make you do a lot of things,
won't it? Give you some strength. You believe he thanked God? He
just met God at Bethel. Look, the wife the Lord gave
me. There she is. 14 years after serving an unruly
father-in-law that lied to him 10 times and changed his name
and deceived him, he finally gets Rachel. And then time goes
on, he's got a bunch of children, and they have a child, and he
gets Joseph. You think he thanked God? Lord,
you gave me this wife, it was a long time getting her, and
I've got her now, and now you've given us a son. Thank you, Lord. When he took her, when God took
his bride, he thanked God. He mourned, he was wounded, and
he praised God for it. Isn't that a good example? Is
it a good example to thank God when he gives you a bride? Is
it a good example to thank God when he does or does not give you
children? Is it a good example to thank God when he kills your
spouse? Thank you, Lord. And walk through this world like
somebody that believes in an almighty God that they've met him? A holy
God that controls everything? Wouldn't that be a good thing?
He gives a better name to his son. She said, his name's Benoni.
And he said, no. We'll call him Benjamin, son
of my right hand. Natural man would just wallow
in grief and mourn and make a big public show and fall over the
casket and all this stuff. Oh, I loved her so much. He said,
that's the son of my right hand. We're going to bury her. Tell
them who Christ is when we put her in the ground. Maybe we can
get some of our neighbors to come because they respect her
in this community. And maybe the Lord will use that to preach
the gospel to them. after what seemed to be everything
taken from Job. Satan come, he took his children,
and he took his cattle, and he took his camels, and he took
his land, and he took everything, but that wife of his, he got permission, Satan got
permission to go after his body. So Satan went forth from the
presence of the Lord, and he smoked Job with sore boils from
the sole of his foot and to his crown. And he took him a pox
or a broken piece of clay and scraped himself. And he sat down
among the ashes. And his wife said to him, does
thou still retain that integrity? How you doing now? Won't you
curse God and die? He took everything from you.
But he said unto her, thou speakest as one of the foolish women speak.
A lot of foolish women, eh? Carried away with silly fables,
snake oil and everything else. He said, what? Shall we receive
good at the hand of God? And shall we not receive evil?
The Lord gave us these good things, shall he not take it away as
he sees fit? It's his to do so. He knew the almighty God, not
a God that mankind talks about, he met the God. And he said,
this is right, this is him. Shall we not receive evil? And
all this Job did not sin with his lips. What a privilege, listen
to me, what a privilege it would be for us and what a blessing
it would be for us and not only to us, to our brethren, if we
were thankful in between trials. If in between trials, when we
got it easy, and everything's going all right, and there's
no divisions, and Satan ain't just covering us in boils, what
a blessing it would be to ourselves, and a blessing to our brethren
if we were thankful during those trials. And, well, I'm not with
that one. And, if God would use his grace
to grow us just a smidge, if he'd please grow somebody, And we rejoice to thank him when
the trial comes. This trial came, Lord, thank
you, you did it on purpose. I don't know what you're doing
with me, I don't know if you're moving me, I don't know if you're shutting me up,
you're gonna kill me and take me home and my name shall be called Israel
right now in your presence. I don't know, but thank you. You did this for your glory,
that's number one. That's what the child of God
looks for. The child of God don't look for a blessing. The child of
God don't look for this and that. He looks for the glory of God because
he's a holy God. That's his attribute. That's
what Hannah prayed for, wasn't it? Instead of falling down and
rolling around on the ground in our own pity and our sorrow.
And I had shame and I marked it out and I thought, no, that's
right. That's shameful. It's absolutely shameful for somebody
that knows an almighty God to act that way. Arise. Get up. You fast. If it sends
that stuff, you wash your face, get dressed. We're going to the
house of God. going to Bethel. Thirdly, the handmaid. Look here
in verse 17. And it came to pass when she
was in hard labor, that the midwife said unto her, fear not, thou
shalt have this son also. Why did she say that? Back over
in Genesis 30, you can look it up when you get home. Verses
22 through 24, that's when Joseph was born. The Lord remembered
her. He remembered Rachel, and he
gave her a child, and she bore it. And she said, the Lord talked
to me. The Lord's gonna give me another one. You know what
that handmaid did? An unnamed servant. Isn't that
precious? Remember what God said. Well,
I think, well, my experience has been in the tradition of
the old church that we grew up in, this is what, no. Here's,
remember what God said? God says, we'll give you a child.
Remember that? What a, what a wonderful thing.
What a wise thing. How can we, how can we tell somebody
what God's going to say if we don't know what he said? Maybe
we ought to look at his word every now and then, huh? You
reckon that might be a good idea? Maybe get the context of it. Maybe
have somebody come and we'll give our time and our efforts
and our prayers and our say to know somebody to take care of
them. That way they can study the word of God and bring a message
to us. I'm concerned in this nation.
I've talked to several people that want to be pastors. And
I said, go sit underneath, don't go seminary. Don't go Bible college.
Go sit underneath a faithful man of God. and get in his hip
pocket and support him with your time, and your money, and your
efforts, with everything in you, and God may teach you something.
Paul didn't send everybody else back to Gamaliel, did he? He
didn't. And I find it amazing that men
that will not go sit underneath somebody and support them with
all their effort, think miraculously God's gonna have somebody support
them. They won't move to sit underneath the sound of the gospel.
They think the whole world's gonna move to them. That's full of flawed
thinking, isn't it? That handmaid though, she didn't
say what she thought, she said what God said. That's a good
thing, to know His word in context and understand it with maturity
and knowledge and understanding. Paul told the Thessalonians,
it said, that for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with
a shout. That's when that final days will come, and you're gonna
be made Israel, as all you're gonna see, you're gonna know
him, look at him face to face, with the voice of the archangel
and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we which were alive will remain, we'll be caught up together
with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall
we ever be with the Lord. That's what our end is. If the
Lord's come to us and showed us we're Jacobson, If he saved
somebody, if he gave them new life, or their graveyard dead,
I don't know. But those that are made alive,
that's what we have coming. And he says, wherefore comfort
one another with these words. What Paul said, know what God
said. Paul's speaking through Paul, isn't he? Christ, our life will come. This
will be over soon. We're gonna be with him. Comfort
one another with those words. Now, he still has us here. He
must be bearing fruit, though, so let's get after it. Fourthly,
where are they? I had this just for Bob. They're
in Bethlehem, right? Ephrata. That's what that is. Bethlehem, Ephrata. That's where
Benjamin was born. Micah 5, it says, Bethel, Bethlehem,
Ephrata, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah,
yet out of these shall he come forth unto me that is to be a
ruler in Israel, whose going forth have been from old, from
everlasting. One's going to come, it's always
been, out of Bethlehem, Ephrata. That's exactly where they were.
That's what them scribes knew that. They believed in election
too, did you know that? and Pharisees. Remember when Herod was like,
hey, Messiah's coming. Where's he going to come? Go
look at scriptures. And they said, he's going to come to Bethlehem.
That's where he's going to be. So maybe this isn't talking about
Benjamin. Maybe it's sitting in a picture
and pointing to Benoni. Maybe this ain't talking about
how to get a good midwife, right? How to raise children, how to
be gracious when the Lord kills your wife. Maybe that's about
Christ. Right? That's where it was. What's
the first name that's given? Benoni. Benoni. What's that mean? Son of my sorrow. Rachel had him, and she said,
this is the son of my sorrow, right as she is dying. This is
him. He was sorrowful. Why all this
sorrow? Why? Look at verse 16. They journeyed
from Bethel. And there were but a little way
come to Ephrath. That's Bethlehem, Ephrath. And Rachel travailed. Why was she in so much sorrow?
She travailed. Why wasn't she in so much sorrow?
She had hard labor. She was working hard. You know
what working hard is? Hard work. Oh, she labored. She travailed. That's not just her, is it? Isaiah
53, 10, it says, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, to bruise
Christ. He was the one that was the child
of sorrow first, wasn't it? He hath put him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed.
He's going to see us in him and he's going to prolong his days
and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. When?
When he shall see the travail of his soul. Man of sorrows acquainted
with grief. Why? for us. Bunch of Zipporahs, ain't we?
Bunch of Job's wives, whatever her name was. Oh, he'll see the
travail of a soul and he shall be satisfied. The father's watching
his son come out. And she said, this is sorrowful.
And he said, nope, Benjamin, son of my right hand. The world
sees that. The world sees sorrow. The world
saw Satan, saw him hanging on a cross, said, we got him now. The Lord told the Pharisees that,
He said, if the prophets were here now, you'd stone them. They
said, oh no, we wouldn't do that. Each generation builds statues
and monuments to the generation prior, don't they? They killed the prophets. They
hated Moses. Moses wouldn't, they didn't like
him. They're going to stone him on multiple occasions. They hated
Moses. They finally got a license. This man really loved Moses. And John the Baptist came. So
we loved Elijah. Lord came. And they said, is he one of the
prophets? Is this Elijah? No, it's not him. We liked him. We
don't like this fella. Kill him. They killed the Lord. And then
his apostles walked around this earth and they said, we don't
like you. We like Jesus though. The reformers came. Rusk and
Calvin and all them and Luther. And they said, we hate you. We
don't want nothing to do with you. We ain't supporting you.
But boy, we loved them apostles. What happened in the early 1900s,
huh? Y'all hush with that Sovereign Grace stuff. We loved them reformers,
buddy. Oh, and Puritans, whoo! My pastor stood in 13th Street
Baptist pulpit, and he said, they'll come a day, I'll die,
and men will wanna make a memorial to me, and the poor fellow preaching
the gospel in the pulpit behind me, same thing I preach, they
won't want nothing to do with him. Just curse him and let him
die. Take him out to lunch, have roast
thacker. No, thank you. Travelled. The
Lord did that. He laid down his life. We didn't
appreciate him. We didn't look, there's nothing
about him we wanted to have to do with him. He was sorrowful. Son of my sorrow. And the father
looked at him and said, I'm satisfied. God ever shows us what we are,
we're what Christ bore. He was made. And that's the punishment
he bore for us. That article in the bulletin,
y'all read them? I know we read the dates on them. You ever read
the articles in them? Oh, Scott said, what was in there? The
Pharisees knew that the Lord loved Lazarus because they saw
him cry. Look how he loved him. He cried. He shed his blood for
us. Ought we not know better? Propitiation, mercy seat, acceptable
bloody sacrifice, right? It pleased the Lord. And by his
knowledge, by him knowing, his sacrifice was accepted, shall
my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their
iniquities. That's the first name, son of Saul. What's the
second name? Benjamin, son of my right hand. That's where he
is now. Better know that part, that's
for next time. Where is he? The successful savior is right
now ruling and reigning. What about killing Rachel? Who
did it? God did. We got a potato yesterday
and cut it open. It looked like an apricot, like
a stone fruit. It looked like there was a seed
in the middle of it. I don't know if it was a rock. It grew around a
rock or something. It's not an anomaly. God made that potato.
You get it? If we do, you might start learning
who he is. There's a sovereign God that does what he wants on
his throne. That's where he is on his throne.
Psalm 110 said, The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou in my
right hand and I'll make thine enemies thy footstool. We're
just waiting. He's sitting there waiting, that final day will
come. All those enemies that hate God and hate his people
and hate his servants and henpeck them and kill them and stone
them and curse them and do anything they can then praise them once
they're dead. Be a footstool. And Acts 2, it says, for David's
not ascended into heavens. David wouldn't talk about himself,
but he saith, Lord, send in my Lord, sit down in my right hand.
He ain't talking about David, he's talking about Christ, the
true Benjamin, the one that suffered our sorrows. Mark 16, it says,
so then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up
into heaven and sat on the right hand of God. What's he doing
there? Ever living to make intercession
for his people. Like he ain't done enough already.
He's ruling and reigning and interceding. I pray. I'm horrible
at prayer. Because this super fluidity of
churchiness gives me goosebumps. I can't be like, Oh, Heavenly
Father, in the name of your name. And I start moaning and groaning
and carrying on. I say, Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
And I don't know what to ask. This trial's come. I don't want
to be in it. I ain't going to lie. Can you make it go away?
But I don't even know what to do. He intercedes and said, Father,
here's what he said. Go and find yourself. That's what he said. He's interceding
for us. And that's who we look to, looking
unto Jesus, the author, he came up with it, and finisher. He
sustains it, he provides it, he keeps it. Our thumbprint is
not on it, or it'd be corrupted. It's his. Looking unto Jesus,
the author and the finisher of our faith. Who for the joy, all
of us wouldn't, Keeps getting better. The joy, willingly, willingly. We'll see next hour, he willingly
shed his blood. No man take his life from him. He willingly,
for the joy set before him, he endured the cross, despising
the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
His travail was successful, just like Rachel's. She's prevailed,
the child was born. Christ prevailed, he bore our
sin and shame, and that new child in us is born. We're regenerated. We're given life. We're born
again. And he sat down. That's significant. He's not standing and pacing
like a God that's not a God. He is God. He sat down. Why?
Because the work's done. Work's done. Why say I thirst?
One, he's a man. Two, work's done. I don't drink
water in front of him when I was leading soldiers. I wouldn't
drink water in front of him. I wouldn't eat in front of him. Nothing.
I'll drink when we're done walking. That always got me. He said,
I thirst. Work's done, it's time to drink. Get you a glass of
water. For consider him. Think about
him. What about Benona? Did I pronounce that right? Who
cares? Think about Christ. That's the right thing to do.
Point men and women to Christ. Looking unto Jesus, I'm sorry.
For consider him. Hebrews 12, three says this.
For consider him that endureth such contradiction of sinners
against himself. were polar opposites, and he
was in this world that was polar opposite to him. Lest ye be wearied
and faint in your minds, lest ye just fall over dead, because
you can't keep up. Ye have not resisted unto blood,
striving against sin. He has. His travail was successful. And we're given a new name by
the Father, because Christ travailed on Paul said, for it's written
that Abraham had two sons, one by a bondmaid, the other by a
free woman. But he that was of the bondmaid was born after the
flesh, and he of the free woman by a promise. And such things
are an allegory. It's gonna teach us something
from this. There are two covenants, one
from Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. And
for this, Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to Jerusalem,
which is now, and is bondage with her children. But Jerusalem,
which is above, is free. That's where we are. Which is
the mother of us all. For it's written, rejoice thou
bear in that bear's snot. Break forth and cry thou that
travailest not. Do we travail? I know my sin,
but it ain't nothing. I saw a child of God this week,
laying down and crying. And I, you all right? And I said,
I just can't imagine what Christ bore. Rejoice those that travailest
not, for the death's left many more children than she that has
a husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children
of promise. Because he is the Benjamin. He
is on the right hand. He was the successful one that
was alone, despised, hated, rejected of men. And he tread the winepress. Grapes have to be crushed to
make wine, don't they? He tread the winepress alone, and now
seated. Because of that, we're children
of promise. Just like those saints of old, just like Jacob, it's
a planter. Now your name's Israel, right? Simon, Peter, several
of us, right? Our first name is so much less
than our second name. Our first name we're born with,
Adam, is atrocious. But that name the Father gives.
You ain't gonna call him sorrowful. That's my right hand right there.
My good and faithful servant. That's much better. And through
the labor of the church, Paul said that's the mother of us
all, through our travail, through our labor, through our sweat,
and our working, and our prayers, and our diligence, to the point
of us giving our whole life to it. By us laying down our lives
for our friends, like Christ who laid down his life for us,
that's how the Lord's gonna use that to bring forth more of his
children. Go forth and all, he told him,
he said, be fruitful and multiply. Told us to go into all the world
and preach the gospel. Go tell this one. What's the
gospel, the good news? What's your systematic theology
on that? No, it's a person. It's Christ, the savior of sinners. He shall save his people from
their sin. What a thing. What a privilege it would be
for me to give my life that the Lord may save a sinner. I wrote
that down, I didn't think about it. I got work to do, I ain't
worried about these man-made holidays, but on Mother's Day,
Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin, the one that was in so much sorrow
and so much travail. Boy, what a privilege that was
for her, wasn't it? What a blessing it is for us
to have Christ. Is that precious to you? Is he
precious to you? Probably we could serve him,
huh? Let's pray together.