Good evening, everybody. It is. I don't know what the word is.
I was sitting there thinking, what do you say? Except for who is
sufficient for these things? Who is sufficient to stand up
here? I asked Brother Donnie Bell to come right after I moved
to Kingsport. to preach a couple of days for
us by himself. And he said, you want me? By
myself? Are you sure? And that's how
I feel. Are you sure? I just listened
to my pastor preach Christ in every Old Testament story that
there is and New Testament story that there is. But I was thinking
about some of you may have had the privilege of meeting A dear,
dear man. A man who when you look at his
face, you just see kindness. His name was Bob Poncer in Danville,
Kentucky. And Brother Larry Criss, do you
all know who Brother Larry Criss is? He was there in Danville
and he's in Sylacauga, Alabama now, but he was back preaching
and just before the message, Brother Bob Poncer came up to
him and put his hand on his shoulder and he said, Do you have something
new and stale or old and fresh for us today? And I'm so thankful that's the
way it is. We only have one message, isn't that right? Turn with me,
if you would, to the book of Luke. He texted me earlier and said,
I'm going to be preaching from Luke 24. And I read Luke and
texted him back and said, I'm in chapter 1. That's as close
as I want us to be in text. Luke chapter 1. We're going to look at the first
four verses here, and the first time I heard a man preach on
these four verses, I absolutely fell in love with them. I'm still
in love with them. They've blessed me so much. I
sincerely pray the Lord will bless these verses to our heart.
Luke 1 verse 1 says, For as much as many have taken in hand, This
thing that my pastor just preached was not done in a corner, was
it? And he has never left himself without a witness. Throughout
all the generations, he's never been without a witness. Never. For as much as many have taken
in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things
which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered
them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and
ministers of the word. It seemed good to me also, having
had perfect understanding of all things from the very to write
unto thee in order most excellent Theophilus, and that name Theophilus
means friend of God, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest
know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed. Don't you love the confidence
of the Word of God? Don't you love how sure the Word
of God is? No buts about it. Absolute confidence. How on this earth could we possibly
enter into the blessing of being called the friend of God? We
don't. None of us in either wing enter
into the blessing that the God would call us His friend. None
of us. We smile and say we do. We don't. God said we're His friend. Abraham and his seed. That seed
is Christ. Every soul in Christ, right? That God would instruct us. He
said these things were delivered to us. They've been passed down
to us. He's so thankful He had a pastor.
I'm so thankful I had a pastor. that God would instruct us and
that He in His kindness and His grace would call many, many over
those generations to take the Gospel of His Word in hand. This is a big responsibility. This is a huge undertaking. This
is a lifelong commitment that you don't just get out of. to take this responsibility in
hand and set it forth in order. These things, these wonderful
things that have been declared unto us and that He would then
give us a heart to most surely believe it. Have you ever shown
somebody something in the Word of God right there in black and
white and they say, I don't believe that? Well, none of us would. None of us would. But He gave
us a heart to believe these things. What a blessing. What a blessing.
Look with me at Luke chapter 2. This is when our Lord, earthly
speaking, was born on this earth. And the shepherds, the Lord revealed
something to the shepherds and they came to see Him. Verse 16
says, And they came with haste, and they found Mary and Joseph
and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen, they
made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning
the child. And all they that heard wondered
at those things which were told them by the shepherds, but Mary
kept all these things and pondered them. in her heart. Those shepherds,
they came and they set forth in order those things that God
had revealed to them. And Mary pondered these things
in her heart. And so do we. So do we. Here we are hearing these things,
pondering these things. Eight days after that, they took
our Lord to the temple. And a man named Simeon was waiting
for him. And Simeon didn't know he was
waiting for him, but he was waiting for him. And in chapter 2, verse
28, it says, Then took he him up in his arms, Simeon laid hold
of Christ, is what he did. and took Him up in His arms,
and He blessed God and said, Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant
depart in peace according to Thy Word? For mine eyes have
seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face
of all people to lighten the Gentiles in the glory of Thy
people Israel." And Joseph and his mother were standing over
there to the side watching all this, listening to all this.
And they marveled at those things which were spoken of Him. Those
glorious things. Look with me if you would at
Luke chapter 10. Luke 10. I just love this. This is something
else we're just not going to enter into. Luke 10, verse 21. In that hour, Jesus rejoiced
in spirit and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent
and has revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in Thy sight. All things are delivered to me
of my Father, and no man knoweth who the Son is but the Father. and who the Father is but the
Son, and He to whom the Son will reveal Him." And then in verse
23 it says, "...He turned Him unto His disciples and He said
privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that you
see. For I tell you that many prophets,
many preachers, How many preachers are in Crow, West Virginia? How
many preachers are in West Virginia? How many preachers are on this
earth? Men who are just so full of pride, so full of self-righteousness,
they study. Some of them do. And they're
smart. They go to school and they learn
Hebrew. And they learn Greek. And you could take all those
men and just start piling them up. Just grab one and throw him
down and throw another one on top of him and just keep throwing
preachers on top of preachers and have piles and piles of preachers. And all of these preachers, and
he went on to say kings, all these high and mighty men who
think that they are in charge, they have desired to see those
things which you see. And they have not seen them.
And they desire to hear those things which you hear, and they
have not heard them. That's amazing, isn't it? That
is amazing. Look with me, if you would, at
Acts 13. Acts 13, verse 44. And the next
Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the Word
of God. I would love to see that. I don't
believe I'm going to see it on this earth, but there's a new
earth. And on Sabbath day, which is
only one day, it's always Sabbath day, the whole city is going
to come together. The whole city is going to...
Where are you going? We're going to worship the Sabbath. Well,
they all came together, but verse 45 says, when the Jews saw the
multitudes, they were filled with envy. And they spake against
those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. They contradicted and they blasphemed
God's Word. The things that he spoke. He
had the Holy Spirit of God. He was moved by the Spirit of
God. And they blasphemed and contradicted God's Holy Word. Word. And it was clearly and
plainly set forth to them, but they didn't want to hear it. Alright, now look with me at
Acts 17. Acts 17 verse 10 says, And the brethren immediately
sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea. who coming thither
went into the synagogue of the Jews, these were more noble than
those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all
readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures." And that is
the key. That is the key. That's why we
turn and turn and turn and turn. You know, religion does not Brother
Henry said so many times, he told all of us, tell them and
show them. That's what he kept saying. Tell
them and show them. Tell them and show them. Tell them and
show them. Religion doesn't show anybody anything. They can't. It does not fit what they're
saying. It contradicts what they're saying. So they stand up there
and they say, well, you know, the Bible says now, and people
believe them. And if all we do is stand up
and say, now the Scriptures say, well, then it's just my word
against His. Exactly. But they searched the Scriptures
to see if these things are so. I like the man just fine. I don't
have a problem with him. But is he telling me the truth? There's only one way to know.
Exactly. Get in the Word of God. Get in the Word of God. And so
they searched the Scriptures daily to find out, is this man
telling me the truth? Whether these things were so.
The Apostle Paul said, This I confess unto thee, that after the way
which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing
all things which are written in the Law and the Prophets.
Literally, all things. All things. Now go with me, if
you would, back to Luke chapter 1. Luke 1 verse 1 says, For as much
as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration
of those things which are most surely believed among us. I'd like to title this message,
Things We Most Surely Believe. Things We Most Surely Believe. And here's the truth of the matter.
God's people. Believers believe. You know,
if you want to find out what is the difference, really, what
is the difference? Is there a difference? Is there
a difference? Here it is. God's people believe
every single word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. If the
Word of God does not support my doctrine, I change my doctrine. The Word of God is my doctrine. Believers believe every single
word. Now, for that reason, we could
be here forever. declaring what we believe. And
in glory, we'll be there forever, hearing our pastor declare what we believe. We could
start at Genesis 1-1 and take our time and go through that
page and then we could turn the page and be here forever. We could be here forever. We
can also declare what we believe in one word. Christ. We believe Christ. I have something tonight, though,
that I want to set forth in order. And what it is, is I found five
Scriptures, five places in the Scripture. I specifically looked
up the two words, we believe. Okay? Back to back. You can get
in your concordance and look up phrases and things like that.
Because we could be here forever. We really could. Every word. So to narrow it down for this
message, I want us to look at five precious places, five glorious
things in the Scripture. I want us to search the Scripture
and see five glorious things that are most surely believed
among us. The first one is in John 6. John 6, verse 66 says, from that
time, many of His disciples went back and walked no more with
Him. How horrible. How horrible. Don't we fear that? I love the song, Come Thou Fount.
I love that song. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel
it. Well, you're a preacher though.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Verse 66, from that time many
of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Then
said Jesus unto the twelve, will you also go away? That reminds
me of the time that the Lord asked Peter, do you love me? What a question. What a question. You know that slayed Peter. You know it did. Lord, you know. I don't know. But you do. And he said right here, will
you also go away? Lord, you know. You know. You know whether you've purposed
to keep me or whether you've purposed to leave me to myself
and just let me go. Peter did answer him right here
and he gave the only other answer you can give. Verse 68, Then
Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast
the words of eternal life. And watch verse 69. And we believe
and are sure, we most surely believe that thou art that Christ. the Son of the Living God. To believe that He is the Christ
is to believe that He is the God-Man. He is the only mediator
between God and man. But He is not just the one who
can get us to God. He is God. He is God. And He's a man. He's a man. Lord willing, one of these days,
we're going to see God. And He's going to show us those
hands. I believe the first thing He'll speak to my soul is, peace
be unto you. Right there. And you know what
we're going to see? We're going to see a man. I can't
wait to see this man. I don't know what he looks like,
I don't have an image of Him in my mind, but I still see Him.
And I can't wait to see Him. And God is a man. He's a man. A particular man. And we most
surely believe that, don't we? People talk about God, you know,
whoever God is. Who is God? One man said in a
song, God is a concept by which we measure our pain. What a ridiculous
thing to say. God is a man. He's a man. We think of Moses. Whenever you
get Moses in your mind, do you think of him as being less than
God? Yes. Well, what about King David? Do you think of him, when you
get him in your mind, you see him as being less than God? Well,
what about Elijah? A chariot of fire picked him
up and carried him straight into heaven. When you envision that
man, do you see him as being less than God? What about the
Apostle Paul? He wrote half the New Testament.
He was carried up into the third heaven and came back down to
not tell about it. He said, I can't. When you think
of the Apostle Paul, do you consider him to be less than God? Yes. Well, what about this man Jesus
of Nazareth? When you think about Him, do you consider Him to be
less than God? Nope. That man is God. That man is God. Verse 69 says,
We believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son
of the living God, the equal member of God the Trinity. Not
God's Son, the Son of God. The Father of God and the Spirit
of God. The Son of God. And I'm so glad
that declaration was told. Somebody told me that. I didn't
come up with that on my own. That declaration was set forth
in order to me and God gave me a heart and gave you a heart
to believe it. And we believe it. The next precious,
precious thing that is most surely believed among us is in Acts
15. This is where Paul is recounting
the fact, Acts 15 verse 1, certain men which came down from Judea
taught the brethren and said, except you be circumcised after
the manner of Moses, you can't be saved. And that perfectly
sums up every denomination of religion except for the truth.
Every single one. They have to attach some form
of something to salvation, some work in some way. Except you
do this, you can't be saved. But Paul and Barnabas, they took
in hand the Gospel, the Word of God, and they declared it,
and they set it forth in order, and it says they had a large
disputation, a large dissension, no small dissension with these
men. They disputed with him and they
determined to go to Jerusalem and the apostles and the elders
and talk to him about it, and they did. And in verse 6, the
apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. And
when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up and said unto them,
Men and brethren, you know how that a good while ago, God made
choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word
of the gospel and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts,
bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did
unto us, and put no difference between us and them, purifying
their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why tempt ye God
to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither
our fathers nor we were able to bear?" This yoke that men
try to put on other men, this yoke of works, it's a yoke of
bondage that no man can bear. no man, trying to earn salvation,
trying to work hard enough to become God's child. That's a
yoke no man can bear. That is physically impossible
for any child to do. I mean, when you're talking about
DNA, you cannot give a child a list of chores and say, if
you'll finish these chores, you can have my DNA. That's not possible. It's just not possible. Now,
do the Scriptures teach good works? Absolutely. The instruction and the commandment
of God is crucial, isn't it? It's just crucial. Whom the Lord
loves, He chastens, He corrects, He instructs, but not one time,
not one time has He ever required anything from a sinner in order
for that sinner to become His child. We'll never do that to
my two girls. They are my kids. Now because of that, there's
some things they're going to have to do. But they are my kids. So, here's the second thing that
we most surely believe. Verse 11 says, but we believe
that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be
saved even as they. Salvation is by the grace of
God. It's by the grace of God. Grace
means gift. It means kindness. And it means
favor. Through the gift of God the Father
giving His only... What a gift! His only begotten
Son. And through the kindness of the
Lord Jesus Christ willingly giving Himself. Willingly. He didn't fight it. He willingly
gave His body, His blood, and therefore, through the favor
that we now have with God, the favor through Christ the Son,
through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's how a man
is saved. That's how a man or a woman is
saved. That's how we were all saved. That's how every child
of God is saved. So we most surely believe that
the Lord Jesus is indeed the Christ. Jesus of Nazareth is
indeed God's Christ. And we believe that through the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how sinners are saved.
Free gift. It's a free gift. Freely justified
through His love. Now here's the third thing that
we most surely believe. It's in Romans 6. Romans 6 verse 8 says, Now if
we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with
Him. We believe that, don't we? We
believe that. Paul said in Galatians 2, I am
crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live. I live. But he said, it's not I that
live. He said, it's Christ that lives in me. I really did die. And He really does live. I died
in Him and He lives in me. That is the life of a believer. Christ lives in us. And he said,
the life which we now live in this flesh We live by the faith
of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us. That's
our hope. That's our life. We died with
Him. We rose with Him. We live with
Him. In Him we live and move and have
our being. Only in Him. And we most surely
believe that, don't we? This is what He said. He said,
Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. And then He said, Believest thou
this? We most surely do. We most surely do. When I die,
I don't expect to be dead. When I die, I really don't expect
to be dead. Not at all. Not at all. Now these last two things that
we believe, these are just glorious, and my pastor kept trying to
go there and trying to go there, and I'm thankful he never could
find the Scripture. It's in 1 Thessalonians 4. Here's the fourth precious thing
we most surely believe. 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 13 says, But I would not have you to be
ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you
sorrow not, even as others which have no hope." You think about
the precious believers that have gone before us. You think about
those. We love each other, don't we?
You know, I was so excited to come here and see this building
and meet the believers here, and I loved you before I ever
even got here in Christ. If Christ loves you, and if Christ
loves me, then I love you, and I believe you love me. And you think about the dear
believers who said while they were here on this earth, they
said with us, we believe. We believe. We truly believe
God's Word. We believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. We do. We believe salvation is
completely in Him. He is all our hope for eternal
life. That's it. I have Christ or I
have nothing. You think about those dear believers
who have gone to be with the Lord. Recently, we've had some
go. And in the last few decades,
we've had some go. And you think about them all
the way back to Abel. From Abel, every single believer
that followed him that truly said, we believe. God has given
us faith in Christ and He's caused us to believe. Verse 13 says,
I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which
are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no
hope. For if we believe, and we do, if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, meaning if we believe He accomplished
what He came to accomplish, and God the Father was satisfied,
and raised Him from the dead, and it's over. It's finished. If we believe that Jesus died
and rose again, even so, them also which sleep in Jesus will
God bring with Him. We believe that, don't we? We
believe that. I can't get my mind around that. I just can't. I can't, but I
believe it. I believe it. I believe, we all
do, we most surely believe that they're not dead. They're not
dead. Their body's sleeping, but they're
with the Lord. They're with the Lord. And when
He comes back, He's going to bring every single one of them
with Him. When our head comes back, His
body is coming too. And verse 15 is where He said,
This we say unto you by the Word of the Lord. He said, God said
to tell you this. that we which are alive and remain
unto the coming of the Lord, we're not going to prevent them
which are asleep. The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with
a shout. The voice of the archangel and the trump of God and the
dead in Christ are going to rise first. And I love this. I've
thought, oh, I hope He comes back in my lifetime because I
want to see this. Well, I'm going to see it no
matter what because all the dead are going to rise first. And
we're all in Christ going to be standing there when the announcement
is made. Behold Your King. And He said in verse 17, Then
we which are alive and remain, we're going to be caught up together
with Him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And we're
just going to forever be with the Lord. That's just wonderful. Death is not actually death.
Death is life. Death is life. Every brother and sister who
has gone on before us is alive and well. Alive and well. And we most surely believe it.
We most surely believe it. Here's the last glorious thing
that we're going to set forth in order tonight. 2 Timothy chapter
2. 2 Timothy 2 verse 13 says, If we believe
not, now this right here is what we believe. This right here is
exactly what we believe. Because God the Father chose
us. and because the Son redeemed us, and because the Spirit has
called us, and because He has put faith in us and caused us
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and believe these things. We believe that. Verse 13 says,
if we believe not yet, He abideth faithful. He cannot deny Himself. Don't you love that? I love that. I love that. So, arise my soul,
arise. Shake off thy guilty fears. The
bleeding sacrifice on my behalf appears. It says the Father hears
Him pray. His dear anointed One, He cannot
turn away the presence of His Son. His Spirit answers to the
blood. It's His Spirit. It's His blood.
I still don't have a part in it. His Spirit answers to the
blood and just tells me I'm born of God. We believe that. I didn't believe the first time.
You know that. That believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll
be saved. I couldn't. It's the faith of Christ. And
He chose me. He put faith in me. And then He squeezed it. And
my heart started pounding. And I cried. And He's faithful. And He's faithful. He did it.
He which started the work is going to perform the work all
the way until the day that we here behold your King. And that's
just wonderful. Thank God He called many to take
these things in hand, set them forth in order, and then thank
God He gave us a heart to believe in. Thank God. Thank you, Brother
Walter.