Well, if you want to start turning
over to John, first we're going to read here in just a minute,
we'll come from there. But I wanted to remind us, a
few more things I wanted to say about Thanksgiving this morning.
We've been talking about that for the last couple of times
we've been together and I do want to say it's good to see
everybody today and Good to be with you today. We missed being
with everybody last week and I Glad everybody is feeling better
that was not feeling better and glad everybody's back that was
gone. Of course, not everybody's back that's been gone. We'll
look forward to seeing Sister Beth when she returns. But it
is good to see everybody this morning. It just really seems
weird when we don't meet with each other on the Lord's Day
every week. It's just good to be here with
you guys We started this discussion off a few weeks ago on Thanksgiving
and We read back in Psalms 140 verse 13 that kind of started
all this off We read that surely the righteous shall give thanks
unto thy name the upright shall dwell in thy presence and we've
talked quite a bit about Thanksgiving We, uh, seen that, uh, it is
a spiritual sacrifice. Uh, we've seen that, uh, it could
even be said to be a duty, uh, of the child of grace to, uh,
uh, frequently, uh, as Paul said unceasingly, and that would be
the other point that we have a duty to each other to pray
for each other. and unceasing duty to pray for
each other. There's also times of spontaneity
that we've seen, that whenever the Lord brings it to our mind
to pray for each other, to pray for each other. Matter of fact,
just this week, my friend JC Fulton, Matter of fact, me and
him hadn't seen each other nor talked to each other in actually
several months now and we just driving at work the other day
and You know, as I always do, thinking about a lot of things,
praying about some things. And it just came to my mind,
so I shot him a little text and just said, hey, just don't know how things are
going. Hope everything's going all right.
Just wanted to know that I loved you and, you know, Lord brought
you to my mind. and uh he responded back that
everything was going fine and returned the the sentiments and
everything but there's times when the lord does that it brings
us brings people to our mind the spontaneity and so we give
thanks for that person we go to the lord in prayer and are
thankful for that poor person we also learned that we um Pray,
our prayers and thanksgiving is always done in Jesus name.
It is by Christ that we are able to come, as the Bible says, boldly
before the throne of grace and to make our petitions known.
but we also are able to come before the Lord and give him
offerings of praise and gratitude and thanksgiving. I think a lot
of times if your prayers are a lot like mine sometimes, we
have our laundry list of things we would like to see the Lord
do. But our extolling or our times of praise and thanksgiving,
that list is usually a little bit shorter than our I would
like to have or please do this, you know. And I think that could
be bore out as truth. If you go into most churches
today and you look at their prayer request list, you're gonna see
that the sickness and health portion of that prayer list is
always the biggest list that's on there. Heal my big toe that's
got a ingrown toenail, all those things. We always go to the Lord
asking him to do something for us. Thank you. However, Some of the greatest
portions of the scripture shows that most of the prayer and thanksgiving,
or prayer, is to not only give thanksgiving to God, but to praise
and extol Him. And so I think sometimes our
prayer is often lopsided. It's more towards the I wants
than the thank yous and the adoration and praise that is due Christ.
And so we learn that we can come in Christ's name, and it's because
Him that we come, and give thanks to God. And we learned also that
it's God's will for us that we are thankful. That's the will
of God for us. There's some things in the Christian's
life, you know, we don't know what God's will is and we pray
that his will be done and that we see his will and follow in
his will. But the Bible does clearly say
that one of the things that is God's will is that we give thanks. And we've seen that in 1 Thessalonians.
And then we also learned that Thanksgiving is gonna be the
theme of eternity. We've seen in Revelation where
the praise and the adoration that is going on around the throne
and will continue to go on around the throne for all eternity was
praise and adoration. And specifically we've seen that
it was for God as creator, God is Redeemer and God is Sovereign. And those three things envelop
all of the praise of God. Then we also looked at how that Whenever we get before
the throne of God, that the praise and adoration will be unfettered. We're not gonna be fettered in
a body. We're gonna be able to give praise and glory and honor
to God and thanksgiving to him like we've never been able to
give before. But as frail and as fragile as
these old tents are, we should be thankful to the Lord. And I think that as we've said
in the beginning of this study, that a person that claims to
be a Christian that doesn't have a thankful attitude, really shows
their independence of God, not their dependence upon God, because
when we are dependent upon God and we're looking to Him for
everything and we find all of our sustenance in Him, all of
our everything in Him, We are going to be thankful because
we know that we are dependent upon him for everything, for
our life, for our health, for our breath, for everything that
he's given us, for everything he's provided for us, for salvation,
for all of eternity in which he's going to be taking us. And
so we find that there is a Thanksgiving attitude that is inherent in
the child of grace. Now, to close this study off
on Thanksgiving, I thought we might look at some of the things
that also that we can be thankful for that are expressions of Thanksgiving
in the scriptures. And I thought I'd start with
probably the first and foremost, I would say foremost, but probably
the first thing that pops into people's mind whenever you talk
about giving thanks is to ask prayer or have prayer and give
thanks for the food that God has given us. Whenever we eat
before we eat, we pray and ask the Lord to bless the food and
we thank him for his provisions. And so, We're taught that even
as a little kid. And really even, it's kind of
surprising to me, even people that really don't show any fruits
of being, child of grace in certain circumstances they feel compelled
to bless the food. You know there's a lot of times
that you know people that I know that aren't saved whenever they
whenever we're at their house and eating with them before we
eat they say well do you want to Give thanks for the food and
knowing that they don't normally do that themselves Uh, but yet
they feel compelled to do that. So they they realize that for
a christian We're to give thanks and we're to give thanks one
thing is for the food if you look at john chapter six Look with me at a couple of verses
there in john We'll see Jesus, who's our great example. In verse
11, it says, and Jesus took the loaves and when he had given
thanks, he distributed to the disciples and the disciples to
them that were set down and likewise of the fishes as much as they
would. So we see here that Jesus, whenever
he, this of course, again, this is whenever Jesus fed the multitude. the loaves of the fish. It says
here that he took the loaves and when he had given thanks,
he distributed them. So even Jesus himself gave thanks
for the provision of food. If you remember in this story,
you know, they came and Jesus had been talking to the people
and the people had been there for a long time and Jesus had
compassion upon them and they were hungry. The disciples would
say, hey, you know, these people have been here a long time and
they're hungry. What are we gonna do to feed them? And there was
brought to him five barley loaves and two little fishes. And Jesus
took that, and of course the disciples thought, how in the
world are you gonna feed all these people with that? But Jesus
gave thanks for that, and he distributed to all those people,
and roughly 5,000 that we know of, people from five loaves of
bread and two fishes. I remember, Larry's got me reminiscing
now of old childhood songs. There was a song I sang one time
in choir in school. I was in high school, junior
high choir. One of the songs that I sang
for a competition was Five Loaves and Two Little Fishes. Doesn't
sound like a whole bunch, but Five Loaves and Two Little Fishes
was enough to feed a whole bunch. And anyway, so I sang that in
one of my choral contests. and actually won an award for
singing that that time. But that's neither here nor there. Jesus gave thanks. Now, it kind
of seems odd for Jesus to give thanks because he's God, right? But again, he's laying an example
for us that if Jesus himself submitted himself to God, the
father and gave thanks for the provisions that not only was
given, but the provision that was about to be made, then we
too ought to have that same thought. Look also in verse 23. Or look at verse 22. It says,
the day following when the people which stood on the other side
of the sea saw that there was none other boat there, save that
one where unto his disciples were entered, and that Jesus
went not with his disciples into the boat, but that his disciples
were gone away alone. Howbeit, there came other boats
from Tiberias nigh unto the place where they did eat bread after
that the Lord had given thanks. So the Holy Spirit had John reiterate
the fact that this place where Jesus fed these people, this
whole thing took place of feeding and eating after the Lord had
given thanks. And so we see that there's a
good example there that we should give thanks before we eat. Now, with that being said, let
me just say a couple of things. I don't want people to misconstrue
what I'm saying, but the reason that I'm saying this is so that
I'm not perceived or this is not perceived to be some legalistic
thing that, oh my goodness, if you eat. Now we joke with our
kids sometimes whenever we come into the house and we sit down
and sometimes we all sit together. Sometimes, you know, we sit in
our different places. I'll sit in my easy chair. They
may go in the room and eat, whatever. But sometimes we'll catch each
other, and I'm just as guilty as anybody else. We'll sit down
and we start eating when we hadn't prayed. And we always joke with
each other about getting sick. You're going to get sick, or
something like that, you know. And we kind of crack jokes at
that. And they are mainly just jokes. However, we do that to
instill into our children a thoughtfulness that we should always give thanks
before we eat. Now, like I said, I'm not saying
that if you sit down and eat a meal and you haven't prayed
for it, that you're necessarily an unthankful person or that
you're even going to get sick because you didn't ask the Lord
to bless the food. Okay. Uh, that's not gonna happen. But our lives should have a place
of giving thanks for the Lord's food. There's a lot of times
that I'm eating on the run at work, or I go through a drive-through,
and I get and go, and I'm praying, thank you for this food as I'm
driving down the road. I don't bow my head and ask the
Lord. and some, you know, King James Version prayer to bless
the food. You know, I say, I just tell
him, you know, thanks Father for the food. The kids have been
with me sometimes. They kind of do the same thing,
or they've even seen me do it. I've done it myself. Sometimes
I'll even have the children when they're riding with me. I'll
say, hey, why don't you bless this food while I'm driving out
of this drive-thru here, and they'll bless the food as we're
driving. And so, you know, it's just an acknowledging that what
we've received and what we're about to eat comes from God and
that he's given that to us. And we acknowledge him as the
provider. Do I work at Ozark Imaging and get a paycheck that
bought that Big Mac? Yes, but I'm acknowledging that
I wouldn't have any of that if God had not given me one life.
two, giving me a job, three, giving me a paycheck that could
afford to go get a Big Mac, a vehicle to drive to go get the Big Mac,
and thank the Lord for McDonald's, where I can go get a Big Mac.
Or a McRib at this time, I guess is the craze, but. Now, Caitlin,
her thoughts is, do I have to pray and thank God for this food?
Cause she hates McDonald's. Um, but, uh, uh, we acknowledge
that God is the provider of all these things for us. And so we
see that praying for the food, uh, is one thing that we can,
we can find other examples in scripture. And I'm trying to
keep this brief and we're not going to hit every thing exhaustive on
these things but we can see that there was an example given to
give thanks before we eat. Turn if you would back to the
Old Testament to the book of Daniel This is one prayer I think we
all should be willing to pray each and every time we pray,
especially as we grow older. You know, the old saying is the
older I get, the more I know that I don't know the things
I don't know. The more I learn, the more I
learn that I don't know. Well, in Daniel chapter two and
verse 23, we see that we should pray for wisdom. And I especially want to drive
this home to my children or any young person that's watching
or listening. is pray that God give you wisdom. The Bible says
that, just summarizing and not quoting
word for word, but the Bible says that there's folly bound
up in the heart of a child, okay? That means that you're silly,
you're impulsive, you don't have any cares and thoughts, and you
don't think about things, and that's just the nature of being
a careless child, and careless in the sense of, you know, You
are a child, you're being taken care of, and a lot of times you
don't have a lot of cares to think about. But one of these
days, you're gonna grow to be an adult, and at that point,
whenever you take on a family of your own, If the Lord brings
you that, you're gonna have to be mindful of things. You're
gonna have to have wisdom to do the things, not only that
God has told us to do, but just in everyday general life, you
need to have wisdom to get through life. And so, I especially want
you children to learn that you should be praying for wisdom. Look at Daniel chapter two, and
let's look down at, verse 23, it says, I thank thee
and praise thee, O thou God of my father, who has given me wisdom
and might and has made known unto me now what we desired of
thee, for thou has made known unto us the king's matter. And so here Daniel was thankful
that the Lord had given him wisdom. Now, I think we should pray for
wisdom. That's what Solomon prayed for,
right? The Lord asked, you know, told Solomon, you know, ask anything. And out of anything that Solomon
could have asked for, he asked for wisdom. He asked
that the Lord would give him wisdom. Why is that? Why would he want, why wouldn't
he want $10 trillion? Well, because Solomon knew that
money comes and goes. Why didn't Solomon ask for a
thousand more wives? Well, eventually Solomon would
find out, in the wisdom that God gave him, that that was folly. All the wives that he had was
folly. The things of this life is folly. Matter of fact, Solomon
said that he learned that everything is vanity. And the only thing
that really matters is the Lord. And so to pray for wisdom is
something that I think we all should do. We all need wisdom.
I need wisdom in my job, as a husband, as a father, as a pastor, as
a brother in Christ. I need wisdom for all the things
in life. But we also should thank the
Lord when he has given us wisdom in certain things. you know,
that he has given us to a mind that has thought and then brought
forth whatever it is that God has brought forth in us by that
reasoning, that he has given us that wisdom. Uh, you know,
I'm thankful that the Lord has given me wisdom in several things
in my life as it pertains to my family, my job and life in
general. Now, There's probably far more
things that I've not had wisdom in doing than there has been
things that he's given me wisdom. But yet whenever I go through
the things of life where I've lacked wisdom, it sure has taught
me a lot of things that now I've become more the wiser. And that's
kind of the enigma of this whole thing, that even in unwise decisions,
we learn wisdom. We learn wisdom through unwise
things. God teaches us and gives us understanding and application
of the knowledge that we get, and that is wisdom. Which, by
the way, there is a difference between wisdom and knowledge.
I hope everyone understands that or has seen that, that just because
someone has knowledge doesn't mean they're wise. There are
many people that are full of knowledge, but they're unwise.
Wisdom is taking the knowledge that you do have and rightly
applying the knowledge that has been given to you. That's what
wisdom is, to rightly appropriate and to use the knowledge that
you do have. Someone can be extremely wise,
but not be the most intelligent or knowledgeable person, but
still be very wise. I'll never forget one of the
elderly gentlemen, and he used to be a pastor up in Lebanon.
His name was Brother Prush. Had only met him two, three times,
maybe four times. And it's whenever the church
was looking for a pastor here, I went to a meeting up at Springfield
at the church there where Brother Gary is a pastor. And they were talking about what
they were going to do here. And I was up there with the domers. And they were trying to figure
out, because some of the men from Gary's church had been filling
in the pulpit here. Some of the men at some of the
other churches was here. And Brother Prusch was another one
that had been coming here. And I remember listening to all
these discussions about what Doug and Len should do. And everybody
was trying to tell them what they should do. and had all this
information and knowledge that they were given them. Matter
of fact, one of the gentlemen that was there had given them
information because supposedly he had started five churches
or three churches and that he thought that because he had done
that, that his knowledge should be followed and it would have
worked with them. But they didn't feel that was
the thing that they needed to do as being led by the Lord. And so I heard all this thing
and Brother Prush sat there and listened and all these people
give their opinions on what they should do. And then Brother Prush
just simply opened his mouth and he gives some of the wisest
instructions to Doug and Len. And I thought to myself, this
guy has said very little, but whenever he opens his mouth,
every time he opened his mouth, it was wise. And he may not have
been the most intelligent man there, I don't know. But I know
one thing, he was very wise. And that stuck with me. Men like
that stick with me, who don't say much, but whenever they do
say something, it's very wise. Unlike me, who I like to shoot
off at the mouth as much as I know, right off the bat, you know.
And not necessarily to show what I do know, but basically because
I like to give information, I like to tell people, I like to inform
people, I like to teach. But sometimes there's a lot of
wisdom in being quiet, and Brother Prush had that. He had a lot
of wisdom. Wisdom to know to be quiet and wisdom whenever
he did speak and what he spoke. Here we see Daniel thank the
Lord for giving him wisdom. We ought to thank the Lord for
wisdom. Here's another thing that we
ought to thank the Lord for. We ought to ask him for and thank
him for. If you'll look in 1 Thessalonians
chapter one, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 it's
amazing the things that you find whenever you do word studies
and you know I'm not a I'm definitely not a guy that can build sermons
you know A lot of times it's bore out of studying on certain
things that I'm studying in scripture or word studies. I'll follow
a word through and look at it and find that there seems to
be a, and this is one of the things, you know, coming up on
Thanksgiving, I did a word study on Thanksgiving, thankfulness,
thanks, all that kind of stuff. And seeing, you know, these things
that we are looking at. In 1 Thessalonians chapter one, And look at starting in verse
one, Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus, under the church of the Thessalonians,
which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace
be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention
of you in our prayers. Now we've already looked at this
before and we've seen that we are to make mention of each other
in our prayers. But he says, I give thanks to
God always for you. Who is he giving thanks for? Well, for those who are in the
church of Thessalonians and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who are in Jesus Christ
and those who are in the church specifically there at Thessalonica,
he's given prayer for. So we can give prayer for the
fact that God converts us and brings us into the church. We're thankful every time the
Lord brings somebody here. We're thankful that the Lord
has brought the Phillips to fellowship with us. We're thankful that
the Lord has brought the Carlsons, Beth, our family, all of us together. He did that first and foremost
by saving us, by quickening us, by bringing us to an experiential
knowledge of Him, and then giving us a desire to fellowship with
others of like faith and like mind. And so because of the gospel,
because of Christ, we have been converted to the right thinking
about Christ, about the gospel, and so we gather together and
we worship God based around, and our unity is based around
the truth of scripture. All biblical unity is based around
the truth of scripture, not around love. Love flows from a unity. Well, love flows from the heart.
God has shed love abroad in our heart for our brothers and for
him. But brethren, we don't come into
unity because of our love. We come together in unity because
of the truth and we love those who are lovers of the truth.
Let's see. And so Paul here is thanking
God for these people who have come to the truth and who have
gathered and is fellowshipping together in the truth of which
Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus have all come and experience
that fellowship and love among them. Whenever we go and visit,
whether we go down to Pineville or go down to Mena or go down
to Choctaw or to wherever we go, where other brothers and
sisters gather together, where their church is. We go and we
experience that love. We give thanks to God for that.
I'm thankful that we have those times of fellowship with each
other. And so Paul here is giving thanks
to God always for these brethren who have been converted to the
Lord, brought together into fellowship and standing in truth and proclaiming
the truth of God. And he gives thanks for them.
So we ought to give thanks for each other the other churches
that the Lord has raised up. This world is such a barren wilderness,
and the churches of Jesus Christ are becoming fewer and fewer
and fewer. And there are many who know Christ,
who are true children of grace, but yet there is no proclamation
of truth. by a church anywhere close. And
so those people don't have that fellowship. And we should thank
God anytime that he brings forth a fellowship. That was just like
here in Joplin. There wasn't no witness here
in Joplin. There were individuals that was
here, but there was no collective witness as a church here in Joplin
until the Carlsons and the Domers come together. brought together
by the Holy Spirit and desired to fellowship together and to
be a church and to proclaim the truth and that from that fellowship,
send out the truth to Joplin. And what a beautiful thing that
is. And I'm thankful that they did that. Because a lot of the
information that was being given to them for a long time was just
find somewhere where somebody's preaching. You know, there was
even one guy, and as a matter of fact, I even think the Carlsons
may have even visited there a time or two, or maybe went there. But you know, there were men
who professed to be preaching the doctrines of grace. But yet
they really didn't, and their church didn't. And they were
encouraged, people were encouraging them, just find somewhere and
go. And I'm glad they didn't. I'm glad they followed the Holy
Spirit and they came together and they began to proclaim the
truth together. And we ought to give thanks.
Anytime the Lord raises up another church as a witness in any location
where that truth is being proclaimed, people are being fed, people
are being encouraged, people being instructed in righteousness,
people are being encouraged, and there is a witness among
the heathens and among the false religions in that town of the
truth of God. And so, and even what little
bit we've done here, as small as we are, there are many places
here in town that knows we stand apart from what's going on in
this town. And the truth that we're proclaiming
is not the same as everybody else proclaims. And they realize
that, and they know that, and people have come and they have
gone. They've rejected that truth. They've not accepted or received
that truth. And so they themselves have been
a testimony that not everybody that's in this town that claims
Lord, Lord is actually a lover of the truth or a gospel believer. And if they are a gospel believer,
but yet they desire something else. They are just so weak in
the faith that the Lord has not given them a love and a hunger
and a desire to come out from among them as of yet, but I believe
eventually they will. And we see that, we see that.
Brother Larry's experienced that with a lot of the people that
contact him through his talk shoe and some of the other things
that he puts on Sermon Audio, people are just, Getting fed
up with what's going on in churches all over the place these so-called
churches and they're wanting to hear the truth They're wanting
to hear Biblical preaching scriptural teaching they're wanting to hear
the things of God and not all this entertainment and false
Stuff and mind manipulation and all these things that go on in
these churches And so we ought to give thanks every time the
Lord brings together a church where brothers and sisters in
Christ meet together and proclaim The things of God because he
says in verse 3 remembering without ceasing your work of faith and
labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ
in the sight of God and our Father. Verse six, and you became followers
of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction
with joy of the Holy Ghost, so that you were examples to all
that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. See, the faith of those
brothers in Thessalonica became examples to those in Macedonia
and Achaia. And so, we should give thanks
any time the Lord raises up a witness through a local church. Look
also if you would back into John chapter 11 I Say also look look At John chapter 11 We see another Thing that the
Giving of thanks should be for John chapter 11 and Look at verse 41. Then they took away the stone
from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up
his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. So here's another example from
Jesus that we should give thanks for answered prayers. The Bible
says that whenever we pray, we should pray not as I will, but
thy will be done, right? The Bible also teaches us that
the prayers of a righteous man availeth much. That if we ask
anything in his name, it shall be granted to us, right? Now that's not saying everything
we ask for will be granted to us, like the faith preachers
teach, if our faith is just strong enough. No, anything that's prayed
that's in accordance to God's will will be answered. And so
to give thanks for answered prayer is to give thanks to God, not
only for what he's done in answering that prayer, but I believe also
is an acknowledging and a thankfulness that the Lord has given you to
pray in his will. Have you ever thought about it
that way? that if you do pray and the Lord answers your prayer,
that means that the Lord give you a mind and a heart to pray
for that very thing that God had already purposed before the
foundation of the world. See, our prayers don't change
God's mind. See, Abraham's prayer did not
change God's mind about Sodom and Gomorrah. Jonah did not change
God's mind about Nineveh. Now people think that now the
conditioners will actually say that. They will say and they'll
give that as a reason. They'll give a reason for the
children being offered to bail. and they'll say that it didn't
ever enter into God's mind. And so these things that happen,
you know, because the scripture says that, that God said that,
nor did it ever come into my mind. And they'll take that and
they'll think that there's things that we can pray for or things
that we can do that either can change God's mind or wasn't God's
plan. Well, brethren, any prayer that
is prayed and God does something contrary or different, as in
with Sodom and Gomorrah. All right, well, if you can find,
all right, well, if you can find. See, God wasn't changing his
mind. I think we talked about this a few weeks ago, whenever
Abraham said, well, if we can find 50, well, God knew they
weren't gonna find 50 because he did not have 50 people in
Sodom and Gomorrah. And God wasn't changing his mind,
he said, fine, if we find 50, then I'll save the city. And
Abraham would have not found 50 people. But Abraham thought
to himself, that is a pretty wicked city. I don't think 50
is a good number, let me move it down. Abraham is the one who
changed, God never changed. And Abraham found out at the
very end, it was God's determination that Sodom and Gomorrah would
be destroyed. It was God's determination that
Nineveh would be destroyed, right? He said, I want to destroy these
people unless they repent. Well, it was God's intent that
they repent. And he sent Jonah, who was the one who changed?
It was Jonah that changed. God didn't change his mind. God
said, go and preach to them to repent. If they don't repent,
I will destroy them. but they repented, right? Now
what happened later on? None of it was destroyed later
on. But whenever we pray and God
answers our prayers, there's a lot of people that
ask prayer for lots of things. And a lot of times those prayers
don't go answered. We've prayed, we've had a lot
of death in our family and among our friends here lately. The last was Granny Dot. We pray, Lord, heal them. And if he doesn't heal them,
that prayer was not answered. But if he does answer that prayer,
if he would have healed Granny Dot, it wouldn't have been my
prayer that caused God to answer that that way, to heal her, God
intent was to heal her but he given me to pray for that and
that prayer was in God's will. So prayer is all. more about
us than about us trying to change God's mind about things. Again,
it brings us to a dependence upon God. Isn't that what prayer
also conveys and instills and cultivates in our heart, is a
dependence upon God? Why come to Him and pray? Because
we acknowledge that you are in control, that you are God. If
I come and pray, Lord, save my son or my daughter. Why? Because I can't save them and
they can't save themselves. I realize that only God can save
them. which I think is funny that the
Armenians pray to God for salvation for anybody. Whenever I come and say, God,
heal my friend, it's me recognizing that even though they've got
doctors there, it ultimately all depends upon God. If I say,
save this marriage, it's because I know that these two people,
It isn't up to them, it's only God that can save the marriage.
Save this business, help me out here, help me out there, do this,
do that. Every time I come in prayer, it's an acknowledging
that I am the creation and He is the creator. That He is sovereign
and in control. And there again goes back to
what we talked about earlier, that whenever we give thanks,
and then now whenever we pray, We are acknowledging the fact
that we are enabled as people and only God is able to do whatever
he wants to do and bring about whatever he wants to bring about.
He is in control of everything. And so we acknowledge that, and
because we acknowledge that and know that, we come to Him for
the answers. We come to Him for the solutions.
We come to Him for whatever it is that we come to Him asking.
But the Bible teaches that we come asking not because we're
proud and know that we are owed that. No, we come because we
are humbled and we are submitting to God, knowing that He is the
one that if it's not His will, please let it be your will. Please
let it be your will. I pray that it is the will of
God that He saves all my children. I pray that it's His will that
He keeps my family together. I pray that it's His will that
the rest of my family are saved. All these things, I pray the
Lord wills. Jesus told us to say that. The
Bible tells us to say that. We say that if the Lord wills.
Don't say I'm gonna go out and do this and do that and do that.
You should say if the Lord wills. That's something the Lord has
kind of instilled in me. I still don't do it all the time, but
I try to do it a lot. Hey, I'll see you next week.
Lord willing. Haven't gonna be at work tomorrow
at nine o'clock. Lord willing. So, Whenever our prayers are
answered, we ought to give thanks because that means not only has
God in His absolute predestination determined to give us what we
prayed for, but He has also brought our heart to pray for something
in His will. Two things happen there, the
giving of that, thing that was prayed for, and the moving of
the heart and the mind to seek Him and to know and depend upon
Him that He is the answer and solution to this, and for me
to pray, not only to Him, but to actually pray in His will.
And that, in and of itself, is a supernatural thing, to pray
in His will. couple more things and we'll
be done here and I'm gonna breeze by a couple of these really quick
but just make mention of them look with me if you would at
1 Corinthians chapter 15 if you would Look at verse 55. O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. So we should give
thanks for the victory that we have in Christ Jesus. We sing
this song, victory in Jesus. We have victory in Christ, victory
over sin, victory over death. The two things that our natural
nature have succumbed to. Adam, made natural of the earth earthy.
What does he do? He brings in sin and death. And
brings sin and death upon all mankind. So all men sin and all
men die. But God has given us victory. Two things that we cannot escape,
sin and death. I cannot keep from sinning and
I cannot keep from dying. But through Christ, he's given
us victory over sin and death. Both things, and so we should
give thanks to God for the victory over sin and death whenever we
pray. In case you haven't been taking
notes or making a list, if you ever say, I don't know what to
pray for, here's a lot of things that we have to pray for, to
give thanks for. While you're there in the area,
why don't you look at chapter 11, 1 Corinthians 11. Again, we see Paul is quoting
or giving the account of the Lord's Supper. It says, and when
he had given thanks, he break it and said, take, eat, this
is my body, which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of
me. And after the same manner, he
also took the cup. When he had supped, saying, this
cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do you as often as
you drink it in remembrance of me. And so Jesus gave thanks
before he broke the bread and distributed the bread and the
wine for the Lord's supper. And uh... whenever we in turn
do that in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, we give thanks
not only for the bread and the wine, but we give thanks for
what that bread and wine represents and what it means for the broken
body and the shed blood of Jesus Christ. We are to give thanks
for what he has done in his death for us. And that's why we are
to remember him. We are to remember his death. I'm going to jump a rabbit here
and I want to shoot him down real quick. But you know, nowhere
in the scriptures does the Bible teach us to celebrate anything
as far as Christ's birthday. And I know a lot of people and
I don't, you know, I'm kind of like most people. Whenever I
first learn about something and it's falsities and things like
that or it's man's tradition or pagan roots and origin, boom,
I jump right on it and I want to just lambast and I want to
inform everybody and call everybody out on it and everything like
that. And I guess it's because of age, maybe it's because of
being wore down, I don't know. There comes a time where I see
this really doesn't make a lot of difference to a lot of people
and that you can present that truth and let it stay, let it
lie. They're either going to be given
to receive that truth or they're not. And so the constant barrage
of argument and debate just kind of sometimes to me is fruitless. And so, you know, I've kind of
stopped doing that. However, the fact remains that
nowhere in scripture does it tell us to celebrate Jesus's
birthday. However, if you're someone who
does not believe that we are told or commanded or thought
by God, you should be celebrating this. If you're not one of those persons
that do, then most of the other religious world says, well, what's
wrong with you? Well, you're not, you know, you've
taken Christ out of Christmas. You know, it's all about Christ. There are two things that the
Lord give us to remember him and to memorialize him by. They
give us baptism and give us the Lord's supper. as far as ordinances
are concerned, things that we celebrate. Now, the proclamation
of God's word is probably the first and foremost ordinance
that God has given us to tell about him, to rejoice in him,
to extol him. All these things is through the
preaching and the teaching of the word of God, and he's given
us that word. But as far as a memorial or a
celebration, that's in baptism and the Lord's Supper. Those
are the two things that he's given to remember us or to remember
him by. Not Easter and not Christmas. And so here Paul is saying that we should
give thanks for what he has done through his body and his blood. Am I thankful that Jesus was
born of a virgin and came? Absolutely, I'm thankful for
that. Is it true that that happened? Absolutely, it's true that that
happened. Was it a joyous occasion? Yes, it was. The angels declared,
glory to God on high and on earth, peace, goodwill to men. It was
a marvelous occasion. But do you see that being brought
back up anywhere else in the scripture? Did the apostles? Teach, remember the little babe
in the manger. Remember the nativity. I'll meet you over at your house
for Christmas. Nobody did that. But they sure
reminded everybody about baptism and the Lord's Supper. Those
were the two things. So we ought to give thanks for
what Christ has done for us in His broken body and His shed
blood, not only in the Lord's Supper, but in general. That would be 2 Corinthians 9. Look at verse 15. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable
gift. What's His unspeakable gift? If we back up, we see being enriched
in everything to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving
to God. For the administration of this
service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant
also by many thanksgivings unto God." Now, there's a lot of thanksgiving
going on here, but that's for those who had given to those
who were in need, okay? God loveth the cheerful giver,
right? Verse 13, whilst by the experiment
of this ministration, they glorify God for your professed subjection
unto the gospel of Christ and for your liberal distribution
unto them and unto all men. And by their prayer for you,
which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you,
thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. So we should be thankful to God
for His gift, not only of His grace, but also of His unspeakable
gift of giving, of our giving. Now this isn't a browbeat to
tithe, okay? I don't want that to be mistaken.
But the Bible does say that the Lord loveth the cheerful giver.
And we see throughout scripture the evidence that a child of
grace is a giver. If there's someone in need among
the brethren, then they are willing to go without to help the need
of the others. And so we see that there is an
unspeakable gift, not only given by God, but that he also imparts
within us a nature that loves to give, that is wanting to help
and to be for the help of others. And of course, we see that's
the whole context of this portion of scripture, is them helping
each other. And then I would probably say
lastly here in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2, 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. Start with me in verse 1. For
yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you, that it
was not in vain. But even after that we had suffered
before and were shamefully entreated, as ye know at Philippi, we were
bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much
contention. For our exhortation was not of
deceit, nor of uncleanliness, nor of guile. You notice that
he said that he spoke unto them the gospel of God with much contention? You know, there's a lot of people
that just don't want to have contention when it comes to the gospel.
You know, I'm not for contention for contention sake. I'm not
for contention on things that are irrelevant. But whenever
it comes to the gospel and a denial of the gospel or a demanding
of an acceptance of a false gospel, there's going to be contention
with me. OK, just as there was contention with Paul. Verse 4,
but as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the Gospel,
even so we speak not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our
hearts. For neither at any time used
we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness,
God as witness. Nor of men sought we glory, neither
of you, nor yet of others." And see brothers, that's the problem
with a lot of churches today. That is not the way their preachers
are. Their pastors, their preachers,
whatever you want to call them, that's not how they are. They
are not up there without regard. They love to seek after glory,
to seek after men's thoughts, says, Nor of men sought we glory,
neither of you nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome
as the apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you,
even as a nurse cherisheth her children. So being affectionately
desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you not
the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were
dear unto us. For ye remember, brethren, our
labor and travail, for laboring night and day, because we would
not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the
gospel of God. Ye are our witnesses, and God
also, how hollowly and justly and unblamely we behaved ourselves
among you that believe. As ye know, how we exhorted and
comforted and charged every one of you as a father does his children,
that ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto
his kingdom and glory. And here it is, verse 13. For
this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because when
ye received the word of God, ye heard of us, ye received it, not as the word of men, but as
it is in truth the word of God, which effectually worketh also
in you that believe. For ye, brethren, became followers
of the churches of God, which in Judea are in Christ Jesus. For ye also have suffered like
things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews. So we see here that Paul thanks
them, thanks God, verse 13, for this cause also thank we God
without ceasing, because when you receive the word of God that
ye heard of us, you received it not as the word of men, but
as it is the truth, the word of God, which affectionately
worketh also in you that believe. He thanked God for the changed
lives of the Thessalonians. Their lives had changed. They
went from holding to untruth to believing truth. And not only
that, but whenever that truth was received of them, as it says
there at the end of verse 13, it effectually worketh in them.
It caused a change in their demeanor. It caused a change in their outlook. It caused a change in the way
that they lived. so that they too became followers
as the other churches had become followers. And they too began
to suffer at the hands of the Jews, all the other religious
people. See, whenever the truth of God
comes in, it changes our heart. And in fact, it changes our attitudes. It changes our lives. And whenever it does that, I'm
not saying that we become holy as He is holy. I'm not talking
about progressive sanctification here. I'm talking about the thing
that the Bible says, that He took out the heart of stone and
put in a heart of flesh and causeth us to walk in His statutes. I'm saying that whenever we are
born again, our lives do change. We desire truth. We desire to
walk rightly before men and before God. And so our lives do change. And I would say that if anybody
hasn't seen a change, that something is wrong. I'm not talking again,
I'm not talking about becoming more and more holy to the point
where we don't have any sin. I'm not saying that, but there
is a change of life. If you see somebody who professes
to be a homosexual, and then they say, I've been converted
and been saved, but yet they continue on in the sin of homosexuality,
that doesn't jive with what the scripture says. That just doesn't
jive. Does that mean that there is
no more temptation for them? For those homosexual things?
No. Just as whenever I become quickened, my lust for women
didn't go away. That don't go away. That's something that the natural
man, that nature has to fight against. That we strive against. Now the Holy Spirit can constrain
us, right? And we pray, Lord, constrain
me. Or whatever sin it might be.
But the sin of homosexuality, just like any other sin, is one
that is to be repented of and to be turned from, right? So if someone continues on and
says, it's all right to be a Christian and continue on in a lifestyle
that God says, that is a sin. And you just say, it doesn't
matter that I can live this way. It's a life choice. It's a, I
was made this way, whatever you want to say, then that doesn't
show forth fruit that there has been a new creation in there
who is created in righteousness and holiness that desires righteousness
and holiness. Because if they did, they would
eschew those things. The Bible tells us that we should
eschew evil, that we should despise evil, that we should hate evil.
Whenever I sin, I hate that I've sinned and I want to get away
from it. I want to turn from it. I don't want to stay in it,
promote it, fly a flag about it, I want to get away from it. If I've sinned in any way, if
I've been greedy, if I've been, you know, whatever, you know,
that's something I want to hide. I don't want to display it. And
so Paul was thankful that these believers, whenever they heard
the word of truth, whenever they heard the gospel, whenever they
heard this, that they received that word and that it effectually
worked in them to cause a change in their life. And they became
followers just like the other churches did of the Lord Jesus,
even to the point of persecution and suffering. I've always said,
and we're pretty much done unless anybody has anything they want
to add to this, any brothers, but the days are going to show
forth those who are really believers of the truth and who are not
because persecution is coming. I mean, just like Brother Larry,
you know, in his book and some of the things that he's been
talking about today before we started, you know, persecution
is going to come. But the real persecution, you
know, a lot of times even nominal, professed, quote unquote, professed
Christians will stand up against homosexuality and everything. And I'm not saying that Brother
Larry was just a professed or nominal or whatever Christian.
I'm saying that even that stance can be done by those who profess
Christ by lip profession, but truly are not a child of grace. Why? Because that is popular
in their religious system. Matter of fact, it's called for
in their religious system. But whenever persecution comes
down to it, then you'll begin to see, do they have compromise
on that? And they may even hold out on
that, but here's where the rubber really hits the road. Will they
ever compromise the gospel when someone says, you can't preach
that? If you preach that God doesn't love everybody, if you
preach that God elects only some, if you preach that God has absolutely
predestined all things, including sin and evil, if you preach that,
you're going to jail. Or worse, you'll be executed. Or maybe somewhere in between
that. You'll be cast out of the community. You'll be exiled.
We will exile you. You can't buy, you can't sell,
you can't eat, you can't drink, you can't do anything. You can't
work. You have to have all these things.
But if you preach that gospel, that's when we're gonna begin
to see the fallout. See, it's easy to take a stand
on a lot of things. But whenever it comes to the
gospel, if that's really not in your heart, people will check out quick.
Well, of course God's love. Of course God loves everybody.
Of course God wants to save everybody. The fact that you have received
the word of truth shows that there's been a changed life.
You're disregarding all untruths. as false. And brethren, listen,
there was a long time that I was religious. There was a long time
that I did religious things. I was against homosexuality.
I was against this or I was against that. All those things. But you
know what? The truth, as far as what we
believe the truth to be right now, I didn't stand for that
at all. And it was easier for me back
then to justify my secret sins. Once saved, always saved. Once
saved, always saved. I can do whatever I want. Now,
I never preached that. Never heard anybody preach that.
But in essence, that's what I felt because, hey, but you know, whenever
the truth of sovereign grace came, that's whenever I began
to be really troubled. when I do sin. My sin's still
there. I still struggle with that sin.
But all of a sudden now, it is different than it was before.
I struggle with that. I hate it. I don't want it. And
then just the opposite, the truth, I won't compromise that. And
I hate all untruths about the gospel. This is kind of a weird analogy. But me and a friend of mine,
well a friend of mine, my brother-in-law, was talking about this the other
day whenever they was at our house. We was driving to Springfield
or Branson and I was riding with him, all of us boys was riding
together and all the girls riding together. And we was listening
to stuff on the radio going back and forth. We was listening to
different things. Well, I would come across some
Christian music and it was some of the modern Christian music.
The doctrine is horrible. I mean, just all around horrible.
Me and him got to talking, even though me and him are different
in what we believe, far different in what we believe. One thing
we both agreed on, and I told him, I said, I know some people
may look at this as wrong, But I said, I would just as soon
listen to wholesome secular music than I would a lot of Christian,
so-called Christian music. And the reason is, is I can listen
to folk music or whatever, any music that isn't, you know, you
know what I mean. but I can't listen to something
that is lying about grace, lying about love, lying about Christ,
no matter what their intent is, I can't listen to that. So I'd rather listen to secular
music that, to me, I can live with and listen to that may not
be offensive as it comes to Christ or something to that. I can listen
to that way more than I do that. And he said, no, actually, I
really don't think that's strange at all. He said, I'm the same
way. He said, I just can't handle a lot of the things that are
being sung in song today. And he said, a lot of the hymns
that are modern hymns today. He said, I just can't. It just
sounds like whiny Christians is all it sounds like. And, you
know, so, you know, why is that? Well, that's because we have
a change of heart. Our heart desires the truth more than anything. My heart desires the truth In
this lifetime, desires of truth, and I may be wrong on this, but
you can probably rebuke me on this if this is true. My heart
desires to hold to the truth and proclaim the truth even more than living sinless in this lifetime.
And let me qualify why I say that. It's because I know the
fact remains that in this lifetime I'm not gonna be sinless. So
my intent is not to live more sinless, but to always be a purveyor
and a holder and a proclaimer of the truth. I can't quit sinning
until I put off this body of death. But I do speak truth and hold
truth and desire the truth. And that may be a wrong statement.
That may be a bad statement. It may be just an uninformed
statement. I'm an ignorant man in a lot
of areas, but the fact remains is I want to change life. But
the only thing that changed that life was the receiving of the
truth. Before I received that truth,
and I don't know how to explain it. Did I want to not sin before? Yes, in some sense. Yes, I did.
Outwardly. I didn't want to get caught.
I didn't want my wife to know. I didn't want my family to know. I didn't
want the church to know. I didn't want this person to
know. I didn't want to be perceived as a hypocrite. But was I all
right doing stuff inwardly? Yeah, it didn't bother me inwardly.
But when the truth came, that changed. Now I don't care outwardly,
I don't care. It's more of an inward thing.
I don't want that. I don't feel that. I don't want
to be displeasing to the Lord. So I thank the Lord for changed
lives, that He changes us whenever the truth comes in, that He changes
our want-tos, our desires, and He changes our things. Anybody
have anything you'd like to add? Do you brothers have anything
you'd like to mention or share? Well, I appreciate the things
that Brother Larry said. And for those watching and listening,
Brother Larry mentioned a few things this morning that's going
on with him and with his book and all that. And I need to continue
to pray for that. It's a great witness of the truth. And we pray that the publisher
will continue to publish these things. that can be out there
to spread the truth and to stand for biblical principles. But
I'm thankful for the things that Brother Larry brought this morning.
Matter of fact, that's kind of why we were late getting started
this morning is Brother Larry was sharing some things and we
were discussing some things. Sometimes we talk about things on a personal
level that we don't start the recordings. But anyway, you know
enough. Larry's got enough stuff out
there on the internet to let you know on some of that stuff
what's going on. Anyway, it's good to be here today. Sure,
Miss Beth be glad to see her back. I think she'll be back
next week, so look forward to that and look forward to Mindy.
Supposedly she's going to be coming eventually at some point.
Around the 1st of January, so look forward to seeing her and
so continue to remember her in your prayers as well. Alright,
anybody else got anything? How about a hymn? Anybody got
a hymn that you'd like to go out on? Anybody got a hymn? All right. Well, let's bow and have a word
of prayer and we'll ask the Lord and thank Him for the food also.
Heavenly Father, we come to you now and we ask you to bless this
day. We pray that it's been honoring
to you. I pray that there's been encouragement
There's been truth. Father Lord, I just pray that
you've been honored and glorified through all that's been said
and everything that we do here. And Father Lord, if we do lift
up all those today around this world, Lord, who desire the truth. And Father, for those who are
in places where there is no church together and to fellowship, Lord,
we pray that you would bring together to them people that
they can fellowship with and to meet with on a regular basis
where they can be edified and be encouraged and that worship
can be given to you in a corporate manner. Lord, we are thankful
for all the churches that you have raised up. And Father, we
come to you now and we thank you for Christ and we thank you
for this life that we have because of him. And Lord, we just ask
you to continue to be with us here in Joplin to proclaim the
truth, to be a witness to this town, Father, Lord, I thank you
for each one that you've gathered here. Not only what they mean
to me, but Father, the witness of Christ that they are in this
congregation. Father, we do miss Beth and we
look forward to seeing her coming back next week. And Lord, I just
pray that you'll also be with her sister, Mindy, and even all
the other children of Sister Louetta's. Lord, we just pray
for them. But Lord, we especially pray
for Mindy because we're so thankful of her being a witness for you
in the midst of all the turmoil that she's gone through over
the last few years. Father, for her beginning to see as you've
given her light to see the sovereignty of God and the predestination
of God and her finding comfort and even this horrible situation
that she's in with her divorce. Father, that she's come to see
that you are sovereign and wise in all things. And so Father,
Lord, I just am thankful for that. And I look forward to our
time to get to fellowship with her. And Lord, I pray that if
it be your will, that she be able to move here and to be able
to fellowship with us on a regular basis, Lord. And Lord, we're
so grateful for all that you've done in that situation. Lord,
we just ask you now to be with us as we gather around the table
to eat. I ask you to bless the food. We're thankful for it,
for the provisions made in bringing it. Lord, we're thankful for
the fellowship to have around the table. And Lord, we just
ask you to bless this time. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.