This is a frightening place to
be, not because of you all, but because of this that we're going
to deal with, because of this that we're going to look at.
It's entrusted into our care, and especially every time I've
heard someone pray this morning, Everyone has prayed for the young
ones and for the little ones among us. And they're indeed
on all of our hearts. We have quite a family of little
ones and young ones. They're certainly on our thoughts
and prayers every day. I thought especially this week
as Gerald Kuhn, you all know the story of Gerald Kuhn's young
grandson. He was killed just around the
curve from where we live. Eighteen years old, going to
school. Our grandson Mitchell was in class with him. Mitchell
said he was the nicest kid in the whole school. They had art
class together. And Adam told Mitchell the day
before, he said, I'm going to finish
this project tomorrow. He said, this thing has wore
me out. He said, I don't care how long it takes. Tomorrow I'm
going to finish this project and get it behind me. And the
next morning at 7.15 he was on his way to school and the Lord
removed him. And it's just a crushing thing.
It's a crushing thing to endure. I can't imagine the family, the
grief of the family. But it does bring us back to
where I began. These young ones and these little
ones of our number, oh, pray for them. Pray daily for them. Bring them before the Lord. He's
able. He's able to shield them and
protect them, guard them, lead them every step of this journey.
And our hope, not that they're successful, not that they're
rich and famous, not that they're beautiful. Our hope is that He'd
be merciful to them. He'd show mercy to them for Christ's
sake. Open their eyes and give them faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what we pray for. And this is entrusted, the gospel
is entrusted to frail men like myself to stand before people
that's just like me who are dying. And one day we'll stand before
the Lord God Almighty And the question of the day and the question
of every day, what do you think of Christ? What do you think
of Him? And the answer to that is going
to determine our long haul. So I come to you certainly with
a heavy heart, but I come to you with good news. I come to
you with a hilarious joy of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to say that Jackie is
so sorry she couldn't be with you all today. There's people
here that I've known or that have known me all my life. This
is a home gathering. This is a homecoming for us when
we come among you people. And it's a happy time. It's a
joyful time. She took care of me this week.
I was sick. And now she nursed me over it and she's got it.
And so she got up this morning and she said, I can't do it.
I can't make it. But know that her thoughts are
with you all. And we know to some degree some
of the grief that's among this gathering, and we do pray for
you. The believers, those that have
been recipient of the grace of God, they're at Wheelersburg.
They send their best wishes to you all here, too. All right, let's turn back to this portion
of God's Word that Brother Frank read for us. beginning in verse 25 of Matthew
chapter 6. Therefore, I say unto you, take
no thought for your life. But I want to go back just a
little bit. This is what they call the Sermon on the Mount.
You all are very familiar with this portion of God's Word. And
it begins, I want you to look back in chapter 5 where it begins.
Now Jesus, our Lord, had been there teaching and preaching.
He'd been doing those miraculous things that no man had ever done.
No man ever spoke like Him. No man was ever so tender and
so gracious and so caring and kind. And He raised the sick
from the dead. You know, He raised the sick.
He gave sight to the blind, those that were lame. And halt, He
healed them. He raised those from the dead. And there was
crowds of people that followed Him. And so we pick up here at
the beginning of this chapter. And seeing the multitudes, verse
1 of chapter 5, seeing the multitudes, our Lord went up into a mountain.
And when He was set down, that was common in that day, when
you were going to teach, when you were going to expound on
something, you sat down. And then the people came to you.
And when he was sat, look at this. This is me and you. His disciples came to him. Now
can you see this picture? I try to always get some kind
of, with my little old feeble mind, it helps me if I can get
some kind of an image of what's going on. You know, what's going
on here and how's it pertinent in our day? What's the Lord doing
here? The Lord is now, He's gone up
into a mountain. He's found a place, and He's
sat down, and those that love Him, these disciples, this is
not just the twelve, this is those that He's revealed Himself
to, those that were looking for all those promises that's now
been fulfilled in the Old Testament, the coming of the Messiah, the
coming of the Christ, Him that would be born of a virgin, Him
that would be Emmanuel, God with us, And they saw Him as being
the Christ, the Savior, the Redeemer. Those were all gathered there
close to Him. And they come right up close
to Him. And He sat down and He opened His mouth. And He taught
them. And He taught them. Now get this
in our minds today. We're here. We're here and we're
seated around the Lord Jesus Christ. He's recorded this and
He's given it to us. This was 2,000 years old. But
it's just as pertinent as if He was here today. He's sitting
here today. And we're all gathered up close
to us. And He's going to tell us something. He's going to teach
us something. And He begins. And this is instruction. This is teaching for God's people.
This is for His disciples. This is for the church. This
is our bread. This is for me and you. Now,
one thing I want to bring up here. What do you think the tenor
of the tone of His voice was when He talked to these disciples?
I believe it was just so tender. I believe it was so loving and
so caring. There's a scientific theory out
there that says that when we speak, there's this amazing thing
that God has done. This voice comes out of my mouth. And it comes out as waves that
are doing like this. And they go out through there
everywhere. And God has given us this amazing thing called
the ear. And these things go into the
ear And it's transmitted into something that we understand.
Now, the theory is that these things that are transmitted when
I'm speaking here, they come out very strong. And as farther
they go, they get weaker and weaker and weaker. And the theory
is that if someone, some scientist would invent some kind of a device
that was so sensitive, these things never stop vibrating.
That's the theory, that they're just always out there. If you
could go out there and still collect them with some kind of
a sensitive device and pull them in here, you could hear Lincoln
stand there and recite the Gettysburg Address. Wouldn't that be something?
Wouldn't it be something if we had this? Wouldn't it be something
if we had this and we could take it home? Would we take these
tapes of John and Charles and different men, Paul Mahan, put
this in, and here we are right here in front of Him. And our
Lord sets down and He says these things to us. He teaches us.
What would be the tenor, the tone of His voice? I don't believe
it would be harsh and rigid and inflexible and firm. I believe it would be like we
talk to our children. I believe it would be like we've got something
to tell you, and I want you to understand this. I want you to
grasp this. I don't want you to miss this.
This is very important. Very important. I believe that's the
way this is given here. And He begins to teach these
things, these pertinent things to these disciples. Now, this
crowd, And a lot of them just follow Him because of the miracles
they heard. Well, they hear it too. But His disciples, they
hear it specially. We've been given an ear to hear
the tenderness of our Lord Jesus Christ talking to us, correcting
us, chastising us when we need to be rebuked. But it's in a
tender and it's in a loving way. And He tells us all these things.
And He said, blessed are those that do these things, the meek
of the earth. They're going to inherit the
earth. And you've heard it said of old that thou shalt love thy
neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, don't be
that way. That's the way the world is.
Don't be that way. Love your enemies. You don't know what
your enemy five years from now will be your brother or sister
in Christ. Love them. Love them. You know, you've heard
it said of old, thou shalt not steal. But I say unto you, don't
covet somebody else what they've got. This is not harsh and rigid. This is tender talk to children
who need instruction. And he comes along. He continues
to go with Miss Vane. And he comes up here to verse
19, where Brother Frank began to read. Look at this. This is
not harsh and rigid. This is not screaming and harsh
and hard. He says, lay not up for yourselves
treasures upon earth. Don't do that. When I heard Frank
bring the lesson this morning from 1 Samuel 12, I thought this
just goes hand in hand. Frank's message back there, way
back there in the Old Testament, you know, 800 years before Christ. Samuel's telling these things,
these pictures and types and emblems of what it's going to
be like when the Lord Jesus Christ comes. And look at what He's
done. Look at what He's given. Look
at what He's sacrificed. How He's provided and protected
and defended us and led us and given us faith in Christ. Oh,
follow Him. Love Him. Submit to Him. Don't
be belligerent. Don't be angry about things.
Look at the pit he's digged us from. And that's what he said.
Don't lay up for yourself. Don't lay up for yourself treasures
upon earth. Look here, verse 20. Lay up for
yourself treasures in heaven. You, my disciples, you, my children,
you who I came, who I came and I died for. I gave my life's
blood for you. I shed my life. I took your sin
and ugliness and awfulness. I put it upon myself. And I died
at the hand of God Almighty because of the sin and shame of you,
my people. And now I've given you this perfection
before God Almighty. Lay up for yourselves treasures
in heaven. These things are all fleeting. They're all temporary.
They're all going to be gone. They're all going to vanish away.
Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Verse 21, where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also. We know something
about that. We know something about that.
The light of the body is the eye. The eye. If therefore thine
eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. If thy
eye is fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ, is fixed on His coming,
His perfection, His beauty, all that He's done for me and you,
If our eye is fixed on Him, we're full of light. But if thine eye
be in evil, verse 23, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
No man, verse 24, no man can serve two masters. No man can
serve. He's not harsh. This is true. This is true. I've lived long
enough to see this. I know you have too. You can't do it. You can't spend all of your time,
all of your energy, all of your strength, all that God's given
us, grabbing these things of this life And your eye is not
single. Your eye is not fixed on Christ.
These things are all going to be taken away. And that's where
we come to verse 25. And he's saying, therefore, I,
the Lord God Almighty, I say to you, I say to you, my children,
I say to you, my brethren, I say to you, my sheep, I say to you
that God gave me, the Father gave me in eternity past, you
that I came and died for, Heard the preaching of the gospel.
You that the Spirit came and opened your eyes and your heart
and you fled to me. You. I say to you, take no thought
for your life. You see that? Take no thought
for your life. What you shall eat, what you shall drink, nor
yet for your body. What you shall put on it is not
the life more than me, than the body, than Raymond. Take no thought
for these things. Now, what he is for sure not
saying here is, Don't get up in the morning. A believer is
not a lazy person. A believer is not saying, if
God wants me to have it, I'll have it. A believer doesn't get
up in the morning and go to the front porch and hook his heels
over the banister and say, if God wants me to have something,
He's going to give it to me. A believer is the best guy on
the job. He's the best guy. He works as
if the Lord Jesus Christ was his foreman. Now that's just
fact. He's the hardest working man on the block. He's the hardest
working man out there in that mill. A believer is. Because
he knows that meal is there because God intended for it to be there
to support his family and others' believers in that community.
And he works like the Lord Jesus Christ is who he's working for.
That's not what he's saying here. It's just don't do anything.
Don't prepare for anything. Don't plan for anything. He's
not saying that. But he's saying don't be consumed
with these things. We all need a home to live in. We do need transportation. We
need clothing for this body. We need food. We need water.
We need provisions for this. And we've been given families.
You men, you've been given a wife and you've been given children.
And they're dependent on you. And that's the way God intended
it. And go out there and get you a job. Go out there and support
them children. But what He is saying here, don't
take all your time out there. Don't spend all your time amassing
that home. You've got a home? You don't need a mansion. You've
got a car? You don't need four. You don't
need one down on the beach. You know, that's what he's saying
here. Spend some time on your life. Is not the life, do you
see that in the latter part of 25? Is not the life, the life
that we've been given, is it not more important than meat?
This that's going to go into our body? It's going to pass
through our body and out into the draft. Is not our life, this
that God... We were born it. Frank said,
everybody that's ever been born into this world, we've got this
one thing in common. We were born sinners. We had to death. The death can take care of all
these things, the meat and the drink and the trinkets and all
that, but not the life. This is from Him. This is from
Him. He's given us the life. He's
given us faith in His Son. Is not that life more important
than me? Is it not? Is not the body more
important than Raymond? This body that he's given is
the most amazing thing that God's created. This is the pinnacle
of his creation. This that you see up here. This
is the apex. This is the crowning glory of
his creation. This was the final Great thing
that He created. He created man in His own image
and breathed into us the breath of life and we become a living
soul. And He's given us eyes to see
and ears to hear. He's given us a heart and a mind
to understand. He's given us to be able to read.
He's given us this treasure in this body that He's given us
that we can read. We can read these treasures just
like He was standing here today talking to us. We can read these
things like there's nobody here but the Lord Jesus Christ and
you only. Nobody else. And he's saying,
listen to me. Listen to me. Is not the life
that I've given you, isn't it more important than these trinkets?
Isn't it more important than these doodads? Isn't the body
that I've given you the most amazing thing? I really get weary
over the news. They'll do a story about a policeman
that's killed in the line of duty. And then they'll do a story
about somebody that's abused a horse or a dog. And they almost
put them together. And I'm not certainly advocating
any kind of cruelty. We've got a little old dog and
he lives better than probably a lot of people in this world.
But I'm telling you, this body that he's got, he's made us different. We're the top part of his creation. And He loved us to the point
that His dear Son came and died for us. Now, this body that He's
given us, and the facilities that He's put in this body, isn't
it more important than raiment, than to put clothing on it? Use
it! That's what He's saying. Use
it to find out something about Me. Use it to find out about
Me, about the Kingdom, and about who God is. And the character
of God Almighty, the perfection of Him and the glory of Him and
the beauty of Him. Use that body. Don't just use
it to hang clothes on and to look pretty. Use that body. That's what He's saying here.
And He's not being harsh. He's being tender because I'm
so stupid. Because I'll miss this. Do you
ever sit and watch the evening news and you get up from it and
you just go away and you say, I want to tell you something
I read here recently. Listen to this. If oil goes to $400 a barrel,
are you ready for this? Hang on. And they said it's possible. It's $100 a barrel now. If oil
goes to $400 a barrel, you know how much gasoline will be a gallon? $16. Now this same report said,
and I don't know how they feed all this in and get the, you
know how much a loaf of bread will be if gasoline goes to $16
a gallon? $100 a loaf. A hundred dollars a loaf. It's
pretty evident that I like bread. Well, that upsets me. That upsets
me. I don't worry so much about me,
but I certainly worry about our children and our grandchildren
and our little ones. This is our Lord. He's got us
pulled right up close to us here. And He's looking us right in
the eye. He's saying, don't take no thought for these things.
Don't take no thought for these things. Your life is more important
than these things. Don't worry about how much a
loaf of bread is going to be. Don't worry how much a gallon
of gas is going to be. This is what you're concerned with. This
life that God's breathed into us. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our sins. Oh, the bliss of this
glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the
whole. He nailed to the cross. I don't bear it no more. Praise
the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul.
That's what we need to be concerned with. That's what we need to
be concerned with. Verse 26, look at this. Behold,
the fowls of the air. I love that. I love that. I'm
starting to look for hummingbirds. We feed these hummingbirds every
year. They're the most amazing little old critter that I think
there is out there. You know them things will leave
our yard. Back last fall, they'll leave our yard. They'll fly all
the way to Florida and they'll get all gorged up there on that
nectar and they'll leave Florida and they'll fly 600 miles over
the Gulf of Mexico. The little old thing ain't that
big. And their wings beat a thousand times a minute. You've got to
have a special camera to even get a picture of their wings.
They beat so fast. How many times do you reckon they beat in 600
miles? They fly all the way over there, down there in the Yucatan.
And they spend the winter down there. And then they head home.
And you know what they tell me? Them same little old fellers
that we fed last year? They're coming right back to
our place. Them same ones will come right back. They'll come
right back to our feeder in April, about the middle of April. I'll
fix up that nectar and put them out there, you know. I'll just
be watching for them. They don't worry about the things
we worry about. They don't worry about the evening news. They
don't worry how much a gallon of gas is going to be. They don't
worry about how much a loaf of bread is going to be. That's
what it's saying here. Behold the fowls of the air.
Look at them. That's God's creation. And it's God's lesser creation.
The Lord Jesus Christ never came and died for one bird. He died
for me and you. And that's what he's saying here.
Behold the fowls of the air. They don't sow. We do. They don't
sow. They don't go out there and work
up that ground. They don't plant them seeds and raise them crops
so that they can eat. They don't reap. They don't go
out there in the fall of the year and cut all that. They don't
put it in barns. They don't gather it in barns. You're a heavenly
Father. Isn't that beautiful what our
Lord says here? Now, there's places where The
Lord refers to the Heavenly Father as God Almighty. I don't want
to approach Him as God Almighty. I don't want to approach Him
in His perfection and His holiness and His wrath and anger against
sin. I want to approach Him as my
Heavenly Father. Isn't that beautiful that our Lord said, Your Heavenly
Father. Your Heavenly Father. He's Your
Heavenly Father. And He provides for this lesser
of His creation. He provides for them. Are you
not much better than they? Are you not much better than
they? He came down here and He assumed our nature. He took on
Himself the form of a servant for my sake and for your sake.
And that's what He's telling these disciples. Here they are,
right up there, and He's talking to them. He said, don't be concerned
about these things. These things of this everyday
life, what you shall eat, what you shall drink, what you shall
wear, the kind of home you want to live in, how you want to provide
for your family, don't be concerned about that. I take care of the
birds. And they're way down the list on the creation pecking
order. Way down the list. You're the
very top. I came and died for you. You're
heavenly Father. He knows you have need of these
things. He goes on here in verse 27.
You see that? Which of you, by taking thought,
can add one cubit unto His stature? One cubit can be applied to age. That word stature is almost always,
which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to your age?
It's almost always translated age, that word stature. So it's
not how tall you are, but it's how long you live. Now I ask
you, which of you by taking thought and preparation and much care,
and you can't believe it by looking at me now, but there was a time
when I was an athlete. I ran the mile in high school.
I was a miler. You've got to be in pretty good
shape. I was thin as a stick. I weighed 150 pounds when I was
a senior in high school. I had a big meet up in Charleston,
West Virginia. They called it the Stonewall
Relays. Schools come from all over this whole part of the country.
This is back in 1962. Come from this whole part of
the country and come up there and ran in that Stonewall Relay. I ran a mile up there in the
Stonewall Relay. Must have been 150 of us started
out and ran that mile. I was a pretty good athlete.
Played baseball, basketball. I believe in being conditioned.
I believe in taking care of this body. It's not very evident now
that I do, but there was a time when I did. But I tell you, no
matter how often you go to the Y, I'm telling you, I'm telling
you, you're not going to add one cubit. That cubit is 18 inches. And what he's saying here is,
you're not going to add 18 inches. This journey that God's given
us, I'll soon be 66 years old. I don't know how many steps I've
taken. I don't know how many million steps I've taken in 66
years, but I'm telling you this, no matter what I've prepared
for and planned for and purposed, when the time comes that God
calls me home, I can't add 18 inches to that journey. That's
what He's saying here. Which of you, which of you, which
of you, by taking thought and preparation and planning, and
there's a lot of that going around in our day, and I'm saying to
you, take care of your bodies. The quality of your life when
you get to be older and you want to run with them grandchildren? You want to get out there and
play ball with them grandkids? I can't do it anymore. And it's
because I haven't taken care of this body. But I'm telling
you, the quality of life, I can help, but the length of life,
it's inconceivable. And that's what he's saying here.
Don't be overly concerned about these. Take care of your body.
Eat right, drink right, exercise right. Do those things. But don't
spend your whole life making this thing pretty and robust
and strong and all those things. Don't do that. Don't do that.
Verse 28, why take ye thought for raiment? Spend a lot of time
on clothing, on preparing to have clothing and how we look.
And that's important. That's certainly important. Well,
here's what our Lord says. Now, He's saying to these people,
these are people, this is me and you. And he was right up
close to us here and he's talking real tender to us. He said, I'm
going to give you some good advice. I'm going to give you some good
advice. Don't be overly concerned about your clothing. Don't be
overly concerned about your home. Don't be overly concerned about
your cars and all these trinkets that are going to be taken away.
Don't be overly concerned about that. And here's what I'm saying.
Consider the lilies of the field. You see that? Consider the lilies
of the field. How do they grow? How do they
grow? They toil not. They don't do
all that preparation. They toil a lot. They don't go
out and gather that fiber for that garment that makes them
so beautiful. What makes them so beautiful? When I graduated
from Ayrton High School, everybody in Ayrton High School had to
take an art class. And we had an elderly, she was a very old
art teacher. Her name was Ms. Humphreys. And
to get through that art class, every student at Ayrton High
School, and she was there for 50 years. I don't know how many
people, but to get through that art class, You remember, don't
you? To get through that art class,
you had to draw a rose. You could do it in pencil. You
could do it in pastels. You could do it in watercolors.
Or you could do it in oils. But to get through that class,
you had to draw a rose. You had to paint a rose. A picture
of a rose. Not a picture of a classmate.
Not a picture of a classmate dressed in all the nattiest,
best looking clothes you could get down at Moran's clothing
store, you know. But a rose. Something God made.
And there's nothing like it. The beauty of it. And it don't
toil. It don't go out and gather fibers
in fields, cotton and all these fibers. You see that? It don't toil. Neither do they
spin. They don't do this and make all these garments to make
them look pretty. God does that. God does that. That's what our
Lord's saying here. Consider the lilies of the field. Consider
them. Did you ever see anything as
pretty as a rose? Did you ever see anything as
pretty as a lily? Did you ever see anything that beautiful?
They don't spend all their time at the... God puts that on them. He puts that beauty on them. Wherefore, look at this, verse
29. And I say to you that Solomon...
Oh boy, you think Solomon didn't have a wardrobe? I say unto you,
Solomon in all his splendor and all his glory was not arrayed
like... My mom used to go up I take a
senior citizen's trip and they'd go to Holland, Michigan in a
certain time of the year when the tulip was in bloom. Oh, and
it was spectacular. She'd bring pictures home of
acres and acres. They'd harvest them and they'd
send them all over the world. Acres and acres and acres of
tulips. How beautiful that was. But our
Lord said here, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like
them acres. Oh, just one of them. Solomon
couldn't duplicate the beauty that's in verse 30. Wherefore, if God so clothed,
if He so clothed the grass of the field, which today is, and
tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe
you? This is when I turn the evening news off, and I go in
and look at this. And I say, shall He not clothe
you? It's like Frank said in his lesson
here. Look at what he's done. Look at what he's given. Look
at what he's provided. Look at all this. Oh, ye of little
faith, why do you worry? Why do I worry? Why do I fret?
Why do I wonder if my pension... How long is that Social Security
going to last? It's being drained fast, you
know. Being drained fast. Well, Dale, don't worry about
it. That's what he's saying. He's
looking us right in the eye. Each and every one of us. Don't you
worry. I take care of the birds. Oh,
how much greater you are than the birds. I take care of the
lilies of the field. Oh, how much... I came and died
for you. I loved you eternally in eternity past. I had my eye
on you. I came and died for you, redeemed
you, gave you faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll take care
of you. I'll take care of you. Verse 31, Therefore, take no
thought, saying, What shall we eat or what shall we drink? Or
wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do
the Gentiles seek." These Gentiles, these outside the knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ. These outside the knowledge of
the Gospel. These that don't know what me
and you know. He's sitting here and he's talking to these Jews
right up close to him. These are believers in him. These
are his disciples. These are some of them that he
came and died for. And he's saying to them, don't take no thought.
Don't take no anxious thought. Don't spend all of your time
on these things. What you shall eat or drink, wherever it's all
shall you be clothed. For after all these things... And Gentiles
over there, they don't know anything about what you know about here
this morning. The world don't know anything. The guy that wrote
that report said grace is going to be $100 a loaf. He don't know
what you know. It don't matter how much bread
is a loaf. If God intends for you to have
it, you're going to have it. You're going to have an abundance of
it. That's what He's saying here. For your Heavenly Father knows
that you have need of these things. Gentiles don't know that. It's
good for them to be concerned. It's good for them to wring their
hands and worry. This is all they've got. This is all they
have. They don't have anything else. Verse 33. I've said all that
to say this. Seek ye first the Kingdom of
God. and His righteousness. And all
these things will be added unto you. Seek ye first. Seek ye first. There's a fellow that's a very
wealthy man in our country. I've read a little bit about
him. His name's Warren Buffett. Any of you heard of Warren Buffett?
He's a billionaire. Very wealthy man. And I'd ask
you this morning, You get up tomorrow and you get a registered
letter in the mail. And you open it up, it's got
your name on it, Jim. And it says, Jim, you ain't going
to believe this, Warren Buffett's died. He's a wealthy man. And we've done all this research
to divvy up this mega fortune of his. And Jim, you're in his
lineage. You're an heir to that fortune.
Now we're going to have the reading of the will up here at Catlixburg
at the courthouse at 10 o'clock on Wednesday morning. Do you
reckon Jim will be there? Do you reckon he'll be there?
Charles, do you reckon he'll be there if Bill Gates is there
with all that that he's got to distribute? That's what he's
saying here. Seek ye first. Here it is. Here
it is. We've got the Gospel. We've got
the Gospel. You've got it right here in this
place. At some time, 80 years ago, or 60 years ago, or 40 years
ago, there was a bunch of free wheelers got together and they
built a church here, here on Hurricane Road. And they was
here for a number of years. And then whatever happened, they
was gone. And there's a bunch of believers that needed a place
to worship. And one day, one of the young men from this gathering,
he drove by. I've seen it for sale time here.
And you all ended up here. Look at this amazing place. What
a beautiful place the Lord's provided. Seek ye first. Seek ye first. Devote your time
and your energy and your strength, every fiber of what we are, to
finding out what my Lord Jesus Christ has left for me. He's
purchased it all. And He's left it all. And He's
left it all for a particular people. A people that God knew
from eternity past and gave to Christ. A people that Christ
came and died for. A people that sat under the preaching
of the Gospel. God gave them faith to believe
it. To believe Christ and to flee to Christ. people that have
fled to Christ, and they're going to be kept by the power of God.
That work that He's begun, He's going to finish it. He's going
to finish it the day of His power. One day He's coming back for
us, and we look for that return. Now, now, seek ye first that kingdom that
has to do with God Almighty and His holiness and purity, and
it has to do with our ugliness and awfulness, How are we going
to approach unto a sovereign God? It's all in the Lord Jesus
Christ. His righteousness. His righteousness
is only in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is my Son in whom I'm well
pleased. Hear ye Him. Hear ye Him. Hear ye Him. I read Jackie gets
on to Facebook. I don't know Facebook from facelift,
but Jackie does. Chip puts some pretty good stuff
on there. I think I'm going to tell this on Chip. Now, I think
Jackie said this was yours, Chip. Chip said he went to an attorney
and he had a will drawn up. Yeah, it's him. And he had a
will drawn up. And his will starts like this.
This is the last will and testament of Chip Holbrook. I spent it
all. Seek ye first the Kingdom, the
Kingdom of God and His righteousness. And the Lord Jesus Christ, He
came. He didn't spend any of it. He purchased everything for
me and you. Oh, He purchased everything for
me and you. He's not squandered it. He's not wasted it. I read
one of those old writers. He said, everything I've ever
held in these hands, I've lost it all. I have too. I have too. But everything I've committed
into the hands of my Lord Jesus Christ, that I still possess.
Isn't that something? Seek ye first. He's talking to
us and He's not being harsh and hard and critical and rigid. He's talking like you'd talk
to your children. He loves us. He died for us. Don't get caught
up in these things. Don't get trapped in these things. Seek ye first the Kingdom of
God, His righteousness. All these things will be taken
care of. Look at this. Take therefore, he's wrapping
it up here, take therefore no thought for tomorrow. Don't worry
about tomorrow. We've got enough to worry about
today. I thought when I read this, Adam Kuhn's mother, she's
a twin. The McDonough family was raised
out on Crow Ridge. When I come back out of the service,
me and Jackie, 1969, we lived on Crow Ridge. And this boy's
mother was just a little girl. She was about eight years old,
nine years old. And we got to know the family, a big family,
six or seven of them kids. And them little girls would come
around there and play with our kids, kind of look after them
and everything. And we know him. I mean, we knew
the dad. We knew him very well. But this
little boy died, you know. This young boy, Adam, was killed.
And I thought of all the things that might have been going on
in that family that concerned later in that week. Nothing mattered
after they got the news of that that happened that day. And that's
what our Lord... We don't know what today... We
don't know what this afternoon holds. We don't know what the
next moment holds. God does. And it's all in His
hands. And He says, sufficient unto
this day is the trouble that you're going to have to deal
with in this journey that I've put you on. I've put you on a
journey down here. It's a straight way. It's a narrow
way. You're going to finish this. You're going to finish this course
I've put you on. Now, you've got this to deal with today.
Now, you deal with this today. Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't
worry about it. Sufficient unto the day is the
evil that we're going to encounter in this day. And don't worry
about today. Take today and deal with it. And leave the things of tomorrow.
Listen to me. Is the oil going to go to $400
a barrel? Leave the things of tomorrow
into tomorrow's God. And tomorrow's God is our Heavenly
Father. He said, I know you've got need
of these things. Look at these things I've taken care of that
are lesser than you. I love you. I die for you. Now
be at peace. Be at rest. Don't worry. Dale,
watch that news and get up from it and say with joy in my heart,
my Heavenly Father knows what I need. And whatever he does,
it's going to be well done. All right. This was good for
me. I hope maybe nobody else needed it, but I did. Thank you.