Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number five from your Spiral Gospel Hymns
in book number five, Come Ye Sinners. Let's all stand together. Come ye sinners, poor and wretched, Weak and wounded, sick and sore,
Jesus ready stands to save you. Full of pity, he joined with
power. He is able, he is able, he is
willing, doubt no more. He is able, he is able, he is
willing, doubt no more. ? Come ye needy, come and welcome
? ? God's free bounty glorify ? ? True belief and true repentance
? ? Every grace that brings us nigh ? ? Without money, without
money ? Come to Jesus Christ and buy. Without money, without
money, come to Jesus Christ and buy. Let not conscience make
you linger, nor a fitness fondly dream. All the fitness he requireth
is to have a need of him. This he gives you, this he gives
you, tis the Spirit's glimmering beam. This he gives This he gives
you, tis the Spirit's glimmering beam. Calm ye weary, heavy laden,
bruised and broken by the fall, If you tarry till you're better,
you will never come at all. Not the righteous, not the righteous,
sinner Jesus came to call. Not the righteous, not the righteous, Please be seated. I love that hymn. Are you tempted
to linger in thinking that you can improve your position before
you come? I am. If you Terry, till you're
better, you will never come at all. We do that though, don't
we? Well, if I could just feel my
shame a little bit more, then the Lord will receive me. And
sad. Let's open our Bibles to Hebrews
chapter seven. Hebrews chapter seven, all the
fitness he required this to have a need of him. This he gives
you. We are needy people, aren't we? Someone asked me recently. Who Melchizedek was and, uh,
he. was a pre-incarnate appearance
of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And everything that the scripture
says about Melchizedek is true of Christ. He's the priest and
the king of righteousness. That's what his name means. Let's
open our Bibles to Hebrews chapter seven. And this Melchizedek,
king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham
returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him. The blessing goes from the greater
to the lesser, and the blessing went from Melchizedek to Abraham,
in whom or to whom also Abraham gave a 10th part of all, first
being by interpretation the king of righteousness, and after that
also king of Salem, which is king of peace, without father,
without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days
nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth
a priest continually. Now consider how great this man,
notice the little verb was is in italics, it's not there. Notice
how great is this man, Melchizedek, unto whom even the patriarch
Abraham gave a tenth of the spoil. Now go over with me to verse
15. And it is yet far more evident
for that after the similitude of Melchizedek, there ariseth
another priest. This is what you and I are in
need of, aren't we? We're in need of a priest. We're in need
of one who is able to intercede for us and present himself as
an offering for our sins. That's what the Lord Jesus is. He's our high priest who is made
not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power
of an endless life. For he testified, this was the
promise that God gave in Psalm 110, verse four. He testified,
thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Look
at verse 24. But this man, because he continueth
ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood, wherefore he is able to save
them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever
liveth to make intercession for them. For such a high priest
became us, who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,
and made higher. than the heavens, who needeth
not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice first for
his own sins and then for the people's. For this he did once
when he offered up himself. I want us to pray particularly
for Peggy. She is still on a ventilator.
The cardiologists are not sure why she has so much fluid around
her heart. And they're going to give her
another 24 hours before they decide on what kind of procedure
surgically to do in order to try to relieve some of that fluid.
But Henry's staying there with her all day and going home at
night. I know he would be encouraged
to just receive a text or call from you if you feel led to do
that. Pray for them. I've been very
encouraged with the faith of the Lord's given Henry through
this and trusting the Lord. Also, Fred Newman had a fall
a couple of weeks ago and bumped his head. And he's fine from
that, but in the process of trying to find out whether he had a
head injury, they discovered a heart problem, and he's having
angioplasty this Friday up in Illinois, and they'll decide
whether to do a stent. He's got some kind of blockage
or some, a blockage. So, let's, let's go to the word of
prayer. Our Heavenly Father, what great
hope and comfort you give us in knowing that we have a high
priest, an anchor for our soul, one who has ascended up into
glory and received his rightful place, one who ever lives to
make intercession for us, a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Lord, we are a needy people,
we need We need a sacrifice that will satisfy your holy justice
in putting away our sin. We ask tonight that you would
give us eyes of faith that we might set our affections on things
above where Christ is seated at thy right hand, and that we
would find our hope, our salvation, and all our satisfaction in his
glorious person and in his accomplished work. Lord, we know that you
are able. We say with a leper, Lord, if
thou wilt, you can make me whole. And there's no doubt about that,
Lord. We know that you're able to place
your hand of strength and healing on Peggy and on Fred and on little
Oliver, make them whole, give them strength. Lord, we know
that whatever you do is right. And we plead for your mercy. We ask, Lord, for your grace.
We ask for your comfort and your encouragement and for your forgiveness
of our unbelief. And that through it all, Lord,
that you would glorify yourself and that you would help us in
our time of need. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. I've asked Robert to preach for
me tonight, so he'll be doing that after we sing the next hymn. Number what? Two. Number two
and the spiral hymnal. Let's stand together. Number
two. Lord, we come before thee now. At thy feet we humbly bow. O do not our suit disdain. Shall we seek thee, Lord, in
vain? Lord, on Thee our souls depend,
In compassion now descend. Fill our hearts with Thy rich
praise, Tune our lips to sing Thy praise. In thine own appointed
way, now we seek thee, here we stay. Lord, we know not how to
go till a blessing thou bestow. Send the message from thy word
that may joy and peace afford. Let thy spirit now impart Christ's
salvation to each heart. Please be seated. I was a Calvinist preacher for
a long time. The number one rule for preaching
Calvinism is to approach the message like you're the only
one in the room that's saved. And then you proceed to argue
with everybody in that room. Now, I'm not just saying this.
That's the way they teach you to preach. But when you preach
like that, You have pronoun problems, and I have them, and I'm trying
to overcome them. Whenever you're a Calvinist preacher,
it's I or you. But when God softens you up,
it's we and us. So if I do slip up, kind of overlook
me, I've talked to everybody, and I have a tremendous problem
with that. We'll be in Matthew chapter 28
this evening. beginning in verse 16. And the
eleven disciples went away into Galilee unto a mountain which
Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped
him, but some doubted him. And he spake to them and said,
All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to obey
all of the commandments which I have given you. And lo, I'm
with you always, even unto the end of the world." Now, the last
message our priest started with time in the beginning, God. And
time is something that I've realized the last couple of weeks rules
our lives. It definitely does. Time to go
to bed, time to get up, time to eat breakfast, time to go
to work, time to eat lunch. Time is God's favor to his children,
to give them a space to be called and to learn about him and to
to just spend time enjoying the things that God has given his
children to enjoy. Family, children, so forth. Now
this message tonight also is about time, under the end of
the world. You can't get no further in time
than that. I have come to realize that we're
in a peculiar place in time right now. For the first time, I think
ever, there is not very much that the older generation can
tell to the younger generation. I mean, they don't really need
us anymore. They'll whip out that smart phone
and ask Google. We can tell them how life should
be. We could tell them how good that
God has been to us. You can tell them that he's blessed
me with a wife for 69 years. But there's nothing you can give
them that they can pass. Now, I can't work on their truck.
I'm a good mechanic, but a truck anymore is nothing but a $60,000
computer on four wheels. We're almost past being useful. The old timers are. But time
is nothing to God. Time don't mean anything to Him.
Time and chance and circumstance are outside of God. He's in total control of them. Now, the time that we're in right
now, the same message We should be able to walk in that church
door and hear the same message from Greg that Paul preached
2,000 years ago, because the gospel doesn't change. It's always
been the same. In the beginning, God, until
right now, the gospel has never, ever changed. Nothing's been
added. Nothing's been taken away. The
Old Testament gospel was Christ is coming. Your sins will be
forgiven. There will be a sacrifice that
will cover all of your transgressions. When the Lord was here, the gospel
was here. He is, look at him. This is the
son of God. He came into this world to save
sinners of who I am chief. And after he was crucified and
rose again and ascended into heaven, the gospel is he's coming
again. He's coming again. So we are
entrusted with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's
the same gospel that it's always been. I have total confidence
in Greg Ylmquist that he will always preach the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ. The saddest part of the whole
thing, as far as I know, There's not another gospel church for
500 miles in either direction. This is the only place where
sinners can meet with God. I was getting this message ready
this morning, and the television's on, it sounded down, and Billy
Raylefort came on, and gave you a short prayer on how to be saved
and everything. That's not the way to go. The
way to go is to find a gospel church, and that's where you
go. That's where you go. So these things will be the same
even under the end of the world. They'll never change. This is
a commission that God has given preachers in this church that
will go on until he comes again. Now, chapter 28 starts off, it
said it was dawning toward the first day of the week, that's
Sunday. It had to be about six o'clock
because that's when the Jewish day starts. Two women, two women
came to the tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the fourth
day. He's been crucified and buried
three days and three nights. He's risen again. He's ascended
onto heaven. So this is the fourth day and
there they are. And as they walk up to the tomb,
this is Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. And it makes you
wonder where the men were. Really, where was John and Peter
and Matthew and Mark and the rest of them? It seems that women
have a sympathy that men don't have. I mean, there they are
at the break of day at the tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ, a man
they dearly loved, one that they knew was the Son of God. And
where are the other disciples? It started with Adam. Eve said,
the serpent, fool me. That was it. Adam threw her under
the bus. He said, the woman I gave to
me, she didn't give me and I didn't eat. It just seemed like that
God has given ladies more empathy for suffering, for nurturing,
for all the things that we need. My wife has suffered with me
and nurtured me and took care of me for 69 years. And we're all, we're all beholden
to our wives and our children and everything, but our wives
take care of us. They come first after the Lord
Jesus Christ. But here are the two women. And
when they got there, there was a great earthquake because the
angel of the Lord came down and rolled the stone away from the
mouth of the tomb and sat on it. And it says that his countenance
was as lightning and his garments were white as snow. And we'll
never know what that feels like, but I'm going to tell you right
now, this would be a new experience. The ground is littered with all
of these Roman soldiers who are laying there knocked out and
look like they're dead. There sits an angel from heaven. And the first thing he says is,
fear not. Fear not for, for, because, fear
not because I know you seek Jesus who was crucified. He's not here. He's not here. He has risen. We've got a sign back there.
Sure as we would see Jesus. Whenever we seek Jesus, there
is no fear. No fear. I told you last time
that nothing will stop us from getting to the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we're born again and Christ is shown to us, we're going to
go. There will be no fear. We will go to Christ knowing
that we're sinners, knowing that we need forgiveness, knowing
He is the only answer. There's absolutely no fear when
God calls us. There should never be any fear,
but there is. There is fear in the children
of God's life if they don't take heed. And I want to tell you
one thing that will cause fear. When we come into that parking
lot out there in our cars, and we get out, and we come to church,
we're up to the door, We have anything against a brother or
a sister. I don't care how small, I don't
care how big, I don't care if it happened 50 years ago, I don't
care if it happened yesterday, I don't care if it was little
or if it was big. The one part of the scriptures
is about loving your brother. If you don't love your brother
that you can see, How can you love God that you can't see?
This is so important, especially to me. Because when we came here,
this church opened their arms and took us in and hugged us
tight and treated us like they had known us all of our lives. And you'll only find that in
a gospel church. So if I have a grudge against
someone for whatever reason, I better take that grudge and
anything else that has to do with the world, and I better
throw it in a garbage can right outside that door, because when
I step through the door, guess who's here? The Lord Jesus Christ
said, where two or more are gathered in my name, there will I be with
them. He's here right now. The Lord Jesus Christ's presence
is here. And if I'm sitting here with
a grudge in my heart against somebody else, I need to get
rid of it. I need to work on it because
fear will come. You'll be afraid to go to God
in prayer because you'll realize I don't need to be doing this.
He freely forgave me. Why can't I forgive someone else? This whole church is based on
that. Our sins have been forgiven,
so we forgive others. That is so important. Have no
fear. Fear not. And that's what the
Lord Jesus Christ, the angel of the Lord, that's what he told
Mary. He said, fear not, Mary, because you found favor with
God. And her husband, Joseph, whenever
he said Joseph thought on these things, being a just man and
not willing to put her away publicly, he was minded to put her away
privately. And while he thought on these
things, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and
said, what? Joseph, thou son of David, fear
not to take unto thee thy wife Mary, for that which is conceived
in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son,
and thou shalt call his name Jesus, because he shall save
his people from their sin. Fear not. Now, grace is what
we need to not have fear. How much grace? How much grace
do you think that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to David? Whenever
he opened his eyes to what he had done, there's no indication
David was afraid. David said, I have sinned against
thee and thee only. God gave David the grace to know
that his sins were forgiven. We should never have any fear
whenever we've done something we shouldn't have done. You go
down to the Lord, you get down on your knees and you pray, Lord,
forgive me. And you use the same reason David
did. Even though I'm a child of God,
even though I'm safely in Christ and always will be, I am a sinner. I still live in this body. I
still sin. I need help every day. Father,
forgive me and give me the grace to get over this. David had a
tremendous amount of grace, but he didn't have any fear. And then the ladies went to tell
the disciples about it. There's at least four accounts
of this. And Peter outran the rest of them and scooped down
and entered into the tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ and saw
the grave clothes in one place and a napkin from the face in
another. We remember that. But in this
account, The Roman soldiers went to the high priest and the elders
and told them what their version was that happened. Now, it's
entirely possible that they didn't even see the angel and they didn't
hear the earthquake. Because whenever the Lord God
spoke from heaven and said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm
well pleased, hear ye him, and some thought he thundered. And
whenever the Assyrians surrounded the city of Jerusalem, and Elisha
is there, and his servant come up and said, aren't you worried?
We're all gonna die. And Elisha said, no, there's
more for us than there is for them. And he asked the Lord to
open his eyes. And he looked out and the hill
and the valleys and everything was covered with angels, the
army of God. So unsaved people can't see these
things. And the Jews gave them what they
called large money, that they would spread the tale that they
went in and stole the Lord's body while they were asleep. So then we come to verse 16. Whenever the 11 disciples went
away into Galilee to the mountain that the Lord had appointed them,
And when they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted him. That's amazing. That's the most
amazing thing. In that part of this scripture,
they had seen the Lord Jesus Christ. They'd been with him
from the baptism of John. They had to be to be apostles.
From the baptism of John, they had seen him heal people of leprosy. They had seen people with withered
hands and withered legs, and the Lord Jesus Christ made them
whole. With their own eyes, they saw
Him heal the mind. Heal the man that was born blind. No one ever did that before in
the history of the world, and the Lord Jesus Christ did it,
and they saw Him do it. They saw Him walking on the water
during the storm. At least four times they saw
him raise the dead. He raised the widow's son, the
widow of Nain. He raised the young daughter
of the man, I don't remember his name. Then he raised Jairus'
daughter. And then he raised Lazarus. They saw the Lord Jesus Christ
stand outside that tomb with the rock rolled out of the way,
and Lazarus been dead for a year, and the Son of God cried with
a loud voice, Lazarus come forth. And they saw the dead come forth
bound hand and foot in very close. And yet they doubted. What do you do then? I don't
know how many times I've doubted God. I don't know how many times
something has happened in my life. And the first thing I'll
do is try to think of what I did wrong to make this happen. And
then the next thing I try to think of, what's the lesson in
this? The lesson is not to doubt, not to wonder, not to question
God. You just, you do like you're
supposed to, you just, Quietly wait for salvation and grace. That's all you can do. It's strange that we would be
that way. I mean, you consider this. When God called me, I knew that
God was the most powerful being that's ever been. I knew over
a period of time, I knew that the Lord Jesus Christ had died
for my sins, that he had led a perfect life, and that his
death was an accomplishment for all of the sins of all of his
people. I knew these things. Why should
I ever doubt? Why should I wonder why God has
done these things? But we all do. Every one of us
doubt because we're in the flesh. We have a hard time coming to
terms with our two natures. And that's about what it amounts
to. I can have the best intentions in the world, and all of a sudden
I'll do something and it's all gone. But there is no fear in God's
children. Even in the worst times, we can
turn to God for grace to help in time of need. And then the
Lord goes on to say that all power has been given unto me
in heaven and in earth. Philippians tells us that. Being
found in fashion as a man, he became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. That's over with. Wherefore God hath highly exalted
him. and given him a name which is
above every name that's named in heaven and earth and the waters
under the earth, that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to
the glory of God the Father. All power has been given to him
in heaven and in earth. He's done something that no one
else could have accomplished. He has withstood the wrath of
God. He has paid for sin. He has accomplished
that, and he's been raised from the dead. Did you know that the
first night that God called me, I slept like a baby? I really
did. I can still remember that because
I had peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It might
not happen again for a while because we are sinners. But when
God first called me, I had total peace. So the Lord has been given all
power in heaven and earth and he gives us the commission to
go forth and teach all nations. Now that is a huge mandate because
it goes without saying you will teach them the gospel and nothing
else. It goes without saying that whenever
you're commanded to teach the nation, that's exactly what it
means to teach the nation. And that brings us back to time.
Because when the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God
by the foolishness of preaching to save those that believe. So
from day one until last day, You're going to be saved by the
preaching of the gospel because that's what God said. That's
the great commission to go forth. It's like when the veil in the
temple opened up. The Lord Jesus Christ is exposed
to the whole world. His Gentiles have been uncalled. That's the great mystery, the
calling of the Gentiles. They don't know anything about
God. You've got to start in ground
zero with the Gentiles. The Jews, they knew what the
Bible said, but even if they didn't know who God was. But
whenever the gospel came to the Gentiles, it was a whole new
thing because they're preaching that the law won't save you.
Only the blood of Jesus Christ will save you. You can't do anything. because the work is finished. That's what you preach. That's
what you go forth into the world and teach. The Lord's Prayer. That's one of the things that
you can use to teach your children, teach others. You know, when
I was in school in 1952, the first thing we did was call the
colors. You faced the front of the school
and they played call to the cover and you put your hand over Then
we said the Lord's Prayer. It's hard for me to realize that
we did, but we did. So what does it mean? You're
going to teach the nation. What does it mean, the Lord's
Prayer? Our Father, which art in heaven, He is the God of everyone
that's ever been born, who is alive now, and who will ever
live. He's the God of everything in
Him. We live and move and have our
being, but He is our Father. That's the most amazing thing,
that we have the privilege to call Almighty God our Father. which are in heaven. He's up
there, we're down here, and we should never forget that. His
will is done in heaven and in the armies of men. His will is
never, ever put aside. I don't care what anybody tells
you. I don't care what Franklin Greel said. It's not up to me
to be saved. It's up to God. He chose me before
the foundation of the world. He kept everything up and running
until I was born, until He called me and He saved me. It's up to
Him and I'm glad it is because I would have never given Him
a second thought. Which art in heaven? Hallowed
be thy name. You can do a lot of dumb things,
but calling your preacher reverend is about the dumbest thing you
can ever do because reverend is one of the names of God. Holy
and reverend is his name. We call them preacher because
that's what they are. Never ever a reverend. Hallowed
be thy name. Thy kingdom come. That's the
new birth. You can't even see anything until
God borns you again, until the Holy Spirit raises you from the
dead. Then you can see the kingdom
of God. Born me again, Father. Born me
again. Tell me that Christ died for
my sins. Raised me from the deadness of
sins. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be
done. In earth as it is in heaven.
How is God's will done in heaven? I've heard them Southern Baptist
preachers say, Oh, well, they do it in a hurry. That's partly
true. But imagine this. If God and
the angel, the scripture tells us, they're curious beings. So they're looking down and they're
looking at Job. And all of a sudden, everything
Job has is destroyed and stolen. His 10 children are killed by
the wind in the wilderness. He has nothing left. And Job rent his mantle and fell
on the ground and said, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
Can you imagine even one angel asking God, why do you allow
bad things to happen to good people? That's why the will of God in
heaven is unquestioned. And that's the way it needs to
be here. that will be done on earth as
it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Scripture says, give me enough
so I don't have to steal and be a thief. But don't give me
so much that I'm lifted up with pride. Be satisfied with whatever
God has given you. Just enjoy it and get along with
it. And forgive us our debts. And we forgive those that trespass
against us. That's what I told you about
leaving all your hard feelings at the door. That doesn't mean
that if you don't forgive me that God's not going to forgive
you. It means you're going to wish you would have probably.
You're not going to lead a complete Christian life. You're never
going to feel as close to the Lord Jesus Christ as we should,
as long as I'm harboring ill feeling toward a brother. If
I am not able to forgive a brother for an offense that they made
against me, then I better work on it. Because we don't have
a choice. The Bible is explicit about that. You will get along with your
brothers and sisters. You will forgive their trespasses. You will do these things. Why? Because if you don't love your
brother, that you can see how you're going to love God that
you don't see. That's the importance of these
things. Forgive us our trespasses, and we forgive those who trespass
against us. And the kingdom and the glory
and the power are unto thee forever. And we hope that everyone could
believe that, whether they do or not. Teaching, teaching the
nations. You teach them about Christ. You teach them about a sovereign
God. You teach them that in the fullness
of time, God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under the
law to redeem them that were under the law. You teach them
that God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. You need to teach
them 2 Thessalonians 2.14. We're bound to give thanks unto
God always to God for you, beloved, because God hath from the beginning,
what? chosen you to salvation through
sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. There's
a million different things that we need to teach the nation.
Teaching is mentioned twice in this commission. The second part
of this is baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit. There's one man in this church
that baptizes in this group. I believe in believers baptism
and so does everyone in here. If someone comes to Greg and
they are not in accord with this church, they don't get baptized. They can come back and talk to
him again, but until they are in accord with what this church
believes, when they can sit out there without arguing about what
Greg said, when they can sit out there without any ill feeling,
then Greg, I'm sure, will baptize them. He's the one that does
the baptizing. Now, your former Calvinist preacher,
I had two elders. When someone wanted to be baptized,
they went to these two elders and they talked to them and questioned,
that's not the way to do this. That's the man you talk to. He
is the pastor of this church. He is the shepherd over the sheepfold. He is the one that listens to
you. He is the one that will talk
to you and lead you into what He wants to know. Whenever you
are in accord with us, He will. Now you don't just indiscriminately
baptize people because they want to get wet. There are things
that have to be believed to be baptized into a gospel church. So you teach them, and then you
baptize them. That reminds me of the Ethiopian
eunuch. Whenever he's in the chariot
going down a road past Gaza, and God sent Philip down there,
the Holy Ghost sent Philip down there to talk to him. And he
heard him reading out of the prophet Isaiah, Philip did. And he said, understandest thou
what thou readest? He said, how can I? Except some
man should guide me. And he asked him up into the
chariot. And it goes on, scripture says,
Philip opened his mouth at that same scripture and preached unto
him Jesus. And as they went on their way,
they came to a certain water. And the eunuch said, see, here
is water. What does hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, if thou believe
us with all thine heart, thou mayest. Are you in accord with
me? Is what Philip asked him. Do
you believe what I've told you? He said, I believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God. And the both of them went down
in the water, both Philip and Eunuch, and he baptized him there.
So there's no excuse for not understanding the process of
baptism. Teaching them to observe all
commandments, which I've given you, you realize everything the
Lord said was a commandment because he's God. Whatever he says, that's
the way it is. So what do you teach them that
he commanded? I'd say a pretty good start.
is that no man knoweth the Son, but the Father. And no man knoweth
the Father, but the Son, and He to whom He will reveal Him. Come unto Me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That's a command. It's to whoever Christ has revealed
the Father, that's who the command's for. He can preach that and teach
that. Don't teach the law. Calvinism will tell you that
God, the Lord Jesus Christ kept the law, but it is a rule for
our lives. That's bondage. That puts you
back under bondage. So what do you do? You have a
local gospel church like we have here with a gospel preacher. And you take your members, you
take the bride of Christ out of those that are in accord with
us. And you baptize them into church
membership. You don't have to have your name
in a book to be a member of this church. I appreciate that. I
used to believe you did. Write your name right down here
in this book. That means I have authority over you. That's not
right to do things like that. Everyone that comes here and
that is a Christian is a member of this church. So here we are. And we hear a message three times
a week. One of the commands we're supposed
to teach them is to forsake not the assembling of yourselves
together as the manner of some is. If there's not a good reason
to be here, then you need to go. I'm sorry about the you.
If there's not a good reason to be here, then we need to be
here. It's as simple as that. Great commission is not just
for preachers, it's for the whole church. Because all of us, all
of us at one time or another will teach someone the gospel. We won't baptize them, but we
will tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ. And we will tell
them whatsoever he has commanded us. Knowing this, that I, Lo,
I'm with you even unto the end of the world. Fear not. Fear not. I'm going to be with
you even unto the end of the world. We're safe in here. You realize this is our city
of refuge. We come in here to fellowship
one with another, to hear the gospel, to glorify the Lord Jesus
Christ, to pray unto God, to do all the things that children
of God are supposed to do. We do these things. We hope,
we hope that God will bless us with 50 people in every pew in
here. That's why the church is here,
to gather God's elect out of the world. Father, we thank you for bestowing
grace on us, Father. We thank you for calling us out
in the world, opening our eyes to the gospel, for showing us
the kingdom of God, for filling our hearts with the Lord Jesus
Christ, for all of your blessings in our lives. And we ask, Father,
that you'd overlook the things that that we say and do that
we should not, that you'll forgive us our sin, you'll give us the
grace to forgive others. We ask you to be with Peggy,
Father, and Henry and Clarissa as they go through this trial,
that you strengthen them and incline their horse unto thee,
Father, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Number 509 from the Hardback
Hymnal. The sands of time are sinking,
the dawn of heaven breaks, the summer morn I've sighed for,
the fair sweet morn awakes. Dark, dark hath been the midnight,
but day's spring is at hand, and glory, glory dwelleth in
Emmanuel's land. O Christ, thee is the fountain,
the deep sweet well of love. The streams on earth I've tasted,
more deep I'll drink above. There to an ocean fullness, His
mercy doth expand, And glory, glory dwelleth In Emmanuel's
land. Oh, I am my Beloved's and my
Beloved's mine. He brings a poor vile sinner
into his house of mine. I stand upon his merit, I know
no other stand, Not even where glory dwelleth, In Emmanuel's
land. The bride eyes not her garment,
but her dear bridegroom's face. I will not gaze at glory, but
on my King of praise. not at the crown he giveth, but
on his pierced hand. The Lamb is all the glory of
Emmanuel's land.