In the second chapter of the
book of Philippians, there's two verses that I want to at least
give you my interpretation of here this evening, and I believe
it's a sound interpretation. And the first of these two verses
is found in the second chapter of the book of Philippians, and
the fourth verse. I want to talk to you just a
little bit about that, and then we'll talk about another verse. Philippians chapter 2 and verse
number, well let me begin reading at verse number 1 of the second
chapter and read through to the sixth verse. If there be any
consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship
of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy,
that ye be like-minded, having the same love being of one accord
and of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife
or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other
better than themselves. Look not every man on his own
things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God,
but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of
a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found
in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore, God also hath
highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every
name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things
in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and
that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to
the glory of God the Father. Wherefore, my beloved, as ye
have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much
more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear
and trembling. Now the verse that I want to
call your attention to is that fourth verse that says, Look
not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things
of others. And the same thought is projected
there in the third verse that says, but in lowliness of mind
let each esteem other better than themselves. Now, this is
contrary to the natural mind. John reminded us of our hostility
and our depravity Sunday in our natural state. Now, the grace
of God is contrary to the natural mind or the natural tendencies.
And certainly, as we read this, we can understand that it is
contrary to our natural evil selves. Let each esteem other
better than themselves. Now, it takes the grace of God
for that to be accomplished. Look not every man on his own
things, but every man also on the things of others. I'll talk about preachers first,
and then I'll talk about parishioners second. The failure
of most preachers is traced not to the fact that they don't have
a pastor's head and a pastor's voice, and the energy of the pastor.
That's not the reason why they are unsuccessful, but they don't
have a pastor's heart. If a man's ever going to be a
pastor, a preacher, he's got to have a pastor's heart. That's
all there is to it. Regardless of how much he's got
up here, if he doesn't have something down here by way of feeling and
concern and understanding, he'll never make it. He won't be successful
in the ministry of the Lord Jesus. He's got to have a pastor's heart.
Now, that's my observation. The failure of most preachers
is traced not to the fact that they do not have a pastor's head,
a pastor's voice, and the energy of the pastor, but they don't
have a pastor's heart. Now, the failure of most church
members and professing Christians, in that they are not a blessing
to others, in that they are not a blessing to their own family
and their own friends, and outsiders whom they come in contact with
day by day, is not because they do not have the proper doctrine.
That's not it. It's not because they do not
have proper moral integrity and enthusiasm for the truth as in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's not it. The truth
is they don't have the proper attitude and love and concern
for others as they ought to. Now that's the reason they're
not successful. Now this verse that I read to
you says that we ought to be concerned about saints and sinners
alike. That's what it's saying. Not
so much being concerned only about self. So many of us are concerned about
our little world. That little world that we live
in that we've got walls tradition and places of refuge built around
us. We're concerned about me and
mine. We're not concerned about others.
We're not concerned about their feelings. We can say anything. Just cut people right and left.
We're not concerned. Well, if that's our case, if
that's our case, we're not concerned. We don't love saints and sinners
alike. We haven't got the heart. of a true Christian, that's the
reason we're unsuccessful right there. You can mark it down.
If you don't really love people, saints and sinners alike, they
sense it. They know it. I know when people
don't like me, don't you? I can tell it. I can tell it.
People avoid me. They'll avoid me. I know folks
that attended this church. that avoid me even now. That's right. And they do so
because they don't like me, and I sense it. I sense it. And you can too. You can sense
when people don't like you. You can't fool people. You can
fool some of the people some of the time. But you can't fool
all of the people all of the time. I don't know who said that,
but that's true. All right. If you really don't
love people, saints and senators alike, they sense it. And they not only won't love
you, but they won't listen to you. They won't listen to you. You can talk till you're blue
in the face, but they won't pay no attention to you. won't listen to you. If you're not really concerned
about the everyday problems and the burdens of others, they don't
want to hear you talk about spiritual problems. If you're not concerned
about them and their children and their needs and their jobs
and their problems, they don't want you to come around trying
to answer their questions in regard to spiritual problems.
They won't listen to you. If you're not concerned about
one part of their being, they don't want you to be concerned
about the other part. They won't listen to you. Now,
most fundamental, separated, religionists that I know have
a big head and a big mouth and a small heart. They've got a big head, a big
mouth, but they've got a little heart. They can't love. They can't be
concerned about anybody but themselves. They live under themselves, and
if they continue in this state, they're going to die under themselves.
Now listen, they want to talk about the things of the Lord,
so-called fundamental, separated, sanctified, holier-than-thou,
big-headed, big-mouthed, little-heart, religionist. They want to talk
about the things of the Lord, but they have little love and
little concern about the needs and the care of others. So, if
that's our case, if that's my case, if that's your case, Don't
blame all your isolation or your loneliness on the gospel. Make a mistake when you do. Much
of it is caused by my unlovely personality and your unlovely
personality. That's involved in that verse. And by the way, that's practical
Christianity. That's what it is. Now, turn with me to Matthew
chapter 6 and I want to read another verse to you. Matthew chapter 6 and verse 22. Let me read both those verses,
22 and 23. The light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single,
thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be
evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore
the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. Now I think I know what that
means and I want to kind of pass it along to you here for your
instruction and edification and for your help here this evening.
The light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be
single or be sound, that's what it means, If thine eye be single,
sound, if your eye be sound, then the whole body shall be
full of light. But if thine eye be evil, unsound,
the whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the
light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. Now,
my, and of course when I say my, I refer to all of us, my
whole physical being responds and acts according to what I
see with my natural eye. The information comes through
the eye and is transported to every nerve, emotion, and faculty,
and I act accordingly. That which I see with the physical
eye. I act according to what I see. It all registers, but it comes
through that eye, and I act accordingly. Now, this is also true of my
spiritual life. I'm talking about, first off,
about our physical, the physical realm. But what's true in the
physical is true in the spiritual. What I see or understand from
the Word of God in the person, the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ, my attitude, my actions, my hope, and all the
motivations that's in me, that comes from what I gather from
preaching, what I gather from study, from what I know of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And this, what I know, motivates
me to act accordingly. If a man is a stranger to the
Word of God, he'll become a religionist and that's all. And that's one reason why I guess
that throughout the Bible, it talks about the Word of God being
a light unto our path and a lamp unto our feet. The Bible says
that we need to study to show ourselves approved unto God,
a workman that needeth not be ashamed. rightly dividing the
Word of truth. And it goes on and on and on
and on in regard to the study of the Bible, search the Scriptures
wherein ye think they have eternal life, but they are they which
testify of me. Read the Bible, study the Bible,
search the Bible as a man and searches for silver and gold,
and God will give him and grant unto him the desires of his heart
in regard to wisdom and understanding and so forth. So it's true, then,
of my spiritual life, what I see or understand from the Word of
God. And the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
preaching I hear, motivates my thinking, my attitude, my actions
and everything else. Now if this eye of understanding,
now here is the truth I want you to get of it, if this eye
of understanding is sound and truly taught of God Almighty,
my whole being will be full of light and truth. My spiritual
life will be lived for the glory of God. If my eye be sound, if
it be sound, My life will be lived for the
glory of God. I'll know something about the
rule and the government of God. I'll know something about the
discipline of God. I'll know something about submitting
myself to God Almighty. I read here recently where a
fellow, surely this fellow, he must have understood some things
that maybe I don't understand. Said this fellow was off to war. And he'd lost his arm, lost his
left arm, in the war, fighting the enemy. And when he came back
home, some of his family and kinsmen and dear friends gathered
around to sympathize with him because of the loss of his left
arm. And he said, Praise God with me that I still got my right
arm. we understand. If this eye be
single, if it be single and not full of darkness, and if it be
sound, our spiritual life will be lived for the glory of God.
But if my eye of understanding is unsound and full of error,
my religious being will be full of darkness. I won't be able
to see. And if what I call light is darkness,
Jesus said, how great is that darkness? Now, in other words,
it's double darkness. It's double darkness. That's
the reason that a man with no religion at all is easier to
preach the gospel of God's grace to than the religionist. Now,
I know that the heathen is in darkness. Now, any man outside
of the Lord Jesus Christ is a heathen. He's a heathen through and through
and he doesn't like that and he won't accept it because his
proud heart rebels against the truth. And you tell him he's
a heathen and he's likely to maybe smack you. He'll fight you if you call him
a heathen. I don't care how good a husband he is. I don't care
if he brings his pay home to you and gives it to his wife
and buys the children clothes and takes them on vacations and
all that. If he's outside of Christ, he's a heathen. And that's
hard, isn't it? That's hard to take. But that's
what he is. He's a heathen. Now, I know that the heathen
is in darkness But the religionist, that's who I'm talking about,
the religionist is hedged about with a darkness that surrounds
his natural darkness. So he's in double darkness. The unsaved, the heathen, he's
in total darkness. But the religionist, who is also
a heathen, has a natural darkness about him. surrounds himself
with his religion and therefore he is in total darkness, a double
darkness. Now, he's built up a false righteousness
and a false idea of God which has to be destroyed even before
you can attack his natural unbelief. You see, he's built up this around
him. It's all described right here.
The light of the body is in the eye. If therefore thine eye be
single, be sound. If your eye be sound, your whole
spiritual being is going to be sound. The whole body shall be
full of light. But if thine eye be evil, be
unsound, then the whole body shall be full of darkness. And
if therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great
is that double darkness So this man, you see, he surrounds himself
with a false righteousness and a false idea of God. He's dead,
but he thinks he's alive. He's a religionist. You can't
tell him he's dead and trespasses down in sin, he doesn't believe
it. He thinks he's alive, but actually he's dead. He's dead
while he lives. He thinks that he has a righteousness,
but he hasn't got it right. He hasn't got any clothing on
at all, but he thinks he's well-dressed. He thinks that the armor that
he wears will afford him the commendation of God Almighty.
He's living in a refuge of lies. He has himself surrounded with
these things. You see, before you can get to
his natural unbelief, you've got to tear away all these other
things. Great is the darkness. You've
got to tear them away. And that's the reason it's so
difficult to preach to a religionist. A man that's trusting in his
moral integrity, or a man that's trusting in his genuineness,
his consistency, his sincerity, his moral goodness. It's hard to preach to him, hard
to preach to him, because he thinks he's all right, you see.
And that's what I'm trying to get us to see here. He thinks
he's all right. He's in double darkness, and all of these things
have got to be, you've got to take a stick and break them before
you can get down to his natural depravity, to his natural unbelief. He's twice as bad as the heathen.
You don't have no problem talking to an out-and-out drunkard, old bum that's down
on his luck and hasn't got any job, and his family's kicked
him out, and he doesn't know where he's going to get the next
meal from, or he doesn't know where he's going to sleep tonight.
You can have no problem talking to him, he'll admit to you real
quick that, yes, I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. I know I'm a sinner. He may not understand the implications
and the ramifications that the Bible has to say about a sinner,
but he knows that he's wrong. And to some measure, he's sorry
for what he's done. But you take a religionist, here
you can't get him to admit that. No, he surrounded himself with
a false peace. He's alright. So you've got to
destroy that false peace before you can get down to his natural
unbelief. So the religionist then, he sits
in the darkness of his castle. and the refuge of lies surrounded
by the walls of false peace and decisionism, religious works
and what have you. And no light under God's heaven
will dispel his darkness of nature until the light of the grace
of God reduces his nothingness and his false religion and just
kind of disintegrates him and destroys him. Nothing is going
to help him. But when the light of God shines
down into his dark, dreary, desolate, poor, ungodly heart, and he sees himself, and he sees
himself as undone, and then and only then Will he
cry out? But you see, all that's got to
be, all this religion, all that false peace and false hope, that's
got to be dealt with before you can ever get down to where he
is. So, the light of the body is in the eye. If therefore thine
eye is single, if your eye is sound, then the whole body is
full of light. You see, if the eye is sound. You're a product of what you
hear. You're a product of what you hear. If you've heard the
truth, if you've heard the truth, and you've come to respect it,
and to revere it, and to love it, and you've submitted yourself
to the discipline of the Lord Jesus, and he's Lord, he's master
of your life, and you've learned, you have learned to some measure
to be content Whatever state you're in, you've learned that. Well, then the person, the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ will motivate you, you see? And you'll live your spiritual
life to the glory of God. It'll be for God's glory. But
if your eye, if your eye of evil is unsound, then the whole body
is unsound, you see? And you live in a double darkness.
and the most that we know today that you and I have anything
to do with. That is, in the world, religious people, the most that
we have anything to do with, these religious people, they're
in double darkness. Double darkness. Oh, it behooves every one of
us to cry out unto God for these that we're concerned about. We
ought to be concerned about people. Be concerned about them. Pray
for them. Pray for them. get the opportunity
to talk to them. They're going to hell unless
God intervenes. And who knows who the elect of
God are? I don't know. I don't know. Neither
do you. We've got to preach the gospel
to everybody. The Lord will call out His own.
He'll call out His elect. Let's be faithful in our responsibility
unto God and our responsibility as Christians. Let's be concerned
about people. Let's not only go around and
try to correct them in their spiritual problems. He won't
listen to you. He won't listen to you. If you're not concerned
about his family, and his job, and his sore finger, or his wife
being in the hospital, don't you go over there and try to
tell him, try to correct him in his spiritual problems. He
won't listen to you. He won't listen to you. If you're not
concerned about one aspect of him, he won't listen to you when
you start talking to him about spiritual things. He won't listen
to you. It takes a long time to build up the respect of an
individual. You know that? It takes a long
time for him to respect you and listen to you. You just jump
right in there, and like some people do, they'll jump in places
where angels fear to try. Jump in and thrash around, don't
know what they're doing. Tear more down. It'll build up
in twenty years. Be concerned about people, saints
and sinners. Paul was, all the apostles were. Throughout the whole Bible it
teaches us that you and I ought to be concerned about people,
concerned about them. I'm not saying that we're to
build hospitals for them and all that, but we could help. Well, that's exactly what it's
saying over there in the book of James when it says if you
go to a man and he's hungry, just look at him and say, well,
be ye warmed and filled. Go your way. Well, that man would
hate you for it, wouldn't he? If you have means to relieve
him, you just look at him and say, well, be you warmed and
filled. Go your way. He'd hate you. And that's the
way most of us do. We go to a fella, and the first
thing you know, we want to jump on him. I'm probably more guilty
than any of you. I've done it numerous times.
Numerous times I've jumped on a fella real quick. Not concerned
about his problems. Jumped on to him about his religion.
Pointed out to him how wrong he was. Not being concerned here
a little bit about his self, about his job, about how hard
he works, all those things. About his wife and his family.
Not concerned about that. Gonna correct him real quick.
Wouldn't listen to me. I don't blame him. I wouldn't
listen to me either. But I've profited a little from
mistakes I've made, and God's given me a little wisdom, and
I hope that He's passed it along to me to use. Let's stand and
we'll be dismissed immediately.