I think I got it on now, right?
OK. It is good to be here with you.
I pray the Lord will bless the message this morning. I'm thankful
that we are together again. You'll take your Bibles and turn
back with me to Psalm 104. Psalm 104. Verse two will be our text. The
title of the message is God's Garment of Light. God's garment
of light. The Scripture says, Bless the
Lord, O my soul. Again, the psalmist exhorts his
soul to bless the Lord. As he did in Psalm 103, he said,
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless
His holy name. As we come before the Lord, are
exhorted here to call upon our own souls to bless, to praise,
to honor and adore the majesty of God. We are to call upon our
souls and stir our souls. How do we do this? Not by emotional
means. Not by outward physical emotion. This is how people usually think
of stirring themselves, is they get a big song thing going and
the band is moving and everybody is jumping up and down, and they
say, my soul! No, your body, your emotions
are stirred, but that doesn't mean your soul is stirred. It's not an exercise of the emotional
flesh, but it is rather a consideration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This stirs the soul of God's
people. It is the gospel of salvation
by the grace of God through faith in Christ alone for the forgiveness
of sins. Now, that stirs my soul because
that meets my need. That meets my need. I have a
need of forgiveness of sins. And the gospel alone can stir
my soul to praise God for the forgiveness of sins, for mercy. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the
soul that is regenerated by the Holy Spirit, is a living soul
created after God in holiness. When God regenerates us, gives
us grace in the inner man, He creates a new nature inside of
us, and that nature is the nature of God. It is a holy nature. And that nature is stirred by
the gospel. Now, the flesh is not stirred
by the gospel. I give witness and testimony
that if you were to put a camera in my office, you would see that
reading and studying the gospel does not stir the flesh. I get weak and weary just like
everyone else in the flesh. How is it that we can watch a
marathon of movies and then read two passages of Scripture and
feel all exhausted? I don't know. Maybe I'm the only
one. That's my flesh. My flesh, once
I enter into spiritual things, the flesh has no interest. If this was appealing to the
flesh, I promise you that this would be full in here. This place
would be packed and we'd be out the door having tickets, selling
tickets. We could sell tickets. If it
appealed to the flesh, then everybody would come. But it's a spiritual
matter, and it only appeals to the holy nature of those who
are regenerated by the Spirit of God. This can only be exciting
by the Spirit of God that dwells in us. It's the only way. It's possible for us to bless
the Lord or stir our souls, to worship God. Believers in Christ,
we are prone to weakness in the flesh, prone to sin and unbelief,
sickness, and all other forms of hindrance. Do you have any
hindrance this morning concerning the worship of God? Because I
do, and I'm preaching it. I've studied it all week, and
I still have a hindrance even telling you about it. The mind
constantly is wandering off somewhere else. Not the spirit. The spirit doesn't wander. It
stays here and it stirs itself up to overcome this old man and
tell him to sit down and shut up. Stir our souls. We're prone to
wander. But the inner man must be put
on and the old man must be put off. Is that not an exhortation
in Scripture? Scripture says that put off,
as you would a garment, put off the old man and put on the new
man. We are exhorted to cast off the
things of this world, the cares of this life, and concern ourselves
only with one thing. The gospel. The glory of God. You know, that's all that God
is concerned about, His glory. Everything works for His glory. How does the flesh always seem
to desire everything to be made simple? And yet, when we present
the gospel in its simplicity, the flesh hates it because it's
not complicated enough. The flesh says there's got to
be more. Nope. The glory of God is all
there is. The glory of God is all we should
desire in our life. That God be honored, that God
be glorified, and that God use us for His glory. That's what
we concern ourselves with. And the rest should be cast off.
The works of the flesh should in no way be considered as part
of any of our salvation. Take any part. No part of the
flesh, no part of the works of the flesh or of man or of the
will of man should enter in to our salvation that gives us this
blessing, this ability to bless God. We do not mix any works
or merit with it. It must be put off. The old man's
got to be put off. In Titus it tells us, not by
works of righteousness which we have done, but by His grace
He saved us. All merit, desires, and lusts
should be put off so that we may stir our hearts to worship
God in spirit and in truth. And when we worship God, when
we bless God, it is not by earthly wisdom we do this. It's not by
earthly wisdom, but by obedience to the truth of God. Bless the Lord, O my soul. And this blessing is personal.
Personal. I cannot make you bless the Lord. There is nothing I can do to
make you bless the Lord. Without His grace, I myself would
not bless the Lord. Without his strength, I would
not bless the Lord. Now, I am in union with you,
we are in union together. We have one Lord, one faith,
one baptism. There's only one church, the
Church of God, the elect. We are the body of Christ and
he is our head, but we cannot make each other bless the Lord,
but we can exhort and encourage one another to bless the Lord.
This psalmist here is saying, Bless the Lord, O my soul. But
I'm seeing encouragement. I'm encouraged by this because
if the psalmist can bless the Lord, I can bless the Lord. And
I'm encouraged that he did. And so by seeing him, I'm encouraged
to bless the Lord. And by seeing you, you encourage
me to bless the Lord. When you bless the Lord, I'm
encouraged to do the same. When I'm cold in heart and full
of unbelief and fear, what blesses my soul the most is that I bless
God. Praise God. That's what I long
to see. When I see you praising God,
it brings joy to me. I can be in the worst depression
or the worst state But when I see God's people rejoicing, I want
to rejoice with them. I desire to. I desire that my
soul bless the Lord. Now, how? Why is it that we are
to bless the Lord with fervency and affection? Look at this.
O Lord my God, Thou art very great. I love these words because
Seeing them on the surface, we think, you know, did you see
that movie? It was really great. No, it wasn't. There's only one great! God. Do you suppose that that
was a nuisance when that man came up and said, good master,
and Jesus said, why callest thou me good? There's none good but
God. How many times have we said something
like that, or somebody said that to us, and we get frustrated
because, you know what I meant! I didn't mean that, but... No,
but really, truly, there's only one great, God. God is great. And not only is He great, He's
very great. Well, how great is very great? These two words are wonderful
in the original. It has a sense of a fire brand
and a fire being set and growing in excellence. You know, you
start out within a fireplace, it starts out really small and
then it grows. What if you start like a little
fire in the field and it starts in a little spark and then all
of a sudden it's a blaze and it's out of control? Well, that's
what these words are. God is a consuming fire. God is very great. very great. It has a sense of
growing. Now, God doesn't grow in greatness. We know that. God is infinitely
great. But I know this, I grow in the
understanding of God's greatness. I have not reached the end of
God's majesty and glory. And so, we say with Job, I would
seek unto the Lord, and unto God would I commit my cause,
which doeth great things and unsearchable." Marvelous things
without number. God is great. Psalm 145, verse
3 says, Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and His
greatness is unsearchable. There's three greats in that
one verse. Great is the Lord, and He is
greatly to be praised, because His greatness is unsearchable. Paul says in Romans 11, O the
depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God,
how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out.
When you hear that, does that make you want to stop worshipping
God because He is so big? Does that make you want to stop?
You shouldn't. It should make us want to go
on, because there's always more. There's always more to know.
There's always more to understand of our God. He is infinite in
grace and mercy. We are made to see God in the
glory of His person. Our souls will never be able
to find out the end of His excellence. Now, if I told you that out here
in the backyard, There's gold. And I point the spot, I put an
X on it, and say, if you start digging here, you'll find gold.
And then I tell you, you find the gold, you're happy. And I
say, well, the further you dig down, the wider it becomes, and
the more gold you'll receive. Dude, you just stop digging at
the, man, that's just too much gold. I just can't, I can't,
you know, I'd just be satisfied with this little bitty thing
here that I've got on top. No, you wouldn't stop, you'd
go get a backhoe, you'd start digging, and you wouldn't stop
until you got every bit of it that you could get. How much
more the excellency of the knowledge of God So vast that we can't understand
His wisdom. It's so unsearchable. Yet, I'm
not going to stop searching it out. Because it's a treasure
to me. Understanding God is a treasure
to me. If you ever think you've reached
the point where you don't need any more understanding or knowledge
of God, it's because you've got the wrong God. Your God's too
little. Your God's not worth the effort. But our God is unsearchable. His ways are past finding out. So unsearchable that if we worship
God and study Him forever, we would never come to an end, even
in glory. The Scripture says that we will
worship God, saying, Blessing and honor and glory and power
unto him that sitteth on the throne and unto the Lamb. How
long? Forever. That's why heaven is
eternal, is because it's an eternal praise unto God's eternal understanding
of an infinite God. I don't think we'll ever reach
the bottom of it. That's why heaven's eternal. We'll continue
to praise Him and bless Him in our souls forever. Now then,
to bless the Lord, there are many things in this chapter that
we can study concerning the greatness of our God-creation. We can study
a whole bunch of things, but I only got stuck in verse 2,
so I didn't get down to anything else. And matter of fact, just
the first part of verse 2. who covereth thyself with light
as with a garment." The thing is, the light of God's
garment reveals Himself. The light of God's garment reveals
Himself. Why do we put on clothes? To
be yourself, right? Because it is a shame for us
to walk around naked. It should be a shame. We should
be ashamed of it. Adam and Eve, when they were
alive, the first thing they noticed was that they were naked. And
they were ashamed. And they ran for cover and tried
to find something to clothe themselves with. You see, they wanted to
hide under clothing. Well, we should. It's a shame. To be exposed. Think of that
woman caught in the act of adultery. There she was, thrown out in
front of the people as nothing. Exposed. We use our garments
to cover, but what is the purpose of God's garments? It's not to
cover. It is to reveal. You see, light
doesn't cover. Light reveals. That's the purpose
of light, isn't it? When you cut on a light, it is
so that you can see, so that you can reveal what's in the
room. You can understand that. Light,
it has a purpose. It's to reveal things. The purpose of light is to reveal,
to chase away the darkness. Light does not hide things as
earthly garments. Therefore, the light of God that
He robes Himself with is meant to reveal Himself to man. That's
what He's talking about. Bless the Lord, O my soul, for
God hath revealed Himself to me. God hath wrapped Himself
in light so as to shine out who He is to me. God informs us that he is the
same yesterday, today and forever. He said, I am God and I change
not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob are not consumed. Now, God always
was light. There's not ever been a time
in eternity that God was not light. But yet there was a time
where God stepped out from eternity into His creation of time and
He robed Himself with light so as to reveal Himself to His creation. He did that when He said, let
there be light. Let there be understanding. Let there be knowledge of God. God has always been light, but
when He set the foundations of the heavens and the earth, He
revealed Himself by this characteristic of light. God was saying, let
there be understanding. Let the creation know that He
alone is God. That He is the light and in Him
is no darkness. at all. God's garment is light because
He desires to reveal Himself to us. Is that not worthy of
praise? Second of all, the light of God's
garment shines out of darkness. Remember that God, when He created
the heavens and the earth, how was the earth It was without
form and void, and darkness covered the face of the deep. The account
tells us in Genesis that it covered the deep. If you look in verse
six of your own text, he covers this. He said, Thou cover'st
it with the deep as with a garment the water stood above the mountains. What is this picturing? This
is picturing the nature of man. It's picturing the justice of
God as covering all men. Even the highest of men cannot
reach and attain a delight or understanding of God. The mountains were covered in darkness. And so were the valleys. All
the earth was in darkness. So deep was the law and justice
of God that the highest of men could not reach the perfections
of light. And when the light, when God
said, let there be light, what did that do? It opened, it revealed
what was there already. Now, when a room is dark and
you go in and flip the light on, the furniture don't all of
a sudden appear. It was already there. It was
already there. We just now are made aware of
it being there. Well, the Scripture says there
is none righteous, no, not one. Now, does everybody know that?
No, not everybody knows that. Some people still think themselves
to be righteous. Some people think that there's
just enough spark of life left in them so that they can please
God. They still have hope that somehow, by their will or the
exercise of religious deeds, that they can somehow reveal
God by their own works. No. How cold and dark is every heart
of the son of Adam. Well, it's as much darkness as
God is light. God is light and in Him is no
darkness at all. In man is darkness and no light
at all. There was no way that the light
could ever come from darkness. You've never heard somebody say,
well, let's make the room darker so that the light. So we can
see you never make the room darker so you can see why light never
comes out of darkness. You see, light has to be brought
in by something else. If the room is dark, somebody
has to bring a light. Somebody has to cut on a light.
And the only way for man who is born dead in spiritual darkness
to know God is that God caused the light to shine out of the
darkness. If you go over to 2 Corinthians.
2 Corinthians chapter 4. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Scripture says in verse 6, For
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to
give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Where? How
can we know the glory of God? How can we know God who is not
able to be seen? How is it that we who are depraved
by nature, who are so sinful and wicked as we are, how is
it that the light can shine out of this darkness? Only if God
commands it to shine out. That's the only way that any
one of us could know God is if God commands the light to shine
out of darkness. How does this light show itself? How is this light coming out?
Well, how did it come out in the beginning? God said, let
there be light. And what? Did the light debate
about this? Was there an argument between
God and the light? Did God have to coax the light
to come out and say, hey light, you need to make a decision here.
I said to come out, but you know, I wouldn't want to affect your
will. No, God said, let there be light and there was light. And when God reveals Himself
to a man, there will be understanding. There will be light in the soul
because God puts it there. And how does he put it there?
By the face of Jesus Christ. You can't know the true glory
of God unless you see it in Jesus Christ. The only way for a man to know
God is by Jesus Christ. In Matthew 11, the Lord Jesus
Himself says, all things are delivered unto me of my Father.
What does that mean? Well, it means that all things
are delivered unto him of the Father. That's what it means.
It's simple. Everything's given into His hands.
The Lord Jesus Christ controls all things. There's not one flake
of snow that has fell that He has not directed by His power. All things are given unto Him
and no man... Now, all of you know about the
Son. I'm sure there's not one person in here that hasn't heard
of the name of Jesus Christ or hasn't heard the story, the history
of this man. I'm sure that everybody here
has heard of the history. But do you know him? Do you know
him? I don't care how much you know
about him. If you don't know him, you don't have this light.
You don't understand who God is unless you know Him. How can
I know Him? He must reveal Himself to us. Otherwise, we will die in our
sins, die in darkness, unless God reveals Himself. Neither knoweth any man father
save the Son, and to whomsoever. The Son will reveal Him. Is that not sovereignty? What part in that did you have
to do? You who know God, did you have
a part? Absolutely not. I didn't have one part in this.
God revealed Himself to me because He would. Not because I was better.
Not because I was good. I was as wicked as anybody else.
I am by nature as wicked as anyone else. The only difference is
that God said, let there be light. Understand and know who I am. How? By the face of my son. See
me for who I am. I am holy and just and will not
clear the guilty. But I'm also a God of mercy,
a God of grace. If you've known God by some other
means than this, then you don't know the Son of God. I've known
men who've actually claimed to see a light come from heaven. That was my brother. And a brother who died in his
sins, still holding on to some little vain imagination that
he saw in a parking lot somewhere. He did not know God. If you've known God by some other
means, then you're in darkness. You're in darkness. A pastor
one time was preaching, and a man was convicted of his sin. And
he began to weep and cry, and he came to the pastor and said,
I need to talk to you. And the pastor said, well, I
really have pressing matters, and here's my elder. You can
talk to my elder. He'll pray with you. And the
elder came and prayed with him, and he prayed such an excellent
prayer. That the man was so overwhelmed with the beauty of his prayer.
And the pastor came to him the next day and said, how are you
doing? What's your hope? And the man
said, well, the prayer that your elder prayed. I'll tell you what,
that gives me good hope. And the pastor said, you don't
have any hope at all. If you're trusting in that man's
prayer, you have no hope. What are you trusting in? Now, that's essential. We are
going to die. No doubt about it. Every one of us. Every one
of us is going to die. Sooner or later, it doesn't matter.
But I know this, when we stand before God, what is your hope? What are you holding on to? I'm holding on to this that God
said, in my soul let there be light, and I saw and know the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have never seen him with these
eyes, but I have seen him with faith. I have seen him who is
my Savior, my Redeemer, and my friend. Jesus is the express image of
God. If you want to know who God is,
you have to know who Christ is. He is God manifest in the flesh,
and if we're to know God, it's because we've seen Him shine
out of the darkness to reveal our need. Do you know your need? I know you know your lusts and
your desires. I'm talking about your need. I need mercy. And I need mercy from God. Anything
else is just not going to cut it. And the light of God or the knowledge
of the glory of God comes through the Word of God. You can only
know God by Jesus Christ, and you can only know Jesus Christ
by the preaching of the Gospel. That's it. There's no other means. You're not going to find God
out there, just wandering in creation, All alone, people think
that they're going to get some epiphany as to who God is, and
then all of a sudden they're going to believe. No, you're
not. No. 1 Corinthians. Read it. 1 Corinthians chapter
1. Paul spends the first two chapters
of this book discussing and telling us concerning the necessity of
preaching the gospel. The necessity. Verse 18, for
the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. Is this foolishness to you? It's
because you are perishing in your sins. But unto us which are saved,
it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding
of the prudent. Where is the wise and where is the scribe?
Where is the disputer of this world? Hath God not God made
the foolishness, the wisdom of this world? For after that, in
the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Were
you saved without preaching? If you were, you're in darkness. If you were saved without preaching,
without hearing the message of Jesus Christ right now as I'm
declaring Him to be, sovereign, majestic, having accomplished
and finished salvation, if you've not heard that message, you're
in darkness. The light comes by the preaching of the gospel.
No man is saved apart from the preaching of the gospel. I like
this, when one pastor was talking to somebody and he said, well,
I was saved without the preaching of the gospel. How do you justify
that? He said, I don't know, it's your
salvation, you justify it. You justify it. God says by the
foolishness of preaching. He has chosen by the foolishness
of preaching. Chapter 2 and verse 7 of 1 Corinthians. Chapter 2
and verse 7 says, But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,
even the hidden wisdom of God, which God ordained before the
world unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world
knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory. But as it is written, I hath
not seen nor ear heard, neither entered into the heart of man
the things of God which hath which God hath prepared for them
that love Him. But God hath revealed it unto
us by His Spirit, for He searcheth all things, yea, the deep things
of God." You see, the God has revealed the message of the gospel,
which is hidden. Hidden. It's a mystery. How is it revealed? By the Word
of God. By the preaching of God, the
light shines. And Jesus said, I am the light
of the world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Should we not bless the Lord
for this light? If you have this understanding,
should you not bless and adore the Lord God? What is it that
you would hold or withhold from Him? Who has given you such light? What is it? He's given us this light out
of darkness. In other words, there was nothing
we did to deserve it. Nothing we did to earn it. How then should we act and treat
others the same way God did for us? Show compassion. To have mercy. and to love each other, even
as Christ loved us. And now then, we who are dead
are given light, which is the light. Life and light are the
same thing. When you are born, you become
aware. You become illuminated with a
new world around you. And when we're born again of
the Spirit of God, all things become new. Have you ever read a passage
of Scripture you've read a hundred times, and then all of a sudden,
as the Lord reveals it to you, it's brand new like you've never
read it before? Wow! Where's that been all my
life? Well, it's been right there,
but you hadn't been able to see it until God opens it to you. The Spirit moves upon the face
of the waters as He did in creation. He moves upon the face of the
heart of man and says, let there be light. And there is light.
There is life. And friends, He will lead us
and we will follow in the light. I love 1 John. I love John, period. In the book of John, you'll notice
if you read through this book, you'll notice that you may know.
I tell you what, the more I know, the more I know that I don't
know anything. The more I understand, the more
I understand, I don't understand anything. But I'm glad for the Apostle
John who wrote that you may know because I I do desire to know. Do you desire to know if you
are deceived or not? Now, a deceived person, do you
know that they don't know they're deceived? Otherwise, they wouldn't
be deceived. The nature of being deceived
is that you don't know you're deceived. I don't want to be
deceived. I don't want to be deceived by
my senses. by my parents, by my friends,
by my church. I don't want to be deceived by
anything. I want to know that I know Jesus Christ. I want to know. Well, how do
you know? Look at verse 6. If we say that
we have fellowship with Him. Now, that's easy to say, isn't
it? You can all say that. But if any man say he has fellowship
with him and walk in darkness, we lie. In other words, if you're
walking in darkness, you walk, if it walks like a duck and quacks
like a duck, it's not a horse. Is that simple? If someone says
they're a believer in Christ, but they're walking after the
course of this world, if they're walking after the things of this
life, and only concerned with their flesh, and only concerned
with the desires of their flesh, then they are lost and not in
the light. They're in darkness. So that
you may know. Well, do you walk in darkness?
Or do you walk in the light? What is it to walk in the light?
Friends, it is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ alone. That is to walk in the light.
That's what it is. Spiritually, to believe on Christ
alone. There's only one light. And it's
a person. It's not a creed. It's not a
law. It's not a tightrope. It's a person. Follow Christ. Those who follow Christ are walking
in the light. And last thing about this light,
this garment of God, it not only reveals God. It not only shines
out of the darkness to reveal Jesus Christ as the savior of
sinners, but it also divides. Light always divides itself from
darkness. When God reveals the gospel to
us by Jesus Christ, there will be a great division that happens. Great division. Where is the
first place we notice this division? In ourselves. There is a great division within
ourselves. Every sinner who comes to Jesus
Christ alone It is because he is given a new nature that was
not there before. Jesus said, that which is born
of flesh is flesh. It'll live flesh. It'll die flesh. It was sinful when it came in.
It's sinful when it'll go out. That's why we don't preach in
the flesh. That's why we don't try to stir
you up with all this fleshly, emotional ritualism. Because
that's deceptive. But one that is born from above,
there will be a distinct difference, because that which is born of
Spirit is Spirit. In other words, when God creates
in us a new nature, that's born of God, it is holy, and no sin
could touch it. No sin can encroach upon it.
Therefore, you have two distinct natures inside of you. You who
believe, you have two natures. You have the old man who is nothing
but sin, and you have the new man that is nothing but righteousness. And these two are diametrically
opposed one to the other. Believer, what would you do?
What do you desire to do? To be righteous. Can you do that? Everything I do, sin is mixed
with it. That's why the Apostle Paul said,
in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. No good thing. And so this light
brings division and strife within our own hearts, for the flesh
lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.
And these two are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot
do what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit,
you are not under the law. Now, that's good. That's good. What does the law do? Does it
help you along your way? Do you find comfort by reading
the Ten Commandments? Thou shalt not lie. Oh, I'm so
good I don't lie. I'm so glad I don't lie. You
liar! The lie, it only condemns us
to be liars. The law doesn't comfort our hearts. It condemns us. Praise God that
we are no longer under the law, but under grace. No longer are we under the law.
We're under forgiveness and mercy and righteousness that Jesus
Christ Himself has provided for us. As light divides in the inside,
in Christ, we are made perfect before God. And when this flesh
drops off in the ground, and it will, the Spirit immediately
ascends unto God in its perfect form. Second, the light divides
the world, us from the world. When we walk in light of the
gospel of Jesus Christ, we desire to love the light because it
reveals our righteousness that's in Christ. But the world hates
the light. Jesus said that. He said that
men love darkness rather than light. Why? Their deeds are evil. The deeds are evil. It's easy
to measure ourselves against another man, isn't it? We can always find somebody lower
in our own eyes, our own estimation. But when God shines that light,
there's nobody lower than me. There's nobody lower than me. But when you shine that light
out to the world, they don't want to hear that. They want you to tell them
how good they are, how great they are, how much better they
are than someone else. I'm sorry, I don't have a message
like that. I don't have a gospel that reads that way. And when you shine that light,
this world will hate you. But Jesus said, even though it
hates you, let your light shine among men, that they may see
your good works and glorify your Father. Either by their evil
actions or by their good actions, they're going to glorify God.
So whether they kill you or whether they embrace you, it doesn't
matter. It's going to glorify God. Many are deceived to think they
see the light, they profess to know God, but they don't have
any interest in the things of God. You remember that man that
walked, that came to the Lord, that rich young ruler. He said, Lord, what must I do to be saved?
And Jesus said, you know the law. What does it say? He said,
love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and
love your neighbors yourself. And Jesus said, you rightly said
that. I imagine that man pulled out his jacket and smiled a great
big smile and he said, now go and do it. Oh, wait a second. And then the man said to justify
himself, who is my neighbor? Now, he didn't justify himself
concerning the love of God. Why? He didn't. It is because
nobody can see that you can say that, oh, I love God. And you
can pretend all you want to in front of men. You can deceive
me. You can reach out and say, oh, I'm a believer in Christ.
Oh, we'll rejoice together. And you can deceive me because
I'm easily deceived. I'll easily take you in. One
thing about it, you won't be deceived. God won't be deceived
by you. And I'll tell you this, the reason
this man asked to be justified by being who his neighbor is,
because everybody can see that. Do you love the things of God? Not asking your neighbor, I'm
asking you. Do you love the things of God? How important are the things
of God to you? To me, they're my life. They're all I have. There's nobody else but Christ. And I say that. I pray that God would give me
grace to make it so. That I wouldn't just say I love
God, but that I would show it by loving you. May God reveal His light to us. May God show us Christ. I pray
the Lord will bless this to your hearts. We'll stand and we'll
be dismissed in prayer.