Let's read this verse 28 through
30 of Matthew 11, then go over to Hebrews chapter 4. Come unto me. Come unto me. All that labor and are heavy
labor. I remember laboring to save myself
and establish my own righteousness. I remember it. Heavy laden, never
did have any rest. But he says, come unto me, all
you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. That's something that
we ought to do, really pay attention to that. Learn of me. Learn of
me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest
for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light. Now there's two rests here that
our Lord's talking about. He said, I'll give you rest.
I'll take that burden and that heavy laden, and I'll give you
rest. And then he says, when you take my yoke and learn of
me, then you shall find rest for your souls. He gives us rest,
but we don't often find it just right away. Do we? So as we learn more of Him, the
better and sweeter our rest that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We repose our souls in Him. Now, over in Hebrews chapter
4, Therefore let us therefore fear lest a promise being left
of us, any of us entering into his rest, any of you should seem
to come short of it. Now here he's talking about another
rest. He said you be afraid, you fear. God left us a promise
that there's a rest. You don't want to come short
of that rest. You don't want to miss that rest.
For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them. But the
gospel that was preached to them did not profit them, did not
do them any good. Why? Because they did not hear
with faith when they heard it. For we which have believed, notice
this, we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said,
as I've sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest,
although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
For he spoke in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise
or in this way. And God did rest the seventh
day from all of his works. And I tell you why did God rest?
God didn't need rest. The reason being because the
work was done. And the reason he said he rested
to tell us that that's what you do. You do the same thing. The work's done. It's finished.
That's what it goes on to say. And in this place again, if they
shall enter into my rest, seeing therefore it remaineth that some
must enter therein. Some got to go into this rest,
and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because
of unbelief. Thousands and thousands and thousands
just started out, fell by the wayside. And again, he limits
a certain day saying in David, today, after so long a time,
as it is said, today, if you will hear his voice, don't harden
your hearts. For if Jesus or Joshua had given
them rest, then would he have not afterwards spoken of another
day? If Joshua could have given them rest, why would God talk
about another day of rest? And look what he says, for there
remaineth the rest to the people of God. For he that is entered
into his rest, he hath also ceased from his own works, as God did
his. And that's what he's talking
about. I got, I got my title of my message this evening, or
this morning, is Rest from Six Fears. Rest from Six Fears. Our Lord said, come unto me.
And I come, and I keep coming, and I just keep coming, and I
keep coming, and I'm gonna keep on coming. And he told me about
a rest. He said, you know that there's
a day, a lot of folks didn't enter into this rest. A lot of
people did not hear the gospel and they heard it and it didn't
do them any good. They kept on laboring, they kept on working,
they kept on struggling. But our Lord Jesus said, I'll
give you rest and then you'll find rest for your souls. And
when He gives us rest, but only to those who come to Him, He
said, come unto Me. Only those who come to Him. And
only when we come to Him will we find that we have that rest.
And men today, I'll tell you, people are all the time looking
for a rest, looking for comfort, looking for ease in this life.
Looking for ease when they get to the end of the way, you know,
they'll work a long time, say, well, you know, I'm trying to
make enough money so that I can have life easy. I want to get my house paid for
so I won't have to worry about it. Everybody looking for rest,
looking for ease, looking for comfort. But our Lord Jesus Christ,
he's talking about rest for the soul. Rest for our hearts. Rest and comfort for our eternal
souls. This thing that lives inside
of us. And our most important goal is
an eternal rest. I want to spend eternity with
the Lord Jesus Christ. My wife, tomorrow will have been
gone five months tomorrow. She closed her eyes, took her
last breath and entered into glory just like that. Entered
into an eternal rest. She could enter there because
she had one here. And I want that eternal rest,
that blessed eternal rest. And there are four things that
time hasn't changed and I know you've heard this many times.
Four things that time has never changed and never will. We only
have one life to live. Just one is all we have. We only
have one death to die. We're all going to go the way
of the house appointed for all the living. And we all have one
judgment to face. And then we have an eternity
to spend after that judgment. And here in Hebrews 14 it says,
For he that is entered into his rest, he hath also ceased from
his own works as God did his. And some didn't enter in because
of unbelief. But he said in verse 3 of Hebrews
there that which we have believed do enter into rest. We do enter
into rest. We've entered into a rest. And
why? Because we ceased as God did from our own works. You can't
rest if you're working. You can't find any rest if you're
trying to please God. You can't find any rest if you're
trying to satisfy your own soul. You can't find any rest if you're
trying to satisfy your own conscience. But when you see that God ceased
from His works, and this was finished from the foundation
of the Word, then you just stop. That's the thing, Bob, we preach
all the time. Just stop! Lay back and rest your soul,
repose your soul in the Lord Jesus Christ. And all the scriptures
tells us about fear. There's two fears in the scriptures.
There's the good fear, the fear of God. A fear that God puts
in our hearts that we don't want to displease Him, don't want
to dishonor Him, don't want to in any way impugn His character,
impugn His glory, in any way bring any shame or reproach upon
Him. And then there's a fear that the scripture says hath
torment. And that fear that hath torment, God hath not given us
the spirit of fear, but the spirit of a sound mind. And there's
a fear, an evil fear, and it's an awful thing. I don't know
if you've ever experienced it or not. But this fear that hath
torment, it's an awful thing to have a fear that just torments
you. And I remember very well when I was a young man, I had
a fear that tormented me for over three years. And I remember
it tormented me so much that I wanted to commit suicide, I
don't know how many times. And the reason I didn't was because
I was afraid that I would hurt my family, and not only
that, but I thought, well, if I do that, and at that time I
was a professed believer, and I said, and even a preacher,
I said, if I do that, then people's gonna say there's nothing to
God. And I tried to figure out a way to make it look like an
accident, but couldn't. And that's a fear that has torment.
You know, in trying to satisfy God, that's a fear that has torment.
There's men that's going to go out into eternity and they lay
in their beds, they lay and thinking, oh, what am I going to do? Here
I am fixed to go into eternity and this fear grips them. And
now what am I going to do? We'll call the preacher. Too
late to call the preacher. And oh, beloved, there are six
fears we as believers are resting from. Here's the first one. We
have a rest from condemnation. We are resting from condemnation. You know, Romans 8.1 says this.
There is therefore now no condemnation to who? Them that are in Christ
Jesus. Now, every time you read that,
it always says now. You know, read that again tonight,
it'll still say now. You read that 25 years from now,
if you live that long, you'll read it, it'll still say there's
therefore now, right now. Right now, no condemnation to
them that are in Christ Jesus. Our Lord says the hour is coming
and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of
God and they that hear shall live. And he that believeth on
the Son hath life. He that believeth not the wrath
of God abideth on him. And I tell you, we've got rest
from condemnation. We've got rest from the... And
this is... Condemnation means judgment.
We're resting from the judgment of God. God's already judged
us. And He judged us in His blessed
Son and He cannot possibly come and judge us ever again. And
that's why there's no condemnation. And then we're resting from the
condemning power of the law. Look over in Romans 8 with me
just a moment. We're resting from the condemning
power of the law. I never will forget years ago,
Scott Richardson said, you know what will satisfy a conscience,
a screaming conscience, is a perfect sacrifice. You find that if God
accepts a sacrifice, then that sacrifice is perfect. then your
conscience, when it takes that sacrifice, your conscience is
satisfied just that quick. Never looks for anything else
just that quick. But here he says, and we're talking
about the law. The law is something that a lot of people
really, they say it's the rule of life. You know, we believe
in the grace of God, but yet, you know, you've got to have
a rule of life. I remember one fellow called me one time and
he said, you know, he said, what time do you service in the morning?
And I said, I told him. He said, well, he said, I go
to Sunset Church and it's a Reformed Baptist. And I said, you know
what a Reformed is? And I said, yeah, I do. And so he started
asking me, he says, now, what do you do about church discipline?
What do you do with people that commit adultery and lies and
and steals and all that. And I said, listen. I said, now
listen to me. When I was unconverted, I knew
all that stuff was wrong. I did, didn't you? I don't need
a law to tell me what I'm supposed to do and what I'm not. And they
want to bring that condemning power of law and set it down
as a rule of life. What was Abraham's rule of life
before the law was given? Huh? What was Noah's rule of
life before the Ten Commandments was given? What did those men
live by? They lived by faith. They lived
looking to the glory of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. But now
look what he says there in Romans chapter 8 and verse 1. There
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus
who walk not after the flesh. Now there's the key right there.
We are putting no confidence in the flesh. Then me that is
in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. I mean this for you know
what? Has the flesh ever contributed
to our salvation? Has the flesh ever done anything
for us in our salvation? Has it made us better? That's
why Paul said, Having begun in the Spirit, are you now going
to be made perfect by the flesh? The flesh has got nothing in
this business of salvation. And to walk after the flesh is
for a man to say that there's something I must do to add to
what Christ did. But he said we don't do that.
We walk after the Spirit. And where does the Spirit take
a man? The Spirit brings a man to Christ. The Spirit brings
a man to the gospel. The Spirit brings a man to rest.
The Spirit brings a man to bow down and worship. For the law
of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, we sung it, Christ liveth
in me. For the law of the principle
of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free. What
from? The law of sin and death. And oh, here's what the law could
not do. And that it was weak through
the flesh. There's nothing wrong with the law. Problems with us. Problems with us. And God sent
his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, judge
sin in that man's flesh there that day on that blessed cross.
And I tell you, beloved, and I say, Our Lord Jesus Christ,
He said, Cursed is everyone that continueth, not in all things,
written in the book of the law to do them. But Christ was made
a curse for us to redeem us from the curse of the law. And the
law was a schoolmaster. And when we're talking about
the law, I'm talking about all the word of God and then all
the ceremonies and rituals. But the law was a schoolmaster.
And when you go back and read the Old Testament and we try
to do things and all that, we've been taught, we finally realize
God taught us that everything about the law and everything
about the scriptures was a schoolmaster to teach us about Christ. You
find him in Genesis 3.15, you find him in Genesis 1, 1.1, in
the beginning, God created. Well, who'd he create by? He
created by his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, you know,
He redeemed us from the curse of the law, but as a schoolmaster.
And once you come to the Lord Jesus Christ, we don't need a
schoolmaster anymore. Right? He brought us to Christ. And I'll tell you something else
we rest from. And I don't know if you'll understand
this or not, but I do. But we rest not only from condemnation
and condemning power of the law, but we rest from condemning and
judging others. among the Lord's people. You
know that? Passing judgment on people. I
personally, I found this out years and years and years ago.
The Lord, if you're His sheep, He gonna take care of His sheep.
He don't need me telling you what to do and how to do it and
where you can go and where you can't go. How you can dress and
what you can do and who you can fellowship with and who you can't.
who you can go and watch. If the Lord, if he ain't big
enough to take care of you, some little old two by four preacher
like me certainly ain't going to do any good. Huh? The Lord will take care of his
sheep, just as sure as you're sitting here. Somebody may get
out of pocket, but if they do, God knows how to put them right
back in. That's why, you know, that's
why we don't lay down any rules. You know, folks by their very
nature, They love something, you know, if I had this, this
up here, if I, you know, if I had, they told me how I was supposed
to dress. Well, I can do that. And then they told me, you know,
well, you can go here, but you can't go over there. And they
like to go right down 10, 12, 14 things. And they say, oh man,
that's great. And that, and if we do all those
things, we'll be okay. And people love that stuff, but
the gospel won't let us do that. He won't let us do that and that
the gospel will not let us pass judgment upon brothers and sisters
of what they do. The Lord can take care of his
sheep. He has the power to condemn us and he has the power to justify
us. He's the only one who does. And
the kingdom of God's not in meat, not what a fellow eats. It's
not in drink. But it's in righteousness, peace,
and joy in the Holy Ghost. And the gospel, I'm telling you
what, look over in Galatians 5.22 with me just a moment. You
know, this is about the rest from condemning
others. We don't want to tell the Lord's
people what they can do and what they can't. I don't want nobody
telling me. And let me tell you something.
You fellas talk about this law and that. When you get home this
afternoon and you walk in the door, lay down the law to your
wife. Lay it down. Now this is what you're going
to do. And you're going to do this, and you're going to do
that, and I want it at this time, and I want you to... And you
know what's going to happen? You're going to start a fight.
And that's all the law does, it starts fights. But the grace
of God, it takes care of that stuff. And look what he said
here, Galatians 5.22. But the fruit of the Spirit is
love. Oh, love. Peace and joy. Long-suffering,
oh my, bear with that fella. People's bore with me for so
many years. Gentleness, oh, being gentle to people. Not harsh,
unkind, critical. Goodness, faith, meekness, pliability,
temperance. And there ain't no law against
that. Who in the world's gonna ever get upset with you if you
act like that? Who's gonna get upset with you?
Oh man, you can treat me that way all you want to, what I just
said. And I'll just absolutely, I'll never ever get upset with
you for loving me. I'll never get upset with you
for all the joy you have and the peace you have and the faith
you have and the meekness you have and gentleness you have.
I'll never get upset with you over that. Would you? No, that's what he's talking
about. And, oh, beloved, that's what we want. We rest from condemning
others. The Lord will take care of His
people. And I'll tell you something else we rest from. We rest from
being lost eternally. There is a lot of people where
I live, and they around here too, that they honestly believe
that you can be saved and be lost again. And most of you,
probably sometime in your life, you believe that. You believe
that if you didn't live a certain way, And that's all preachers
had to talk about was what you had to do, what you had to do.
And there's people who are scared to death that they're going to
be lost eternally. In multitudes, they think you'd be saved and
lost again. But here it says we have ceased
from our own works as God did for His. You see, if you're going
to work, then you've got to be saved by work. And God's work
is done. He finished the foundation from
the beginning of the world. Let me show you something about
God's work in Ecclesiastes 3. Look at it with me just a moment.
Ecclesiastes 3. Isaiah, Song of Solomon, and
then Ecclesiastes. But you know, there's people
down home, and it's sad. You know, one of my dear, dear
neighbors, he's my son's age, and they grew up together and
played together. And they got him teaching Sunday school and
I was helping him build his barn. And he constantly talked about,
you know, I know a man can be lost again. I know a man can
if he don't live right. I know if he don't attend church
regularly. I know. And he said, I know that
a man can be lost again. He said, I just was convinced
of it. And you try to talk to him and you can't talk him out
of it. You can't convince him. The salvation is something that
God did, not something that you did. And here it says in Ecclesiastes
3.14, I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. How long is it going to do? Forever.
Nothing can be put to it, anything taken from it, and God does it.
Why? That we should walk in fear before
Him. If it's God's work, I know this.
He said, He which hath begun a good work in you, what's he
gonna do? He's gonna perform it until that day. And I tell you, beloved, there's
three eternals. God only deals in eternity. The only reason we have time,
and you find this throughout the scriptures, David says, Lord,
show me my days. Make me to know the end of my
days. Make me know all the, how long I've got, you know, and
you know, your life is spent. God gives us time and he gave
us time to make us measure time. To make us realize that time
is going, going, going. I remember being 20 years old
and I still feel awful young. But time has went from 20 to
65 like that. And so God gives us time to make
us conscious of time, us aware of time, us realizing that things
are winding down. But He measures, He don't measure
time. He measures from eternity to
eternity. And there's three eternities
in Hebrews chapter 9. The first one is that Christ
entered in with His own blood and He obtained eternal redemption
for us. The second thing is eternal there,
He got us an eternal inheritance. And the third thing is we cease
from our works by the Eternal Spirit. So everything about God
is based on Eternity. And that's what we look at. We're
looking past this world and we view in Eternity. And I love
looking into Eternity. I'm not afraid to look into Eternity.
Are you? I'm not. I'm not. And I tell you, believers
are eternally saved. The Scriptures, our Lord Jesus
Christ said, I give unto them, what? I'm going to give them
life until they start acting like a fool. I'm going to give them life until
that man and wife, they just fuss and fight and argue, and
then I'm going to cut them off. I'm going to give them life until
that one fellow, I heard him cuss the other day, said something
he shouldn't say, and I'm cutting him off. If God cut us off over things
like that, there wouldn't be a soul saved on topside of God's
earth. But oh, bless His name. He said,
I, I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
NEITHER SHALL ANY MAN PLUCK THEM OUT OF MY HAND. AND NO MAN IS
ABLE TO PLUCK THEM OUT OF MY FATHER'S HAND, FOR MY FATHER
IS GREATER THAN ALL. SO WHAT WE'VE GOT, WE'VE GOT
A TWO-FISTED SALVATION. WE'RE IN THE HAND OF CHRIST AND
WE'RE IN THE HAND OF GOD, AND WHO CAN GET US OUT OF THEM TWO
HANDS? And you know why we believe?
And why we're going to be eternally saved? Because God said, Everyone
who he said he was foreordained to believe As many as were foreordained. What did they do they believe?
And I asked you last night. Could you not not believe? Huh? And I tell you were you burdened
were you heavy laden and when you come to Christ you laid all
that down I Remember years and years ago We had a weed-back
chair and we lived in a trailer when we first moved to Tennessee
until we built a house. We had a little old weed-back
chair, kind of like that one there. And I sat in that thing
and I sat and read. And I was reading through Romans
and I come to that part where there's no condemnation that's
in Christ. And I'm telling you why it dawned
on me. And I had labored for years and
God just turned on the light. And I realized that God was not
angry with me anymore because of Christ. Because I was always
trying to get on the good side of God. Did you all ever do that? Always, you know, get on the
good side of God. I didn't know, you know, He don't
have a side. You know, He's eternal. The heavens
can't contain Him. But anyway, I remember that and
I just throwed up both hands like that right there and went
to crying. My soul right that day went to
rest and has never ever picked up anything else again to approach
God with. God is anger's God. And I laid my burden down right
then and there. And let me tell you another thing
of rest we rest from. Here's the third rest. We rest
from the fear of sin having dominion over us. Are you afraid that
sin sometimes is so powerful that it's going to reign over
you, it's going to destroy you, that it's going to come and has
such a power over you that you can't resist it? Now, I tell
you, beloved, sin is a tyrant. Look over here in Galatians 5.17
just a minute. Sin is a tyrant. It reigns. The scripture tells us sin reigned
under death. Sin is a tyrant. Sin is a sovereign. It's got power. It's a powerful,
powerful force in a man. He's born with it. He lived with
it. But thank God for those who have come to Christ, they won't
die with it. But look what he said in Galatians
5, 17. The flesh lusteth against the
spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary,
the one to the other, that you cannot do the things that you
would. Now, we never, you know, here's, we got the flesh, and
this flesh wants to do certain things, this old fallen nature.
But the Spirit of God says, no, you can't go that, you went that
far, you can't go any farther. And then we come in here to worship.
We come in here by the Spirit and we want to worship and we
want to enter into the worship. We enjoy the things of God. And
yet this flesh keeps us from being as spiritual as we would. And enjoy the gospel as we would.
So you got this fight going on in you all the time. All the
time. And over in Romans 5 21 it says,
You know, therefore as sin hath reigned, Where sin reigned, grace,
grace did much more abound. And I know this, beloved, let's
look in Romans 6, just a minute. Sin is not gonna have dominion
over the Lord's people. But over in Romans chapter 4,
or 6, excuse me, 6, let's look at this just a minute. And here's what the apostle's
talking about, about sin. He said, what shall we say then?
Shall we continue, and since grace reigns over sin, and where
sin did abound, grace did much more abound. Oh, sin abounds. I mean, it's just about, but
grace comes and abounds over that sin. We'll not let sin reign. Grace will not let it do it.
And then he says, well, then what are we going to say then
since grace abounds over sin? What are we going to say then?
Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound more? The more
we sin, the more grace we get. And that's what Paul is saying
here. No you're not. That so many of
us as we're baptized into Christ, into Jesus Christ, we're baptized
into His death. Therefore we are buried with
Him by baptism into death. He's talking about dying here.
And as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the
Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. And
that's what we do. We died with Christ. We identified
with Christ. And look what he says down here
in verse 7. For he that is dead is free from
sin. The minute you die, sin has absolutely
no more power over you. Can't do anything else. Now if
we be dead with Christ, WE BELIEVE THAT WE SHALL ALSO
LIVE WITH HIM. IF WE DIED WITH HIM, WE'RE GONNA
LIVE WITH HIM. KNOWING THAT CHRIST BEING RAISED FROM THE DEAD, HE
AIN'T GONNA DIE ANYMORE. DEATH HATH NO MORE DOMINION OVER
HIM. NOW LISTEN TO THIS. FOR IN THAT HE DIED, HE DIED
UNDER SIN ONCE, BUT IN THAT HE LIVETH, HE LIVETH UNDER GOD.
NOW HERE'S WHAT HE'S SAYING. THAT AS CHRIST DIED, AND HE DIED
UNDER SIN ONCE, AND IF WE'RE IN CHRIST, WE ARE DEAD TO SIN
JUST LIKE HE IS. Dead to it. And that's what he's
talking about. You say, well, it's not dead
in me. But that's what he's talking about. We are dead to sin. Sin
cannot reign over us. We died with Christ. Likewise,
reckon yourselves also to be dead unto sin, but alive unto
God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And oh, look what he says down
at verse 14. for sin shall not have dominion over you. Why won't
it? Because you're not under law,
but you're under grace. Ain't nothing you got to do,
you just rest in grace. And our Lord Jesus, he asked
him, he said, do you know, can you be baptized with the baptism
I baptized with? Will you be able to go what through
I went through? And they said, yes, we're able.
And that was talking about his suffering, his going to the cross
and all that he's going to go through. And just as sure as
they said we are able, because He did it, we did it in Him.
When He was baptized into death, we were baptized into His death.
When He died on the cross, we died with Him. When He rose again,
we rose with Him. When He sat down at the right
hand of God, we sat down with Him. Ain't that what the Scriptures
teach us? And right now, I'm sitting with
my Master in glory. One of these days it'll be a
reality to you. Right now it's faith. But one
of these days it'll be a reality to us. And it doesn't say we
have no sin, but that we're dead to it. It does not rule over
us. And I know something for sure,
God's people does not use grace as an excuse to sin. I'll tell
you a fourth thing that we rest from. We rest from ceremonies,
rituals. Old-fashioned way. You ever hear
the old-fashioned way? They got two churches down home
called Old-Fashioned Baptist Church. You ever heard the old-fashioned
way? And, oh, listen, we rest from
ceremonies and rituals, and Baptists have ceremonies. You remember
when people bring their babies in to have them dedicated in
the services, you know? And they'd bring them up and
put them on the altars. And any of y'all ever been in places
like that? Yeah. I read the other day one lady,
she said, I need some prayer warriors. I need some prayer
warriors. And I thought, what in the world
is a prayer warrior? But I tell you what, a list of
folks that long. Oh, I'm praying, I'm praying,
I'm praying, I'm praying. Now, then they talk about the
old knee right way. Yeah, old-fashioned altar, traditions
of men. long prayers, altars to get on,
traditions of men, long prayers, and trying to be religious. Did
you ever try to be religious? Try to do something you know,
trying to be something you're not. Should you pray over and give
thanks for a hamburger when you're sitting in McDonald's and let
everybody know how religious you are? Reach over and get your wife,
get your children, get everybody's hands and say, Lord, we thank
you for this Big Mac. Trying to be religious. Let everybody
know they're Christians, you know. And they go through all
this old rigmarole. And it's just awful. They talk
about, you know, we used to have an altar years and years ago.
And folks would just come and pray and pray and pray and pray. You ever hear of anybody praying
through? People pray through, you know. Oh, thank the Lord. He got it, he got it, he got
it. Well, he got it, but the Lord
didn't get him. He got something. And you know
us preachers have nervous breakdowns, putting burdens on people that
they can't bear themselves. So we're going to rest from these
ceremonies. We're not going to go through
any kind of a ritual. We're not going to have, you know, let's
have a penny march, you know. Let's recognize the oldest mother. Let's recognize the youngest
grandmother. Let's recognize the youngest,
the newest newlyweds. Let's recognize, you know, you've
got to recognize so-and-so's birthday and, you know, and you've
got to go, that has to be recognized. Everybody has to be recognized.
But one thing about us, we just want to sit and worship the Lord. What would you do if I gave an
altar call this morning? I'd say, anybody who wants to
come to Jesus, you come up here in the front. You're not ashamed of Jesus,
are you? You're not too proud to come
up here and accept Jesus, are you? There's lots of ceremonies and
rituals that people go through and that's all it is. All hearts
and minds clear? Anybody else got another song
to sing? How about a testimony before we leave? Do you all remember all that
stuff? I tell you that's, thank God, thank God, thank God. And let me tell you something
else for the rest of time. I'm taking too long. We rest from fear of
opinions of men. What men, now when it comes to
the gospels, what I'm talking about, when it comes to the gospel
and our belief of the Lord Jesus Christ and his blessed work and
what he done for men and women in Christ, we rest from the fear
of opinions of men. What they care, say about us
when I stand in the gospel, we absolutely do not care. You know,
when Paul, he said, he told the Corinthians, he said, you know,
he said, there's somebody over there, they're committing fornication
and you still are being sorry about it and repenting about
it. You're boasting, you're bragging about it, you're boasting, you're
sitting down on these folks. And Paul says, that's not thought
not to be. And oh, listen, he's told, you
know, he said, do we persuade men or do we persuade God? What
are we going to persuade God to do? So what are we in? We're in the
business of persuading men by God's grace to come to Christ.
We persuade men to believe the gospel. We persuade men to cease
from the works. We persuade men and women to
just rest in Christ. Cease from it. Quit doing everything. Just quit. And over here in Galatians
2, let me show you this, just a minute, in Galatians 2. Now,
I care what people think about me. I do. I do. I'm not saying
that. I care what people think about
me. I care when I go in a restaurant to eat, I care how I conduct
myself with that waitress. When I buy gas, I care about
how I react and treat the person that I'm going to pay at the
counter. I'm very concerned about those things. I want to and they
don't know I'm a preacher, they don't know I'm a Christian, don't
have any idea. But I'm very concerned about how I treat people. Not
so much how they treat me, but how I treat them. So I'm very
interested in watching my character and my conduct. I've got neighbors
right down the road from me. And I'm very interested in what
their opinion of me is, is how I carry myself and conduct myself.
Very, very interested in that. Very careful about those kind
of things. But when it comes to the gospel, when it comes
to what we know of Christ, we know all men are on the same
level. I mean, you can't turn your hands for the difference
in them. Now, I don't want anybody to get upset with me over anything
I say or do as far as my own personal life goes. But if they
get upset with me and don't like what I say when it comes to the
gospel, that's their problem, not mine. That's their problem,
not mine. And look at what he said here
in Galatians chapter 2, and this is where Paul Went up to Galatia
and he said, after 14 years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas
and took Titus with me. And I went up by revelation,
communicated the gospel to them that I preached among the Gentiles.
And he said, and to them which were of reputation, men that
God had blessed. And he said, lest I should run
or had run in vain. But neither Titus, who was with
me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised." Now this
is what I'm talking about. They said, now Paul, this man's
got to be circumcised. He can't be saved. You know you're
going to have to circumcise him. Paul said, it ain't going to
happen. It ain't going to happen. Well listen, you ain't going
to have fellowship with us if you don't circumcise him. If
you don't get him, if you don't get his life straightened out,
if you don't do this and that," said Paul, he said, you know,
we're in trouble. And he come down there and then
Simon Peter, he got up there and all of a sudden, you know,
he said all those Jews come down there and he was sitting with
some Gentiles and he jumped up and left. And Paul says, you
listen to me. You listen to me. You left the
gospel when you left that table. You left the gospel when you
walked off and did not stand up to those Jews over the gospel
of justification by faith and faith alone. And Paul said, I
withstood him to his face. Now he wanted his reputation
intact. He said, I don't want to run in vain, but I tell you
what, he says, when it comes to the gospel, nobody, nobody
is going to dishonor Christ in his gospel. And that's what I'm
talking about. I'm very interested in how I, in your home. And you're
all interested in how you act towards me. We all do that. Very
interested in that. But when it comes to the gospel,
we absolutely do not care what men say, think, or do about us.
We just don't care. You remember when the blind man
in John chapter 9, the Lord Jesus opened his eyes. He'd been born
blind. And those Jews kept coming over there and said, who gave
you sight? Who gave you sight? Who gave you sight? That man
over there, Jesus of Nazareth. And they finally went to his
parents and they said, tell us, is this your son? He said, you
ask him, you ask him, he knows. And you know why they said that?
Because they were afraid of being put out of the synagogue. They
wouldn't even own Christ and own what Christ had done for
their son because they didn't want to be put out. They was afraid, afraid of men.
And I tell you what, Take me anywhere you want to, just don't
take the gospel. We're not going to compromise the gospel. Give
you the last thing. Here's the last thing that we
don't fear. We don't fear trials. We don't
fear trials. Why don't we fear trials? Because
they come from our Father's hand. And with our Father, ever put
anything in our hands and give us anything in our life that's
not the very best that could possibly be for us. I found that
to be so ever since I've been a believer. He sends them because
we need them. He said if need be, if need be,
if it's necessary, you be in heaviness through all these different
trials and all these different heartaches and all these different
sorrows. He said, if you be in heaviness, and I know, I know,
the apostle says, we know that all things, I mean from the day
before we come from our mother's womb to the day he takes us to
glory, all things work, work together for good, not for everybody,
but to them that love God, to them that they're called according
to his purpose. Now I tell you, beloved, When
somebody gets sick, somebody you love gets sick, you say,
well, what good is this? Well, it'll make you stop and
rest and trust in Christ, cause you to seek the Lord. And if
it ultimately ends up in your eternal good, that's really good. That's really good. That's wonderful. You know, you
may have the disease in your body right now that God's going
to take you home in the next six or seven, eight months. And
it'll be good. It'll be good. It'll give everybody
a chance to an opportunity to pray for you, to love you, help you express their love for you and
take care of you. God sends things in our lives
so we can be lights to others and we can help people when they're
in trouble. And he said, and I know this,
that the sufferings, the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed
in us. I know that. And he calls them
the light afflictions, light afflictions. Everybody's lost
somebody that they love. Some people's buried their children. And I've buried two babies, buried
a five-year-old, two five-year-olds. I was with a man and he dug his
granddaddy's grandbaby's grave, went out there and dug her little
dug a little grave. Me and his, him and his wife
and his daughter and her husband, me and Mary, we went out there
and took that little old casket, dug the grave, set it down in
there, said a few words, covered it back up. Grandpa covered it
back up, patted it back down. Heartaches is just part of living.
And it's how we honor God through him. And I know and Bob knows,
you know, all of you know that truly, truly his grace is sufficient. You don't need grace until you're
in that situation. And when you're in it, he gives
grace. He'll never, ever let you down. And he means to conform
us to his image. And to conform to his image,
a lot of us got to be chipped off. A lot of us got to be whittled
down. And who don't want to be conformed
to the image of Christ? And let me, Gabe quoted this
on the way this morning. Look at Isaiah 53. No, Isaiah
43, excuse me. You know, Reality is people we love, they're
going to be with the Lord. They're with Christ. They really
truly going to be with Christ. We know that. We rest in that. Find great joy in that. We get
great comfort in that. But the other side of it is our
reality is that they're not in the house anymore. You don't
hear their voice anymore. You don't get in bed beside them
anymore. You don't sit down in the living
room and sit there and just be together, not to have to say
a word. That's the reality. That's what we deal with in this
world. That's the reality we have to face when somebody we
love is gone. And all of you've been through
that, and you'll go through it again. But the Lord means to conform
us to his image. And Lord, if you have to take
me like this glass right here and throw it against the wall
and break it into a thousand pieces and then put it back together to use me for your glory, just
go ahead and bust it all to pieces. Right? But look what he said
here at Isaiah 43. But now thus saith the Lord that
created thee, O Jacob. He that formed thee, O Israel,
fear not. For I have redeemed thee, I bought
you, I paid for you. And I, guess what, I called you
by your name. And listen to what it says, you
are mine. I'm my beloved's and my beloved
is mine. When thou passest through the
waters, and you will, I'll be with thee. And through the rivers,
they shall not overflow thee. And when you walk through the
fire, think it not strange concerning the fire, we shall try you. And
when you've walked through the fire, you shall not be burned,
neither shall the flame kindle upon you. For I am the Lord thy
God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. Oh, bless his name. Again, I'm
going to tell you, if he's been better to anybody than me, I've
not met him yet. And when our Lord says, you know,
come unto me, all you that burden are heavy laden, and I'll give
you rest, and take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, and you
shall find rest for your souls. What a blessed exchange. He gets
our burdens, we get his rest. He gets our sins, we get His
righteousness. He gets our curse, we get His
blessings. He gets our death, we get His
life. He gets our shame, we get His
glory.