I have osteoporosis. Cascading
bone. Cascading. Thank you. and an an Yeah, Daniel? He's running forward. I see him. so so There was a man back east somewhere,
brother had died, got on to be with the Lord and he went to
the pulpit and he said, I got good, I thought I was gonna be able
to do that. He said, I got great news. He says, our brother, Our brother
has no more sin. Isn't that great news? Isn't that awesome? I look forward
to the day when there's no more sin in this one who stands before
you. The body of our dear brother
Bill continues to be kept alive through machines. There is no
brain. I confirmed this just a little
bit ago. I heard about it last night from his sister. But I got a phone call from the
hospital just a few minutes ago. And the chaplain over there wanted
to know if there was anything I wanted. I guess they say last rites, those
kinds of things. I don't need to be in the presence of a shell. I know where my brother is, and
I know this is a personal belief. But I believe the Lord took him
right there at the side of the road. His mind, his body was
only kept going because somebody pounded on his chest so hard
that it broke his ribs. It's not, you disconnect all
of man's inventions and that body will turn to dust just like
it's supposed to. I believe my brother stands right
now. And I thought I had all the tears
out already by now. I guess not. I guess not. They're going to
disconnect everything this afternoon. So I have no doubt we'll have services
here in the next two to three weeks for our dear brother. May
God give us the ability to speak to some of those who knew him.
And he had a pretty big group of people. He rode with a lot
more people than just me, you know. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we
could get the entire hog group, the motorcycle group called Hogs,
H-O-G, Harley Owner Group, to show up here for Bill's funeral
and hear the gospel and maybe God would call one of his people
out of the darkness that is in that group, you never know. I
just pray the Lord's will will be done. You? Amen. Before we begin with our opening
prayer, I'd like to ask you, I mean our opening hymn, I'd
like to ask you to stand with me. And once again, allow me the
privilege and the honor to lead us to the throne of grace. Savior, Lord of all that is, your children gather this morning in recognition of your sovereign
rule over everything. As our Lord once said, Father, if you would
remove this cup from me, nevertheless, nevertheless, Lord, thy will be done. What a blessing, Lord, that we can say we praise you. For we who were
blind at one time can see that we would have never said those
words in truth and in spirit while we walk blindly. We can say that we believe you,
Lord, because your word has taught us that our faith We ask you, Lord, to bless these
services this morning. Be with us as we sing hymns that
praise our Savior. I ask, Lord, that you be with
my brother Lee as he reads from the Psalms this morning, our
continuation of reading through the Psalms. I ask you, Lord, to be with me. Be with me as I stand before
your children this morning. I have nothing. I come to this
pulpit empty. My mind has been consumed by
a friend. And I sat and realized this morning,
Lord, I come empty every day. I search for a message, but it
is you, Lord, it is you who must speak the message to your people. I may come empty, but Father,
you have everything. You have all that we need. Righteousness, sanctification,
justification, redemption is all in you, Lord. Be with our sister Cheryl as
she comes and sings special music this morning, Lord, and I ask
for I ask for you to give option. Give the words you need our dear
brother Clay to stand before his people also. These vessels
that you have chosen, that you've given to your sheep to stand
before them, Father, we need you. We have the easiest job in the
world, someone once said, but it is the hardest. It's the hardest because we know
the depth of sin that lies within us. To stand before folks and
talk about the most righteous thing there is, and that's your
son, Christ Jesus. And it is in his name, it is
in him, it is in him that we come before you this morning,
Lord. Bless us, bless us for your son's sake, we ask in his
name, Christ Jesus, amen. Would you turn to page 371 and join me in singing, Have
Thine Own Way, Lord. 371. Have Thine own way, Lord, have
Thine own way Thou art the potter, I am the clay Mold me and make
me after Thy will While I am waiting, yielded and still Have
Thine own way, Lord, have Thine own way. Search me and drive
me, master today. Wider than snow, Lord, wash me
just now. As in Thy presence, humbly I
bow. Have thine own way, Lord, have
thine own way. Wounded and weary, help me, I
pray. Power, oh power, surely is thine. Touch me and heal me. Hold on a moment folks. Hold on a moment. Let's start over on that fourth
verse, will you? No music. Have thine own way,
Lord. Have thine own way. Hold, Lord, my being. Absolute sway. Fill with thy
spirit. Till all shall see. Christ only,
always living in me. Please be seated. And our scripture reading this
morning will be in Psalms 119, starting at verse 129. Psalms 119, starting at verse
129. Starting in verse 129, thy testimonies
are wonderful, therefore doth my soul keep them. The entrance
of thy words giveth light and giveth understanding unto the
simple. I open my mouth and pant it, for I long for thy commandments.
Look thou upon me and be merciful unto me as thou usest to do unto
those that love thy name. Order my steps in thy word, and
let not iniquity have dominion over me. Deliver me from the
oppression of man, so I will keep thy precepts. Make thy face
to shine upon my servant, and teach me thy statutes. Rivers
of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law. Our first message brought to
us in this conference was, well, I'm sorry, the second message
was, I want to preach to that young man who was sitting right
there, Josiah. I want to preach a message that
that young man can understand. Well, actually, dear brother
who said that, though he might have been looking at that young
man sitting right there, he was speaking to the man who was sitting
over here. To hear a simple message, a simple
message of Christ and Him crucified, the same message we preach every
Sunday, every Friday night, Every Wednesday night, for those who
may know Wednesday night, whatever night you mean, it's the same
message. Same message Don Fortner would
bring when he comes. Same message Donnie Bell brought
when he was here. Moose Parks. Same message Gene
Harmon preached from this pulpit for 38 years. There's nothing
new. I meant what I said in my prayer. I come to the pulpit this morning
empty. I was told here not too long
ago, John, you know, one of the dear sisters over
in Wheatley, she goes, this is the second time now I've heard
you say you had nothing. Both times it was the best message. If my Lord doesn't speak to you
today, then whatever you've heard from this
empty shell that stands before you is worthless. Turn over to Philippians chapter
2, if you would. You folks are going to get a
little bit of a deeper message than I would give at a service. You know the Lord. You know Bill. There may be a lot of people
who want to speak at a memorial. Preacher doesn't have a whole
lot of time. Well, I've got 40 minutes. which is a lot more
time than I would have at a memorial service. So I'm gonna talk to
you a little bit about my brother. Bill and I came together, the
Lord brought us together just after I started coming here. And I gotta share this with you. I was standing out here on the
porch with my brother Lee, and it was about a year, maybe six
months after the Lord had called me to this place to hear the
gospel preached. And I had a little Sportster
Harley that I was real proud of, and it wasn't quite where
I wanted it yet. I had a nice padded seat for
traveling, and I was just I need to have something a little bit
higher though, because the handlebars were down here. All of a sudden,
I seen a bike go by out here, and I told Lee, I said, hey,
look, see the bars on that bike? That's what I want. I want something
like that. And all of a sudden, here this guy comes, he comes
back. I said, he comes right back. And I watched him, followed
him into the, he's coming into the parking lot here. And he
says, he pulled up and we got to talking, I can't remember
the exact words, He says, I used to go here. I used to come up
here every once in a while, not very often, every once in a while.
And he says, I rode by and I saw that bike sitting out here and
I said, I had to turn around and come back. I found out that day that my
brother Bill loved the Lord. You see, something, well, we
know what something is, don't we? We know what something is,
don't we? It's God. It was bringing two
minds together to be one. Not necessarily one with each
other, but to be one with him. Isn't that what marriage is about? Where two are no more twain,
but they're one? We both, and I didn't know it at the time.
I thought Bill had been a Christian for a long time, but it turns
out Bill had not been a Christian for a long time. He started coming
here to rescue, and he realized that that church that he was
going to was preaching nothing but works. He said, I can't go to that other
church anymore. I gotta go up here to rescue
now. I know it's a lot further to come up here, And he loved
to ride his Harley up here because it got the best gas. And I'll
tell you what, Bill was the most frugal person I've ever met.
That guy, when I first met him, lived off of like $10 a month. I don't know how he did it, but
he did. But he couldn't hear what was
being preached at another church anymore. The Lord was bringing
two minds together. to be one with him. I was still
learning myself. Kathy hadn't even started coming
to church yet. He was bringing us together to
see our Lord for who he was. God. The one who deserves to
be called God. The one who deserves to be worshiped
as God. The one who all the Godhead dwells
in, and that's Christ Jesus. He was bringing us together. And for the next 23 years, Bill Silva was my confidant.
When I needed to talk to somebody that I could talk to no other
person about, He was the one. I can't tell you how deep, how deep that blessing goes. Are you in the book of Philippians? This is what the Lord was doing
to Bill and I. And for verse 1, we see in chapter
2, verse 1 in Philippians, we read these words, If there be
any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love, if any fellowship
of the Spirit, if any vows and mercies fulfill ye my joy, writes
Paul, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of
one accord and of one mind. Now, don't get me wrong, Bill
and I had a lot of differences. Politically, we were the same.
Motorcycles were important to both of us. But we both had been brought
to know our Lord as Lord. We both had gone through struggles
over the years with our trust. Do you have that kind of struggle?
You ever struggle with your trust? With your faith? What a message
last night you brought, brother. What a message. God convicted
me in the deepest way that no matter what I say, it doesn't
express the depth of it. What a message God gave me through
you. And over all the years that I've
been good friends with Bill, we would go through these struggles,
and some of you have heard this before, but Bill would like get
off into politics or something, I'd be driving my truck down
the road, we'd be talking on the phone, and all of a sudden,
I'll just start singing that song. This world is not my home. He'd laugh, or if I got carried
away with something, whether politics or work, Bill would
start singing the song, and next thing you know, we'd laugh and
go our way. God brought bowels of mercy to me through the fellowship
of my brother Bill. It says in verse two, 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 vainglory. Oh, I'll tell you, that was tough. And as Bill and I would go through
these last 23 years together and call each other and say,
you know, John, I'm having some struggles. I'm having strife
and I'm having vainglory. I'm taking glory in my flesh.
You know, Bill used to tell me, and he may have told you this,
he said, I'm thankful. I'm thankful God took my tongue
because I was getting out of control. The vanity of this flesh that
stands before you, John, got out of control, and the Lord
took my tongue. Praise the Lord, he said. Look not, said verse four, 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. What? What was the mind of Christ my
Savior? Father, not my will, but thine. Your sovereign will. Your will
over everything that happens. God's not punishing this here
country, United States. If he was punishing us, it would
be a whole lot worse than it is. But he is removing his hand
of restraint. You know what he's doing? He's
turning the people over to their will. He turned the people over to
their will when they hung him on a cross and crucified him,
when they hated him without a cause, for no reason. He turned them
over to their will when they tried to throw him off of a cliff
and he said, no, it's not my time yet, and he left. 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. Oh, what a wonderful thing
that the very one who shed his blood was equal with God the
Father. You know what that means? That
means his blood is effectual. That means it accomplished what
it meant to do. It was shed for us. By the love
of my Savior, He shed His blood for us. It bothers me. It bothers me
a great deal when somebody says, oh, God shed His blood for everybody. He loves the whole world. You take the power away from
my God when you say that. And my God has all power in heaven
and earth and under the earth. That's what his word said, doesn't
it? Do you truly believe it? Oh, I wish I could believe it
better. I'm just like that man whose
sick child And he came to the Lord, and the Lord said, do you
believe? He said, Lord, I believe, but I need help. I need help
with my unbelief. I need help with my pride. Do
you need help with your pride? Do you need help with your pride?
Greatest sin we have in us, brother, and just like you said, you can
boil down everything we do wrong to pride. Everything. Oh, I know better,
Lord. You know what I mean by that,
don't you? I know better, Lord. His ways are not our ways. This
one who's being in the form of God thought it not robbery to
be equal to God, but he made himself of no reputation. This boggles my mind. The Lord
of glory. The Lord who has all glory and
will not share it with another, he will not share it with you
and your so-called free will, this Lord humbled himself, humbled
himself, found in a fashion, as it says, as a man, he humbled
himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross. He made Himself of no reputation,
as it says in verse 7, and He took upon Him the form of a servant. Wow! And was made in the likeness
of men. This is the very one that God
brought two dead souls together. and gave us one mind looking
to him. Speaking of this one who humbled
himself and became obedient unto death, this one who made himself,
who came in the form of a servant, this one who got down on his
knees and washed the feet of sinners. God Almighty, verse nine, wherefore
God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which
is above all names. That at the name of Jesus, at
the name of my Savior, every knee should bow. Now notice what
it says next. First off, every knee, every
human, should bow of things in heaven,
and things in earth, and it doesn't stop there, does it? And things
under the earth. Our Lord is Lord of all. He says, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy, and whom I will I harden. This is the love that God has
for his people. I will have mercy. Because he could just as easily
harden the heart of John Reeves. It was no big deal for the Lord
to harden the heart of Pharaoh. All he had to do is move that
hand again, just like he's doing to this here country. moving
that hand further away, leaving Pharaoh to his own will. Verse 11, that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. One mind, the mind of Christ,
Turn over to John chapter 17. Let's look at another thing about
this one mind. What is the mind of Christ? It's
to do the Father's will. I came to do my Father's will. The will of Him who sent me.
What is the will of Him who sent me? That He should lose none.
That means, not only were Bill and I brought to be of one mind,
one mind in Christ, put Himself in us. Through the preaching of His
Word, we heard the truth of who God is. You see, if you don't
hear the preaching of God's Word, how do you know who He is? We were talking out here earlier,
late yesterday afternoon, we were talking about the idea that,
you know, if you had a choice, One of two things. If you had
a choice of putting your child in a school, your young, young,
young child in a school and somebody was dressing like a woman, a
man was dressing like a woman, would you do that or would you
put that child over in a church school that preached free will?
What would you take? You got no other choices. Everybody
here would stand up and say, yes, you always got a choice.
Take them out and vote. But I'm telling you, I'm asking
you, what would you do if you only had those two choices? And
I thought about prevention. I'd put it in that school with
the person that dresses a woman. I said, that's a great answer.
You know why? That person's being forthright
with what they are. You take that child and you put
him in a school that's teaching free will, they're being deceitful.
They're teaching about another Jesus, is what the scripture
calls it. Another gospel which is not another gospel. It's foolishness. It's treachery. It's up to you to decide your
salvation. That's not a God's word. Salvation
is of the Lord. Plain and simple. That's all
it is. You are either in Christ or you
are not. And being in Christ, he loves
us with an everlasting love. He's always loved us. We just
didn't know it. There was always gonna be the
day when God would bring John to his knees and bring him to
this church where I would hear the gospel preached for the first
time. There was always that day, from before the day Adam walked
this earth. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. Is that not what God's word says? You're coming to Christ, it's
not because of something you have done, it's because of Him.
It's always because of Him. Not our sin. He's allowed it. He's allowed
man to fall. But the fall is ours. That Flint Wilson guy that used
to make that big joke, what a crook. Devil didn't make me do anything.
I did it willingly. And I loved it. And it's what
I wanted. Thank God for His will. Thank
God for exercising His will against this dead, dead soul and giving
life and out of mercy coming to us. This is the gospel Bill heard
and began to believe that day that we came together. The gospel
of our sovereign God and giving us everything we need, not just
the desire to hear him, not just the new heart to hear him, not
just the new ears to hear the word of God, not just the eyes
to see the truth of his word, but the desire. The living soul
that looks to him, for everything, and he continues to keep us looking
to him, just like you brought out in your message last night.
It's not something that just, okay, I'm saved. All's done,
all's good. No. No. He keeps bringing us looking
to him, doesn't he? Oh, I'm so thankful for that. Being able to see now how blind
I was before, I can see. I can see that if he didn't,
The pride of John would flare up in a moment's notice, and
the next thing you know, I'd be wandering down that street
I was walking before, but God won't let me do that. Why did
Paul, why did he glory in his infirmities? Why did he glory
in his trials and tribulations? Because he, like all of God's
people, know that's the way God brings us back to him. That's
the way he reminds us, you're weak. and I love you and all
my strength is yours. Over here in John chapter 17, our Lord says in verse 14, I have given them. Who's he giving? Who? I've given them thy word. Who? Who are they? Who are them?
Who are them? Look over here at verse nine.
I pray for them. There's that them. There's us. We're the them. We're the them
that he prays for to the Father. Lord, I pray you don't charge
this one because it's already been charged to me. I've already
laid down my life and shed my blood for this one. The perfect
blood of his son covering it. Father, I pray for them. I pray
not for the world, but I pray for them which thou hast given
me for they are thine. Here's that one mind. That one
mind, they are thine. Now look over at verse 14. I
have given them thy word and the world hath hated them because
they are not of the world. even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them
from the evil. They are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth.
Now here's why he prays that he doesn't take us out of the
world. We're coming to that in just a second. As thou has sent,
verse 18, as thou has sent me into the world, even so I have
also sent them into the world. Aren't you thankful the Lord
has sent us into the world? I know it's a difficult path,
folks. You're not alone. You're not
alone in the troubles of this world. You're not alone in the
battles of this flesh and the sin that we walk in. We all have that same battle,
every one of us. Yet there's victory in our Savior.
There's victory in Jesus. He keeps us in the world for
a reason. You know, there's more of God's children out there to
hear his word. You never know. It might be somebody you work
with. Imagine that. Imagine for just a moment that
the last child of God, the very last child that our Savior laid
down his life for, shed his blood for, crossed your path. Why are you so happy? How can
you be so comfortable with all the stuff that's going on in
the world around us? Man, the religious garbledy-gook,
the political stuff that we step in. How can you be so happy about
that? How can you give, why are you so, you know, the birds are
chirping out there. What's with that? All the smog
and stuff killing everything out there. How come you're so
happy? Because my Lord rules it all. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
according to His Word. If you had the opportunity, wouldn't
that be what you'd say also? I've shared this with you once
or twice before, but as a truck driver, I would be driving around
to different customers And folks, there's all kinds of Christians
out there. You know there is. Man's imagination can come up
with everything, right? If you don't have it, somebody
else will think of it and come up with it. And I'll be going
around to different customers, get up on the dock, unloading
freight. Praise the Lord. What? What did I hear you say?
Praise the who? The door's open. I get to tell
them who my Lord is. A lot of times it wasn't their
Lord, but that's all right. I still got to tell them who
mine is. Isn't that the way it is with you also? Don't you get
excited when God gives you an opportunity to speak? Well, what
if that last person that he's going to call out of darkness,
talk to you? Hey, I know a place where they
preach the truth. I know a preacher that God has sent to speak to
people who need to hear that truth. And then all of a sudden
the Lord says, after the message is over and he's called that
dear brother or sister out of darkness and the light begins
to shine in their heart, all of a sudden we see everything
open up. And here comes our Lord. Here
he comes. Some of us are getting to the
age where we can't wait for that day to come. You know, you talk about people wanting
to talk about end times. The end of time is for our brother
Bill. The end of time. His end time was Friday night. His end time was Friday night.
And he saw the Lord face to face. Look over Romans chapter 15 with
me. I won't be much longer. I don't think. I didn't think
I was going to go this far, to be honest with you. Over in Romans, chapter 15, we're
talking about being of one mind. The one mind that God Almighty
gives to each and every one of His children. The one mind that
points us to His sovereignty and His grace and all things. Look at verse five with me if
you would. Now the God of patience and consolation
grant you, grant you to be like-minded one
toward another according to Christ Jesus. That ye may be with one
mind and one mouth, I'm sorry, let me read that again,
that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Wherefore receive you one another
as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Now, turn over
one more scripture, if you would, to 1 Peter chapter 3. Actually, I've got two more. In 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 8,
we read these words. Finally, after Peter has gone through and given
instructions of God to the husbands and the wives. Love your wives, he says to the
husbands, as Christ loved the church. Oh, how I wish I could
love my wife. I do. But not as good, not as
wonderful as my Lord loves the church. Finally be Finally, be ye all of one mind,
having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful
and be courteous. Last night, our brother brought
a message about forgiving one another. And I don't want to go into details
about it because I'm ashamed. But I'm going to share it with
you because you need to know that your pastor is probably even weaker than
you. I have family. Family that I
need to go to on my knees and beg for forgiveness. Beg for forgiveness that they
will forgive me. This is what the Lord does through
his word. He teaches us. To remind us that the mind of
Christ is the love for his people. It's the same mind as a father.
It's the love of his people. That's what mercy is all about.
That's what grace is all about. It's about the love for you and
I. A love that will never let us
go. A love that will bring us to this building or whatever
other building that the Lord has provided for us to hear His
gospel preached and praise His name. Look at the verses on the
front of today's bulletin with me, if you would. And I'll close
with this. Isaiah 12, verse 1 through 6,
we read these words. And in that day, this is the
day, this is the day the Lord opened the minds of Bill and
John Reeves and brought us together to worship Him. In that day,
thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee. Though thou wast
angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest
me. Behold, Behold to the world,
God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid
for the Lord Jehovah. You know what that word means,
Jehovah? I looked that up this morning.
You would have thought maybe John would have looked that up
a lot sooner, right? I mean, I've been preaching for three
years, right? I'm telling you, your pastor's weak. That word
Jehovah means this, self-existing. That's a pretty good phrase,
isn't it? Self-existing. Sovereign. Sovereign ruler of
everything. Sovereign creator of everything.
Everything exists because of this one Jehovah. He is my strength. How can I
fail? How can I drop? No matter what
John's doing, and trust me, I don't want to, but I do. And you know
what I mean when I say that. We do hate sin. Go ye and be
holy, for our God is holy. And I'm a pointy finger like
that, but you notice there's three fingers pointing right
back at me. Takes a genius to do that all the time. Don't think
I'm pointing my finger at you. I got three of them pointing
back at me. Be ye holy, for our God is holy. And this God is
our strength. In and my song. He also is become
my salvation. I didn't know it before, but
He has become it in my mind because He has always been my salvation.
I just didn't know it. And therefore, with joy shall
ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. Oh, I want to cry
out to the people, come to the Lord Jesus. But I cry out even deeper, Lord,
draw your people in. And in that day, and in that
day, Yishei, praise the Lord. Call upon his name. Declare his
doings among the people. Make mention that his name is
exalted. Sing unto the Lord, for he hath
done excellent things. This is known in all the earth.
Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, For great is the Holy
One of Israel in the midst of thee. Amen. Let's stretch our legs for a
moment, shall we? Stand and let's sing a song. Turn to page 511
of your hymn books. Sing with me if you would, Now
I Belong to Jesus. 511. Jesus, my Lord, me forever. From him no power of evil can
set. He gave his life to ransom my
soul. Now I belong to him. Now I belong to Jesus. Jesus belongs to me. Not for the years of time alone,
but for eternity. Once I was lost in sin's degradation,
Jesus came down to bring me salvation, lifting me up from sorrow and
shame. Now I belong to Him Now I belong
to Jesus Jesus belongs to me Not for the years of time alone
But for eternity Jesus has saved me, freed me
from sin that long had enslaved me His precious blood He gave
to redeem Now I belong to Him One more thing one more thing,
you know, I You know the story of David and
Bathsheba, right? There was a product of that. A child was born. The child became
very sick. During the time of sickness,
David was on his knees. He loved that child. He was on
his knees crying, crying unto the Lord. And when they came
to David with word, the child was dead. He got up. He got up and shook it off and went about his way. Oh, folks,
I'll tell you, there's a day coming. There's a day coming
when each and everyone will see my brother, your brother, again,
face to face with our Savior. Amen to that? Amen. Please have
a seat. We have special music for you
this morning. Our sister Cheryl is going to sing for us today. I'm so thankful she was able
to make the trip. The last time I was able to talk
to her about it before she told me was, it was, I just can't
make that drive anymore. Come on up. She was, I just can't
make that drive anymore. I think she bought a new car
just so she could. I'm so thankful to have her here.
Aren't you? Good to be with her again. If you decide to move
back, you can come live with us. Oh, no, I'll give you a bigger
room. We'll give you Lee and Shirley's
room. We'll have to talk about that. I hope I can remember how to
do this. I haven't done this in a while,
so forgive me. Can you hear that? His heart was broken, mind was
mended. He became sin, Now I am clean. The cross he carried bore my
burden. The nails that held him set me
free. His life for mine. His life for mine. How could it ever be That he
would die God's son would die To save a wretch like me What
love divine He gave his life for my life. His scars of suffering brought
me healing. He spilled his blood to fill
my soul. His crown of thorns made me mighty
His sorrow gave me joy untold His life for mine His life for
mine That he would die, that son would
die, to save a wretch like me. What love divine he gave his
life for mine. He was despised and rejected,
stripped of his heart and oppressed. I am loved and accepted and aware
of open righteousness. His life for mine. His life or mine How could it
ever be That he would die That son would die To save a wretch
like me What love did I, he gave his
life for mine. I have one other announcement
now before I invite our brother Clay Curtis up. Saturday the 30th, Brother Mike Gialotti and his
fiancee Becky plan on getting married. They've asked if they could get
married here and he said he would like to invite his church family
to join him. Saturday the 30th, mark your
calendars. Celebration of marriage, now. Brother. All right brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Psalm 68. I want to thank you for inviting
me here and for your hospitality, for the accommodations
and the fellowship and it's just always good to be with you and
I thank you again. Before I forget about this, next
Friday, our conference will begin at 7 p.m. and they're broadcast
live on YouTube, also on freegracemedia.com. They're on Sermon Audio. Starts
at 7 on Friday and 10-15 Saturday and 10-15 Sunday. I hope the
Lord will give you, remind that and you'll tune in and join us. At the beginning of this conference,
I pulled into the parking lot and I was looking forward to
seeing everybody. And of course, the first news
that I received It was about Brother Bill Silva, the motorcycle
wreck that he had, and how bad his injuries were,
his condition. And I know that the whole weekend
has been on your part. Every day we've waited for some
updates, and I know your heart breaks.
I know your heart breaks, but as Paul said, we don't mourn
as those that have no hope. That's right. But I want to show you from the
scripture why I have made this statement to several of you this
week. I have said to some of you, whatever the Lord's pleased
to do, it will be well. I want to show you why that's
so for God's people. This is why whatever God's pleased
to do is well. And here's why. Verse 20, Psalm 68, 20. He that is our God is the God
of salvation. And unto God the Lord belong
the issues from death. Our God is the God of salvation. There is not another. Our God is the God of salvation. Unto the Lord belong the issues
from death. Every one of us here must face
physical death. We must. The Lord's appointed
the hour. He alone knows the hour. And
we will face physical death. But the death that we must be
saved from is far more than simply physical death. That's right.
Amen. We must be saved, first of all,
from judicial death, legal death. and unto the Lord God belong
the issues from judicial death, legal death. We must be saved
from spiritual death. There is a legal death. We became
guilty. We come into this world guilty.
We must be saved from that legal death. There is a spiritual death. We come into this world spiritually
dead in our nature. we must be saved from that spiritual
death. And these other two, because
the Lord is the God to whom belong the issues from death, and because
he saves his people from these other two deaths, when we die
physically, it will be the Lord God who saves us from physical
death. And for sake of clarity, and
for just There is another death Scripture speaks of beyond physical
death. It's called the second death. The second death is really part
of that legal death and part of that spiritual death. But
the second death Scripture speaks about is that if we die physically
and meet God without Christ, there will be an eternal separation
from God, eternal separation from His glory that'll never
end. And the scripture refers to that
as the second death. So these four deaths, legal death,
spiritual death, physical death, and the second death, the death
of hell, unto the Lord our God belong the issues from death. This is the death we have to
be saved from. Christ is our God. He is the
Lord our God, the Lord Jesus. And unto the Lord Jesus, our
God, belong the issues from death. Go with me to Hebrews chapter
2. I want to show you this is why the Lord Jesus came. This
is why he came. Hebrews chapter 2. There were some children that
the father gave to our Lord Jesus before this world was made. And
the scripture says in verse 14, for as much then as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took
part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that
had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them
who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to
bondage. The song our sister just sang
sums it up. His life for our life. Amen. He is life. Christ is life. And it's through death that he
saves his people from death. Through his death that he saves
his people from death. Now, let's look at these four
deaths and see how that the Lord Jesus Christ, to him belongs
the issue from death. Now, first of all, this thing
of legal death, this thing of legal death, the whole purpose
for which God created the world and created you and I in this
world is to declare the righteousness of God. That's right. This is
a legal issue. is to declare God is absolutely
righteous. He always does what is right. Now, when God created man, he
made Adam the head of the whole human race. An easy way to understand
who Adam is the head of, he's the head of every child that
would be born of Adam. Everyone that would be born of
Adam, he's the head of all of them. That means God looked to
nobody but Adam as responsible for their legal standing. Now,
we can't get upset with God for doing this. God did it this way.
This was God's good pleasure to make Adam the head, and he
made him the head. He made him to represent every
child who would be born of Adam. And Adam was put in a garden,
put in a world that knew no sin, and Adam himself knew no sin,
in a perfect environment, in a perfect body, and given one command. Just one. And Adam broke that
one command. And when he broke that one command,
Every one of his children broke that command. And we all became
guilty in Adam. We all became unrighteous in
Adam. We all died this legal death
in Adam. Look over to Romans chapter 5.
It occurred to me as I was sitting here thinking about the message
that I looked at. We were in Romans 5 last time
I was here. Well, that's okay. Yeah, that's
all right. That's all right. These scriptures
are not the old, don't get old to God's people because it keeps
them new to us because this is the words of eternal life. This
is how we see how God saves his people. And this is where it
all began, right here. This is where it all began as
far as Adam and sin and our legal death, right here. Look here,
Romans 5, verse 12. Wherefore, Well, let's read verse 12. Wherefore, as by one man, sin
entered into the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sin. Now, if you have a King James
Bible and you have a marginal reference, you will see that
when it says, for that all have sin, The margin says, in whom
all have sinned. In Adam, we all sinned. In Adam, we all sinned. When
Adam broke that law, we broke it. We broke it. Now be sure
to get this. This is vital. Be sure to get
this. Adam did not give us the chance to become guilty. He didn't give us the chance
to become guilty. Adam made us guilty sinners. We became legally dead when Adam
sinned. We really broke God's law in
Adam. And God is holy, and therefore
God will by no means clear the guilty. He's righteous, he won't
clear the guilty. And we died in Adam, so we came
under this legal debt, this condemnation. But here's the good news. This
is why If a man won't take his place as guilty in Adam, there's
no good news for him. Because here's the good news.
The reason God made Adam the head of all his children is to
picture the Lord Jesus Christ, God's son, who God made the head
of all his children. He's the head of all who shall
be born of him. God's elect who he put in Christ
before this world was made. Romans 5.14 says there at the
end, Adam is the figure of him that was to come. He's the figure
of Christ in headship. He said, God made Christ the
head of all who shall be born again of God the Holy Spirit. He chose a people and he gave
them to Christ. And our Lord Jesus entered covenant
to save these people by laying down his life for us and bearing
the wrath of God that we deserve for our sin. He took full responsibility
to satisfy justice for his people. You all are familiar with Ephesians
1, and I won't have you turn to it, but The reason we say
blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is because
it says He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus according as He chose us in Him before
the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love. That's a blessing. And all the
blessings were ours in Christ because God never looked to any
of his people to work this. He only looked to Christ. And
it's an impossibility that these spiritual blessings won't be
given to you personally because Christ shall not fail. He trusted the whole work to
his Son. This is the purpose for which God made this world
is to exalt his Son. That's the purpose. To declare
his righteousness. how God can remain just and yet
be the justifier of His people. And there's just one way. The
Lord Jesus Christ came and took flesh and walked this earth proven
innocent, proven spotless. He didn't come into a perfect
garden. He came into a garden that was under the curse. He
came into a world that was full of sin and full of sinners and
full of God-hating rebels. And He didn't come under one
commandment. He came and made Himself under
613 commandments. And He walked perfectly. without
sin in his nature, without sin in his doings or his thoughts
or anything, and was proven for 33 and a half years that he is
the spotless Lamb of God. Amen. That wouldn't satisfy this legal
death. He went to that cross and bore
the sin of his people and stood before this holy, holy, holy
God who will by no means clear the guilty. And when sin was
found on his son, God spared not his only son. That's how
holy and just and righteous God is. And he poured out the justice. He poured out the wrath. He poured
out that eternal condemnation that all of his people deserve. poured it out on the Lord Jesus
Christ, his own son, our substitute. And when he did that, he satisfied
his own law. And Christ said, it is finished. Amen. You know what that means? Just what it said. Amen. It is
finished. It is finished. The same as Adam
didn't give us a chance to be made guilty, the Lord Jesus didn't
give us a chance to be made righteous. He made us righteous. He made
us righteous. He finished the Word. Now look
back there at Romans 5. Let's read it again. And let's
get the good news. Verse 17. For if by one man's
offense death reigned by one. Death reigned. This legal death
reigned by Adam. Much more. They which receive
abundance of grace. Let me give you a quick word
on this word, receive. Men hear that, they say, well
see there now, it's up to me to receive this. It's up to me
to make the choice to receive this. Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke
to his apostles, and he breathed on them, and he said, receive
ye the Holy Ghost. And you know what happened? They
did. The Holy Ghost entered them.
And they received Him. Amen. It would be like you stood
out here and the wind blowing. That's what the Lord compared
the Spirit to, the wind blowing. And it would be like the wind
blowing out here and somebody said, receive that wind. What you gonna do to receive
it? It's just gonna blow on you. That's what happened. Grace. When you receive grace, grace
just comes and takes over. And he says here, and those that
receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness,
free gift, all done, already accomplished, just freely given
to you. And when he gives it to you,
you shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by
the offense of one judgment, condemnation came upon all men
who Adam represented to condemnation. This judgment came to condemnation.
Even so, by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon
all men who Christ represented unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. Don't miss that. It's not by
my obedience. It's not by your obedience. It's
not by the obedience of any of his children. It's by the obedience
of one, the Lord Jesus Christ. What is it when he brings you
to the obedience of faith? What is that? It's being given
a heart to bow and believe and trust the obedience of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's what it is. Now look, what about the law? Verse 20. For over the law entered
that the offense might abound. it entered to show us how great
sinners we are. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound, that as sin hath reigned unto death, even
so my grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. So, to God our Savior belongs
the issues from this legal death. He's the one who saved his people
from this legal judicial death we were under. You see that?
You see that? Well, we got another problem,
though. Spiritual death. We come into this world dead,
spiritually, in trespassing and sin. But here's the good news. Unto God the Lord belong the
issues from spiritual death. Adam's nature was corrupted by
sin. Whenever Adam sinned that, you
know, people want to debate all things about how somebody's made
sin. God didn't put something in Adam
to make him sin. God took something out of him,
took spirit from him. And Adam became a guilty, just
dead in his sin. Crying, God is life. His spirit
is life. When he takes that from you,
spiritually, you're dead. And that's what happened to Adam.
He became spiritually dead. And he had a corrupt nature.
And so, when he conceived a child from his corrupt seed, that child
that was conceived in his mother's womb had the same sinful nature
that Adam had. And if you read the scripture,
it says he bore a son in his own image. That child was corrupt
in his nature just like Adam was. And on down the line to
you and me. Right on down to us. We were
born spiritually dead, in trespasses and sins, what does that mean?
It means we were unable, unwilling, we could not, we would not hear
this good news of the gospel. We were spiritually unable to
hear it, spiritually unwilling to hear it, we could not, we
would not receive the things of the Spirit of God. That's
so of everybody. Folks get upset with you about
the gospel and they reject the gospel we preach. Don't get mad
at them. You couldn't receive it either.
That's right. Men just doing what they want to do. One time
there was a young man, the Lord had given him faith to believe
the Lord Jesus and he was just new to the faith and he was talking
to a man And this man had claimed to be a believer for years and
years and years. And he was telling this man how
that God saved by free grace and how you must be born again.
And he was telling him what the Lord Jesus told Nicodemus in
John 3. He told Nicodemus, Nicodemus
was a master in Israel. He was teaching people. And he
came to him by night. And he began to try to tell what
he knew. And the Lord said, Nicodemus,
you don't know anything. You gotta be born again. You
gotta be born of the spirit of God or you can't see me. You
can't understand who I am and what I came to do. And that's
what he told her. You must be born from above.
You have to be born again. And my young friend was telling
this older gentleman this. And this man thought he was a
master. And he was just telling my young
friend how wrong he was and how wrong he was. And my young friend
said, you will not ever believe this. until God gives you a new
heart and ears to hear it and an understanding to receive it
and makes you willing to believe. And this older gentleman said,
I'm going to tell you something, young man. I cannot believe what
you are telling me. And my young friend said, see
there, you agree with everything I just said. You can't. You can't. Did the issues of our first birth
belong to us? Did the issues of your first
birth belong to you? What did you do to be born the
first time? You didn't have a thing to do
with it. It's something that happened
to you. And it's so with this new birth. The good news is unto God the
Lord belong the issues from spiritual death. That's good news because
if this being the case, that we
would not and we could not receive things of the Spirit of God,
and you find that in 1 Corinthians 2, plainly declared, and the
good news of that is, if we'd have been left there, that's
where we'd have been left. The good news that these issues
don't belong to us is that God will see to it. that every single
person Christ saved from that judicial death must and shall
be saved from this spiritual death. They will be birthed again. They will be birthed again. Because
Christ purged the sin of his people. Christ satisfied justice
for his people. That means God will not pour
out justice on anybody for whom Christ died. They must be born
again and brought to faith in Christ. They must. Justice. The
same holy justice that demanded the soul that sitteth must die
because Christ has died in the room instead of his people. That
same holy God, that same holy justice, that same holy character
of God demands that everyone for whom Christ died must be
born again. That's good news. That's good
news. That's good news to you that
now know just how dead you were. That's good news. Now let me
try to illustrate this. Our sin nature is like a jail
cell. Men want to talk about their free will, you know. Well,
if you're in a jail cell, you can walk from one side to the
other all you want to. You can do jumping jacks. You
can do pushups. You can flip backwards if you
want to. But you can't get out of that jail cell. And that's
what we are by nature. You can do only what your sin
nature permits you to do. You're in the confines of your
sin nature. You can't go beyond that. You
know, you see it every day. It's why a cow eats grass and
doesn't eat dead things. It's because it's not His nature.
He does what it's His nature to do. God only does what it's
His nature to do. His nature is holy and everything
He does is holy because that's His nature. We all only do what
our nature is. Now when we're dead in sin, you're
in this jail cell. And here's why you must be born
again. And you must be born from above. And Christ must be the
one to send the Holy Spirit and give you a new birth. Here's
why. because the glory is God's. And God gave Christ, who satisfied
him and pleased him, he raised him and gave him the glory of
setting his people free from this jail cell. Now, if you were
in a jail cell, and you're on death row, and you're gonna die,
and somebody came and took your place and died your death for
you, the law's satisfied. You gotta be set free, you gotta
be let out of jail. Well, Christ came and laid down
his life and paid the wages we owe. So now we got to be let
out of the jail cell. And Christ has the glory of letting
us out of this jail cell called our sin nature. It says, Isaiah
49, 9, he gave Christ the glory. He's speaking to Christ. And
he said, and here's what I've raised you up to do, that thou
mayest say to the prisoners, go forth, and to them that are
in darkness, show yourselves. We won't come to the light by
nature. He said that in John 3. Why? Because we don't want
our sins to be reproved. That's right. Not just our immoral
sins that we're embarrassed about. We don't want all these splendid
righteousnesses that we think is going to make us accepted
with God. We don't want those to be made on the absolutely
filthy right. So Christ has to let us, he has
to open the jail cell, call our sin nature, by the new birth,
and say, go forth. And say, show yourself, come
out of darkness, come to me the light that you might manifest
and declare all our works were worked in him. That's what he
said. And so when you're born again,
this gospel we're preaching, Christ the word, through the
word of the gospel, This is the incorruptible seed. We were born
of corruptible seed. This is the incorruptible seed
which by the Spirit, a new nature is created in us. Listen, it
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. Here's what 1 Peter 1.23 says. Here's why. Because we're born
again, not of corruptible seed, We're born again, born anew,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word
of God, which liveth and abideth forever. And he said in verse
25, this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Now, don't miss this. This is why Christ came. This
is as vital to what Christ did on the cross This new birth is
as vital as what Christ did on the cross. Paul said in Galatians
4, 4, when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his
son made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were
under the law that, here's the purpose, that we might perceive
the adoption of sons. So that we might be born again
and made to see God has made us his children. And because
you are sons, you didn't become a son by believing Christ. When
you were dead in sins, because of God's electing grace, you
were a child of God before you were ever born again and before
you ever believed on Him. And because you are sons, God
has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying
Abba Father. Wherefore you're no more a servant,
you're no more judicially dead, you're no more in the prison,
you're no more a servant and a slave of sin, but you are a
child of God. That's the good news. That's
why the preaching of the gospel is so vital to those that are
born anew. Now let me say this to you before
I leave this point. It's not that God is pleased
to save you through the preaching of the gospel simply when you're
born again. God is pleased to save us through
the preaching of the gospel from the first hour all the way until
he brings us home. We need this gospel. And it's the wisest thing of
God to choose to save this way because He put sinners together who are so different, who still
have a sin nature, who are going to offend one another, who are
going to fall, who are going to need us to be gracious to
one another. You're going to need to forgive
and they're going to need to forgive you. They're gonna need
to be gracious to you. You're gonna need to be gracious
to them. And it's how God not only teaches us this gospel and
keeps Christ in our heart, but also shows us by experience that
his grace really is active and alive and saving. And you experience
it more. You experience it. You need to
be with brethren. You need to be in this place,
sitting together, working together to support this gospel so you
have it for one another, so that as you go through this wilderness
together, you're not only hearing this word, you're experiencing
God's grace with each other. This is how he's growing and
teaching his people. You need to be together. Don't
neglect assembling of yourselves together. You need to be together. This is how God's pleased to
save his people. This is how he's going to say
it. Well, it's going to cost me a lot. It's going to cost
you a lot not to. Amen. Get together with God's
people. This is, I'm not, this is not
my word. This is God's word. Forsake not
the assembling of yourselves together as the man or son did.
He said, do it more and more as you see the day approaching.
Everything in this world is trying to separate us. We got all these,
and I'm thankful that brethren are getting to watch this online.
We have live video, and I just started this message by saying,
please tune in next week, I want you to do it. But don't let it
take the place of coming together and hearing the gospel preached.
You need to be together. We all, we got this world, brethren.
Brethren, next to Christ, brethren are the greatest gift God's given
us in this world. And we need each other. We need
each other. All right, now let's go to this
third thing. So since God, since unto God belongs the issues from
legal and spiritual death, unto God belong the issues from physical
death. Our sin nature is yet with us.
God doesn't do a thing to your sin nature. You still got it.
You still got that same sinful nature you was born with the
first time. But you've been born anew, and you got a new spirit.
You got a new nature. But these bodies shall return
to the dust. They must. But each sinner that
God's made alive legally in Christ's righteousness and alive spiritually
by the new birth, now listen, shall never die. Yes, your physical body will
die, but you shall never die. You shall never die. Lazarus
died physically, and Mary and Martha were weeping. They were
weeping. Now, the Lord came there, and
he said to Martha, thy brother shall rise again. And Martha
said what she knew, and she said, I know that he shall rise again
in the resurrection in the last day. And the Lord said to her,
I am the resurrection. The life. He is life. Christ is life. And he that believeth in me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth,
that's the new birth, whosoever liveth, been born again, and
believeth. That's the result of the new
birth. It gives you faith. Whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. I'm sitting here right now looking
at some people who are immortal. I don't know I said this Friday and Saturday that I didn't know what the Lord
would be pleased to do with Brother Bill. But I do know that every believer
shall never die. That's right. I do know that. The day that we draw our last
breath, the day we draw our last breath, and these bodies just
become lifeless forms. In spirit, we will be with the
Lord immediately. Immediately. I like to picture
it like a song of Solomon when the Lord came to the bride and
he said, come away my love, come with me. Your body just goes lifeless. The Lord says, come away, my
love. Come with me. And me to be with
him. We're confident, I say, and willing
rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the
Lord. It's what we preach. It's what
we believe. This is what we're all looking forward to. to be
absent from these old sinful, wretched bodies, to be present
with the Lord. And that's not the end of it.
When our Lord returns, He will raise our bodies entirely new,
entirely glorified. Go over to 1 Corinthians 15.
1 Corinthians 15, look at this. Verse 51. Behold, I show you
a mystery. 1 Corinthians 15, 51. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep. That
is, we're not going to all die. Because the Lord's going to return.
When He returns, there's going to be some folks still, some
believers alive when He returns. We're not going to all die before
He returns. There'll be some alive when He
comes. We shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be
changed. The dead are gonna be raised
first, and then we that remain will be changed. Why? For this corruptible, that's
all our bodies are, must put on incorruption. We can't enter
into God's presence in these bodies. We gotta have a glorified
body. It's got to all be the product
of Christ-making. This body's from Adam. Sinful. It's gotta all be Christ's creation.
So, this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal
must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that's written,
death is swallowed up in victory. Unto our Lord our God belong
the issue from death. And he gonna get the victory,
he already has. Watch this now, O death, where's
thy sting? O grave, where's thy victory?
The sting of death is sin. and the strength of sin is the
law. He satisfied the law and put our sin away. Thanks be to
God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Where in this have we seen anything
that you and I do? We haven't. It's all of him. Our text says, unto the Lord
our God belong the issues from death. Now, what about this second
death, this death of judgment? Well, if anybody meets God without
believing on the Lord Jesus, the second death will be the
death that comes when God judges men for not believing in Christ
and trusting him alone. God will cast them out into outer
darkness where they'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Believe on the Lord Jesus. Believe
on the Lord Jesus. Live today and believe on the
Lord Jesus. Somebody said, well, after what
you just preached, why do you call on sinners to do that? Because
my Lord sent his prophet into the valley of the dry bones and
he said, can these bones live? And he said, Lord, you know,
he said, you preach to them and you say to these dead bones,
live. And I'm saying to you now, live. I'm saying to you, believe on
the Lord Jesus. And you know what the Lord said
he would do? He said, and you prayed to me and asked me to
do this. And he said, I will send forth
my spirit and I'll give life. And that's what he did. And those
bones came together. and He made them stand up. That's
why I'm calling on you. I can't make you live. I can't
make you believe. Under Him belong the issues from
death, but through this gospel, this is how He's gonna birth
His children anew. And what I'm saying to you is
this, if you're sitting there where you are and you find yourself
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ for the first time, you find
yourself realizing everything you ever been told was a lie,
and now you see that the glory really does belong to God, I'm
saying to you, believe on Him. Confess him, being believed with
baptism. This is what we're confessing
in water baptism. When he died, I died. When he
was buried, I was buried. That's why we bury in the water. I was buried with him. The sinner
looked to that tomb. And where he went into that tomb,
your old body of sin, the old you that came from Adam, went
into that grave and died. come up out of that water because
he came up out of that grave and went to the right hand of
God and sat down. And when he did that, you came
out of that grave in him and sat down in him at God's right
hand. And he births you again. This
is the good news. He makes you to know we've been
seated with him there. The work's finished. And I'm
telling you this, when he does save you from death and makes
you hear this, you don't have to have somebody twist your arm
to believe him. You believe him. Amen. And you
don't have to have somebody twist your arm to confess him. You
confess him. I've seen a lot of criminals on television that
they had to hog tie them and wrestle them down and handcuff
them and everything else. drag them and throw them in a
jail cell, but I ain't never seen one of them that they said,
you're free to go, ever had to be wrestled out. But here's the good news, brethren.
If you have partaken by God's grace of that freedom from that
legal death by Christ and freedom from that spiritual death by
the Spirit of God birthing you again, when you die physically,
and you stand before God, Christ, your advocate, will do all the
talking on your behalf, and he will declare, this one's judgment
was settled way back there when I cried out and said, it's finished.
You won't have to say a word. We just sit there and let the
advocate do the talking. And this is what the scripture
says. Revelation 20, verse 6 said, blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first resurrection. On such, the second death has
no power. Oh, amen. You know, God gives you things to enjoy
in this life. And you start thinking these
things are your peace. Let's say he gives you a new
car. I don't have much peace right now in my vehicle, because
it's old and worn out, and it's leaking oil faster than I can
pour oil into it. And if I got a new vehicle, I
would have a little bit of peace that I can get from this place
to that place. But what we start doing is he
gives you something like a new car, and you start having some
peace and finding some peace in it. Your bank account's good.
You have some peace in it. He's got a good roof on him.
He has peace in him. And so the Lord, He'll just blow
up the engine. He gave you four flat tires.
He let the wind carry the roof off. Why? He said, in this world you shall
have tribulation. Why? Why is that? Because He said, in me you have
peace. I've overcome the world. And
through all these little tribulations, he makes you know that he's overcome
the world for you. He shows you in every one of
these little trials you suffer, he's overcome it for you. He
brings you out of it and shows you, your peace wasn't in that.
He's your peace. And you see him a little better
and a little more clearly. You know, he's really my peace. You go through these things,
and every time you see, I'm so weak, I'm just so weak. But Lord, it's my strength. But
you go a little bit further, and you start putting a little
more confidence in these things, and think, there's your peace,
so the Lord has to do this all over again. But it's all for
this reason, coming down to a day, and you're gonna be laying there,
and your body's going to stop working. And you're not going to be able
to have any peace in your body or anything you can do because
you don't have any strength in it whatsoever. That's what the
Lord's been showing us all along. That's how helpless we've been
the whole time. Right now. And in that day, we're
going to find out. Because when that body can't
function, and the Lord comes and says,
go away. I'm your peace. I'm your life. We're going to know fully, perfectly,
how it's been this whole time. He's your life. He's your base. And to Him belong the issues
from death. Brethren, He that is our God is the God
of salvation. And unto God the Lord belong
the issues from death. Paul said, He saves us from deaths
often. We don't know how many deaths,
and we can do it all the time. But he saved us from all death,
and he's our life. And one day, one day. Brother, Brother Bill can sing perfectly now, and praise God
with his mouth perfectly now, like an angel. That's what we're going to do.
That's what we're going to do. And what are we going to say?
To God be the glory. Amen. Thank you all so much. I needed to hear that. That's
the gospel, the good news. Would you stand with me please
and turn to page 202. How amazing is that grace that
our Lord has for His people. 202. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now have
found Was blind, but now I see Was grace that taught my heart
to fear And grace my fears relieved How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believed. The Lord has promised good to
me His Word my hope secure He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures Through many dangers, toils and
snares, I have already come. His grace has brought me safe
thus far. and grace will lead me home. When we've been there ten thousand
years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to see We have several folks who will
be traveling today and tomorrow, going back to their homes. I
just pray the Lord will give you all safe travels. We do have
food available afterwards. Please join us. You've got to
eat somewhere for lunch. It's been a little while since
you've had breakfast. Come on over and eat with us and have
some good fellowship. Have some time with this dear pastor. And
well, may God give us the ability to glorify him in all that we
say and do. Amen to that? Amen. Brother Rick,
would you lead us in closing prayer? And would you also ask
for the Lord's blessing on the food we come? Father, we thank
you for the gracious words you've heard. that we're about Christ
and Christ alone, through grace and grace alone, according to
the scriptures and the scriptures alone. Open our hearts and our
mind, not just to be hearers, but to be doers in the spirit.
Work in us, Lord, for we are weak and needy preachers. Without
you, we can do nothing. We ask also your blessings on
the food that we're about to receive. We thank you for it
as we see a world that's in chaos. a world with famine and a lack
of food, and we have more than I could really imagine. So we're
going to be diligent about those that have not. Work with us,
Lord. In Jesus' name, for his glory and our good, amen. Amen. Thank you, God.