Good evening. Those brethren
at Berea, I spoke about them this evening, they went home
and searched the scriptures and they were just a little bit more
noble, wasn't they? You know what made them more
noble? It says up there in verse eight, they talked about this
king, one's in italics, Jesus, King Jesus. They were children
of the king. That's what made them nobility.
So if we're going to be noble, that's what'll make us noble,
is being his child. Him being our king. That's what
that is. And that goes well with that.
Paul got kicked out of town, didn't he? He went in their synagogues
and those religious places where religious people were. People
read their Bible. And he preached to them, he stood on his hind
two legs, looked them dead in the eye and said, Christ is king.
That very same Jesus you all killed, that's him. And they
hated him. They hated him. Every one of
those apostles died except John. They cast him out to an island.
They hated him. Did you know that they were warned
ahead of time that that was going to happen? A man of old said that one time,
I don't know if it was a famous writer or a man of God, I don't
know. It was right, broke clocks right twice a day. And I said,
you know, if you're warned ahead of time for something, it's a
little bit easier to bear. It is. If I go to the dentist
and they talk me through like a little child, everything that
now we're going to give you this shot and you're going to feel
a pinch up in there, it's going to hurt real bad. But just be for a second.
I can, I can deal with that a whole lot better if I know what's coming. Paul and Silas and Barnabas and
the rest of them, they went out two by two, two by two, not a
man sitting in his living room having a Bible study and calling
himself a preacher. I've told you it ain't gonna
work, and you either believe me or you won't, or God will
prove it out to you if you're his. But when they went out two by two,
they knew what they was walking into. And them brethren saw,
they was gonna lynch them. And they said, you go on, get
out of here, go by night, we'll handle it, we'll take the beating.
Jason said, that's all right, I'll take the beating for you.
You keep preaching. Paul was warned ahead of time
of that, just as the apostles were warned ahead of time that
this was coming, just as I've been warned ahead of time that
this is coming. And if the Lord raises up another preacher, they
ought to be warned. Trouble's brewing. It's going
to come. Let's look in our text here in
John 16 tonight. We remember, I think this will
be good for you. We're everyone going to face some troubles.
And if you're a child, I want to say this as plain as I can.
If you're a child of God, The Lord's gonna make you stand with
Christ against this world. It's gonna happen. Now, it might
be something another would consider very mild. It might be a slight
disagreement with somebody you talked to at the water cooler.
I don't know. I don't know what the Lord's providence would be
for his children. Or it might be something bold, like old John
Huss, that they got a statue and a day for now in Czech Republic. They burnt the man at the stake.
Well, we loved him. If we were alive then, we'd have
loved him. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. You'd have been right
there with him. I would have, wouldn't I? The only difference
would be the grace of God working in somebody. And it's a rarity.
There's a rim. But for those that's going to
suffer, and you might get kicked out of religious circles, They
won't be upset with you no more. Those people you used to go church
with and then the Lord saved you out of that, you can't talk
about, you don't speak the same language. They don't hear. And
you're speaking something they don't understand. And they can't
have fellowship one with another. You can't be yoked with them.
That means you can't be hooked up together and do some work, get
something done. You keep pulling up, you'll pull in circles. You're
not evenly yoked. Now you might say, Kevin, that
ain't my experience. Maybe it ain't your experience yet. Maybe the
Lord ain't saved you. Maybe the Lord ain't worked in you yet.
Maybe the Lord ain't made you stand for him and his gospel,
and against yourself. That's true if you're on a deserted
island. I've told you, a fellow was there on an island and they
rescued him. He was all by himself, and there was three huts. I said,
what's in three huts? He said, that one's where I live. I said,
what's the other one? He said, that's where I go to
church. What's that third one? He goes, that's where I used to go to church. I got
tired of them people down there. Too stuffy. I didn't like that
fellow. Good thing he didn't have a mirror,
huh? Might have cut that fellow's shave in him. Here in John 16,
remember our Lord, since chapter 13, this is that same night.
He washed their feet, he gave them bread to eat, and sucked
with them, and he told Judas, he said, you go do what you gotta
do. And they thought he was out buying meat. They thought he
was out doing something, because he was the treasurer. He was
the only one that had any appearance of an office above the other
ones. Does that make you want to seek an office in the Lord's
church? And they assumed he was greater
than the rest of them. And so he's speaking from John
13 all the way until Judas comes back to those 11, those 11. And you think he told Paul the
same thing when he took him out for two or three years out in
Asia? You bet he did. He speaks to him. He says here
in John 16, verse one, he says, these things have I spoken unto
you that you should not be offended. Is that what it says? Don't be
offended. Not that you got your feelings
hurt. We'll see what the word means here in a second. It says in
verse two, they shall put you out of the synagogues. Yea, the
time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth
God's service. And these things will they do
unto you because they have not known the Father, nor me. They don't know God. Boy, that's
a bold statement. He said it, not me. They're going
to do these things because they don't know God. But these things
have I told you. I've told you this because that
way when a time comes, that when the time shall come, you may
remember that I told you of them. You're going to think, why are
they so mad at me? I just told you what he said. You go remember
that right then. I said, my spirit, you will remember
I told you these. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning
because I was with you. They was against me when I was
with you. They liked you just fine. Now I'm going to go to
the father and they're going to come after you. And we'll
see that keeps happening, keeps happening. They're going to brag
on the dead ones. And they will not stand or go against God's
man in that day. It's always been that way. It
ain't going to change until the Lord comes. Verse five, but now
I go my way to him that sent me, and none of you asketh me,
whither goest thou? But because I have said these
things unto you, I just told you this, trouble's coming. I'm
going to my father. Sorrow hath filled your heart.
This is hard for you. He's gonna tell them later on,
he says, there's a whole lot of stuff I'm gonna tell you, you can't handle
it right now. You're young believers. We see things through a glass
dimly. I mean, we barely know anything.
And the majesty of God and his power and his wisdom, well, he
is, but boy, we ain't got a handle on it. We ain't got him in a
box just yet. He said, sorrows filled your heart because I've
told you this. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. Paul asks
here in Galatians 4, 16, he said, are you mad at me because I tell
you the truth? I've had people mad at me because I told them
what God said. They get mad. Lord said, nevertheless,
whether it hurts your feelings or not, I'll tell you the truth. It's expedient for you. This
is a good news. It's expedient for you. It's
necessary for you. It's good for you that I go away. I have to go to the father. I
have to ascend. That's what he's saying. I have
to suffer. I have to die and I have to rise again. For if
I go not away, if I don't do this, the comforter ain't gonna
come. But if I depart, I'll send him to you. He says, I will.
If I depart, I will. I shall send him to you. If he
doesn't arise, what's a comforter gonna tell you? He ain't got
no good news. Ain't nothing to tell you. The
work's not been finished. If the work's finished, he's
got good news to tell you. If there's still something left
to do, that's bad news, because I can't do it. People that think
themselves wise, people that think themselves holy, they think
they can do it. I can't. It don't work that way. That's
bad news. To be warned of something before it happens makes it just
a little bit more bearable, doesn't it? I don't want you offended
when most people you preach to, apostles, they're gonna be offended. I don't want you put off. I don't
want you trapped in these things. Don't get discouraged. Fear not
their faces. And if they pick up stones, you just keep preaching.
People want to talk about mature believers. I'll tell you what
a mature believer was. Somebody really grown in faith. Oh, did they hum whenever
they sang? Oh, they quoted all the scripture.
No, they stoned Stephen to death. And while they stoned him to
death, he said, God, forgive me. I don't know what they're
doing. That's a mature, I want to be mature like that. And I'll
tell you what, only God can do it. Only he can do it. What's this offense the Lord
was talking about? You know what that Greek word there, offense,
means? It's a few times in the New Testament. Scandalizo. Scandalizo. That's where we get
the word scandal. It's scandalous. Not offense,
like, oh, I kind of don't like that. Everybody's offended nowadays,
isn't it? Everybody and their brother. That's some modern talk,
that'll get some heads nodding, won't it? Offense, oh, I'm offended,
you're offended. That's offensive. It's scandalous
is what this word means. It's a trap. It literally means
a trap and tosses to sin, apostasy, displeasure. It stirs up, it
gets a hold of them and they can't let it go and they get
mad. It traps them and ensnares them. Turn over to Matthew 11.
There's several places here in the New Testament this word's
mentioned, but I want us to look at just this one. This is what
come to mind first. Matthew 11. This is one of the first time
I preached. I preached out of this passage here, Matthew 11. Look
at verse six. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking, and you can take him at his word. He says, and blessed
as he, blessed. You want to talk about somebody
that's blessed? He's telling you what it is. Blessed as he,
whosoever shall not be offended. in me, not be scandalized, not
get in a trap and not get pinned up and provoked to sin because
of me. That's the blessed person. A
person that can hear about Christ and nothing but Christ day in
and day out and it makes them happy. That person's blessed
and they're not offended. They're not offended in him.
Remember those people we looked at a couple of weeks ago, they
didn't hate Christ because he healed the sick. That didn't make them
mad. I'd love for him to heal the sick, fix my knee and my
back and whatever ails you, right? They didn't hate him. They didn't
go against him. The world didn't despise him
because he fed people. Because he fed 5,000. He fed
7,000. He fed people day in and day out. That didn't bother them.
It didn't make them mad. He made a whole bunch of wine.
I mean, a couple hundred gallons of good wine. Well, we might
get mad tomorrow. Mad in the morning, huh? That
didn't make them mad. It didn't make them mad because he raised
the dead. Because he brought lives to the
ground. They said, look how much he loved him. How he wept. They
were mad because of his words, not the miracle, it was the message,
because of what he said. And he said, blessed is the man
that's not offended in me. Well, what's the words, as he
said? Look up verse two. Now, when
John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, John the
Baptist, he sent two of his disciples, and they said unto him, art thou
he that should come, or do we look for another? And Jesus answered
and said unto them, go and show John again those things which
ye do here You go tell them what you hear, what you hear me preaching.
Tell them what you hear me say, and that you see it's proven
to you. I've heard it and I've seen it. What? What do they hear? What do they see? The blind receive
their sight. The lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor,
those are all miracles, ain't they? And the poor have the gospel
preached to them. What guilt I have for the thousands
of messages I could have heard, and I forsook. My pastor told
me, he said, you're not only responsible for what you did
here, you're responsible for what you could have heard. That's
so, isn't it? Thousands I missed. Thousands.
Thousands I sat through and just slept during. I'd pinch the inside
of my leg, try to keep myself awake, because Henry would catch
me at the back door and say, was you up late last night? Why don't
you take a nap before you come here? It's serious business.
Hmm. He listed these things, the poor
have gospel preached to him. What was the first thing he said there
in verse five? The blind received their sight. That's offensive
to some people, isn't it? What's that mean if the blind
received their sight? That means you's blind. Well, I see just
fine. I can read your word. I can memorize
the word. I can tell you what the word says. Yeah, but you
don't have a clue what it is. You're blind to what the gospel
is in there. You don't see it. born blind, born unable to see
the light of Christ in providence, in creation, in the word, in
whatever. You don't see it because you're blind. And he must give
sight for somebody to see. That's a miracle. Spirits, we're
not talking about physical sight, we're talking about spiritual
sight. The Lord healed a man blind from birth over in John
9, didn't he? We looked at that at length. And he healed that
fella. And his parents, they said, we're
gonna get kicked out of synagogue. I don't know if he saw, maybe
he's lying since birth. I don't know. They didn't want
to get in trouble at church. They didn't want to get on church
punishment. And those Pharisees, they caught the Lord outside.
And they said, they heard all the words he said. And they said,
are you saying we're blind also? Is that what you're saying? And
God Almighty in human flesh spoke to him. And he said, if you were
blind, you'd have no sin. If you were blind, your sins
would be clear. You'd know what I was talking
about. But now you say, we see. I see. I see. I get it. I know.
I know. I know. Oh, really? Therefore
you sin remaineth. That simple? The Lord don't preach
complicated messages, does he? Sin blinds us spiritually. The
sin that we're born with, that Adam gave to us, we come up,
we did every bit of it ourselves too. Any way you can cut it,
we're to blame. It blinds us. And he must give
us new eyes. If we're gonna be given eyes
to see, he has to do it. Does that offend you? Does that
entrap you? Does that, your knowing, does
that put you off a little bit? He says the lame walk. That means
you're unable to walk. That's offensive to a lot of
people. By nature, people talk about man's free will. Let me
tell you what God says about man's free will. We know what
people say. We know what the God of our imagination says.
Let me tell you what God says about it. Here's what his word
says. John 5 39 is what it says. He says, search the scriptures,
go home, read your Bible. I'm going to go read my Bible.
Well, good. but you want to have somebody preach it to you, you
ain't gonna figure it out. He said, search the scriptures,
for in them you think you have eternal life. You think I can
read this book, I can figure it out, and I'll walk my way
to God. I can walk a righteous path by
reading this word. He said, and they are they, all
this, it testifies of me. Testifies of me, that's what
it is. He said, and you will not come
to me. What's man's will? He will not
come to me that you might have life. That's man's will. It's dead. It won't come to God.
And it can't. It can't. By nature, we will
not and we cannot come to God. He said, John 6, 44, no man can
come to me. The word dodecahedron is not
in there. This ain't a complicated math problem, is it? No man can
come to me except the Father which has sent me draw him. God's gonna have to draw you.
If the lame's gonna walk, he's gotta make you walk to him. God
must give us the power to walk in paths of righteousness to
come to Christ. And that's what the path of righteousness
is. Coming to him, coming to his cross, bow down to it. Now
we gotta walk in faith, don't we? What did Paul say to the
church at Corinth? Those brethren at Corinth? He
said, God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them. If
a lame's gonna walk, it's him doing it. Flat out, 100%, I didn't
have anything to do with it. I didn't let him. I didn't do
anything. He did it. Does that offend you? Is that a trap that make you
stumble? Is that scandalous? I can't believe
he said such. A friend of mine preached last
week, one of the best messages I've heard in a long time, and he
got scathing reviews. He got scandalous reviews. People,
they got about five emails, said, you need to go listen to some
messages while you're preaching. That was beautiful. May make
you mad, glad, or sad, won't it? Are we lepers? Said the lepers
are cleansed. I ain't no leper. Look at me.
I have no bacterial infection in my epidermis. They always
talk about, no, on the inside, you're rotten. Rotting. You get that? That's where we
get the word. Them children are rotten. That's an old Appalachian
saying, for they are rotting on the inside, for they are dead
in trespasses and sin. They're rotten. Cut your throat
if they knew how to. That's what we are. That means
we're dirty, we're lepers, we're unclean. Isaiah said, he said,
but we are all as an unclean thing. That means it can't be
in the presence of God. And all of our righteousness,
they're filthy rags. They are used menstruation cloths.
That's as vulgar as you can get. Well, we're much worse than that
on the inside. Outside might be clean, huh?
We fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away.
We think we're just fine. Well, I've been saved my whole
life. I went to conferences. I went 2,000 miles to get there. I know
all the right people. I sat in the right churches.
I was underneath the right men preaching the gospel. I must be saved. Your
iniquities took you away. Is that offensive? The Lord went further than that.
He said, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites,
you hypocrites, for you're like whited sepulchers. You indeed
seem beautiful outwardly. He said, but within are full
of dead men bones and all of uncleanness. We're lepers. We're born in sin and spiritual
leprosy and he must cleanse us. He's the only one that can do
it. Did I offend you? Did you get
tripped up on that? Next week, Lord willing, we'll
look at the Holy Ghost conviction. That's required. Not law conviction,
not mommy and daddy conviction. God, the Holy Ghost has to come
to you and say, you're sin. Not sins. Sin. What is sin? Because you didn't believe on
me, the Lord said. Oh, what? You ever heard that on TV? We're
the feminine noun, sin, because we had unbelief. Somebody went
to Old Whitfield one time and they said, he said, brother,
I'm just drowning in my sin. He said, what's wrong with you?
He said, well, I did this bad, I did that bad, and I thought
these things bad. He said, yeah, and then what? So what? He said, well, yeah, but I drank
this and I smoked that and I said these things and I went here.
And? He said, well, aren't you offended yet? And didn't that
do the trick? He said, I heard you say nothing
about you not believing God. How many times a day do I read that
word? And I say, oh, what's going to happen? What am I going to
do? Lord's on his throne. We're lepers,
ain't we? We're deaf. We don't hear those
things. Deaf are given ears to hear. We have to be healed of
deafness. That means you can't hear nothing. You didn't have
ears to hear. We can't hear his son. Lord opened
heaven, the heavens, he spoke from there. And he said, this
is my son and whom I'm well pleased. And those on that mount of transfiguration,
he commanded them. He said, hear ye him, hear ye
him. You can't, you'll sleep right
through it. Unless he wakes you up and gives you ears to hear.
Lord said many times throughout the word, he that has ears to
hear, let him hear. Well, everyone heard him say that. No, they
didn't. They audibly heard something in that vibration in the eardrum.
They didn't hear in the heart, did they? Spiritual deafness
is what he's talking about. They can't hear grace. They can't
hear mercy. They can't hear long-suffering,
gentleness, meekness, kindness. They can't hear rest. They can't
hear peace, be still. They're just fluttering around.
A man had a son with a dumb spirit.
It tore him, and he foamed at the mouth, and he bit people,
and the disciples went to him, and they couldn't cast out that
spirit. So that man brought the boy to the master, didn't he,
Mark? And he said, if you believe, all things can take place, can't
it? And he said, Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. I believe. Help my unbelief. And the Lord
took out the dumb and deaf spirit from the boy. Oh, boy, what do
you think that is? We doing voodoo magic and getting
demons out of people? No. He is saving somebody. That's what he's showing us,
isn't it? I believe, help my unbelief. For us to hear, for
us to be able to speak like a child of God. Remember us looking at
that deaf man? He couldn't talk right. That's proof that the
ear ain't working. I hear people say things and I'm like, well,
they deaf. Plain. We must, he must heal
us of our deafness. He must heal us of our dumbness.
We can't do it. And just like that boy, he said,
after they took that dumb and deaf spirit out of him, he was
sore. Whenever it came out of him, everybody thought so much
he's dead. And if the Lord takes that deafness out of you, you're
going to be sore. Some people may think you're
dead, but he's going to go and touch you and you'll rise. Ed
Hart, you'll be alright. It's good. That's good. If the Lord wounds you to give
you life, that's a good thing. You'll get over it. You'll be
just fine. Christ will lift you up at the
end of that. Is that offensive? Does that tie you up? Is that
scandalous? There in verse 5 it says the
dead are raised. For somebody to be raised from the dead, you
have to be dead. That make sense? I'm not dead, I'm breathing.
I'm walking, that's a big, that's a huge, the fact that we hear,
that we talk, that we see, and that we breathe oxygen in our
heartbeats, that's a hindrance to natural man. We think we're
fine. The Lord said the dead are raised. We're not just talking
about lasvers coming out of the tomb. Dead bones are given life,
ain't they? Apostle that in Colossians 2
said, you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of
your flesh, hath he quickened. He's gave life together with
him. Surely we're never offended,
are we? This isn't just a message that the Lord preaches that they're
blessed if they're not offended in. That's not us. We don't ever
get offended, do we? Yeah, we do. Nothing changed.
The Lord might save somebody. We still have this body of death
that we're carrying around. We don't rise above. We don't get
more noble. We don't get a little more holy
and a little more experienced. We all think we're grownups,
don't we? What if I was an apostle? What if I was chosen, a real
one? What if I was one of the 11?
Would I think I'm good now, I'm good to go? That's what happened
to Luke 18, wasn't it? That young man said, I've kept
all these things. Rich young ruler said, I've kept all these
things from my youth up. He thought he'd kept everything. In Matthew
26, the Lord talked to those people, those 11. He said, you
all shall be offended because of me this night. For it's written,
I'll smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered
abroad. But after this I'll be risen, and I will go before you
into Galilee. And Peter said unto him, though
all men shall be offended because of thee, I will never be offended. They're watching nevers, huh?
I'll never, you'll start never, never, like you've never, never
before. I'll never be offended. And Jesus said this same night,
before the cock crow, you'll deny me thrice. And Peter said
unto him, though I should die with thee, Yet I will not deny
thee. He doubled down, didn't he? Matthew
26, 35 ends with, likewise also said all the disciples. Have
I said that? I'll stand for this gospel if
it kills me. I might, I might not. If he makes me stand, if
he gives me life, then I will. Ain't that right? Have you ever
said that? I'll never forsake this gospel. It might not. The Son of God
had to bear that winepress alone. We had nothing to do with it.
When He gave us life, we weren't on the scene yet. We didn't have
our hand to it. That covenant of grace was declared
before time. Salvation is of the Lord. Life
is of Him. I never want to be offended.
that I'm an unable sinner. I never want to be offended that
Christ is the victorious Savior on his throne, that all the work's
accomplished. I never want the good news to
be boring and make me slothful and me to be lukewarm. Do you
know what lukewarm is? That's room temperature. That's
some code words in the EMT community. If somebody's room temperature,
that means they're dead. You get that? The Lord said,
I don't have you lukewarm. I'll spit you out of my mouth.
I don't want to be that. I don't want to be that. I don't
want to be offended by this. I pray God makes this gospel new to
me. And, and, and the preaching of Christ and him crucified,
just precious every day, all day, every day. Matthew 11, 15,
the blind receive their sight, the lame walk. Matthew 11, five. Blind receive their sight, the
lame walk, the leopards are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised
up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. That's what
these men was about to go do. They was about to go preach the gospel. Some do not seem offended. Sometimes
they may even rejoice. Turn over Mark chapter four with
me. Mark chapter four. Some may rejoice. But then when
that offense comes from somebody else, from their friends, from
someone they respect more than they respect the Lord, that's
as plain as I can put it. When the offense comes from someone
they respect more than they respect God, they'll leave it. You will
land where your allegiance is. That's so. When the trial comes,
they fall away. Look here at Mark 4. Let me get
there. Mark 4, verse 16. The Lord gave
that parable of the sowers, of what the seed lands on, the stony
ground and the briar patches and things. He explained this
thing here in verse 16, Mark 4, 16. And these are they likewise
which are sown on stony ground, who, when they have heard the
word, immediately receive it with gladness. Right then, I
don't have to think about this. Woo, that's a gospel and I love it.
That's it. That's the right doctrine. I'm in the right church. I found
the right preacher. Right now, I'm happy. They receive
it with gladness. You happy? They received it with
gladness. What does verse 17 say? And they
have no root in themselves. Oh Lord, keep, keep me. That's for so long. Salvation,
I was 18 inches away. I had every bit of it right here.
I was happy about it, but there's no root in me. That root of Jesse
didn't dwell in me yet. Lord saved me in the heart. I
said, they have no root in themselves. And so endure for a time. How
long is that time? I've seen it go 35 years. Well,
I'll be 43. I've seen, I've seen it go 41
and a half years. I've seen people sit underneath the gospel and
profess to believe it and work hard and give their money and their
time and their sweat and everything else. And then say, I'm tired of doing
that. They rejoice for a time, maybe it's three days, maybe
it's 30 years, I don't know. Afterward, when affliction or
persecution ariseth for the word's sake. Because what's said? Oh,
now it's gosh-blank free no more. It's gonna cost me some comfort.
It's gonna cost me some friendships. It's gonna cost me grandma and
grandpa. For the word's sake, immediately
they are, what's that say? Offended. They're caught up in
a scandal. They're tore apart. They're pulled
away. Where does that leave you? Where does that leave me? Begging? Lord, keep me. Don't let me be
in offense and don't let me be offended. Let me bow to your
word. Let me preach your word without worrying about me being
offended or anybody else being offended. Let me stand on your
truth. Let me stand on your Christ. Back in our text there in verse
two, I want to touch one more thing, we'll save the rest for
next week. He's telling these things, verse one, John 16, one,
these things have I spoken unto you that you should not be offended. And he goes on, verse two, they
shall put you out of the synagogues. You know what that meant? Well,
if you get kicked out of church, you just go to the next town,
right? No, no, no, no, no, no. No, remember the blind man, Lord
Hill? He got booted. You can't get
married there. So that means your wedding's unofficial. That's
scandalous. You can't have a funeral there.
They're gonna have to bury you in some parking lot somewhere.
You can't have business transactions with people that go to that synagogue.
You're out of work. What are you gonna do, sell stuff
on the side of the road? Your life in this world got thrown
away. Everything you knew, all them friends you have. You're
gonna get blocked from Facebook or whatever. They'll kick you
out of the synagogues. They'll take away everything
you thought was right. Yeah, the time cometh that whosoever killeth
you will think he doeth God's service. There's gonna come a
time. There was a time whenever the
Jews shortly after our Lord left this earth and after they killed
those apostles, if they killed a heretic or they killed someone
that was an apostate, it was counted exactly as the same as
if they had a burnt sacrifice. Instead of you sacrificing a
lamb at the altar, like, oh, I killed a heretic the other
day. Oh, you're fine. You're good. Has anything changed? Well,
we can't murder people in the street in this country, can we?
Years ago, I know there's some face, I'll talk to you about
this someday. I'll do a history lesson on it in private. Don used to
preach a place called Lookout West Virginia for nine years.
Did you know that? And then he didn't preach there anymore.
And there hasn't been a gospel preacher in Lookout West Virginia that
I've known of since. Lord moved him to Danville and
used him mightily. They fought him tooth and toe now. Henry
used to preach a place called Pollard Baptist Church for about
five years, four or five years. And while he was there, they
only had three children. And it was a young family with young
kids. That gets real expensive and
they wouldn't make them much money. And he was preaching the truth.
He got up and he said what God says right here in his word.
People said, you need to reconsider what you're saying. And those sweet grandmas in that
Sunday school class, you know what they did? They got together
in their Sunday school class, in the elderly women's class,
and they made a covenant between one another. They did. You know
what that covenant was? They said, if we can't vote him
out, we'll starve him out. Does that sound like grace to
you? Does that sound like sweet church
people? They're doing this for God. They're doing this for God's
service. Why don't they just pack and
leave? Sell everything they've got and move where the gospel
is. They didn't know no gospel. That's what the Lord told them.
He said, they don't know me, and they don't know the Father,
and they hate God. Those are strong words. It's God's words,
isn't it? He has to keep them from those
things. He said that in Matthew 23, he talked to those Pharisees
and he said, all those prophets of old, you killed them. You
say you love, you say you Abraham's children, we love Moses. We don't
need you. I told you that last time, all throughout history,
they burned Huss at the stake and they praised Whitefield.
And then they got to Calvin and them, and they said, we love
Huss. And then they got to Spurgeon and said, we ain't gonna listen
to you. What's wrong with you? Why are you making all these books? We love Calvin.
And I saw a guy on TV the other day, they named their firstborn
son Spurgeon. And I promise you, dollars to
donuts, that man wouldn't sit underneath one message Spurgeon
had to preach. Hey, don't believe that gospel one lick. I topped this up from a message
I heard. Lord hated all those. The world hates those that preach
the gospel in that day, and as soon as they're gone, they don't
have to listen to them and they can read what they want to read out of
a book or out of a commentary, then they're just fine with them.
But if they had to sit and just take what's coming that week,
you gotta eat what food's laid out that week, they hate them
and they can't stand them and they don't want nothing to do with
them. Old Henry said, Brother Barnard,
everybody loves Brother Barnard. There's a place in North Carolina,
there's a place in Canada, and there's a place in Arizona that
promotes the Ralph Barnard libraries. They promote them. Everybody
loves Barnard, don't they? When he was on this earth, he
had very few friends. He preached a bunch of places
once. He preached a bunch of places
one time. Very few places have him back.
Henry said that out loud and people hated him at the time.
They said, don't you dare say that. We love brother Barnard. Who
are you, Henry Mahan? And then Henry died. And now
on Sermon Audio, he's a choice speaker. You know that? He has
staff picks. And they won't have anything,
the same people that picked it won't have anything to do with
them simple country bumpkin preachers that's out there telling the
truth right now. That fell down in Pike County, Kentucky. Wow,
that's an old diesel mechanic. We can't listen to that fella.
That's God's man. And how you treat the God's man in that day
is how you would treat him whenever he was walking this earth. We're
fools if we think anything different. Henry said this, HTM. I put it
next to it so I wouldn't forget. California needs to hear this.
I don't know about any place else in the world, I wasn't sent
to any other state in the world. I was sent to this state, this state needs to hear
this. Never trust a man who spends all his time talking about dead
preachers. It's the easiest thing in the world to follow a dead
preacher and to brag on them and to hate the one that God
has on the scene at this time. You see, that is the normal pharisaical
spirit. That's what I told him in Matthew
23. He said, you decorate the tombs of those people you'd killed,
and if he was alive in that day, you'd have killed every one of
them. He knew their heart, didn't he? Verse 3, John 16, 3. And these things will they do
unto you because they have not known the Father nor me. Does that mean we burn heretics?
Does that mean we burn apostates? Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6,
9, those saints at Corinth, he said, you know not, know ye not
that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be
not deceived. You know this, neither fornicators,
nor adulterers, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of
God. That hits everybody. Does that cover the whole gambit?
And he says to those saints, and such were some of you. All
right. Remember those days? Remember
those days? What are we supposed to do when
they come after us when we're offended or somebody else is
offended? My first thing is, let me take out my fisherman's
knife and I'll take both ears off. People say, I don't want to fight.
I do. That's wrong. That's wrong. Turn over to loop
nine. I'll hurry and get you out of here. Loop nine. Luke 9, verse 51. And it came to pass, I hope I take
this to heart for me. It came to pass when the time
was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face
to go to Jerusalem and sent messengers before his face. And they went
and entered into the village of the Samaritans to make ready
for him. And they did not receive him. because his face was as
though he would go to Jerusalem. The Samaritans wanted nothing
to do with him. And when his disciples, James and John, those
sons of Zebedee, those sons of thunder, they said, Lord, wilt
thou that we command fire come down from heaven and consume
them, even as Elias did? They won't let you into their
cities, Lord. You let me call down fire and brimstone. Right
now, we'll burn them alive. They don't bow to you. That's
good, isn't it? Isn't that defending? That's
killing people for the gospel's sake. Going toe to toe with them.
Is that in a comment blog? On a blog post? Let me tell you
something. That's what it is today, because we don't have
fire and brimstone to throw at people, isn't it? Use our words.
Verse 55. But the Lord turned. And he rebuked
them, and he said, ye know not what manner of spirit ye are.
There's a spirit in you that wants to burn this place to the
ground, and you don't know what spirit, if that's a flesh or
that's a spirit. You don't know which one that
is. For the Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives,
but to save them. And they went on to another village.
And now what he did to us, didn't we want to not have nothing to
do with him? Weren't we revilers? Weren't we adulterers? Weren't
we extortioners, covetous? and we graduate to frugal. That
was us, wasn't it? Compassion, mercy, grace is what
he's talking about. Back in our text here in John
16, verse four. But these things have I told
you that when the time shall come you may remember that I
told you of them. I hope I remember when these times come to me.
And these things I said not unto you at the beginning because
I was with you. You didn't need to know it then,
but you do now. But now I go my way to him that sent me, and
none of you ask of me, where thou goest thou? But because
I've said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart."
This is coming. It may be something big, it may
be something little. It may be something big to you and something
little to me. Maybe something big to me, something little to
you, but it's gonna happen. Now, we have sorrowful hearts. He
said, nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it's expedient for
you that I go away. This is good that this is gonna
happen to you. Or if I go not away, the comforter
will not come unto you. But if I depart, I will. And say I might, or if you're
good little boys and girls, I'll send him. Uh-uh. Where's he at now? He's departed
from us, isn't he? He's on his throne. He said,
I will send him unto you. I will. I will. I pray I could
pray. You ever prayed, Lord, help me
pray. Pray, Lord, make me pray. Send
your spirit. Teach me. Teach me. Make me gracious. Make
me merciful. Make me like your son. Amen.
All right, Brother Martin.