As I said, I don't hesitate to
say that about John Wesley at all. Somebody needs to in this
modern day. Men did it years ago. If you
want to read a good message, there's a message by William
Huntington entitled, The Funeral of Arminianism. The Funeral of
Arminianism. And he answered one of the most
heretical sermons ever preached by John Wesley on the pre-great,
in which John Wesley said, imputed righteousness is imputed nonsense. That's his words exactly. And
William Huntington tore him up. And it thrilled my soul to read
it. William Huntington was like Stephen.
They could not withstand his wisdom. He was just an old cold
heaver. He carried coal for a living.
No education. But the people of his day saw
him as a spiritual giant, and that he was. But John Wesley
did much error, much injury. His brother now, Charles Wesley,
from whom your husband, I guess, was named. Now, he's a believer. Charles Wesley, he wrote many
great hymns. All right, Matthew 13. You can
have a seat. Matthew 13. We've looked at all of these
parables before, but we just know in part, don't we? We looked
at this on a Wednesday night three years ago to the month. We haven't learned anything.
That's what he says here in verses 10 through 12. They said, Why
speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them,
Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven. To them it is not given. Whosoever hath,
to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance. Hopefully
the Lord will give us a greater understanding even after tonight. But whosoever hath not from him
shall be taken away even that he hath." This world professes
itself to be wise, but they are fools. And I tell you how depraved they are and how much
they prove their foolishness. God was manifest in the flesh,
and every word that proceeded out of his mouth was infinite
wisdom. These parables, we could study
these for decades and not exhaust them. Simple, earthly stories
that reveal the spiritual truth, yet wise beyond our understanding. Amazing what our Lord said in
these simple stories. And yet the wise don't understand.
He's hidden these things from the wise. And to show their foolishness,
men don't study these parables. The so-called wise of this world,
they're not looking at these parables, are they? Solomon wrote
all those Proverbs. Are men looking at the Proverbs?
Are they studying the Proverbs? I think there's eight or nine
hundred we have. He wrote three thousand. Are
they looking at those? Any one of which is infinitely
wiser than the wisest man on earth today, but are they looking?
And the Scripture says, a greater than Solomon was he. Oh, if we
have a desire to look into this, and much more, if our ears are
open to hear them, our Lord said, blessed are your ears. If your
eyes are open to see the beauty, the glory, the wisdom, oh, how
blessed we are. And the hearing ear and the seeing
eye are of the Lord. The Lord hath made them both.
How blessed. Look at verses 39 and following.
explained this parable to his disciples. And it's much more
than a parable, though, because he said in verse 39, the harvest
is the end of the world. This is much more serious than
just an interesting parable. And it behooves us to know whether
or not we're wheat or tar. Because he says in a very solemn,
I'm quite sure the Lord said this in very grave tones. He
said, The tares are gathered together, verse 40, and burned
in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son
of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of
his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and
shall cast them into a furnace of fire, and there shall be wailing
and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine
forth as a sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears
to hear, let him hear." You see, it's much more serious than just
learning an interesting parable. And I know our Lord said that
with a grave voice. Lord, give me ears. Let me know.
Tell me that I'm a good seed, His disciples came, they wanted
to know, Lord, what do you mean by this parable? And he told
them. He told them. Now look at the explanation,
verse 37. He answered and said unto them,
he that soweth the good seed is the son of man, and the field
is the world. The good seed are the children
of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked
one. Our Lord, very plainly, this will be a very plain message.
Because our Lord made it very plain, very clear in telling
them. Look up at verse 36. He sent
the multitudes away as He did to explain the first parable
to His disciples. And here He sent the multitudes
away and privately told them the meaning of this parable.
And He does it very plainly. Thank the Lord for that. He said
a man sowed, verse 24, in his field. His field. The field is the world. And he
said this man sowed in his field. Psalm 24 says the earth is the
Lord's and the fullness thereof. We almost sung that song. This
is my Father's world. And it is. God never has relinquished
ownership of this world. The God of this world doesn't
own it. The Lord has just given Him some
rule in it according to God's purpose. It's still God's work.
The kingdoms of the earth are the Lord's. Oh, yes, they are.
And He puts over them whom He will. This world belongs to the
Lord. They that dwell therein, all
souls are mine, He said. Now, He said there are two people
in this world, two types of people in this world. Only two. It doesn't
matter. Nothing matters but whether they
are found in one of these two groups. There are tares and there
are wheat. That's it. Nothing else matters. In other places, well, here he
said children of the wicked one and children of their father
in heaven. In another place he said goats.
And she didn't. In another place of the world,
not of the world. In another place of the dead,
the alive. Or in another place, in Adam,
or in Christ. There's only two. It matters not. Nothing else
matters. Who you are, where you're from,
what you have, what you know, what you can do, what you look
like, what you wear. It doesn't matter. Only one thing
matters. Where are you found? In Adam or in Christ? In Adam, all die. In Christ, made alive. The story
of the Titanic. On board that ship were 2,228
people. They were rich. They were poor.
They were famous. They were nobodies, common. They
were noble people. They were commoners. They were
male, female, old, young, black, white. But when that ship went
down, after it was all over, they put a list on the board. Saved, lost. Didn't tell anybody
whether they were a doctor, lawyer, What they owned, what they knew,
didn't matter then, did it? All that matters was saves or
loss. Saves or loss. Tears or win. Tears or win. Seriously, that's
why Paul, and this is why Paul said this, and I know he said
it from his heart, and he said it with great seriousness. He said, that I might win Christ
and be found in Him. He went on to say this, because
this is what it means to be in Him. Not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that righteousness which is by faith
of Jesus Christ. By the faith of Christ. Oh that
I may win Christ and be found in him. And by that, you know
what he meant by that. You know he didn't mean you work
for him and then you win him. No, no. It means that he's the
prize. He's the prize of the high calling
of God. God gives you that gift. All right. It's the Lord's field. The world. He owns it all. All
souls are mine. Did not he say, cannot I do with
mine own what I will? Cannot God save whom he will
and pass by whom he will? Whom he will? Not of him that
willeth, of him that runneth. It's of God that showeth mercy.
Right? He saveth whom he willeth. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. The children being not yet born,
neither having done any works, That the purpose of God according
to the election must stand. It was said unto her, the elders
have served her longer. As it is written, Jacob have
I loved, Esau have I hated. What do you say to these things?
The tarrys don't like that. The people of this world don't
like that. They don't like that at all. The good seed do. They know if it wasn't God's
will, I would never have been willing. He hadn't made me willing. If He hadn't chosen me, I would
have never chosen Him. See, they believe all people
are God's children. Now is that so serious to say
that? That all people are God's children?
What did Jesus Christ just say? This is how serious it is. When men say that, when men stand
up and say that, they're not only lying to men, people, who
have not yet repented, who fear not God, who have no need of
God, and they're giving them a false sense of peace and comfort,
but they're lying on God. And that's offensive. God is
angry with them. And they're calling Jesus Christ
a liar. Did he not plainly say, they're the children of the devil
and the children of the Father? Did he not say that? He looked
at some Pharisees one time and he said, you're of your father
the devil, didn't he? And so for a man to stand up
and say, all are God's children, is to call Jesus Christ a liar.
It's just that serious, people. It's not just a little difference
of doctrine. It's calling God a liar. Letting God be true. And God's people say amen to
that. And they all know if He hadn't given me to Christ, I
would have never come to Christ. They all know that if He hadn't
adopted me, I never would have applied for it. If He hadn't
chosen me, oh... Right away we know the difference
between the tarry and the weak. Alright, who determines who's
good seed and who's bad seed? Huh? The good seed, verse 38,
are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children
of the wicked one. Good seed, bad seed. Good seed,
bad seed. Good man, bad man. Who determines
that? What determines that? Well, it's
in the answer there, verse 37. He that soweth the good seed
is the son of man. It's his seed. He's the one that
makes it good. He's the one that sows it. Did
he not say to Nicodemus, who thought he was a good man, you
must be born again? He looked right at that Pharisee,
that teacher, that scholar, and said, you must be born again. Meaning, he's an unregenerate,
lost, unrighteous person. Not good. He hadn't done any good. Ever.
None that did good. Not one. None righteous. No, not one. He looked around.
Rich young ruler came up to him. Rich young ruler. And all he
wanted to do, really, was brag about what all he'd done. That's
all he wanted to do. And in case there was something
he missed, and he wanted to know, he wanted to find out from this
teacher, He didn't know the Lord. He didn't know who this was.
He knew he was a good teacher. And he came up, and all he wanted
to find out from him was what more he needed to do to be perfected. Finished. Good master, he said. First thing out of his mouth.
Good master. And the Lord immediately said, what? Why, I call to sound
me good. There's none good but God. Now right there you have your
answer, don't you? There's none good but God. None good. He said, if you're calling me
good, I'm God. And there's no man on this earth
that doeth good, not a just man on the earth that doeth good
and sinneth not. That's what the Scripture says. Here Christ
came, the just one, the good and holy and righteous Son of
God. He came. Who convinces me of
sin? What did He do when He came here?
Why did He come here? To show us how to live like Him
so that if we'll just live right, we can be just like Him and be
good people like Him. Nothing could be further from
the truth. He came to establish righteousness. Not to tell us how to perform
one, but to establish it. and give it to Him, charge it
to Him. He was making a robe, a wedding
garment, a covering for naked sinners, for filthy sinners who
were wearing rags. And He was making, working out
our righteousness. Seamless robe. And He puts this
on His people. Like the Father said, bring the
best robe Don't offer it to Him. Put it on Him. Clothe Him with
it. Impute it to Him. Charge it to
Him. Impart it in Him. Self-righteous people, as I said
last week about another parable, they just want to know what they
can do to get better. They don't want to hear so much
about what Christ has done. They want to hear more about
what we can do to be like Him. Now, I want to be like Him too. But I know this. I can't make
myself like Him. Can't do it. Can't do it. And I'll tell you this. Let me
let you in on a secret. To have salvation is to look
to Christ. To trust Christ. To believe in
Him. That's soul. that on him hath leaned for a
foe. Christ said, I'll never, no, never desert to his foe.
You look to me. He hath the Son, hath light,
faith. That's it. That's it. Alright? You want
holiness? Keep looking to Him. Godliness comes from looking
to Him. Not only looking to Him to get
your strength from Him, because without Him, you can't do anything. And boy, I'm way ahead of myself
now. But He said, you can't bear fruit. You're a branch. I'm the
vine. You can't bear any fruit. Branches
don't bear fruit. They get it from the root. You
can't bear fruit of yourself, except if you abide in me. His
fruit is our fruit. So we get from Him the strength.
And in looking to Him and at Him, and the more we look and
fall in love with Him, and see His mercy and His love to us
and His grace to us and His forgiveness of us and His pardon of us and
how long-suffering He is to us, that makes us that way. The law
won't do it. Us striving to be that way won't
do it. A list of things on our wall won't do it. Putting the
Scriptures on your wall won't do it. Looking to Christ will.
That's a fact. The only way to be like Christ
is to look to Christ. Husbands, love your wives. Why?
Because the law says so. as Christ went to church. You
want to know how to love your wives? Let's see how Christ loved
His forlorn bride. How He bore with the weaker vessel. How He dwelled with her in understanding. You see, that's the only thing
that will make us like Christ. Him. Studying Him. That's why we preach Christ.
We hold Him forth. Not only as our substitute, but
our example. He that soweth good seed, Christ is the one that
makes us righteous, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh,
but born of God. Of his own will begat he us with
the word of truth, being born again, not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible, the word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever." And this is the word which by the gospel is preached
unto you. The gospel. The gospel of Christ. Sown in the heart. Seed. 1 John 3. Right over there real
quickly with me. 1 John chapter 3. The seed. They're called good seed. Why
are we considered good? Why are we considered righteous?
Why are God's people considered that way? Well, right here's
the answer. 1 John 3. 1 John 3. Are you good? Well, there's only one way for
God to consider us good. 1 John 3, look at verse 8 and
9. He that committeth sin is of
the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this
purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works
of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin. Do you commit sin? That means
you're not born of God, right? No, hold on. There are two people. There's an old man who does nothing
but sin, and He will never make him better. He will never make
him one bit better. In fact, he gets worse, and he
stinks worse, and the more he lies in sin, the worse he smells,
and the heavier he gets on your shoulder. And the stronger, the
worse, the harder that battle is with him. But there's a new
man creating the image of Christ. This is a mystery, but it's so. There's a new man creating the
image of God by the Spirit of God, by the seed of God, by the
word of God, creating the image of Christ, a brand new creature
created in Christ Jesus, predestined to be conformed to the image
of Christ, who grows in grace, although he's perfect, he's holy,
he's complete in Christ, but he must grow and mature. But
that new man can not sin. You understand that? At least in our heads. But that's
a fact. How else would you, how else
do you determine it? He that commit a sin. Some say,
well, that means he does not continue in a course of sin.
Well, that's true. That's true. But here it says,
doth not commit sin. Read on. Look at verse 9. For his seed remaineth in him. He cannot sin. He is born again. Christ in him. Christ in him. Us in Christ, Christ in us. It's a new creature. And we can't
see Him. God sees Him. You can see Him
in other people, but you can't see Him in yourself. You look
in the mirror, all you see is that old man. You look in the
mirror, like James said, and the older I get, the less I like
to look in the mirror. Don't you? And we look in the mirror of
God's Word and what does it show when it shows us ourselves? That
in our flesh does no good thing. All we see are blemishes. Blameable. Blamed. Reprovable. In our sight. But that's not
the one God looks at. He looks at the one, the new
man, holy, unblameable, and unreprovable, God says. We see him in others. We see others. We think they're
growing in grace. I'm not. Don't we? We all do
that. We see they look like Christ.
They sound like Christ. They act like Christ. We don't
see that in ourselves. You're not supposed to. You're not supposed
to look for that in yourself. John Bunyan, I think it was,
said the three greatest graces of a believer, of a Christian
are the humility, Humility and humility. That means I am nothing. I am nothing. Humility. Good
seed. You're good if you're in Christ. Is that stretching it? No, that's
the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You're bad if you're
outside of Christ. You're accepted in the beloved.
You're rejected outside of the beloved. Right? The love of God
is where in Romans 8, 29? In Christ Jesus. The love of
God. Not outside of Him. You're either
in the ark or you're outside the ark. That's just a fact of
the matter. Romans 8, 39. You don't make yourself good
and you can't make yourself better. No. He that planted the good
seed is the Son of Man. You see that? He that does the
work, it is God that worketh in us, both the will. Why do
we labor this part? Because it's true. Why do we
labor this part? Because He gets the glory. And
to keep us from being put down. Keep us from self-righteousness.
The self-righteous are an offense to God. If righteousness come
by any way, any other way than Christ, it died. in vain. That's how serious it is. No. Christ shed his blood. We read that the Son of Man was
manifest to put away sin. That's why it came. The children of the wicked one
in our text says the enemy sowed them. He's the devil. Children
of the wicked one. Sown of the devil. Seed of the
serpent. Where do we first hear about
the serpent's seed? Do you remember? All the way
back in the garden. It's nothing new here. Our Lord
was there. Jesus Christ was the one that
was talking to him and Eve and Adam in the garden. He's the
one, the voice of God, that came walking in the cool of the day
and talked to the first sinners and told them about the seed.
And he said to Satan, first of all, who deceived the woman. He said, I'm going to put enmity
between thy seed, the serpent seed, and her seed, which is
singular, Christ, and all those in Christ, and all those whom
Christ is in. There's going to be enmity. There's
going to be a division. There's going to be strife. There's
going to be war. There's going to be a difference.
God doth put a difference between Egypt and the Israelites. God
doth make the difference. He said these are in Christ.
These are out of Christ. This is the seed of Christ, given
to Christ before the world began. These are not passed by him.
They're children of the devil. Isn't that hard? It's true. It's true. And our Lord said,
I'm going to put in between thy seed, the serpent, and her seed,
and he, you, shall bruise his heel. It, he said, it, speaking
of the woman's seed, that holy thing, it shall bruise thy head,
and your seed shall bruise his heel. That's Christ crucified.
Christ crucified. So that was the very beginning.
The seed. The woman's seed. Now, sown by
the devil. Go to 2 Corinthians 11. Let me
hurry. 2 Corinthians 11. The devil sows
this seed much the same way that Christ sows his seed. How does
our Lord sow the seed? We've just read that. The sower
went forth to sow. And he cast it. Preaching. Preaching
the Word. Preaching the Word. He that goeth
forth bearing precious seed. Weeping. Bury Him preciously.
He shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing His
sheaves with Him. But preaching. God is chosen
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Preaching
what? Preaching Christ. Christ in us,
the hope of God. A man preaching Christ and Christ
becomes our life. It brings forth fruit, faith. The devil preaches, too, and
he has his angels that preach. Look at it. 2 Corinthians 11,
verse 3, Paul said, I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent
beguile thee through his subtlety, so your mind should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. What does that mean,
Paul? It means a singularity. The oneness,
the oneness, the fullness, all the fullness of the Godhead,
Bodily, all treasures of wisdom and knowledge, all wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, redemption, just name something, anything, come
up with something, somebody come up with something, and you'll
find it all in Christ. Salvation, if it has to do with
salvation, if it has something to do with sanctification, if
it has something to do with justification, if it has anything to do with
godliness, it's all Christ. It's all about Christ, in Christ,
of Him, through Him, to Him, by Him, for Him. It's simply
put. It's not simple. It's very amazing
and complex. But simply put, Christ is all. And Paul said, I fear lest these
Scholars and these self-righteous Pharisees who twist and corrupt
the Word of God as they do and corrupt your minds from the simplicity,
from the pure, clear message of Christ and Him crucified.
Any deterrent from that. You get away from that at all. Listen to me. I want to make
a statement here. You hear much today about Christ-centered,
don't you? I'm starting to dislike that
term a lot. Christ-centered. Because everybody's
saying it. It's real popular now. He has
a Christ-centered message. Christ-centered. Hold on now.
Is our message just Christ-centered? Or if it's all Christ? Huh? It's like, oh, you preach works
over here, and then you preach Christian duty over here, and
then, all right, let's get to the center, let's get to the
core of it. Now, here's Christ. Oh, no, you can't preach works
apart from preaching Christ, because your works are no good
apart from Christ. And it starts with believing
Christ. This is the good work. They said, what must we do to
work the works of God? Christ said, this is the work
of God. Right here is where it starts.
And all else falls under this, that you believe on the name
of the Son of God. Because without faith, it's impossible
to please God. Whatsoever is not of faith is
sin. That means whatsoever is not
looking to cry, believing on cry, trusting cry, that he's
your all and end all, your righteous, God says you're rejected. That's right. Oh, Christ-centered. Oh, no. I want to write an article about
that soon, for what it's worth. But Christ-centered? No. We just preach Christ. Preach
Christ. Christ is all. Christ is all. Well, where am
I? Tares and wheat. Children of
the devil. Children of God. How are they
known? How are they known? We're already
given a little clue here. Who plants them? Who planted
them? And how? Who planted them? You ask somebody, usually what
comes out of what's in their heart will come out of their
mouth. Ask them their hope of glory, their hope of salvation,
generally speaking. out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouse peen. And what they say, if it's all Christ, then
maybe they're weak. But if it's anything they've
done, any decision they've made, if it's a baptism or an experience
or whatever it may be, they're a tear. They're a tear. And every plant that my Heavenly
Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. He does the planting. Whose glory is it? Whose will
is it? Whose righteousness is it? There's
the answer. Now, in the visible church, you know, there's the church
that we can't see. They're in glory right now. Church
in heaven. There's a kingdom in this earth
of God's people, and we don't know who all they are. We don't
know. It's impossible sometimes to
distinguish. We can't look on the heart. Sometimes
they're real close. Like goats and sheep, some of
them look alike. Maybe everybody hadn't heard
this illustration Brother Bill Clark gave about the goats and
sheep in Africa, but I like it. Do you remember it? Then you
don't, then good. Brother Bill Clark used to go
to Africa and he said, over there there are goats and sheep that
look just alike. You can't tell the difference.
They look just alike. He said, the only way you can
tell the difference is, he said, the goats walk around with their
tails sticking up, while the sheep have them tucked between
their legs. Isn't that a good illustration?
That's a good illustration of it. Sheep are proud. Goats aren't. A lot of times you can't tell
the difference. It's hard to distinguish. They
seem so close. Our Lord said there must be heresies
among you, didn't he? He had 12 apostles and one of
them was a devil. And the other disciples could,
they did not know. His doctrine was correct. Had to be. Somebody went out with him. Preaching. Didn't it? They went out by two.
Somebody went out with it. One day, maybe Simon went with
it. Maybe Bartholomew and Judas Priest. And he didn't detect
it. See how serious it is? See how
close it can be? And our Lord said, verse 28 here,
He said in our text, Let them grow together. The service wanted
to pull them up in verse 28. He said, in John, verse 28, they
said, who did this? He said, the devil, the enemy.
That we go and gather them up? I remember as a young believer, you know, thinking I knew and
wanting to, you know, discipline and get rid of this person, that
person. Not so much anymore because I'm afraid I might be gotten
rid of. I made the acquaintance of a
young preacher and his wife years ago down in North Carolina. He
seemed to believe grace, seemed to love grace. I preached for
him. Cody and others preached for him. Had a nice little congregation
of people who seemed to love the truth. Every time we got
together with him and his wife, all he wanted to talk about,
all he wanted to talk about, was church discipline. All he
wanted to talk about, and he kept bringing up hypothetical
situations. What if this happens? What if
this person does this person? I said, well, does it happen?
He said, no, but what if it does? I said, don't worry about it. But all he wanted to do was discipline
people until it was all over, all that was left. He got all
the sinners out of there. till all that was left was him
and his wife. Truth be known, they may have
been the only ones that needed to be gotten rid of. That's what they said. What shall
we do? Tear them up? No, unless you root up the wheat
with them. He said wisely, verse 30, let
them grow together until the harvest. At the time of harvest,
I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together, first the tares,
and bind them in bundles to burn them." Now, I believe we have
a little bit of a clue right here. We've already seen how that seed
that's sown by our Lord bears fruit. Some 100, some 60, some
30. Does some have one? Sure, sure
they do. Mustard seed? Yeah. Our Lord said that. Well, it's
a little bit. A little bit. A little bit of fruit is fruit.
That's comforting, isn't it? But we've already seen that.
They bury the fruit where they get it. Fruit of what? Spirit. And they all know it. And there's nothing tears like
more than to brag about their fruit. Isn't it? Like that rich young rooter.
All these things have I done for my youth up. What lack I
yet? Just give me something to do
and I'll do it. I'm pretty strong. I bear a lot of fruit. We've
preached. We've done many wonderful works in your name. Haven't we? No, you haven't. You're an offense
to me. But they like to brag about their
fruit. They like to talk about what they've done for the Lord.
That's how you know them. That's how you have a clue right
there. They like to talk about their fruit. If I asked one of
you all to sincerely tell me what you've done for the Lord,
to a man and to a woman, you'd say, nothing. When have I done
any of these things? Wouldn't you? And even if you'd
done all that's required of you, what would you say about yourself?
I'm an unprofitable servant. I've come far short of the glory
of God. Wouldn't you? To a man, to a woman, to a young
person. They're not tenors. Well, I haven't quite measured
up, but I'm getting better. But the next thing is here in
our text, it says, gather them together in bundles. Why are there a zillion denominations? Huh? Why are there so many denominations
everywhere? When did that start? While men
slept. The whole story says, while men
slept. Dumb dogs came in that Isaiah talked about that loved
to sleep, loved to slumber, cannot bark, can't preach. Greedy dogs. Dumb dog, D.D. Religion slept. The watchman slept. And the enemy
sowed tares, and it bore tares. And there's more denominations.
There used to be the church then, in the beginning, the church.
The church at Ephesus. You know, the church at Ephesus
believed exactly like the church at Philippi. The church at Philippi
believed exactly like the church at Laodicea. If you'd ask everybody
at Laodicea what they believed, they'd say, we believe just like
Thyatira. To a point, one Lord, one faith,
one victory. And then when the enemy came
in, it started all these schisms and sects and divisions and denominations. And somebody doesn't like the
truth, we say, we'll go over here and we'll have us a little
play. We'll bundle together over here. And we'll get together
over here. And if there's a storefront anywhere
empty, we'll fill it. And we'll call it Holiness Pentecostal
Charismatic Church of Deliverance and Brotherhood. That's it. If
you send your money, it will tell you all that. Bundles. Little bundles, that's right.
While he gathers his wheat into one big barn. One big barn. One foal. One shepherd. All these
little places out of necessity. One in Fairmont. One in Kingsport.
One here. down in Crossville out of necessity,
but we're one, aren't we? Church in glory, church on earth,
but we're one. We believe the same Lord, same
faith, same baptism, same Father. Oh, yeah. We're all taught of
God. Taught the same thing. What? Christ is up. Christ is
up. And the Lord is the one that
gathers. He gathers them so there's a separation that's falling away.
I really believe that's what he's saying. And have you ever
thought about this? Tear is singular. Wheat is plural. A tear is singular. Tears. But
wheat, when you think of wheat, you think of one kernel. You
think of a big field full of wheat. You think of a big container
full of wheat. Sheep. When you think of sheep,
you think of what? You think of a bunch of them.
That's the nature of them. They're gregarious. By this shall
all men know you, my son. This is not the church where
everybody is somebody. The church is full of people
where everybody is nobody. The Christ is somebody. We're
just a bunch of sheep. And he's the shepherd. We're
a bunch of members. He's the head. He's off the head. Seed is plural. Singular and plural. You ever
thought about that? Oh, my! You know, the Lord put
the truth in an inferior language, English language. More people
have heard it in this language than any other, and yet it comes
out like that. Singular and plural. Seed. Christ. which is one seed, and yet his
people seed one. Isn't that amazing? That would amaze me. Well anyway, all of God's people
are chosen of God, born of God, redeemed of God, called of God,
gathered of God in Christ, taught of God, brought of God into the
fold. He said, I will gather. He planted them. He brought them.
He taught them. He bought them. He redeemed them.
He brings them into the fold. He'll gather them. He'll keep
them. He gives them their fruit. It's all of the Lord. It's all
of the Lord. Then he said, bring all of those
He'll send his angels, gather out of his kingdom, that is,
they're all mixed together, and he's going to get them out. Things
that offend are an offense to me. Whoever the gospel offends
is an offense to God. And whoever shares his son's
glory is an offense to God. And those things that work iniquity,
Those that do what they do in their name. And then verse 43
says, Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun. As who? Yes, the sun. The sun of righteousness in the
kingdom of their father. They'll shine forth. And again,
they don't shine. They reflect His light. Stars don't shine. The sun shines.
And who has ears to hear? Who heard that? If you were a
tare, you wouldn't like this. If you're a goat, you'd say,
I hear them. I hear them all the time. Yeah,
I believe that. But, but, we must have at God's sheep. They love
to hear Christ. You can't preach Him high enough,
can you? You can't preach Him enough to
suit them. We eat and tarry, which are you? Which are mine?
Alright, stand with me. Our Lord, we pray, we hope we've
been true to Thy Word for Your glory and honor, for the glory
of Thy Son. We appoint Your people to the Lord Jesus Christ. Look
away from themselves. Look to Him. to look to Him who
is all our salvation. Lord, we trust, we pray, we hope,
we've been taught by You, led by Your Spirit, that You have
taken the things of Christ and shown them to us, and we in turn
show them to others, Lord. That's what we want to do. We
shine as lights in this world that we know. We know that means
that we shine forth or declare the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord, let us be true to Thy Word. Let us be a pillar and ground
of the truth and hold forth the truth in this truth-forsaking
world. O Lord, to Thee be all the glory. Glorify Thy name, O Father. Glorify Thy name. For Christ's sake, amen. You're
dismissed.