This is my father's world. The battle has been won. Jesus who died has been satisfied
and earth and heaven is full. So let's sing it that way. All
right. First verse. It is good, right,
love, and joy, good, good, peace, and love, and that good love
helps me not to die. It is good, right, love, and
joy, good, good, peace, and love, and that good love helps me not
to die. Thank you, Sharon. All right, back to Mark Chester
Simon. I hope this comes out well. I'm quite sure it would be profitable
and helpful and beneficial and interesting. Providentially, I think, one
of us, we were talking, I think, I was talking some morning about
something I've known about people, dealing with people. religion,
how to answer people, and so forth. This is, our Lord is dealing
with this, so who is with us, who's one of us, and who's against
us? How do we deal with others who
seem to differ, who we're really not, who we really don't know
about? This is what the apostles planned
to dispel. All right, let's look at it.
Verse 38, And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting
out devils in thy name, because he followed not us. And we forbade
him, because he followed not us. Now John, this is significant. John rarely spoke up. You won't
see John. He's a beater. But John here
spoke up. It's recorded that John was the
one. John loved the Lord. John did
love the Lord. It's obvious. John was very jealous
of the Lord's name and glory and person. Yes, he was, John.
If there was one disciple of the monks that you could say,
you know, that he was Well, John hung around the cross, didn't
he? He hung around the cross, and
the rest of them left. But John's the one who sent them.
And he said, we saw one casting out devils in your name, but
he followed not us. Now, the disciples had just debated
who was the greatest. They've just been debating who
was the greatest, disputing it. And particularly, we've had a
little bit of an argument about it, who was the greatest among
them. And evidently, John was caught
up in dispute. Every man in his best days is
prone to this vainglory of history. John's mother, you remember the
story of John's mother, how she came to the Lord and wanted John
to be on one? You remember John's mother getting
in on it? She came and wanted John to be on one, the Lord's
right hand, James, his brother-in-law, left when he came. Well, anyway, the Lord reduced
them all, including John, And he told them, you don't need
to be rulers. You don't need to think of yourselves
as rulers, as somebody. You need to be servants, like
he was. You need to be his child. He
gave that general review and illustration of the child in
his arms. He didn't think about being a
child. And he said in another place, and he received not the
word as a little child. He's not going to be in heaven.
Receive it as a child. Verse 37, look back there. Whosoever
shall receive one of such children in my name, receive it from me. And whosoever shall receive me,
receive not me, but him, but him, God that sent me. So he
said, be ready to receive someone, not, he's not, we're going to
see he's not talking about a child of age, but a young believer,
which it could be a child, but a young believer. Be ready to
receive them as a child and not reject them so quickly. Now, every one of us struggles
with this saying of how to deal with people, people that we come
across at work or whoever. We all struggle with how to deal
with others who seem to be religious. People are very quick to tell
us of their profession and so forth. We struggle how to answer
them. We struggle how to respond to them, what to say to them,
how to say, if you're like me, You get all uptight and you come across with some hard,
whatever it may be, nerves or just plain meanness. I don't know. If you're like
me, you don't deal with people very
well, I know. Some of my brethren, I wish I
were more like them, had more ease in dealing with people.
We all struggle, though, I believe, how to say, what to say, and
whether or not to say anything, when to say it. We fear casting
pearls before swine. We all fear that. John, the reason
I believe it's important that John brought this up, is John,
I believe, was very sensitive to what Christ had just said
then. He took the rebuke. John was a very humble man, obviously. He took that rebuke that Christ
said. He wanted to be gracious. I believe John said this with
conviction or he was, he was sorry, I believe John was sorry
for what had happened. That they came across this fella
and he said, we just rejected him. But see this is right after
Christ said that. And I believe John said, we just
rejected the fella. But he's not one of us. You saw
this fellow cast out devils in your name, he's not one of us.
No. Did he do right? I think that,
I really think that's the attitude John had. Because, you see what
I'm saying? It was right after Christ was
neutral, and told him, and he was sure it was a sin. All right, there's several things
to consider here about this man that John, that they ran into. All right? John said, this fellow
was casting out devils in Christ's name. Now the disciples had seen
devils cast out. And this was no bogus thing. This was not this stuff you see
on TV and all. It's not this, you know, video,
get them on their heads and all that stuff. They had seen the
Lord cast out devils, and they themselves, by God's power, had
cast out devils. So they knew the real, they knew
that this was real, and it was really, it really happened. In Christ's name, this man was
doing it, in Christ's name, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to know the reason
I brought this back here was because where they were right
now was they became the perium. The perium is all the way up
here. All right? Down here is Jerusalem,
right there. Where is it? This end. Thirty
miles. Thirty, sixty, almost ninety
miles from here to there. They've been walking, but they've
been walking all over the Lord covered with salt air. Town after
town after town after town. Now they run up here and just
get nothing to eat by the way. Gentiles, the pioneers. He walked, our Lord walked everywhere.
And everywhere He went, He called out a son. Right? He started with the twelve. He called them first. You remember
the story? He called out seventy. You remember
that? He called out 70 others and sent
them out to preach. Well, before that, John had been preaching the truth. And John had a bunch of disciples.
Right? John had a bunch of disciples
that followed him. This could have been one of those.
This could have been one of John's disciples. It doesn't say that
every one of those that followed John, you know, were always around
Christ, but they were very close. All right? This fellow, whoever
this was, was casting out devils. He drew the law in Christ's name,
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. All right? Power doesn't cast
out. We've studied this here in the
Gospel of Mark. Look back at chapter 6. This
is important because there's a lot, you know, a lot of said
today about the devil. Tell us it's pretending to do
this, right? How do you know? Well, what is
this devil casting out there? What is it? Was it involved? What's it all about? Mark chapter
6, verse 7, "...he called unto him the twelve, and began to
send them forth by two and two, and gave them power over unclean
spirits." Verse 12, and I look down at verse 12 and
13, "...and they went out and preached that men should repent,
and they cast out the devil." What was it he cast out then? preaching the gospel. That's
the only thing that leaves captives captive. You understand? It's not this
hopeless, hopeless, dominous religion going on today, you
know. In the name of Jesus, with nothing else, sin, with no gospel
in it. No. These fellows were preaching
the gospel. You know, a devil, if the Holy
Spirit does not reside in a human being, what kind of spirit does? Look at 2 Timothy, chapter 2.
We've looked at this before. 2 Timothy, chapter 2. If God,
if Christ, the Spirit of Christ, does not dwell in you, what kind
of spirit does? 2 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 24,
verse 26, "...servant of the Lord must not strive, but be
gentle unto all, act, teach..." Now here, this is not just for
me and people. This is for all of us here. I
need to look at this constantly. Must not strive, but begin. Oh, this is what I always teach
you. Bring on. Act to teach, or ready to teach.
Patience. Oh, you keep patiently dealing
with people, don't you, because they're so ignorant. Bring on. In meekness, instructing those
that oppose themselves. It's God's prevention. Maybe
God, through your talking to them, will grant, give them repentance
to the acknowledgement of the truth, and that they may recover
themselves. Where are we? You are taken captive by repentance. You remember Ephesians 2? Last
we looked at it? When? Last Sunday? Ephesians
2? Go back there. Now, I'm not just
talking about those people. This is us. Look at Ephesians
2. People, I need this more than anybody. I need this message
more than anybody else. I'm not too hard on the people. I'm not, I'm not a general. I'm not boasting. I don't deal
with the people. I need this. Ephesians 2 It says,
verse 1 and 2, that you have been quickened who were dead
and trespassed in sins, where in the time of the past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air. In other words, every one of
us were under his dominion. Every one of us was possessed
by the devil. That's right. By what was it? They got rid of that one.
Who was? What was it that changed you,
that created this new creature in you? What was it that changed
masters in you? Preaching of the gospel. Right? There is nothing else. The gospel
is the power of God and salvation. Everyone, no me, everyone, there
is no other power used by God, but You shall know the truth, Christ
said, and the truth shall dwell with you. Free from Satan, free from his
devices, free from his ministers. These fellows out there, you
know, who transform themselves into ministers of righteousness
when they're devils, evil men seduce you. The gospel of truth
will set you free from yourself. You won't fall for it. The gospel
will set you free from this world. The whole world is following
false religion. The gospel will set you free
from that. It will take you out of the broad
way, but you need it. The gospel's the power of God,
you see? That's the only thing. That's the only thing that'll
change a person. It's not some yabba-pabba-dabba-cadabra
stuff. That's phony, that's fake. It's
gotta be the gospel. And whoever's doing it, I mean,
who's ever... If there's any devil being cast
out, it's done by the preacher of the gospel. All right? That's
why Arthur Starr was preaching it. He had to have been. There would
no doubt have been cats to elephants if he wasn't. Apparently this
man was preaching the truth of the living and true God. You
can't preach the gospel without preaching who God is. You know,
that's where it starts. Paul said, I'm separated from
the gospel. God sucks us. It's an old road gospel which
he promised before by the prophets, but Paul said in Romans 1, which
is concerning his son. It's all concerning Jesus Christ. Why he came, what he did, whether
or not he did it, that's what makes it difficult. Who he is, the Son of God, a
clarity, the Son of God with power, and on and on. And in
Thessalonians also, we know your election, but our gospel came.
There's only one gospel. All right? So apparently this
man was preaching the gospel. Right? Okay. But the disciples
thought, well, he's not with us. He's not in our little circle. We'd better admit this so-and-so. We don't know Him. He's not one
of us. And they were resorting right
back to what our Lord would do to them back then. And they're sitting in our little
inner circle now. And we forbade them. We forbade them. God's kingdom is much bigger
than these four walls right here. Now, granted, in a small community
such as this, in time, especially 13 years and 14 or so, 15, when
Brother Bird was here before, the same gospel was preached. And everybody within, you know,
30 mile radius knows this place, knows what it stands for, knows
what we're preaching. and agrees with what we had heard
about, and they had heard about us, and we made contact. And
I've tried. I've called up various preachers.
I've talked with them. I've been in meetings with them. You quickly find out, you truly,
who's with us and who's not. You sure do. But God's kingdom, the fact is,
God's kingdom is not, is much bigger than these four walls,
and much bigger than the circles that we know. Elijah. Elijah, we all get the Elijah
syndrome. I'm the only one. Elijah, that's
why he said, I'm the Lord, I'm the only one. And the Lord, if he didn't laugh,
he didn't say, he didn't tell Elijah, Elijah, I preserved them
for me. Seven thousand. Elijah told me he only wanted
seven thousand. Well, Elijah didn't know much,
did he? But it was all said and done. 7,000. Now, granted, they're
probably spread out all over. The Scripture says that it's
scattered at four on the mountain tops. What does it say? A few of 520, but they're out
there, and just because we don't know them, that means they're
not 1,000. Look at verse 39. Our Lord said,
Forbid him not, there is no man which shall do a miracle in my
name, truly do a miracle in my name, that can lightly see evil
of me. No man can truly, if men are
truly being delivered, if they are true believers, And it's
done in Christ's name. It must be of God. It must be
of God. Verse 40, "...he that is not
against us is on our hearts." Now, I thought about this. I called it to myself and said
it out loud while I was studying that, oh, how we need this one. But we don't have any spiritual
discernment to rightly divide the word of truth and to deal
with people and not be guilty of rejecting someone that might
be a believer. A little more. I
don't want you to remember the consequences. I've already said
it down here in verse 42. So, oh, how we need this wisdom
from above, spiritual discernment. We need the attitude. I need
the attitude of him. Say, I. I need the attitude of
Moses. Moses said, block me out of the
wilderness. Don't destroy me. Unblock me
in. I need the attitude of Paul. Remember, Paul said, I can witness
myself in the curse, and my kinsmen will support me from there. I just don't have that. I wish
I did. I need more of it. And we need spiritual discernment
to write, to divide and discern. Now, here's what I want to say.
Here's the fact of the matter. He said, no one can do a miracle
in my name that can likely speak evil of me. He that is not against
us is on our part. Nobody can preach the truth,
and men and women be truly converted who are not of God. We know the second Paul, Jeremiah
23, is no false prophet will ever prophet anybody, ever. Nobody's
ever been saved under the ministry of a false prophet. No sir. Nobody. Or even the Kuwaitis, the Greeks.
God does not go and sanction false prophets. He said that
in Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah 23. They wrote a lot of prophecies
to people about that. So if anybody's keen to convert,
I asked a preacher friend of mine that. This is a little message
by a preacher. He preached here, this preacher,
who pretty much left the gospel. at least started compromising
for the sake of position. He wanted people, numbers, and
a bigger whatever, and a lot of things. Anyway, he pretty
much started compromising the message. He toned down the atonement. He started saying His name is
Christ, I call Him. And God does, in a sense, love
all the world, and on and on, he's started a hundred of that. And this other preacher friend
of mine, and I know this young man very well. We have known
him for years, and know him very well. And saw him coming, and
know his motive, know everything about him. Just like us, you
know, we know him. And I asked my brother, I asked
him, I said, thinking back on that fellow, thinking back, can
you think of one person, can you think of one sentient individual
who was converted on April 8th? And he stopped for a minute and
started praying, praying, praying. So, nobody can tell anybody who's
not a child. I won't tell anybody. Nobody
can preach truth and it is Can somebody be converted under if
he's not a God? Speak evil of Christ. It says
in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 3, no man will look over there with
the 1 Corinthians 12. 1 Corinthians 12, look at this. And you can try that test yourself,
thinking it's a thing you don't very much want. Try it. Think
about it. Now, I know men who have preached
the truth who have just gotten out of ministry, and I can understand
how they do that. Now, I sure can't. Oh, if I wanted
to, Moses wanted to. I would sure understand a man
who's saying, I will go on a mission, but not lead it, possibly, not
accommodate myself. No, sir. That means he was false
together. But look at this, 1 Corinthians
12, this says the same thing. Verse 3, Wherefore I say unto
you that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus a
pervert. Now this is not just saying that
somebody verbally says that, who curses Christ. But anybody
who brings the person in the work of Christ down, who degrades
the person in the work of Christ, who says wrong things about Christ
and His work, anybody doing that is not under God's Spirit, not
our God. There's nothing wrong with anybody.
He doesn't. See what I'm saying? I'll read on. And that no man
can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit. In other
words, no man can stand up and truly preach Christ in all His
power and glory and honor Him, lift Him up and exalt Him in
His Lordship and His person. with power and men to be brought
under the dominion of his person," he said. You see that? He doesn't say
that. He said, I know the power of
it. You say, well, let's think that
makes the salvationist people conditioned on preacher. No,
it doesn't. Not that. It's conditioned on truth. But
the fact is, God would be the man himself if just
any old man didn't hurry up those. And in another place, our Lord
said this in Matthew 12, He said, He that is not with me is against
me, and he that gathereth not with me shall be followed. All right? Let me repeat that
again. He said, he said, it's not with me, it's against me.
What does it mean to be in Christ? Not only in Christ by faith,
not only a true follower and disciple of Christ, but it's
a man who's really in it for the
glory of Christ. I mean, he's not in it for anything
else. He's a gatherer. He's a gatherer, not
with David. He's a gatherer, not with Christ. He disciples Jesus Christ. He wants women and women to know
Christ, not to know himself like John. He knows John's of the
Lord, but John says, I don't want you to know my name. He must increase. I must increase. Follow Him. Follow Him. But we
don't want to follow Him. No. Follow Him. You know John's
a God. That's how you know He's fair.
All right? So our Lord said, You will know
them by their fruits. This is important, people, to
keep from rejecting the true one and accepting the false one.
We need to know these things. All right? This is all important. I'm not rambling here. It's all
leading up to something. I always said, you'll know them
by their fruits. Do men gather... I don't want
to talk about gathering with me. Do men gather grapes or thorns? Grapes don't grow in thorny bushes
out there. Do men gather figs or pistils? Figs don't grow in open streets. They grow fruit trees, grapes
grow vines. See that? You only get fruit
in the proper place, the proper And sure, whoever is on our part,
whoever's with us, and we can say this now. We're not being
presumptuous when we say we're with Christ. We're for him. Huh? We're for him. That's not presumption. It's as such confessing Christ
to say that we're not in this thing for a big building and
numbers and all that, we're in it, I hope, for Christ's glory,
and that man might know the truth. All right? Somebody who's on
our part, somebody who's with us, with Christ, gathering with
Christ, is someone who must and surely will say the truth. They will say the truth, not
wrong. They will be telling the truth. How much is the truth?
As much as you can. You can tell the truth, ladies
and gentlemen. Oh, truth? Can you? I don't know. The truth of what
new God is. It won't be someone who's just
saying, I love you. It will be someone who's declaring
his whole character, not only that piece of God. They'd be
saying the truth. Somebody would be saying whatever
God's Word says with no apology, no embarrassment, no hiding it,
not reaping it, not couching it in turn, not using persuasible
words of man's wisdom because they're ashamed to come right
out and say it. No! All said, seeing that we have
such a wonderful It's the only hope anybody has. We need a great
plan to succeed. Great plan. So whoever preaches
the truth, John, he's a great plan to succeed. They'll preach
the truth. Whatever God says, they'll say
it. You understand that? They'll say it. They'll come
right out and say it. Whoever they're in front of. Be they few or many, be they
great or little. And that goes not just for preachers,
but all of us do. And notice, he that is with us, who's
on our part, who's gathered with Christ, who's true, will do what? It's done in the same dimension. He'll do, in other words, the
means that they use. You know, you can tell a person's
message by the means. You can. The means to find a
message is the message by the means. Listen to me, let me tell
you what I'm saying. If a man stands up begging people
to do a thing, he's not preaching the God of the Bible. If a man
has to trick people and woo people and do all sorts of clever gimmicks
and tactics to try to bring people in, that he's not preaching the
gospel? He's totally bypassing the Holy
Spirit. Where's the Holy Spirit who's
supposed to bring them on the East, North, South way? Where
is it if you have to resort to all these little gimmicks? What does one who's of God, from
God, of the truth, what does he do? One man. Preach. And if he wanted to be a prophet,
a prophet of the Lord said he would send him out to do what?
Preach. I said no. Preach. I said no.
You know old Ezekiel one time, remember Ezekiel, the Lord sent
him down to go drive a horse and said, free me. He went. Is
that it? Yes. And he followed the lamb. He didn't say, he didn't tell old
Ezekiel, he didn't need a court, he didn't have to. He sent him
out to drive a horse. He didn't follow the name, he followed
the name. He didn't have to drive. He didn't
have to follow the name, too. He didn't say, you know, offer bones and preach. First he said, call upon
the wind. Remember, call upon the Spirit of God. Ezekiel said,
the Lord said, Ezekiel, can these bones live? He said, you know, preach. So he did. And for the Spirit of God moves
in them. And you have to be quick, and how? What impressed you,
John? The quartet? The choir? All the
ceremonies? Preaching? That's what brought
you to life, wasn't it? When you do, they do what is
done. That's for sure. One means. You know, you see
what I'm saying? The message defines the means,
and the means will define the message. You understand that? That's how
you know it's done. If there are means, if the things they're
referring to, what's the word? But if they don't agree with
who God is saying, then they're not going to have hope. They're not going to have hope. That's what you'll find in a
true preacher. The people of God are going out
to, you know, do homemade sales and all this stuff. Hey, people's God is so weak. He doesn't have any money. He doesn't have any money. That's
how our lives have gone. Doesn't that tell you what a weakling,
what a no-God he is? I've told you, given you so many
illustrations of how God has provided for His people and His
work without any means at all but preaching. Old Walter Kruger
went to Mexico with no support. Zero. Not one church. He didn't go around the country,
what they call, deputizing them. Deputizing? Yeah, that's what
they call it, where you drum up support before you go. No,
sir. And no men have done that, and
they're not there anymore. Every one of them, maybe, is
not there anymore. And the churches, he never tells
anybody, but they go, Lord, who knows? How many will know? How many people will come here
if you don't advertise it? I wonder. So we do what the Bible says
to do, to preach, and we do it for one purpose, the gospel,
the gospel. So the gospel and those who preach
it and those who believe it and those who go out and tell it
are known by, it's known by its purity, its power, They don't
know about names, they don't know about fleshly methods. So
we need someone, all right, we need someone who appears to make
a profession, and I'm not just talking about preachers now,
I'm talking about people that we run into, who make a profession
of belief in Christ. Now, some are very obviously
self-righteous. You can smell them coming, because
they like for you to know they're coming. And they'll have it splattered
all over the place, just out of their shell. You know I'm
talking about that. These people, they're not poor,
you know, well, they're self-righteous persons. You know them. Now,
unless they're obviously like that, self-righteous, A crowd
of religionists. Our Lord, he told the disciples,
he was going to start a system of community, a living one. Those
guys are obvious. Some people are very obvious,
but there's crowds of people out there. And as soon as they
open their mouth, you know, I won't tell you anything, you'll be
catching your own portion of the slime. But unless that's
obvious, then we must receive them in this spirit of meekness,
as Paul said, and our Lord says here, and must give them the
benefit of the doubt. I have you know that when someone's
talking to them, and we try to deal with them, try to speak
the gospel to them, and if they've got an argument in the spirit, Don't argue with it. Let's talk,
share, describe, and talk, share. Don't do it. Let's talk, share,
describe, and talk, share, and discuss. Don't do that. If you
bring up truth, and somebody keeps arguing with it, All right,
we've learned this. Don't we? A fellow called me
on the phone one time, and I talked and talked and talked and talked
to him, and I blew his face, and then he doesn't argue with
me anymore. And when I woke up, I felt so bad. And I thought,
here I did what I felt was right. I thought, we present the truth
as best we can, And if a person insists upon arguing, leave him
alone. Leave him alone. Christ said, my sheep
will hear my voice. A genuine, you know, you can,
you can You can tell just one person,
someone who is genuinely interested. There aren't many. They're hard
to find. They really are. So we've got
to, we've got to, in light of what our Lord is saying here,
we've got to give them a bit of his doubt and let's proceed
with them until they give obvious proof that they have rejected
the truth, hands down. And our goal, you know what our
goal should be in talking to people? We want to say, Lord,
maybe it's not so with you, it's so with me. I've never had any
success dealing with anybody while I'm alive, ever in my lifetime. Have you? Maybe you have, I hope
you have. I haven't. The Lord just generally
doesn't use that. This is what He's trying to do.
This is how he was speaking to them. And I've given you many
reasons before about why the Lord chose to choose us by the
foolishness of preaching. Now, the boy and the man had
to sit down for 45 minutes and shut up. You know, nobody, nobody
was listening, who was waiting, you know, who wanted to get their
dissent in. But if you come here and you
have to sit down and shut up for 45 minutes, no matter how
fast you want to say something, you still have to push. And you've
got a Bible open. And if a man is worth his salt,
he has prepared a message, prepared a spiritual thing, a spiritual
thing, line upon line, precept upon precept, he's bringing a
whole message. Comparing God's Word with God's
Word, building, building, building up the truth, bringing it from
all sides, you know, proving the truth from various scriptures
until it's undeniable. And the man is really searching,
brother. If he's really searching, looking down by, he's got to
shut up. And he's looking. Well, that's
what it says in the terms of what that says that too, isn't it?
That's what it says. That's what it says. That's what the Lord
says. And especially if the Lord blesses
a man to speak with power and authority, for it's unanswerable. And you have this treasure, you
see this treasure in earthen vessels of the excellence and
the power of God united. That's what the Lord blesses.
And He does it in a group setting, because that's what the Church
is. It's not one-on-one. So our goal, what I'm saying
is our goal and our aim should be to get people to come here
and preach. Say what you can, say how you
can, with as much grace as you can, with as much meekness and
compassion and patience as you can. Don't argue. I'm talking
to me. But the goal is, the aim is,
come here, come here, come here to work. And in that sense, attainment
is far often better than proper fulfillment of life, provided
it is so. I don't know if people take it.
Paul Barclay says, here, in that other point, You ever done that? Here, take it. I don't want it. I don't want to listen to that.
Okay. You ever done that? Well, if
they won't listen to that, there's nothing to be said. And I won't. So I hope those things are helpful. But I don't work, so, but our
attitude should be He's not rejecting somebody in a nigger and harmony
mouth. So, look at verse 41, I've got
it quick. He said, Whosoever shall give
you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you belong to
Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward. This is further explanation to
the disciples who thought themselves to be great. Our Lord said, cut
their reserves. This is important to the preachers.
I know who are the preachers right
now who have the doctrine that it's as straight as a gun barrel.
Trust in Him. And I know there's about four
or five of them who claim they're the only ones preaching the truth.
And if you read what they were preaching, right? They were preaching
great evidences. I'm telling you. They, uh, they're
mean, they're hard, they're extended like a Sanhedrin. They fancy
themselves some kind of Sanhedrin, to decide who's saved and who's
not. As a matter of fact, they'll
tell you, you're not saved. If you believe somebody's saved,
you're not saved. I'm serious. You know what I'm
talking about, Mr. General. He predicted that. They'll
actually say, if you're not saved, if you think somebody's saved,
but they don't think so, it's false. It's not a quote really made. We'll find out about them. There's
that first Corinthians 3, fellas, is what they are. Their work's
going to be, if you've burned up, they may themselves be saved,
but by a fire. Well, our Lord, now again, He
said, so He said, a water marriage is important. Verse 42, Whosoever
shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is
better for him that a millstone hang about his neck than to be
cast into the sea. And I have said this many times,
and I continue to say it. And I said this to one of those
fellows that I was just talking about. He did not agree with
me, but I said, I would rather be guilty than to pity someone
that became a god, but did not belong, than to exclude someone who did. Isn't that what Christ said? And I said this time and again,
I believe the people are to be pitied. The people by and large
that are being, they're misled. They see evil men and seducers,
these creatures that I am. John called them saints, vipers. Our Lord said, monks, hypocrites.
Our Lord, John, they all call them monks. Paul said, evil men
and seducers. It's these Christians, they know
what they're doing. And I know they know what they're doing. Both Todd and
I ran into a fellow, Greg Ellenbush, a few years back, you know, who
was with Susie and her domestic. You know, he had questions, but
he wasn't battling it, fighting it. He was a false preacher, but
the Lord converted him out of sorrow. Just like Saul of Aristotle,
he immediately said, but I have been put in the gospel. And the Lord told him, in the
gospel you can get a preacher. These other passages were hard
to debate. In closing, would you turn with
me to this support? Would you turn with me to You've
got to turn to both of these people. I wrote them down. Titus
chapter 3. Titus chapter 3 and 2. These two passages, and then
I promise you'll quit. Titus chapter 3 just goes well
with what we've been talking about. Titus chapter 3. A man is a paratagonist after
the first and second admonition of Jesus. Now, everybody's a
paratagonist, if you don't know it. Right? Everyone's a paratagonist. All right? First admonition.
And then I'll teach it. Isn't that right? Don't necessarily reject it,
don't just leave. Don't hurt it, just throw it
off. But second inhibition? What's the second? Just know
that he that is such is subverted. He's subverted. He's condemned
of himself. Now, Jude, right before Revelation,
a little book of Jude. And this is why I say, oh, God,
we need wisdom, discernment. June 21 from 23 says, Keep yourselves
in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord. How's
that? Be merciful. Those that are merciful obtain
mercy. Verse 22, For some of that compassion, making a difference,
doesn't save the feeble in and out of fire. So he says, uh,
have compassion, endeavor to make a difference, a discerned
difference. I don't want to reject the middle
one. I don't want to offend one. Father, thank you for your Word, the Word of God, the
Word of Christ, the Word of the Holy Spirit. in our hearts, imprint on our
minds, that we might not sin in this state, especially in
light of what we just read, or grant us that graciousness, compassion,
and patience we so desperately need in dealing with others that
are not so blessed as we are. God's people would love to be
in His presence for your glory, for their good. So we ask that
you grant us His wisdom from above, and you can promise to
give it to everybody. So we ask, in Christ's name,
amen. Q. I have a question. you.