I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. These are truly some of the last words
of the Apostle Paul. He was a preacher of the gospel,
writing this from prison. And I thought about this,
these are his dying words, and they may be the last words we
hear We ought to approach every service
as if it were our last. But this may be it. This may be it. Who knows what
they bring us for. But here is a message I leave
you for a matter of life or death. Like I said, it's only the dying
words. These are the last words of the living and the dead. God
forbid. I know they read it over and
over again. There he is, Paul, we can count it, he's passed
to the Philippians in verse 3, I'm going to accept 3 of these.
He goes back over his life in religion, how he was rich and
famous in religion. And he was. There's big money in religion,
always has been. All of them got rich. The Pharisees were rich men. People were required to give
so much money, and they got rich. He was famous. Everybody knew
him. He was so popular. Everybody
was singing him rhymes. So he told his listeners about
that, and How zealous he was. Do you remember this? He was
saying this thing, how zealous from the first scene. He said,
I was zealous concerning seeing your wife. I went out and persecuted
the church, that is, all men. Those in this group, those who
didn't follow the narrative, he went out and attacked them
and took them to jail. Later he was taken to jail for committing
the same thing. But his seal, he thought he was
doing this for God. You remember in Romans where
he said, I'm ready, I'm ready now. They had a seal for God.
Remember that in Romans 10? He said, I remember they had
a seal for God. I didn't. And it wasn't through
God. He said, I didn't have a seal for God. It wasn't through Christ. And look
at verse six, he said, "...touching the righteousness which is in
the law of blame." So that is, he thought he was blameless before
God. He actually thought that he was living a love sin. He actually thought that. That's
the people that have to think that way. They really do. Well, Paul said that all of that
that he thought was game to him, verse seven, "...what things
were game to me." is, well, rich and famous. It
gained the world the battle of respect. It gave much money to
the state, and you can't play it, because it's, well, I was
back here a few years ago about this, and we'd be listening to
40 of them. And they had a bad time. One of the things he called a
game to them is, and all that, and he thought, here is God.
Here is God who's looking upon me with favor. He's gave me the
sentiments of God, because I have given my life in service to God. He thought that. He really did. In verse seventy, he said, Those
things that I thought were gain to me, I have in loss to Christ.
Now that I know Christ, now that I know the truth, that was all
lost, and I... And if I saved that
radical loss myself, all the religious but lost, that's
a lot of people to meditate on. What things
were gained to me, I count lost. If someone is counting on anything,
to gain them favor with God, it will count against them. You
know that? If someone is counting on anything,
no matter what it is, no matter how sincere it is, if they're
counting on anything to gain them favor with God, it will
count against them. You understand? I'm sorry. Now, if you say that song in
my name, you know the price I'm going to pay. Nothing. You say, we'll do the price of
the cross, I pray. You say, it's going to buy a
ride, but don't bring any money. Don't bring any money. Or we'll count it on anything
or anyone to bring us happiness or joy. It's lost. Verse eight, Paul says,
"...gave doubtless." And that is, there's no doubt in my mind. No doubt in my mind is there's
doubtless. And this needs to be without doubt in our own mind. Everyone in here needs to know
this. Without a doubt, that an account,
what Paul counted, a behavior that wasn't at all counted as
law. Look at it, verse 8. Without
a doubt, I count all things with loss for the excellency of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus Christ. I count all things with loss.
Now, let me see if I can tell you what he's saying. Our Lord
said to me, what would it be possible to make a woman or a
young person, what would it be possible to gain the whole world? And here's the answer. The whole world,
whatever you make it, if you gain it, if you give it, no matter
how fine it is, how big it is, how wonderful it may be, how
much it has to deserve to be, What did that profit? It didn't
mean you did it good. In other words, if you spend
70 years in wealth and happiness and joy and peace and land and
riches and great gain in this world, and you did it, you can
put it off. You can do pretty good, but it's
gone, and you'll never get it back. And if you're going to
a place, as Joe said, if you love the church, man, you're
going to a long, long, eternal moment. Seventy years. You know, as a young person,
I say, wait five. I don't know, twenty-five, you know? Twenty-five. Seventy. I
said, boy, I've got a pretty bad, bad self. Twenty-five years. Fifteen? Twenty-five
years. I couldn't have it all. I had
to make it. I didn't need my son anymore. It was all lost. Lost time. Where I spent my time. Where
I spent my money. Where I went after it. Lost time. And the accountants, Pauline
says, or I'm more certain that she said, the rust of man's silver
gold will rise up again. The money is huge, it seems like
huge. This, this gain and loss, this
year, this finance year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this
year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this
year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this
year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this
year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this
year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this
year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year,
this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this
year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this
year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this
year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, this year, What if you were something, or
I were something, I would say, what if everybody in the world
did it? And look, in my opinion, I would
look to ask you, in your opinion or whatever, what if everybody
in the world did it, and God says, in the end, I'm going to
do it? You get that at all? No. No. What if you gained all the
riches that the world has to offer? All the riches that the
world has to offer and had no value. And Scripture talks about
the riches of faith and the riches for God. And faith is the riches. What if you gained a whole lot
of everything and had everything but no value? No value. That's
it. What if you gained the whole
world's knowledge? What if you understand all of
this? What if you know this, you know
that? You've got this in you, that
means you're good. All this knowledge that you don't
know about. You can be a nice, well-known doctor
or lawyer or whatever, a well-known doctor. What if you gained a place in
history? A place in history. They didn't want to put things
down that are posterity. A place to have their
place in history. You don't have a place in them,
do you? Paul talks about this, verse
8. So, he says, I carry all that
which was lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my God. Excellency of the knowledge. Now, I wish we had a time to
dwell on this. Excellency of the knowledge of
Christ. You may know many things. If you don't know Christ, you
don't know Him. You don't know Him. And Him are
in all the treasures of the living God. If you know
Christ, it doesn't matter what else you don't know. You know Him. If you know Christ,
you know more than you can shout and call. If you know Christ,
you know Him. All that we know about Jesus
is His body, His clothes, His body, and that's it. No God.
That's all we know about Him. We don't wish for some God. The knowledge of Christ also
is text. excellent, not 11 hours a day
per person, or excellent. Everything else is just learning.
It's really just a waste of time. You know, I don't care what you know about
me. I don't care what we learn. We are the unknown tribe. He was a doctor, Paul. He had
to un-murder everybody. I know the Lord used to have
Paul as a great zealot. But everything he thought, he
had to learn it all over again. He took his life at price. Now Paul said this. Now, I count
everything lost for the excellency of a donkey's pride. Now, that
sounds good, doesn't it? That's easy to say, isn't it?
Now, I think that's worth it. Isn't that easy to say? How do
we know Paul was a young man? How do we know that he thinks
that he's superior? He said, I can't offer him good
knowledge, or good knowledge, but I have a sense of the knowledge
of God. How do we know? Put it in the next line. For
whom I have suffered the loss of all things. I have suffered
the loss of all things. But he said, I can't predict.
It's just maneuver. It's just, it's just countermaneuver. And
I wish I could say it in my own language. He said, all I read,
all I used to know, all that the world knows, is just a bunch
of gold. I mean, is that correct or not? Now, a certain speech is very
fortified, very plain language, that all of that what he did,
it sounds like the man is. Or it doesn't use his words, he
uses his words again. All our righteousness is filled
with that. All our religion and everything
else is not... has nothing to do with Christ.
It's just a matter of... it's about what's working. Right. Well, he said, I cannot confirm.
He said, I've lost it. I've lost all things. I am suffering
the loss. All we've lost is pain. All we've
lost is fortune. All that a penniless beggar in
prison. He was a rich and famous, lived
a lifestyle of a rich and famous, and he lost his job and ended up
as a bad person. That's it. He was done. How do
I know he's done? He suffered a loss of honor.
Now, I said this last Sunday. What would our Lord have said
if He said He can forsake all that He has and cannot be my
disciple? We may not be called upon to ask Him to really forsake
everything. We may not be called upon to
do it. Something is lost. Most of the good is lost. What's not? It's lost. And He has. I told you the story
of a young man A man in Michigan had made a big job with General
Motors. Planted a four-foot ladder in
a brand-new house. He built a brand-new house. He
got married a little while later, had their first child, and he had it made. The Lord saved him
from the gospel. There was no gospel there. I remember asking him, I remember
telling him, when he did that, when he made that move, I said, I know he is, but you don't have
the gospel no more. That's the one thing people,
and everything else is just great. But if you have the gospel, you
don't need everything. But I guarantee you this, the
Lord can. He said, and he meant the father,
the mother, the husband, the wife, the house, the land, the
children, and so forth. My name says it. I'll give it
back to them when I'm older. In this life. I said, you're trying to fool
me, aren't you? I'm going to test you, and screw you, and
all that. They really did that. And you
don't know where I went until about the first year of English. Oh,
two and a half years. About the scale of everything? Now, let's see now. Now, you
have the gospel. They got all that that they had in the world. And, Lord, that they give you
a greater chance for the glory of your name, and we have a better
job than we ever could have. Now, if you ask me one thing,
I say, give me, give me. Now, the Lord may not
call on you or us to do that, to do that, but He might. But
I dare Him to do that. The Lord said, I will show them. I will bless them. And what we are called,
every one of us are called upon to do this, to kind of be with
them. Every one of us are to be with
them. I've got to say, this is important. You don't have to
tell your friends to get lost. Your old friends that don't know
what they're talking about. You don't have to tell them. You
don't have to tell them. I mean, we've been here more
than a long time. Don't you agree? You don't have to do that. You
don't have to tell him, I've been in a relationship with you
for a long time. What's going to happen? He'll say, well, because
you didn't call him, he'll say, it's different. He'll say, well,
because you didn't call him. You won't have to turn him away every time. And what else? And my old cronies that I went
to school with, fellas I grew up with, I mean, in diaries. Grew up with these fellas, we
were old cronies, and best buddies, best friends all the way through
school. And you live in a small town, all your friends are your
friends from when you're five years old, Twenty-five, you know,
we still live around here, right? All day. And my buddies, my friends,
my best friends, they've been through the dish that and the
other, and I don't know, ever seen one of them. I don't. I remember it when it finally
seeped over to the front. Literally. Now, I'm afraid it's
not as close as it needs to be. Now, I wrote the main thing.
Now, I'm not going to say it again. You know, in the association,
you're seeing everything and everyone. Whatever it may be,
material things, possessions, a relationship, whatever it may
be, I promise. Whoever, whatever. And this is
just me. Whatever you really love is what
you go after. This is what Paul says on down
here, and I'm not going to get into there, but he said, verse
12, not as though I'd already attained, neither were already
perfect, but I'm following after. This is what I'm after, he said.
This is what I'm after. This is what I want. That I may
apprehend that which also I may apprehend that which is in front
of me. Verse 14, I've pressed forth
upon Christ, I've called him God in Christ. That's who I am. A man falls in love with a young
lady, and you should get him, no matter if you're family or
friends or whatever it is, that's fine. That's fine, sir. The same
applies for those you're out to try. Same thing. Ain't nothing but everything,
every one of it. Now look at this. Here's what we're going
to dwell on. Verse seven. Hey, Paul says, now I have suffered
the loss of all things. What did I just count? None of
them. That I may win Christ. This is what I want, Paul says.
This is what I want to win. This is what I really want to
have. Christ. That I may win Christ. Let's just stop right here, shall
we? Yeah, we should. All right. Wait a second. Come
on. It might be long. What is it
to win Christ? What does it mean to win Christ? Also, he said, by any means,
whatever, I want to win Christ. What is it to win Christ? Down in verse 14, again, he said,
this is a prize. I pray for it to mark the prize,
prize. You ever won a prize? This is
what it said again. There's a prize I'm after. There's
something I want to win. Now, it's not win in the sense
that you work real hard to get it. And if you run faster than
anybody else, you'll get there. If you try hard, no, that's not
it. This win is in the sense of somebody calls you and says,
you win. But you didn't do anything. Your name was found, but it pulled
you down. This is exactly what it is. It's
all about winning Christ. This is the prize of the high
calling. Christ is the prize, to win Christ. All right, turn back to Psalm
16. Psalm 16. Now you'll see why
we read this. Psalm 16. I'm always talking about a greater
prize and a greater treasure, which is Christ, a person. To win Him is to win everything.
You get Him, you get everything, but He doesn't have it. He's
Christ. I have to be careful, I don't
want to use different eras or maybe the language here, okay?
But nevertheless, this is something we can relate to, winning a prize,
a great something, a great prize. A great treasure. Paul is talking
about a great prize and a treasure. Being known by Christ and knowing
Him. This is great. This is a great
thing. Being loved by Him and loving
Him. This is just wonderful. Being
owned by Him. God is the owner. God is my Lord and I'll need
Him to do what I do. Christ is a prize. And like I
said, I don't know what kind of religion does this. I don't
know. But have you ever said, I heard my
wife say this about a certain man at a young age. He'd be a great guy. That's to say, it's a prize.
If you got in for war, you had something to thank for. A prize, a prize. If you win a prize,
you get a prize. If you lose a prize, you lose
a prize. Now, see if I can't. Well, it's
impossible. This is impossible to prove. But if you went to Christ, as
compared to Him, everything and everyone else is worthless. I mean, if you have Him, you have
everything. If you don't have anything, you
have nothing, no matter what you have. If you know Him, you know
all the little ones you need to know. And somebody who you
don't know, you don't know. And somebody who you know, it
doesn't matter. And whatever relationship you
may have, if you don't have a relationship with Him, that relationship doesn't
go good. If you have a relationship with
Him, it doesn't matter if you have no relationship. Understand? This is what I'm
going to try to show you. Psalm 16, David says here, The
Lord is the portion of my victory. He's my Father. Now, you may say, well, David,
what do you mean by that? You were a rich man. You were
a king. Oh, he was a little bribable, not for long. He was on the run. David was on the run about to
have to fight. Do you remember? He started out as a young boy
on the run from Saul. There's been faith, there's been
fear, and no home, and no possessions, and in my authority there's been
faith. And then when he ascended to
the throne, and boy, he was sanctified, and all was good, and the Lord
gave him rest of all his enemies, and support, and he was good,
and he thanked the Lord for that, too. And his son, Absalom, who
was a mountaintop rebel, got out of the room, and David went
and fled from him. Most of his items fell on the ground. There was
nothing. I don't have a Bible. He says, well, I don't have a Bible. I go back to Abraham, go back
a little further than that, Abraham. Huh? Abraham never did. Oh, maybe
he can't. Sometimes he's with them, so
forth, looking for the man. But, uh, and remember when he's,
he and his sons-in-law lie. And when they came to the side,
they were roaming all over the land looking for a place to set
up a farm site, a river. And they all got to sit down
and sit in the cattle room. I wish there was a cattle room
and sheep and goats and all that, but they needed a place to put
them, and they were there. People would get in the bikes
together, your cattle, that ain't my cattle anymore. It just wasn't
going to work out, and here they came, we needed a place to set
them. And there was this well of water. When you got cattle, you want
water, don't you? You don't want all the water
to go. Well, the place said, go get
water. Well, here was a well-watered plains, fertile valley, beautiful
sod. And then there was the city of
Sod. If you got tired of the farm,
you could go to town. You could go to a nice restaurant.
You know, you could go all the way to Independence for years
and, you know, do whatever you want. You know, then you'd go
back out to the country and back to the farm. I had a thing, I
had a lot to say. And Abraham being the greatest man he was,
knoweth God. He said, Lot, just say what you
want. What do you want? Whatever you
want, you take it, and I'll go wherever you don't go. And Lot said, I'll take some. I'll take it back. and there
was a strutty, strutty mountains, and fields, even a tall water
field. You had to live in the mountains. Now, you remember the story, huh?
Well, there were a lot of them, I think. They were what they
were. It was a rough journey, and you, you know, had to figure
this, figure like, whatever. And finally, when they broke
down, I said, Lord, What are you going to do to me?
Well, I've got all of this work. I've led my own. What do I have
to do? Do you know what the Lord's
already done? He said now. What did he lock me in? Let me
ask you, what did he lock me in? That lock almost lost his
son. He got in the sun. He almost burned up in the sun. And who have I on earth to shun? Just look at this, verse
five, I'd like to teach you. And you, you are my inheritance
and my cup. So it runs over and over. Thou
maintainest my lot. That is, the Lord's seen what
my lot may be. No, it's a hillside lot. If that's
what the Lord gave you, your lot's a good one. Guaranteed. Whatever the Lord
gives you, it's a good lot. Verse six, and this is what you'll
end up saying. The lions, this is the lions. Do you have any answer to that,
Matthew, that's a word? Do you? The lions, the property,
the boundary lions. God has chosen my inheritance
from them, the lot. And David said, that's all I
want to be, and it could be a pleasant place that I have a good time. I told you why. My dad, you know,
they don't own anything. My mom and dad don't own any
land, any house, anything of the sort. And they don't have
a picture of me. I don't have that profile. There is one thing that I'm looking
forward to getting that my brother and I are going to fight to the
nails. It's a pepper grinder that my brother's dad, my dad's
brother gave me as a tournament. It's an old wooden grinder. It
doesn't work much, but I do it very consistently. I want to
stop using it, and I wear it out, and that's my heritage.
All that's being said would be right, but that's what I'm here
to put the big thing on. What do we make of it? This is my character, and it's stupid. Mine is a calling
to be a servant of the Lord. The law is cast in the lap of
the Lord's chosen family. You better be thankful you're
not rich, man. I mean, you just better be thankful. You're not very rich. You better be thankful you're not wise,
not very wise. You better be thankful you're not noble, not
very noble. But besides when you're not mighty,
when you're not on a plane, bigger, stronger, faster, better, what
are you going to do about it? How many? How many? God has chosen nothing. But it
has to do with the 10th year of Aaron's birth. Now, listen,
Christ is our point. And only Christ, in turn, would
make Genesis 24. Genesis 24, and I'm going to
wrap this up. Yes, it's 24. Only Christ can
make someone fall in love with Him and desire Him. I know these
sayings sound foreign to some, perhaps, what it means to win
Christ. But, and only Christ can make
a person fall in love with Him. and see that to have price is
really to have everything. That just doesn't, the natural
land sees it. The natural land does make sense. The natural land. But let me put it this way to
you and try to make you understand it, at least in your head. To
have price is to have everything. Some of you, did you have a good
father? Did you have a good father? I
have. I had the world's best father,
and I know Hannah, and some of you will take issue with that. I have to agree, your father, but do I have the world's best
father? I can't even think that positively.
But you'd have to say one of the biggest things. I was born
in a home in Mississippi. The lines have all been created. I could have been born in a house
where my father was a hard drinker and left all his children and
never gave a flip about it and never found them. Many of them. Four out of five black kids never
had a father. I could have done more, I think,
but the whole line is falling. I can say I'm a good father.
I'm a good father. I'm realizing that I'm almost
too late. I wish I'd known that at that point. I could have spent
the last 45 years consulting. There are all the lines. I've got a good father. You don't
have a good husband. Anybody got a good husband? I don't know if you do. To have a good husband, I mean
a loving, tender, kind, caring, I don't mean the fellow that
gives you the moon, but I mean the fellow that's just tender,
loving, kind, compassionate, caring, really does love you. Oh, my God. And, as a matter of fact, he
may not have been one of them much, but he's gone above and
beyond that. What about a good friend? Anybody
in here got a good friend? I mean, a common denominator.
One you can envision. Most of them, I mean, you can
share your common feelings and pour your heart out to a companion,
a real companion, someone you love that I can count so many
as that. So many good friends. Now, these young ladies may be
looking for a husband. They just told me she's looking
for a husband. But they're looking for the perfect
man, isn't it? That's how I describe it. They're
hard to find. They get harder and harder to
find. But now, you can wrap all of
these traits up. Even if you didn't have a father
like that, you've got one. You've got one. You've got a
father who loves you. And your father and mother, they
respect you. And if you put this gospel away,
they probably will. They just might disown you. They
may have over the gospel. But now Christ says, I'll take
care of you. You're mine now. Your husband,
if you don't have that wonderful, loving, kindness, your life is
ruined. Christ is your husband. He is your husband. And He cares
for you. And a friend? A friend. See, all this is labor action,
right? And the wonderful thing about it is, Christ said, You
suit me first. If you suit me and your husband
first, I'm giving you a lesson in my
faith." That's right. When he listened to this, he said, he said the same thing.
That the Master, because he's going to be a lesson for us in
time. And he will give you a point.
Or a wife, like him. He will, he's waiting for that. Won't he? After 30 years of slaving,
he'll decide that. Won't he? And if he waits, yes
he will. He's good, he's true, he's worthy. He has Christ. Now listen to this. We marry,
we better marry for love. You better marry for love. Don't marry for money. Don't marry for money. We think we do anyway in the
beginning. We marry a person for who he is, who she is, and
not for their possessions. But that's what
we did. Genesis 24, you know this story
well, all of you, most of you. And one of these days we'll go
over the whole thing again. But this is the story of Abraham
going to look for his servant, looking for a bride for his son
Isaac. And what a picture this is of
Christ, who is Isaac, the woman's servant. And how God would follow
the sins that His preachers preach. and looking for the bride, the
bride of Christ, the believer. What a picture this is. The preacher
goes out and declares the glory of the Father, His Son, and I'm
just going to tell you in short what all this is about. Alright,
this old servant of Abraham, Abraham sent him down to look
for a bride for his son Isaac. He had particular people in mind
when he sent him to. And he told the man, God's gonna
set his hands on one of you, and you're gonna find him somewhere
in the belly of an old fellow. The old man, the magnitude of
his job, he was an old fellow. How am I going to enter some
young people's home on a big patch with a place of buried
fellows I've never seen before? I'm like, that's a pocket jam.
And Abraham said, John's going to do this. Then he went down
to this land and all he did was declare the glory of Abraham
and his son. But he couldn't, like I said,
he couldn't show Isaac. Because Abraham said,
you're not touching Isaac now. So Isaac's not going to go with
Jesus Christ. He's not going to go. He's seated
right here. He's going to stay right here. He's going to bring her again.
He's going to speak of Jesus. We don't see Christ. We haven't
seen Christ. Nobody in here has seen the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he's not going to come and
appear to you. Well, all he could do, all this
old fellow could do was describe Him. And he did, to the best of his
abilities. He tried to pay for him, and ask his son, and welcome
others. And he couldn't make her willing
to go with him. He wanted to find a bride. He
couldn't make this woman willing. He didn't ask for power. He couldn't
do it. He just was sad about it. Only God can make you willing
in the face of this kind of thing. Well, here's the story. Now,
he told his story and all that, and the family tried to get Rebecca
to remain. Rebecca is the young lady of God and children. The family tried to get Rebecca
to stay and remain around a while. Now here's a servant, verse 57
of 56. The servant said unto them, now
don't hinder me, the Lord has prospered my way. Send me away
that I may go back to my master. I've got to go, I've got to leave.
They said, well we'll call the lady, we'll call the young lady
and we'll ask her. Well, that's a surprise to your
lady. She came to find a bride for her son, who was a disaster.
Verse 15, And they called her back, and now she'd never seen
either of them before. Never been in this land. Didn't know anything about that. And they called her back there
and said unto her, Will thou go with this man? And she said, Just like that. That was good. And, uh, let's
send her away. Now she still didn't come out
to me, clearly. The story here, she didn't come out to me. But
the Lord, Steve, was leading her to God. She'd never seen
Him before. Would you, next time, would you
marry a man you've never seen before? Come on. Would you? Oh
yeah, she did that. This mail order arrived, didn't
it? Would you do that? If you're
a man living in a gold mining town, there wasn't a woman in
stock for you. But these women, going to the
town for a loose on the clock. Who would think that? She did. She's never seen this place. She's never been to this place.
had no idea what was all that. Well, look at this. Verse 61. And Rebekah rose and her damsels,
and they rose upon the camel and followed the man. I wish we had more time. Anyway,
and the servant took Rebekah and made his way. If you come here, people come
here to hear the gospel. And, uh, and they, they listen
to a man. And the man's telling everybody. He's, he's, he's, he doesn't
need to cry. He's telling them about, telling
the people about God. And they don't see it. They just
don't see what he's talking about. It's unbelievable. They didn't seem to get the point.
They keep following the Christian. We know it. Verse 62, And Isaac
came from the whale. Isaac, now here comes Isaac,
the templar of the land. He comes from the whale. You'd
always find him in a whale. That boy had a wife. Well, he
dwelled in the south country. And Isaac went out to meditate
in the field of Eden's house. Went out to pray. God had a man. He went out to pray. Anyway,
he went out to pray, and he lifted up his eyes. He was out at his
feet. Surveying his feet. Praying. Lifted up his eyes. And said, Behold, heaven has
come. And it says in verse sixty-four,
And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, and she just saw him with her eyes,
she saw the leaven. Now down in verse sixty-five,
she said unto the servant, She saw Isaac, and she asked the
old man, What man is this? Who is this? He said, I see him
walking in the field coming up. Who is that? And the servant
said, it's my man. That's him. You see? And it said, verse 64, he lies
off again. He got down off where an eye was. When she saw, I said,
just one look at him, and she fainted right there. He's listed with us. She saw him and she said, this
is the greatest love story you've ever read, ladies. Go on and
read it again. Read the whole thing. Go on and
read the whole thing again. Put up Jude, Deborah, Robin,
and whatever it is, and read this. Honestly, this is the greatest
love story. Look at it as Christ and His
people coming to follow the love of Him. One look at that, who
is this man? Who is this man? And the servant
said, that's my master. I've been trying to tell you
that. I've been trying to tell you
that. But I couldn't. I couldn't. He
had to see what he saw. You see that? Only Isaac himself
is beside him. And look what he did. Now, it
doesn't say anything more than she did. The servant told Isaac
all the things he had done. In verse sixty-seven, here's
salvation. Isaac brought her in through
his mother's service. Sounded like he did to Victor.
Sounded like he did to him. Carried her across the threshold.
I believe he did. He brought her in. He swooped
her up in his powerful arm, Lord of the beasts, and his powerful
arm went over her head and did the same to her. Did you know
that? She really didn't know about
it. From nowhere, it's a bunch more just like her down there
in Egypt. He took her back in his arms, and she became his
wife, and he loved her. Nobody else, I would guess, was
like that. or a picture of some of them,
right? And he brought her, he took her,
he loved her. He never knew why he loved her,
but he loved her anyway, right? And that's just the way it is. He's always late. I don't know why. I don't know.
He's never honest. He said, a nice
man. He prayed in the Psalms. He married a good man. He had that woman, that young
boy, that girl. Christ. We went to Christ. We went to Christ. You know what
she found out later in the game? You know what she found out?
Adam's so rich. Adam, if he married for love,
he'd have to go to jail. He's rich. Have you ever thought about the
time the Lord came as the poorest man on earth? The Lord Jesus Christ
was the poorest man that ever lived.
Have you ever thought about that? Why? Because He had married him for
love. He was not the most beautiful
man. He was not an excellent man. Christian said, and I'll
tell you about it, that when Jesus died, brethren, He was
not handsome. He was not rich. He was not colored in any way. He was a whole bunch of... His hair was all brown. But a
lot of people fell in love with Him.
That's how many I love you, Mark. And He's worth the sky. He's
always worth the world. You see that? The way of Christ.
The way of Christ. Alright, stand up. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for your all-together lovely sons and the story of him. Thank
you for making us with him. Thank you, Father, that you do
the same for others. that you would make Him all dearer
to us than to them. Yours is more. Make Him more
so to your people, so that we esteem everything and everyone
else as lost and nothing. Comparative, my friend. And this is so that your power can
be feared. We ask for it. In Christ's name, amen.