We have a God, we know Him everywhere. He has been with us all these
years. We have a Lord, our God is always
with us. Thank you, Sherry. Genesis chapter 10 now. Genesis chapter 10. I must confess
that I get just like you at times when I feel physically and mentally
tired. exhausted and do not feel like
doing this. This is one of those times. Maybe the Lord will overrule
me, but Genesis chapter 10, I hope this will be an interesting and
profitable study, and we'll see. It's been a while since we've
been in Genesis, and we may repeat ourselves a little bit, but you
may remember Noah's prophecy up in chapter 9, where it says,
verse 25, Cursed be Canaan, and blessed be the Lord God of Shem,
and a blessing upon Japheth as well. You may remember something
about that. Verse 1 of chapter 10 says, These
are the generations of the sons of Noah. It gives them again. Shem is the lineage from which
Christ would come. Shem. It says in verse 25 of
chapter 9, or 26, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem. And I believe
that's a spiritual prophecy of Christ who should come from the
house and lineage of Shem. Blessed be the Lord God of Shem. And Shem is where the Hebrews came
from also. Look at verse 21 of chapter 10. Chapter 10 verse 21 says, Unto
Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber. That's
where we get the term Hebrews, Hebrew children, Eber. That's
where the Jews came from. All right, back to chapter, verse
one. Shem, Ham's another son of Noah, Ham, and the sons of
Ham. The sons of Ham, we saw, were
the Canaanites, Cushites. Look at verse six. The sons of
Ham, Cush, Mizraim, Those are the Egyptians. The Egyptians
directly sprung from Israel. Canaan, Canaanites. Look down
at verse 15. Look down there. And Canaan beget Sidon. And by the Lord's woe pronounced
on Tyre and Sidon, one of the cities that was destroyed as
well as Sodom. Tyre and Sidon, verses 16 through
20. Amorites, Girgisites, Hivites,
Archites, Sinites, Arvidites, Gemorites, Hathrites, afterwards
with a family of the Canaanites spread abroad, and the border
of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto
Gaza, as thou goest unto Sodom." Sodomites came from Ham, too. That's interesting, isn't it?
and sodomites even came, all wicked and idolatrous people,
enemies of God's people. Verse 1 again, and then there's
Japheth. Japheth. Down in verse 5, the
sons of Japheth now, he began with verse 2 on down, he begins
telling us who the sons of Japheth were. Verse 5 says, By these,
or by these offspring of Japheth, were the isles of the Gentiles.
So you see that, from Jopheth proceeded the Gentile people—Greeks,
Romans, English, Saxons, and so forth. And the prophecy that
Noah gave up in chapter 9, verse 27, says, God shall enlarge Jopheth. And the fair-skinned races that
generally populate the world, Gentiles, cover the earth. It
says they shall dwell in the tents of Shem. or be partakers
of Shem's blessing. And that reminded me of Romans
11. It talks about us being grafted into the tree, a wild branch
being grafted into the tree. We partake of the blessings of
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We're not Jews. We're
Gentiles. But we're made Jews, aren't we,
by the circumcision not made with hands, by Jesus Christ. And he is a Jew, which is one
outwardly. Inwardly, I'm sorry. Inward,
not outwardly. And so we're made to be spiritual
Jews, and the Lord partakers of the blessings of him there.
All right? Dwellers in his tent. Now, four
times we saw in our study, four times the Lord said he would
visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the church. Four times he
said that. Ham's sin. You remember the story,
don't you? Ham coming into Noah's tent.
What happened? We're not sure, but it was wicked. Ham's sin, it says in verse 25
of chapter 9, Ham's sin was cursed, was visited on Canaan, one of
his sons. You see that? Okay. Cursed be
Canaan. And say, hey, says Canaan, that
there should be Canaan. I turn over to Romans chapter
5 with me. Romans chapter 5. See, what's
all this got to do with the Tower of Babel? Well, I think we'll
see in a moment. Romans chapter 5. Now, it's not that Canaan was
innocent and punished for his sins. Righteous love, as we shall see. Any more than we are punished
for Adam's sin. We're not punished for Adam's
sin, are we? Does a man go condemned by God
and sent to hell for Adam's sin? Presumpt. Presumpt. Look at Romans 5, verse 12. It
says, By one man sin entered into the world. That's true.
And death by sin. Death is the principle of sin. Death passed upon all sin, but
it says all have sinned. He said that in another place,
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Verse 14 says that death reigned
from Adam to Moses, or this principle of sin or death, even over them
that had not sinned after the exactness of Adam's transgression,
but we have all sinned nonetheless. So God does not hold us accountable
for Adam's sin, but holds us accountable for our own. Does that buzz anyone? OK. Death reigns. We're born in trespasses
and sin. Now, look at verse 17 through
19 here. By one man's offense, death reigned
by one. Much more, they which receive
abundance of of grace and of gift of righteousness shall reign
in life by one Jesus Christ." Look down at Romans chapter 7,
verse 19. Paul describes this reigning
principle, this law he calls it. Romans
chapter 7, verse 19 says, "...the good that I would, I do not,
but the evil which I would not, that I do." He didn't say, old
curse be Adam for doing this to me." He said, Me? Me? If I do that, I would not. There's no more I to do but sin
that dwelleth in me. I find in a law that when I would
do good, evil is present with me. A law. I've got Adam's nature
all right, but I take credit for my own sin. Now back to Genesis
chapter 10. So Canaan was under the curse
of under the curse of Ham, yet Canaan was a wicked man himself. Canaan was a wicked man himself,
and as we saw, I think, it was evidenced by his offspring. The
Sidonians, the Sodomites, wicked, wicked. His posterity was filthy,
vile people. God is not unrighteous, Scripture
says. He does not punish the righteous. And in the midst of all these
people, there's one fellow that sticks out that we're going to
look at now. And he comes from Ham. He comes from Cush. One fellow. His name is Nimrod. Nimrod, the
most notorious and evil and infamous man. Look at verse 8. It says,
And Cush begat Nimrod. And he began to be a mighty one
in the earth, a mighty man. But we saw another time his might
was in evil. His might was like man's heroes
today. He was a wicked man, a violent
man. He was a hero in that sense. In this sense he was a big, mean,
macho, wicked fellow. And he's the one responsible
for this gathering and this story of the Tower of Babel. He's the
one responsible. He's the one behind it. He's
the one that gathered these people and this whole gathering of God-haters,
and he's the one responsible for the building of this tower.
Look at it. Verse 9 and 10. He was a mighty
hunter before the Lord. That is, he was an aggressive,
violent, mean, and notorious stalker, warrior, and fighter. He's not talking about being
a deer hunter or a turkey hunter. He's talking about him being
a notorious and violent warrior fellow, a fighter, a slayer of
men is what he was, this Nimrod. Look at it. It says a hunter
before the Lord. Now look back at chapter 6 for
this meaning here. Before the Lord, back in chapter
6, it gives this again. Back in chapter 6, it says in
verse 4, got it? There were giants in the earth,
and Nimrod was a big man. There were giants in the earth
in these days, in those days also. After that, when the sons
of God came in unto the daughters of men, they bare children to
them. The same became mighty men which were of old, men of
renown." Look at verse 11. The earth also was corrupt before
God. So what that's saying about Nimrod
is that he was a notoriously wicked fellow against God, in
the eyes of God, before God, against any and all goodness
and righteousness. Verse 10 of chapter 10. And the beginning of his kingdom,
Nimrod, was Babel. The beginning of his kingdom
was Babel, and if you have a marginal reference, it says Babylon, doesn't
it? The city and the kingdom of Babylon came from here. The beginning of his kingdom
was Babylon. Now, some writers, many writers,
say that this man is a type of the Antichrist, or That may be, but as John said,
more rightly, he said that even now there are many antichrists. I really personally do not believe
it's one man, one central figure. Nevertheless, he does represent
mankind in general, and religion in particular. Now, let's look
at this tower a little bit. things concerning this tower.
Look at chapter 11 now. Chapter 11, verse 1. And in the
rest of chapter 10, he gives the lineages of Shem and so forth,
and Japheth. Shem. Those are the families
of Noah. Chapter 11, verse 1. It says,
"...the whole earth was of one language." One language, one
lip. The margin said, one mind, one
desire, one purpose, their thoughts and their ways, of one speech,
of one word, one language. What was that? The Lord already
said it, only evil continually. Isn't that what he said? The
thoughts of man's heart and imagination are only evil continually. That's
what they were of one mind to do, evil. The natural man is
enmity against God, the natural man. Verse 2, it says, It came
to pass as they journeyed from the east, or eastward, that they
found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.
They journeyed eastward. Wherever they were going, see,
they were moving away from where God was. Hadn't we studied that this is
where Noah landed, and this is where the worship of God was,
and so forth. The eastern, remember that? The
eastern gate and so forth. We thought that had something
to do with so on and so forth, the garden and all the eastern.
And they were, wherever they were going, they were moving
away from God and away from God's people. And that accurately describes
our generation, that without God moving, they're gone as far
away from God as it can possibly be in every single principle,
way, shape, form, and fashion. Those are the very things I was
dealing with a while ago. Somehow or another, we're going
to have to follow the principles of this book to get back to what
is closest to the way that God would have us to live and conduct
ourselves. Is that right? Is that what you
want for your children? Is that what I want for this
church? truly is, because our generation has gone way from
God, a hundred percent. The Scripture says they turned
way backward, a hundred and eighty degrees, way backward. It says they found a plain, a
large valley, and that's where they dwelt, in this plain. Verse
3, And they said one to another, Go to, now let us make brick,
and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone,
and slime they had for mortar. Verse 4, And they said, Now go
to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach
unto heaven. Let's build us a city and build
us a large tower, and let us make us a name." Do you remember that? Let us
make us a name. Let's establish a confederacy. Let's establish a denomination. Let's establish a convention. We'll name it the Southern Babylon
Convention. We'll name it the PCA, the WMU,
the WMW, something, a convention, a gathering, a confederacy, a
league. See, there's strength in numbers.
Let's get together. in numbers and make us a league
and make us a name, lest we be scattered." Now, this is important. Lest we be scattered abroad upon
the face of the whole world. We don't want to be scattered.
Remember that. You remember that. All right,
look at verse five. And the Lord came down to see the city. Thou, Lord, seest me. Thou, Lord, seest me. His eyes
behold his eyelids. Try the children of men. But
it also says concerning the Lord, he dwells
on high, yet he humbles himself to behold the things in heaven
and the things in earth. He comes down. I believe this
might be a visitation of Christ himself. It says the Lord came
down, didn't it? I don't know. It may be. But the Lord came
down. Our Lord Jesus Christ came down, didn't in the midst of
this ungodly world that we live in. The Lord
came down to see the city and the tower which the children
of men," and the children of men always represent unbelievers,
and that's who they represent here, to see the tower and the
city that the children of men built it. Verse 6, And the Lord
said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language. And this they begin to do, and
now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined
to do." Nothing is restrained from them. All manner of evil is prevalent. Nothing is restrained
from them. Am I exaggerating the case of
our society when I talk about the wickedness? Now, I'm not
really painting it as clearly as it really is. That's the reason it scares me
for our sake, for our children's sake. That's the reason we read
those verses, that we need to be careful that we may not conform
to it in any way at all. But transform. Transform. Nothing is restrained from our
society except the Word of God. Right? No place for that. Now,
look at verse 7. Now, God says, Go to, let us
go down. Let us. Who's the us? It's trying in God who it is.
Let us go down. Let us go down, Father, Son,
Holy Spirit. Let us make man. Let us go down. And there confound their language. Let us go down and confound their
language that they may not understand one another's speech. So the
Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the
earth, and they left off to build the city." They didn't finish
it. Therefore, there is a name of it called Babel, or Babel,
or confusion, because the Lord did there confound the language
of all the earth, and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad
upon the face of all the earth. As difficult as this is to understand,
yet this is where all languages on the face of the earth came
from. How many are there? I don't know how many languages.
There's quite a few. This is where it happened. This is where
it started. Modern man says that's ridiculous stuff. But it's true. So the Lord scattered them and
left them in confusion. So these confused, unbelieving,
God-hating rebels were scattered over the whole earth. All right, now let's turn over
to Romans chapter 17. And he said this is the Bible, is what
this is. The name of this all is Bible. And I believe this
represents false religion. This whole story represents false
religion. Look at Revelation 17, and I
believe this tower represents man's works, his works of religion
that will be brought to naught. Revelation 17, verses 3 through
5, "'So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness,
and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beak.'" That's typical, too,
isn't it? Today's religion is ruled and
run by women, or at least by men who dress like them. And
I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy,
having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in
purple and scarlet color, decked with gold and precious stones
and pearl, having a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations
and filthiness for fornication. And upon her head was a name
written, Mystery, Babylon the Great." Babylon the Great, the
mother of harlots and abominations. of the earth. That is the false
church, the spirit of Antichrist. All the way through Revelation,
it's spoken of, this great whore that men and women jumping into
bed with, right and left. All right, let me just ask a
question concerning this Tower of Babel that was built back
then. What was wrong with it? What
was wrong with people getting together like that? Now, look
back at the text. What was wrong with it? You remember
that they said, Now, let's make a league, lest we be scattered. Well, you know that the Lord
told them to scatter, didn't He? In Genesis 8, verse
15, He said this, He said, God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth
of the ark. Thou, thy wife, thy sons, thy
son's wife, bring forth with thee every living thing, and
so forth. Breed," verse 17, "'abundantly in the earth, be fruitful and
multiply upon the earth.'" Scatter out. There's a danger in everybody
getting together like this. Scatter out. Men, you know, dogs
are okay as long as you have one or two of them. They're right
standing. The more you get together, The
worst they are. Isn't that right? Same is true
of man. Same is true of man. This is
a direct... What was wrong with them, Bill, in doing this? It
was a direct act of disobedience against God. A direct act of
disobedience against God. And this is an example. God said
scatter. They said, no, we're going to
stick together. God told Adam, said, don't eat of that tree.
Why can't I? I've got everybody to do it if I want to, and he
ate of the tree. You know whatever God's Word
says is to be taken as he says it. As he says it. God's authority is unquestioned. We're to do it because he says
so. Right? Because he said so. Whether we
understand it or not. I don't understand that. You just kind
of have to reason that out to me. You just kind of have to
convince me of it. That's what it says. And we're
to do it. We find out eventually if we'll
do it. He said, didn't I say unto you if you would believe
that you'd see the glory of God? If you'd just do it, you'd find
out the good of doing it. And these leagues and these confederacies
and so forth, denominations, they're always trouble. I worry
about two individuals becoming too closely united together,
apart from of having other friends and so forth. If you look through
the scriptures, there was nothing but unholy alliances in twos,
in pairs, Ananias and Sapphira. There's several of them. You see, in a multitude of counselors,
there's wisdom, the scripture says. Leagues and confederacies. The
New Testament church New Testament churches were, you remember Brother
Walter Gruber talking about autonomy of the local church? And New
Testament churches, true churches, were to be autonomous, local
assembly. And he talked about being afraid
of, you know, how they were supposed to register the churches. He's
still waiting for all that to transpire, whatever's going to
happen in all this. Any time you have a big. League
or confederacy or convention or denomination or whatever you
always got to appoint officers. And titles. And people have these
and in authority and in small minded people with a lot of authority
abuse it and you've got nothing but trouble and before long you've
got somebody you've got somebody controlling a local church you've
never even been there before. You know what I'm saying? Local
assemblies are what New Testament churches are. You know that the
New Testament church at Jerusalem had all kinds of problems. You
remember those meetings they had at Jerusalem? Do you remember
the meetings they had at Jerusalem? They had a fuss and a fight.
The problem was what to do with the Gentiles. There wasn't unity
and peace there. They had trouble there. James
more James Bell and all sorts of error that he was the head
and so forth. So not only was this a direct
act of disobedience but these things are nothing but trouble
these great leagues and so forth. All right. They didn't. Secondly
what was wrong with this was they didn't seek the will of
God. I said come on we're going to build us a building we're
going to build us What you remember what James said over James chapter
four he said go to now you set you that say we're going to build
tomorrow we're going to do this. Remember that he said you ought
to say the Lord willing. Tomorrow we'll do such and such
you ought to say that they didn't seek the Lord's will in this
matter. Look at verse four of. Look at
verse four. It says in chapter eleven verse
four. Let us make us a name. What they did, their motive in
this whole thing was wrong, wasn't it? They were doing what they
were doing to make a name for themselves. Not to make God's
name known, but to make their own name known. What is that
a picture of? It's a picture of modern man
and modern religion. Religion and all in our day is
Nothing more than making a name for itself. They say what they
do in the name of Jesus, but really it's their own names that
they're extolling and honoring, isn't it? A continual quest for
a name and notoriety. That's the reason all the ridiculous
nonsense that's going on is getting wilder and wilder, because everybody's
trying to do something different. Make a name for themselves. Let's
just see how wild we can get. The next thing to read, look
at chapter 10. What was wrong with this gathering? It's like I've already said,
but it was built in defiance of God Almighty. Look at chapter
10, verse 8. He says in verse 8 and 9 that he was a mighty
hunter. Nimrod was a mighty one in the
earth, a mighty hunter before the Lord. We already saw that.
That says against the Lord, before his faith. In other words, Nimrod
did what he did and the people did what they did in direct defiance
like, watch this. You say, I can't do this? Watch
me. That's what they mean, they're
before the Lord. What they were doing was indirect
defiance to God. Not only did they not seek the
will of the Lord in what they did, but they said, we're not
going to do what you say at all. We're going to do what we do
whether you like it or not. Indirect defiance. And man in
our day is becoming more and more blatantly blasphemous than
ever. More and more blatantly blasphemous,
isn't it? It seems like man is just daring
God to do something, isn't it? Isn't it? Tempting, taunting
God. Tempting God. I dare you to try
to kill me or do something to me. All of these death-defying
things and so forth. Man is becoming openly more and
more blatantly blasphemous And I believe, chiefly, all of this
represents, chiefly, a man trying to get to God by his own works. I believe that this is the principal
lesson to be learned from this whole story here. A man trying
to get to God, get to heaven by his own works, without blood. And that's a picture of today's
religion, too, isn't it? without imputed righteousness. When do you hear those terms?
When do you even hear them? Except in a so-called gospel
song, you know, blood, you hear that every now and then. When
do you hear preachers today preach on the blood, atonement, and
so forth? Do you? It's very simple. When have you ever heard that
term used? You won't hear it. That's the
heart and core of the gospel, isn't it? Aren't these things concerning
the person and work of our Lord the heart and core of the gospel?
Then there is no gospel without them. And you certainly can't
get to God without them. What about without the Holy Spirit?
Doing what they're doing without the Holy Spirit. They didn't
say if the Lord will. But they said we're going to
do this without the Holy Spirit. And though religion today is
in the name of the Holy Spirit, in reality I believe they're
committing a sin against the Holy Spirit. I really believe
that. And I don't say that you should
pray for it. I don't pray for these false prophets. I pray
that the Lord will shut them up. I believe they're sinning
against the Holy Spirit, attributing evil to the Holy Spirit. and
attributing good to the work of the devil. They say what we believe is the
doctrine of the devil. All right, here's some lessons to be learned
from this, and I'll quit. Just give me a few minutes. Lessons
to be learned from all of this. Anything without Christ at its
center, anything without Christ's name and glory at its motive,
God's going to scatter it and God's going to destroy it. Even us. Anything it said in
Isaiah 23 9 I could quote about look it up real fat. He said
the Lord of hosts had purposed it as a 23 9 He had purposed
it to stain the pride of all glory Anybody this glory and
anything saving the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ God's determined
He'll bring it to nothing The Lord of hosts hath purposed
it to stain or pollute the pride of all glory, and to bring into
contempt all the honourable of the earth." Scripture says that
that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to
God. Abomination. 1 Corinthians 3, he says this,
listen to this, I'll turn for you and save you the trouble.
1 Corinthians 3, he talks about a man's work, and he's principally
talking about preachers. It says, if any other foundation
can no man lay than that which is laid. No other message, no
other foundation, no other. The church is not built on anything
but Christ crucified, the message of Christ. Now, if any man build
upon this foundation, add to it, upon this foundation, this
foundation of gold, silver, precious stone, wood, hay, or stubble,
whatever he build upon this foundation. Gold, silver, precious stones
are things that have to do with Christ. He's leading the people
in the knowledge of Christ, growing in grace and the knowledge of
Christ. But wood, hay, and stubble now says every man's work shall
be made manifest. Eventually, it will either be
revealed, it will be revealed what it is. God shall declare
it. It will be revealed by By fire. By fire. It'll be burned. It won't last. Like these people. And as I said,
another thing we're to learn is there's danger of association.
Leagues, confederacy, ecumenical movements. That's popular in
our day, isn't it? Ecumenical movement. Are you
aware of what the ecumenical movement is? They had contacted me. They wanted
me to be in on it. The meetings all the time going
on in our community alone. Meetings that have fellowship
dinners are all the preachers. Churches are getting together,
so-called churches are getting together. Catholics, Catholics
had this Catholic organization over here had a meeting, an ecumenical
meeting, and you wouldn't believe the so-called churches that joined
in on that. I'm a good old Baptist. Ecumenical movement. Ecumenical
means, you know, all the different churches get together in unity
and harmony and so forth. In our day, to be a part of that,
we'd have to compromise the gospel. We'd just have to compromise.
To join with others, in joining with others, talking about loving
each other, we'd have to hate the God of the Bible. We'd love
one another, but we'd have to hate the God above. We could join with others in
bragging on man and exalting man, but we'd have to bring God
down, no, wouldn't we? That's what's going on. Isaiah 8, listen
to this. I'll turn for you. Isaiah 8,
he says this about these confederacies. He says, "...associate yourselves,
O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces." Do you remember
reading that? Give ear, all ye of far countries,
guard yourselves, you shall be—don't say confederacy, confederacy.
It says sanctify the Lord of hosts himself. Let him be your most high potentate. Right? He's your pope. He's the
head of the church, not some little wrinkled maggot sitting
up on a stool in Rome. Sanctify the Lord of Hosts. Let
him be your fear. Let him be your dread. He should
be a poor sanctuary for a stone. Stumbling, though, for a rock
of offense to many houses. And also another lesson to be
learned is the city of Babylon. The city of Babylon. I do want
you to turn here to Revelation 18. Revelation 18. I do want
you to turn to this in closing. The city of Babylon. As I sought
to warn you about our generation and all of the prevailing tendencies and ungodly
principles and teachings and ideas and ways and so forth,
this religion is a dangerous thing. Today's religion is dangerous,
because some of it is so close, if it were possible, to deceive
the very elect. means confusion. It means confusion. Look at Revelation 18, verse
2. You see, he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying,
Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, is become the habitation
of devils, the hold of every foul spirit, and cage of every
unclean and hateful bird. Boy, isn't that religion today? Every foul John talked about
the spirits. Try the spirits, didn't he? All
nations, verse 3, all nations have drunk of the wine of the
wrath of her fornication. This charismatic movement in
this false religion has absolutely swept the world. Kings of the
earth have committed fornication with her. Merchants of the earth
are waxed rich through religion, big money in religion, through
the abundance of her delicacies. I heard another voice from heaven
saying, Don't unite in some ecumenical movement. Come out. Come out. Be not partaker of her sins,
and receive not of her plague. Her sins have reached unto heaven. God has seen this. He's going
to bring it to nothing. He's going to bring it down with
a crash. And you know false religion.
It means Babylon is the name of it, and it's confusion. It's confusion isn't it? What
they believe today, I think you were saying this to me Steve,
it takes more faith to believe what they believe than what we
believe. We just believe what God says.
That they have to, when you say, when they say that God is God,
yet he's not. He's limited. Isn't that right? God is God, yes, but he can't,
he's done, God does a lot, but he's done all he can do. Now
he's God or he's not. That's confusing to my, to me. Isn't it? They say now the blood
of Jesus Christ will save you. The blood of Christ saves. What
saves? They ask him. What is it that saves us? The
blood. But they say, well, you might
end up in hell, though. That's confusing, isn't it? Isn't that
confusing? You say, God loves you, has a wonderful plan for
your life, but you might go to hell. Is that his wonderful plan
for my life? That's confusing him. It's utter
confusion. You know, our religion, true
religion, is the only thing that makes good sense. God's God, that's
it. In every way, he's God. Christ's
blood saved, and that's it. It actually saves. Doesn't it?
Huh? God loves you, you're loved.
Most I love is going to keep you that settles it. That's it. That's not confusing it. Not
hard to believe what we preach and believe you believe God's
God. The Christ is Christ. Simple and it's simple in our
faith simple. They say simple. There's one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one hope of your calling. Salvation
to the Lord. That's it. It's in a nutshell.
But there's this confusion in it, and they can't explain it. They can't do it. Not from the
Scripture. And our motive, and the last
thing we need to learn from all this, is our motive is of utmost
importance in what we do, and why we meet together. And we
met together here, hadn't we? But we didn't decide to do this
thing. get together and say, let's start
us a church, did we? Uh-uh. Let's start us a convention,
a confederacy. No, God calls his sheep in from
the east and west and north and south and brings them in. He
creates his—unless the Lord builds a house, they labor in vain to
build it, right? It's going to come to nothing. And our motive
is all-important in why we meet. Do we meet in God's name, for
his glory, or our own? Are we trying to make a name
for Central Baptist Church? Am I trying to make a name for
myself? Do we meet for Christ's glory
and his honor, do what we do for his honor and his glory,
or do it for our own? Hmm? We better be. Or this thing's going to come
crashing down. Do we meet to win souls? Is what this all about,
to win souls or to chiefly glorify God? If it's to win souls, then
we'll start putting dollar bills under the seat. Bring people
in. Do whatever means and methods
we can to bring people in. Win a few people to Jesus. But
if we're out to glorify God, God will be glorified in winning
souls. And just preach the gospel and declare it, God will. His
sheep will hear His voice. We go out and witness so we can
say we witnessed it. Notch and another notch. I witnessed, I got to preach
to so many people. Got to witness so many people, not on my behalf. Do we do it because we have a
zeal for God's name and God's glory? Do we meet together to
fellowship or to worship? What's our primary motive for
coming here? Do we meet here, do we come in here to fellowship?
I enjoy that as much as the next man, but that's not why we're
here. We're here to worship. Do we meet to socialize or edify? Socialize or edify? Well, I hope there's some profit
in all of that. I must admit to the difficulty
of that passage, but there are many lessons there if we had
the wisdom and the knowledge to understand them. But I hope
we saw some things there. Stand together. Our Heavenly Father, we preach in part, we know in
part, we prophesy in part. We see through a glass dimly,
not as we ought. Eye hath not seen, ear hath not
heard, neither have entered into our hearts. We do what we do, Lord, with
hearts that are less than totally committed to thee. We admit we
confess all these things. Our frailties, our weakness,
our poor motive, our rebellion, our obstinance, our sin is ever
before us. Would you mold us and make us
and conform us and shape us to the image of Christ and not this
world? Would you conform us to his mind, transform us, renew
our minds, give us the mind of Christ and not this world? Would
you take these people, this church, every member of it, would you
take them and and mold them and shape them in the fashion of
the Lord Jesus Christ, to think as he thought, talk like he talked,
walk like he walked, act like he acted, me included, every member of
this church. Would you take us, Lord, and
make us committed to thy cause, cause us to bow to and submit
to thy word and thy will and thy ways? Would you take us and
have us submit one to another in the fear of the Lord? Would
you make our wives willing, obedient, submissive wives to their husbands?
Would you make our husbands loving husbands, exemplary fathers? Would you make our children obedient
children? Would you make us all God-fearing
people? decent, moral, Christ-like people in a day, an ungodly day,
Lord. This isn't legalism, Lord. This
is Christ-likeness. And this is what we want. Lord,
we're so—the world is in us. It is. And that's what scares
us. It ought to, anyway. The ideas,
the principles. Oh, that we might remember the
pit from which we were dug. and not forget what we once were,
and not, as a dog, go back to its vomit, but rather, Lord, be turned. Turn us, Lord, we'll be turned.
Not our will, not unto us, not our will, not our way, not our
rights, not our liberties, not our freedoms,
not unto us, O Lord, not ours, but thy will be done. Let us
submit to thy will, thy word, thy way. We want to be like your
Son, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate, a friend of sinners,
We want to be like Christ. We do, Lord. I hope and pray,
and that's a heartfelt desire. These things are the heartfelt
desire of every person that's been in here tonight, and others
as well. Lord, bless your Word. We confess
our ignorance of it, our inability to understand it, teach it, proclaim
it. Yet you have given us something
of an understanding. We thank you for that. You've
revealed some things to us. We thank you for that. We thank
you for what little we do know, but we're not satisfied with
it. We would know more of thee, Lord. We'd know more of thy word.
We'd know more of thy truth, and we'd be conformed to it.
Forgive us of our sins through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
and his righteousness and In his name we met together.
We hope and pray in his name for his glory and honor and for
our good notification. Amen. I don't know.