Welcome again to our continuing
Bible class in the study of Luke and we're in chapter 8 and today
we're concerned with the verses 19 through 21 and by way of context
we've We've just gone through the parables
of the sower and the seed and the parable of the lamp under
a vessel. And we looked at those things,
how the key words were in the parables. Luke 8, 15, they that
are on the good ground are they which in an honest and good heart,
having heard the word, keep it. And that was our first lesson,
hearing the word and holding fast to keeping it. And then
in verse 16, no man, when he hath lighted a candle, cover
it with a vessel or put it under a bed, but set it on a candlestick
that they which enter may see. may see the light. And so we
have hearing and seeing our second lesson. And then today we're
in verse 19 through 21. And then came to him his mother
and his brethren and could not come at him for the press. So
he's surrounded by this multitude there that have come to see what
he's doing. And some of them are there to
hear just as he said, Some of the seed's gonna fall on the
wayside. Some of it's gonna fall among
thorns. Some of it's gonna fall on the good heart that the Lord
has prepared. And he says, so his mother and his brethren are
trying to get to him through this mass, this crowd that's
around him. And they couldn't come at him
for the press. And it was told him by certain,
which said, thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring
to see thee. And he said, and answered them
and said, my mother and my brethren are these which hear the word
of God and do it. And so that's our message today
is hearing and doing. So we've had hearing and keeping,
hearing and seeing, and now it's hearing and doing. And we'll
be looking at that today. And so it just astounded me. It's just three verses here and He just kept expanding and expanding. And when we're looking at this,
we always find that our Lord is always greater and wiser and
kinder than we can imagine. And He's never less than what
we expect. He's always more. And with one
seemingly simple sentence, He evokes a fact of the spiritual
nature of things for our consideration. This, my brethren, this is my
true mother and my true brethren are they which hear the word
and do it. And he's always viewing things
from his great I am state. His eternal nature and the nature
of the church and the distinction between physical and spiritual.
Remember in John chapter 17, he says, I'm not of this world.
And people always kind of look at him and he says, you always
thought I was such a one as yourself. But he says, you know, I'm not
of this world. I came to this world to redeem the church. I'm not of this world. Hebrews
chapter four brings to our attention another fact about our Lord that's
always kind of seems to escape the attention of people around
him. He's the word of God, that's Christ, is powerful, and he's
a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And it says, all things are open
and naked to him with whom we have to do. And people, as we
had in one of our previous lessons, well, the Pharisee thought within
himself, like, I'll think this, but he won't know what I'm thinking.
And we find that example brought up again and again and again
in the gospels. He knew what was in their heart. He knew everything. And so we see these people that
come to him and say, your mother and your brother are out there.
And he looks out there and sees things from an entirely different
perspective. He looks out there. And he sees
his sheep. He sees his believers. He sees
those that the father had given him from before the foundation
of the world. And he said, my mother and my
mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God and
do it. And what a, what a concept for
us to, he equates his family, his spiritual family His true
family from every kindred nation tongue in the world, they're
identified by certain characteristics and here it's hearing and doing. And the qualifier there is hearing
and doing. Hearing the word of God, that
seed that as we mentioned from chapter 15, that seed that lands
on the good ground, the ground that the good heart that's prepared
from God. And we know that because of sin
and fall, the natural heart is desperately wicked and deceitful. It's not a good heart. You can't
receive that. Who can know it? And it tells
us that we're okay. Our natural heart says, eh, there's
no God. Eh, there's no problem with sin.
The natural man, says, can't receive the things of the Spirit
of God, neither can he even know them because they are spiritually
discerned or understood. Isn't that what he told Nicodemus?
Unless you're born again, you can't see the kingdom of God,
and you certainly can't enter it. And so doing the Word of
God is a believing on him whom God has sent. And then it's coupled
with loving one another. Because the Lord says, by this
man shall know that you're my disciples. They said, what's
the greatest commandment? He says, well, in Deuteronomy
it says, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart
and all thy soul and all thy might. Well, how do we do that? And he said, and secondly, it's
like unto the first, if that's the case, then you'll love your
neighbor or your brethren as yourself. It's just a natural
fruit of the spirit that that will happen. Down the street
here, Dom and I were driving up 10th Street to go to the church.
There's a billboard that they just butchered this scripture.
It says, We love because God first loved us. They just tore
that verse to shreds. And they took away most of the
meaning of it. We love God because He first loved us. And instead
they turned it into, oh, we're just all love and we love everybody. It just takes away the fact of
the enmity in our heart that we have toward God before He
saves us and reveals His Son in us. So doing the Word of God,
loving and believing on Him whom God has sent, loving one another,
and a subset of that doing, as we looked in the previous chapters
in the parables, was being true to the gospel, hearing and holding
fast to it. And then remember that word was
the in the Greek is the word echo. It means we reflect back
that an echo is just a reflection of sound from a from an object
and that's what we do. Paul said, I give you that which
I delivered to you that which I received. How Christ died for
our sins according to the scripture and was buried and rose again
the third day according to the scriptures. He just echoed back
what had been given him, reflecting it. So one of the first things
we might look at here in this scripture is he's making a contrast
between his physical family and his spiritual family. So we might look at how did his
physical family match up to these qualifiers of these criteria
of hearing and doing. And first, we looked to Mary,
his mother. How did she react? And how was her
example? And we looked to her example
that she had faith, that total reliance on Christ for salvation. And our example comes from Luke
chapter 1 verse 31 through 35. And if you'll turn in your Bibles
there to Luke chapter 1 verse 31. And boy, I was just reading
this again this morning and I just had to get my pen out and highlight
a few things. You know, we are always talking
about from Ezekiel the I wills of God that series of scriptures
There's I will I will I will I will I will and then ye shall
well We find that same principle here in in Luke chapter 1 verse
31 and behold thou shalt the angel of the Lord speaks to Mary
and says thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth
a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall save his people
from their sins. And he shall be great, and shall
be called the Son of God. And the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David." These are absolute terms
with the sovereign God Almighty. These things shall happen. Then
said Mary unto the angel, Well, how shall these things be seeing
I know not a man. She didn't quite have a full
grasp of what was going to happen. And we find that in our lives.
When God moves us here and there, we don't really have maybe a
true understanding of it until later on what all was involved. And we were talking this morning
about how Norm and I were from the same area in Southern Oregon,
and then we met up in Alaska, and then we got together again
here. All these steps, we didn't fully,
at the time, think of anything about it. God directed our steps
according to his purpose. Then we find the angel answered
and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon. She asked for
understanding, just like the disciples said, I don't get this
parable. What does it mean? How shall
these things be? The Holy Ghost shall come upon
thee, shall, again that absolute term, and the power of the highest
shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. What powerful words. And you
know what? Here's the doing. She had the
hearing, and now we come to the example of her doing found in
verse 38. total trust, total reliance on Christ, even if the
total understanding was not maybe there and perhaps a little lacking. And we find that for her to understand
this, it was physically dangerous for her because the law said
that if an unmarried woman found with child, they should just
be taken out and stoned. So it was a dangerous situation
for her. But she said in verse 38, behold,
the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.
And the angel departed from her. We might lump that in with the Hebrews
chapter 11. By faith, When she heard the
word, she said, be it unto me according to thy word. Like that
centurion, just say the word and I have faith in you that
it will happen, that my servant will be healed. Well, how about
the brothers then? So we have this example of his
mother, her hearing and doing, and then we have this contrast
with her brethren, or his brethren, his half brothers, and he had
sisters as well, too. It tells us in Mark chapter 6
verse 3, when he was in a synagogue teaching, and they said unto
them, Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother
of James, and Joseph, and Judah, and Simon, and are not his sisters
here with us? And of course, they that were
in that synagogue, they were offended at him because of what
he taught and did in the synagogue that day. But they said, we recognize
his mother and his sisters and his brother. And they didn't
name the sisters, but they named the brothers. The half-brothers
actually, they had the same mother, but a different father. And so there were many in that
synagogue that were hearing without ears in that synagogue. They heard what he said, but
they didn't like it much. And as physically close, as we
look at his brethren, as physically close as they were with the Lord
and seeing all that they had seen and hearing all that they
had heard, they were still in their natural state. the state
of the world, and it says, neither did they believe. It tells us
that in John chapter 7, verse 1 through 7, John 7, 1. And these things, after these
things, Jesus walked in Galilee, for he would not walk in Jury,
because the Jews sought to kill him. Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles
was at hand, and his brethren Therefore said unto him, Depart
hence, and go to Judea, that thy disciples also may see the
works that thou doest. They saw him do a lot of this
stuff, and he said, Go show them people too. For there is no man
that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be
known openly, if thou do these things. Go show thyself. It's the same thing they said
on the cross. If you thou be the son of God, come on down,
show us, show us. Well, it says, if thou do these
things, show thyself to the world. And they were just looking through
the physical seeing eyes. Because in verse 5 of John chapter
7, it says, neither did his brethren believe in him, even though they
saw all these miracles. And I don't know how many times
we brought out in the lessons that seeing the miracles doesn't
equate to believe. Many people saw. Many people
were fed. Many people were healed. Many
people were helped. But in John 6, 6, 6, they They
said, oh, when he brought out the truth of the gospel, they
said, well, that's a hard saying, and they walked no more with
him. And his brethren, they didn't believe in him. And then he says
something pertinent in John 7, 6 and 7. He says, my time has
not yet come, but your time is always ready. He said, the world,
right now, the world cannot hate you. but me it hateth, because
I testify it, that the works thereof are evil." He says, right
now you're in the world. You are part of the world. You
are just one of those folks. And so the world doesn't hate
you. But, you know, we were just talking this morning that as
soon as you experience grace, pretty soon you find out, well,
pretty much the world hates you for that. They don't want to
hear about it. Now, the point of the fact is
that one can be around the word, even around the very Christ,
and yet still not have hearing ears and seeing eyes, and no
ability to do. There's no hearing, there's no
seeing, and there's no doing. The appointed time for them had
not yet come when God would reveal his son in them. And we know
that in some of them that happened, but not, we don't know about
all of them, but certainly some of them, We know that God revealed his
son in them and that is recorded for us in the scriptures. So
now let's look at the spiritual family, the mothers and brethren
of the Lord in the true spiritual world as the Lord himself viewed
them. They consist of of all who hear
the word of God and do it. He just said that there in verse
21. My mother and my brethren are
they that hear the word of God and do it. So we know that hearing
ears and seeing eyes come from God. We read those scriptures
there. We know that He has chosen to
save them that believe through the foolishness of preaching
the gospel of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ. And we read that from Romans
and Corinthians, Romans 1, 1 through 3. We know that we must have
been given a believing heart We learned that from Ezekiel
and from Luke 8, verse 15. The good ground is those with
a good and honest heart receive that word and hold on to it. And we know that all this is
recorded for us in Romans 10. If you turn over to Romans 10,
we'll just read a few verses from Romans 10 regarding the
gospel. In verse 8, it says, but what
sayeth that the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in
thy heart? That is the word of faith which we preach, the word
of totally trusting in Christ for salvation. If thou shalt
confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus Christ, and shalt believe
in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou
shalt be saved. Now, many religion take that
and say, okay, there's all you got to do is confess the Lord
with your mouth. But then he goes on to explain
it in the very next sentence, which the context of which is
usually left out in those that try to hurry along the factual
nature of the gospel. He says, because with the heart
man believeth unto righteousness. That's that imputed righteousness
that Christ gives us based on his suffering and dying in our
place. And he says, and with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation. We, as our brother Mike here
has brought in one of his lessons, let the redeemed of the Lord
say so. That's what the confession of the mouth is saying. I was
a sinner, and the Lord saved me by grace. For the Scripture
saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For
there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. For the
same Lord is over all, is rich unto all that call upon him.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not
believed? Well, that's pretty plain. How do you call on somebody
you don't believe in? How shall they believe in Him
whom they've not even heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? Someone to declare, someone to
echo back the gospel of the Son of God coming and dwelling among
us and dying for our sins while we were yet sinners. How shall
they preach, except they be sent? And as it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. But some of them don't have hearing
ears. Some of them don't have seeing
eyes. And some of them are that ground that's by the wayside,
that ground that's in the thorns. They've not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath
believed our report? That's what Isaiah wrote. He
says, man, I've been declaring the gospel and it doesn't seem
like anybody's believing it. And the Lord says, well, I reserved
to myself 7,000 people that haven't bowed the knee to Baal. He says, so then faith, total
reliance on Christ for salvation comes by hearing and hearing
by the word of God. through that mechanism, by the
word of God. So the spiritual family of the
Lord and of God have this wonderful work of grace wrought in them.
And at the appointed time, Christ has revealed to them that He
is their righteousness. This is the name by which she
shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. And this is his
name, the Lord our righteousness. We'll have that revealed to us
that they are righteous in him because of his finished work
and it's imputed to them. And so now the doing, is this,
believing and trusting and holding fast the word of God, like it
said there in Luke chapter 8 verse 15, bringing forth fruit with
patience. That's what the close of that
verse 15 said. They bring forth fruit with patience.
They reflect the word of God. They echo the gospel out to others. And then they just say, Lord,
be it according to your word. It's the spirit that makes that
word effectual. We've done what we can do. We've
been faithful in proclaiming the truth. Showing forth, reflecting the
light, the marvelous light of Christ who called us out of darkness
and into his marvelous light. Reflecting that light to others.
and with patience again, waiting on the Lord. How hard that is.
Boy, we wish we could make that effectual. We wish we could give
somebody the bonk upside the head and say, wake up, believe
this. But, you know, we just don't
have control over that. All we can do is tell them the
same thing Paul said. I just delivered to you that
which I also received. So, his physical brothers, He
could have revealed himself to them any time. But you know there
was an appointed time for them to have that happen in them.
And it didn't happen until that appointed time. In the purpose
of God, it was in a time yet to come. And you leave it up
to the Holy Spirit. to do His work. They saw all
this stuff. They heard Him preach. They heard
Him read in the synagogues. This day is a scripture fulfilled
in your ears. To the poor the gospel is preached.
The lame walk, the deaf hear, the blind see. All these things
that we've been talking about in these parables and these lessons. We can lead the horse to water,
but we can't make him think. I think that's what that saying
is. So, as we drill down now in the
scriptures to this matter of hearing and doing and being in
Christ's spiritual family, a key part of this is we learn that
our relationship, he calls us brethren. My brethren, my mother
and my brethren are these that hear and do. That's family, folks.
Our relationship began in the heart of God in eternity. And
as my true mother and my true brethren, we learned that that
relationship is required for hearing. And we don't necessarily
know this until he reveals himself in us. But it's true nonetheless. We just think we're motivated
to do the things that we do. We're motivated to maybe I remember
back in 1987, my daughter shamed me into coming to church, and
I was motivated to come. I heard some gospel, and the
Lord revealed Himself to me. But I didn't understand anything.
I was kind of like, Mary, how shall this be? I didn't really
have a full grasp of it. But He let me know pretty darn
quick what was going on. What sayeth the scriptures as
Paul wrote to the Romans? Well, in John, this family relationship
is recorded by our Lord himself in two really valuable truths. And we find in John chapter eight,
verse 47, he said, he that is of God, heareth God's word. Now, if we analyze that and think
about that, That's a very powerful scripture. He that is of God,
heareth God's word. You therefore, heareth them not
because you're not of God. Well, what does of God mean?
And we'll look at that here in just a second. And then in John
chapter 10, verse 27, he says, my sheep hear my voice and I
know them and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand." Now, the converse of this, these two scriptures,
the truths that are contained in these two scriptures are found
right in the same context, in the same verses that we were
just reading. In John 8, verse 43, A couple
of verses before he says, my sheep hear my voice and I know
them and they follow me. He says, why do you not understand
my speech? Why don't you have hearing ears
and seeing eyes and understanding? Because you cannot hear my word. He says, you're not able because
in verse 47, he says, because you are not of God. He says, you're of your father,
the devil. And he goes on to elaborate on that a little bit
in verse 44. And in John, if we go back to
John chapter 10, where we just read in verse 27, my sheep hear
my voice and I know them and they follow me. The previous
verse in John chapter 10, verse 26, he says, you believe not
because you're not of my sheep. So how clear is that, that there
has to be this relationship before there can be hearing, and before
there can be seeing, before there can be doing this family relationship
that's rooted in eternity. Now, as it's written in John
8, verse 47, it says, he that is of God, heareth God's word. Well, the term of means born
of God. That's what it says in John 1. As many as received Him, to them
gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe
on His name, which were born, not of blood, not physically,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, they are
born of God." It says there at the close of John 1.13. Born
of God. So that's pretty concise in how
it explains that that relationship. Now the verses we just read clearly
state that we who believe are born of God and as such we are
and have been in a family relationship with God for eternity. That's what electing love states. Even if we don't have it revealed
to us until our appointed time. Hebrews chapter 2 speaks to this
very succinctly. In Hebrews chapter 2 verse 9-13
it says, But we see Jesus, who is made a little lower than the
angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor,
that He, by the grace of God, should taste death for every
man, every sheep, as it turns out if we read this whole a couple
of verses here. It's not a universalistic idea
of him. He died for everyone and therefore
it's up to you. But he says, for it became him
for whom all are all things and by whom are all things in bringing
many sons unto glory. Of course, again, it highlights
that familial relationship. to make the captain of their
salvation perfect through sufferings for both he that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he's
not ashamed to call them brethren." It was all in the covenant of
grace from before the foundation of the world. He says, saying,
I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the
church while I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will put my
trust in him. And again, behold, I and the
children which God hath given me. Well, you know, all those
verses are just quotes from the Old Testament. Declaring his
family relationship with his sheep, with the church, with
the elect in the Old Testament. Those come from Isaiah 12-2, Psalm 22-22, and
lastly that last one from Isaiah 8-18. Behold I and the children
which God hath given me. A family relationship. All these
references he just quotes from the Old Testament. His brethren,
his elect, the sheep, the church in the wilderness. given to him
to redeem in the covenant of grace from before the foundation
of the world. You know it says in Isaiah 53,
he's going to see his seed and be satisfied. And he said, just
because you're of Abraham doesn't mean that you're the seed. He
said, the seed of the promise is that that's true. And so in
John, we look at this, that all these people were given to him
from the father in this family relationship in John chapter
17 verse 6 is, I've manifested thy name unto the man which thou
gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest
me them, and they have kept thy word. Now the scriptures tell
us that we are in this spiritual family through eternally electing
love and by the spirit of adoption, which just means a choosing. And we could look to Ephesians
here, if you turn over to Ephesians chapter one, for proof to those
with ears to hear and eyes to see the wonderful works of grace. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians chapter one, verse
three, who had blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly
places in Christ according as he hath chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good
pleasure of his will." So that's pretty specific that before the
foundation of the world, we were in this relationship of adoption. predestinated unto the adoption
of children. So the family of God is rooted
in electing love, chosen in Christ from before the foundation of
the world. And when it pleases God, He reveals His Son in us
as He did Paul and everyone since Adam. We are sons and daughters
We are brethren by spiritual adoption. And you know what that
means? It means, that word adoption,
it means we've been placed in the position of sons and daughters
by the almighty hand of God according to His purpose. We've been placed
there. Let's look at some other scriptures
which shed light on this marvelous work of grace in John chapter
1. Verse 11-13, it says, He came unto His own that they received
Him not, but as many as received Him, to them gave He power to
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name
which were born, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh,
nor the will of man, but born of God. Romans 8, 14, for as
many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of
God. For you have not received the
spirit of bondage again into fear, but you have received the
spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit
bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. The Spirit lets us know that.
And accordingly, We give grace, praise, and glory to God for
making us accepted in the beloved. We found that in Ephesians 1.6.
And accordingly, we give praise and glory to God for giving us
hearing ears and seeing eyes and a heart to believe. We've
read all those scriptures throughout this lesson. The hearing ear
and the seeing eye, that comes from God. So, all because He
loved us eternally, redeemed us through his blood, and we've
thus been forgiven of sins according to the riches of his grace. And
he's not ashamed to call us brethren, having died in our place. What
better evidence can we have than that? That he loves us and he
died. He says, no greater love hath
a man than he lay down his life for his friends. So not only
does he call us brethren, family, but he calls us friends. What a thing to know. So we find that all of our hearing,
our seeing, our believing, all have their source in the Lord
God Almighty. And as always, we find that what
He requires, He supplies. He supplies it all. The hearing
ear and the seeing eye are gracious gifts of God given to his people. We read that in Proverbs chapter
20 verse 12. We believe according to the working
of his mighty power, Ephesians 119. The doing is the same. The doing part is the same. What
he requires, he supplies. Doing the word of God, that Greek
understanding of that use of that word doing is to make due
to to abide, to agree, to exhibit contentment. Those are all things
that happen when we've been, had Christ revealed to us and
we've been born again. We're going to abide in that.
We're going to agree with it. We're going to be content in
that. Ephesians 2.10, after that wonderful passage about, by grace
are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It's
a gift of God. not of works as any man should boast, it says,
for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
And then, if you skip down to verse 24 of Ephesians 2, he says
that the new man, which after God is created in righteousness
and true holiness, So we're His workmanship. We're the product
of Him. The doing can be summarized in
just a few things, which of course God supplies all. We believe
and hold fast, echoing the truth to others, producing fruit with
patience, loving God with all our heart. That's Deuteronomy
chapter 10 verse 12. Now Israel, what doth the Lord
thy God require of thee? But to fear the Lord thy God,
to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and serve the Lord
thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul? You know what?
On our own, we just cannot do that. We cannot measure up. But
you know, if you go down to Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 6, it says the
Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart. Cut away that fleshly
part. in the heart of thy seed, to
love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and all thy soul,
that thou mayest live." Isn't that marvelous how he says, here's
what I require. And he says, here's what I'm
going to do to accomplish that. Loving our brethren. 1 Thessalonians
4.9, it says, as for touching brotherly love, you don't need
me to tell you He says, for you yourselves are taught of God
to love one another. He supplies that. He teaches
us to do that. So in closing, let's just look
at one more verse in Ephesians, which sum up kind of all what
we've been shown here. And we read it just a second
ago in Ephesians 2, verse 10. For we are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. Look at the structure and meaning
of the words in this verse. It gives such a clear understanding
of grace. We are his workmanship. The we,
that means that we are the believers. He has the believers that he
has saved by grace through faith, that total reliance on Christ
for salvation and not of works. His workmanship, we're the product
That's an interesting word if you look that up. His workmanship,
his product, the result of the fabric of his grace, I think
is kind of in that meaning, created in Christ Jesus. He is the fabricator. He is the manufacturer or the
producer. You know, you just can't read
all these verses in the New Testament and say, well, that's new. They
all come from the Old Testament. Isaiah 43 verse 21 says, This
people I have formed for Myself, and they shall show forth My
praise. He formed them, give them the
hearing ear, the seeing eye, the belief, and then the result
is they say, Praise God, He did that because I could never do
that for Myself, dead in trespasses and sins. Having predestinated
us to be conformed, Conform kind of gives us the
image of being squeezed into a new shape. Conformed. You get something loose and kind
of a massive stuff and you shove it into a square box. It becomes
conformed to the shape of that box. Well, we've been conformed
to the image of his son. Good works. that God hath before
ordained that we should walk therein." That's expressed in
Deuteronomy 5.33 where the Lord says, God said, you shall walk. You shall. Remember that absolute
term that we always use with the sovereignty of God. You shall
walk in all the ways which the Lord your God hath commanded
you. Spiritually, you will do that. Physically, we may not
be able to do. The things that I want to do,
I don't seem to be able to do. And the things that I don't want
to do, that's what I end up doing. That's what Paul wrote. But in
the eyes of the Lord, he says, spiritually, you shall walk in
all my ways, which the Lord your God hath commanded you. And James
summed it up this way. I said one more scripture from
Ephesians, but see there, I failed that test too. James 1.22 says,
Be you doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your
own selves. If any be a hearer of the word
and not a doer, he's like a man beholding his natural face in
a glass, for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and straight
forth. He forgets what manner of man he was, what he was saved
from, from one simple sentence. We need to stand ready to always
give answer for the hope that lieth within us. Let the redeemed
of the Lord say so. But if we're just hearers and
not doers, we don't reflect that. If we don't go forth with the
truth of the gospel, pretty soon we forget the pit
that we were dug out of. So from one simple sentence,
be you hearers, launch out into the deep of the grace of our
Lord, be they that are my family or they that hear the word of
God and do it. So we'll stop there and until
the next time, be free.