began this morning. Our Lord
had said, and we read from the book of Luke, the 22nd chapter,
our Lord had said to this man, Simon Peter, whose name means
a living, he's a living stone, having been made alive by the
grace of God, by the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, He said
to this man, Simon, he said, Satan has desired to have you
that he might sift you like wheat. But he says, I pray for you.
Aren't you thankful you have an intercessor, have someone
who's speaking to God on your behalf? That's our savior. That's
our great mediator, our high priest, And he does indeed speak
directly with the Father on the behalf of all those he represents. We have a representative in heaven
who is qualified to be there by virtue of who he is. He's
God. And by virtue of what he has
accomplished, the redemption of his people by his blood. And he is our intercessor, and
our Lord Jesus says to Simon, I prayed for you. And it's specifically
about your faith, that your faith fail not. And he said, when you're
converted, You're gonna go astray, you're gonna wander off, but
when you're converted, then you, it's what I want you to do, strengthen
the brethren, you stabilize the brethren. And so using that kind
of as a foundation, I go back to the book of 1 Peter and I
say, here he is, here's what Peter's doing, he's strengthening
us. And he's presenting to us in
this portion of scripture these wonderful, blessed, scriptural
truths, and they will stabilize us. They will strengthen us. They'll make us stubborn in the
faith. They'll cause us to see what
is the very truth of God. and then enable us as we lean
on the Lord Jesus Christ to live in this ungodly world in such
a way that we honor God. In fact, Peter, he speaks of
living a life of godliness. He speaks of having a good hope.
He speaks of being obedient children. And all of these sayings, we,
each of us, who are the Lord's people, we desire these sayings
for ourselves. And the motivation behind the
exhortations to live a life of godliness, to live as obedient
children in this world, is all the things that the Lord has
done for us. And he begins in verses 18 and 19 with the subject
of redemption. We've been bought. We've been
paid for. We owed a debt we could not possibly
pay. The Lord Jesus came and he paid
the debt that he didn't owe. but he took it on himself to
remove our indebtedness to render to God everything God required. Well, what did God require? Absolute
obedience and then he must suffer the death penalty because that's
what we deserve. That's why Christ had to die
for our sins as the scripture says, as our sacrifice, as our
substitute, as that one offering for sin which our brother just
read to us about in Hebrews chapter 10. By one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified, those that God had set apart
in sovereign grace in old eternity. And so we've looked at redemption,
and I will give you, I'll give you a heads up on this. I'm actually
gonna go back to the subject of redemption this coming Wednesday
night. I'm going to break away from my studies in the Gospel
of John because I have prepared some additional things on the
subject of redemption. And I'm not going to give those
to you tonight. I'll give those to you Wednesday
night. But here he lays out before us the fact that we've been redeemed. He says, for as much as you know,
verse 18, as much as you know that you were not redeemed, you
weren't bought, with corruptible things as silver and gold from
your vain conversation. You weren't redeemed from your
vain, empty, futile life that you lived by silver and gold. That wouldn't do the job. That
wouldn't buy you. That's not going to satisfy God.
The only thing that would satisfy God is the precious blood of
Christ. As of a lamb without blemish,
and without spot. And then he goes into another
subject, though it is a continuation of what he started. Here's the
second truth that he sets before us in order to stabilize us,
in order to make us steadfast and sustain the people of God,
and it is revelation. You'll notice he says this in
verse number 20, who verily was ordained, that is, Our Lord Jesus,
he was predestinated before the foundation of the world, but
was made manifest, he was revealed, he has been revealed in these
last times for you. And so that brings us, we go
from redemption to revelation. Our Lord Jesus has manifested
himself. He has revealed himself. He has
made God known to us. Now God is invisible. And God
dwelt in the person of himself in his trinity from all eternity. But the Lord, by His grace, He
is purposed to make a revelation of Himself, to manifest Himself. Now God cannot be known, God
cannot be viewed, unless He's pleased to reveal Himself. He's
got to manifest Himself. He, as I said, He's the invisible
God. You can't see Him, you can't
touch Him. You can't approach to Him. In
fact, the Bible says of God, he is a consuming fire. But God
has made himself manifest. God has revealed himself and
he has revealed himself, first of all, historically. Because
the Lord Jesus was born into this world 2,000 years ago. And he was himself God manifest
in the flesh. God has indeed revealed himself. God joined himself to flesh and
bones and blood like we have. Therefore, when Jesus of Nazareth
walked on this earth for 30 some years, 33, 34 years, whatever
it was, men were viewing not merely the man, Jesus of Nazareth,
but they were viewing God manifest in the flesh. Now who was Jesus
of Nazareth? We say he was a teacher. A lot
of people will say he's a teacher. Nicodemus said that. He came
to Jesus by night and said, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher
come from God because no man can do the miracles that thou
doest except God be with him. Is that all Jesus of Nazareth
is, a teacher? Well, there were other teachers.
Gamaliel was a teacher at whose feet the apostle Paul says he
learned. There were a lot of other teachers.
Was Jesus of Nazareth only a religious teacher? We say he's more than
that. He's a miracle worker. Other
men worked miracles by the power of God. Moses worked a bunch
of them in Egypt. Elijah, he worked a miracle.
He fed a widow and her little boy with just a little cruise
of oil and a little bit of meal. And he worked a miracle when
that woman's boy died, he brought him back to life. There are other
miracle workers in the New Testament. Peter and John healed the man
who was lame. The apostle Paul, he healed a
man, or he raised a man from the dead later on in the book
of Acts. There have been a lot of miracle
workers. Is that all Jesus of Nazareth was? A great miracle
worker. We say he's an example of how
we ought to live. That's wonderful. But if that's
all he is, if he's no more than a teacher and no more than a
miracle worker and no more than a right example for us to follow,
then he can't save us. Who is Jesus of Nazareth? He's God revealed, that's who
he is. He's God manifest in the flesh. The scripture says so. Great
is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh.
In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the
Word was God. And then you go down to verse
14 and the Word was made flesh. Otherwise you couldn't see God.
You couldn't touch God. Imagine those men and women who
walked with our Savior, who talked with our Savior, John said, we
handled him the word of life. They were embracing God manifest
in the flesh, not just a mere man, more than a man, more than
a man. Oh yes, he's a man, but he's
more than a man. He's altogether God in the flesh. He has manifested himself. He
has revealed himself. What is it to manifest something
or for Christ to manifest himself? It is to disclose something that
was previously hidden, that you couldn't see. No man has seen
God at any time. Isn't that what the Savior said?
No man has seen God at any time. But, but, When they saw Jesus
of Nazareth, they saw God. And I have said this before,
that all of God you will ever see, God the Father, God the
Son, God the Spirit, all of God you will ever see is the Lord
Jesus Christ. Because he's God told out, he's
the word. God reveals himself, God manifests
himself, and he manifested himself in this world 2,000 years ago
in the man Christ Jesus. Indeed, more than a man. Well, when was he revealed? When was he manifested? Well,
here's what Peter says in these last times. In these last times. When are the last times? They
began at Bethlehem. That's when the last times began.
Well, how long will the last times last? They will last up
until the time the Lord Jesus comes again in power and great
glory, and he folds up all of creation as a scroll. When he
manifests his glory, We're in the last times. We've been in
the last times for 2,000 years. You see, we measure time, even
those of us, people who don't know God, actually, they measure
time the way God measures time, because God measures time in
the ways it relates to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have done
that. because we have before Christ,
B.C., and after he has come, A.D. That's how time divides
itself. All of time, from the beginning
to the end, is marked out in its relationship to the Son of
God. and everything God has ever done
and everything God is doing now and everything God shall ever
do always relates to and is centered in and is all about the Lord
Jesus Christ. Most people don't see that. So
who is Jesus of Nazareth? Well, he's God told out, he's
God manifested, and he has revealed himself historically. But if
we're going to know him, he's gotta reveal himself in another
way. He's gotta reveal himself spiritually. He's got to reveal himself to
us individually. You may remember in the book
of Acts, the 10th chapter, when Peter is preaching to Cornelius,
And he says he's speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ and his
resurrection. He said he revealed himself to
certain witnesses who were chosen of God. He revealed himself to
certain witnesses which were chosen of God. He didn't reveal
himself to everybody. He could have, but he didn't. He didn't. We don't ever read
of him revealing himself to Pilate or to the bunch of the Jews.
He didn't do that. He revealed himself in his resurrection
glory to just certain ones. And that's the way it is in this
spiritual revelation. Just certain people. Those to
whom he's pleased to reveal himself. Now listen, you cannot know,
you will not know the Lord Jesus Christ in His saving glory and
by His power and by His grace, unless He is pleased to reveal
Himself to you, to your heart. You just can't know Him. The Son of God has got to be
revealed or nobody will know Him. Not spiritually. Let me give you an illustration. Hope you like this hanky I picked
out. I asked my wife, I said, does
this go with this tie? And she said, yeah. And I said,
well, good. I'm going to use it for something.
I'm going to manifest something to you. So I want to use this
hanky for an illustration, if you'll allow me to do that. I've
never done this before, so bear with me. I have hidden my hand from you. Now, you know in general what
a hand looks like, and my hand pretty much looks like your hand,
but there, you don't know, I might be missing part of a finger.
There are certain things that you know about my hand, some
things you don't know. My hand has a ring on it, but
you can't see it. You also cannot see that I have
a scar that extends from the first joint to my index finger
on my left hand. It goes up and then comes back
down and goes down to the bottom of my middle finger where my
middle finger attaches to my hand. I just about tore my fingers
off when I was a little kid, but you can't see that. And I
have pretty good manicure because my daughter, bless her heart,
she keeps my nails looking pretty decent and she does a manicure
and she does a pedicure. And I have some, I have a nice
juicy vein on top of my hand, that's where the nurse sticks
me for the IV just about every time, every month when I go,
and of course, Sister Bowman, she fixes it up at the hospital
for me, that concoction that I get, and then sends it over
to the infusion center, and then the nurse puts that needle in. She's got a really choice vein
that she likes, but you can't see it. You see, the only way
you can know about my hand is if I revealing to you. Look at
that. There's my hand. And you can't
see it, but there's a scar that starts right there, goes over
here, and goes all the way down. And I don't have any feeling
in that finger right there because I cut the nerve. And there's
the ring, and there's that juicy vein. I'm revealing my hand to
you. Now that's kind of a corny illustration
perhaps, but maybe it makes a point. Our Lord Jesus is indeed hidden
from our eyes, and He's hidden from our hearts. We know about
Him in general. We know Jesus of Nazareth lived
in this world, and we're hearing right now, once again, He's God
manifest in the flesh, but we won't know Him unless he is pleased
to reveal himself in all of his glory, in all of his power, and
in all of his magnificence, and in all of his beauties to our
hearts. He's got to take the veil off
of our eyes and manifest himself to us. See this matter of salvation. It's much more than decisionism. If you listen to religion today,
that's pretty much what salvation is reduced to. Will you decide
for Jesus? What am I supposed to decide
about Him? Just decide for Jesus. Make your
choice for Jesus. I will never know the living
God except in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I will never know
the Lord Jesus Christ apart from a revelation. of himself to me. I can tell you about his beauties. I can tell you about his glories.
I can tell you about how he suffered, bled, and died. I can tell you
how he's God manifest in the flesh. He has all power. He has
all grace. He has all knowledge. He has
all mercy. He's full of righteousness. He's
the just God and Savior. Our Lord Jesus Christ, He receives
sinful men and women like all of us are, but you'll never really
know Him until He takes that handkerchief off and shows Himself
to you. And then you'll say, oh my, what
a Savior. What a Redeemer. Before, it's kind of like Job.
Job said to the Lord, I heard of you. But he said, now my eyes
see you. Mine eyes see you. And you know,
Peter, he's preaching to people, he's writing to people who they
believe the Lord Jesus, though they haven't seen him physically.
Look at verse eight to hear 1 Peter chapter one. Whom having not
seen, ye love. in whom though now you don't
see him, yet believe him. You rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory. Well, what has happened? How
is it that these people can see him by faith? He's revealed himself. And that's what's necessary.
You see, you can talk and I can talk with persuasive words. We
can talk somebody into a verbal decision. Will you say yes to
Jesus Christ? And they say, yeah, but I can't
reveal Him to you. So this is an altogether different
thing. It's more than come down here
to the aisle, come walk the aisle and come down here to the front.
It's much more than that. Anybody can do that. but that which is necessary.
And I read there from Matthew chapter 11, no man knows the
son, but the father and he to whom he will reveal him. And
gone, pretty much gone is the day when preachers will stand
behind the pulpit and preach the necessity of the revelation
of Jesus Christ to the heart. But that's what's necessary.
Revelation. Okay, now, so the Lord reveals
Himself. He redeems, then He reveals Himself
to those that He has redeemed. But that brings us to this question.
Well, what is the evidence of this redeeming grace? Number
three, reception. This is the evidence of revelation. You're receiving. Look at verse
21, the first part. Who by him, who by Christ, do
believe in God, that raised him up from the dead and gave him
glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. How do I know if the Lord Jesus
has been revealed to me by his grace? I receive him. I receive him. Have you received him? So I haven't
seen a vision, me neither. I haven't dreamed a dream, me
neither. Well, how do you know he's been
revealed to you? I've received him. I've received
him as prophet, as priest, and as king. I believe him. And I believe the Father. How can I possibly be sure that
there's been a manifestation, a revelation of Jesus Christ
to my heart? If I believe Him, if I rest in
Him. Do you believe God as He's revealed
in the Word of God? Is your faith and your hope in
God? You see, the faith to truly believe God, now watch it, The
faith to truly believe God is totally due to the work of the
Lord Jesus in us. Watch the language. Who by Him
do believe in God. He, Christ, is both the author
of faith and the object of faith. Who by Him, without Him, you
can't believe. And there are people who say,
hey, I can believe anytime I want to. I don't think so, because
it says right here, who by him do believe in God. Did not our Lord Jesus say to
his disciples, without me ye can do nothing? That's what he said, isn't it,
Ron? You can do nothing, you can't believe in God. You can't
rest in the promises of God, in the word of God, apart from
the Lord Jesus Christ and his enabling grace, who by him do
believe in God. Our Lord Jesus is the one who
is the author of faith and the finisher of faith. Hebrews chapter
12 tells us that. What does the Lord Jesus do?
What is his ultimate goal? What is the mission that he was
entrusted with? To bring us to God. That's the
ultimate goal, is to bring us to God. God chose us on the salvation,
gave us to our eternal surety, Jesus Christ, who stood good
for us as our representative, and the Father said, bring them
all home to me. That's what he's gonna do. He's gonna bring us to God. That's
why he died. Turn over a page, at least it's
one page in my Bible, to chapter three in verse 18. Chapter three
in verse 18. For Christ also has once suffered
for sins, the just for the unjust, or the righteous one for the
unrighteous ones, that he might, or for this purpose, bring us
to God. That's what he said, he's bringing
us to God. He brings us to God by faith. And ultimately, he's
gonna bring us to God in glory. And he'll take us all before
the Father, washed in his blood and robed in his righteousness.
And he will say, behold, Father, I and the brethren that thou
has given me, here they are, I bring them to you. That's the
goal. That's the goal. Who by him do believe in God. That's your faith and hope. might
be in God. Well, this presents another question.
How do we know that Christ who died will give us faith to believe
God, to come to God? How can we rest assured that
when he died, he did legally bring us to God, and by his grace,
he will spiritually bring us to God? Well, here's how we know,
because of his resurrection. And that's what he says here
in verse 21, who by him do believe in God. And then Peter says,
who raised him up from the dead and gave him glory. Who raised
him up from the dead? God did. And what did God give
him? Glory. Peter has already mentioned early
in this chapter about the sufferings and the glory of Christ that
should follow. And all of the Old Testament
prophets, they spoke of his sufferings and the glory. You remember our
Lord Jesus on the road to Emmaus, visiting those two disciples,
and they're all down in the dumps and sad, and he said, ought not
Christ to have suffered these things and enter into his glory? Well, what's the way to the crown?
The cross. There will be no crown of glory
apart from the cross of Christ. And there'll be no crown of glory
for us without the cross of Christ Jesus. It's his resurrection. Enter into the tomb by faith
and see it's empty. He's not there. Why do you seek
the dead among the living? He's alive. He said to Martha,
I am the resurrection and the life. Our Lord Jesus had conquered
all the enemies of his people. All of our enemies were defeated
at the cross. And we know that he defeated
them. He beat them all because he arose from the dead. Therefore,
Paul writes in Romans chapter eight, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea rather,
that is risen again. He's risen again, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. He suffered, he bled, and he
died. And God gave him glory. God gave
him glory. Universal Lordship. That's why
Christ said to his disciples, go out and preach the gospel
to every creature because all power is given unto me in heaven
and in earth. So I commission you to go forth. You won't go forth in your strength,
you'll go forth in my strength. God gave him glory. God raised
him, he ascended back to heaven as a coronation time when the
king entered in. And now the father is glorifying
him and that he's turned all things over to King Jesus who
rules the world to bring about the purposes of God and to work
all things together for the good of God's people. And God's gonna
yet give him glory by forcing every knee to bow to him. And
every tongue to say, he's the Lord. To the glory of God the
Father. God gave him glory. This resurrected
Christ, he's the one who gives us the willingness and the ability
to believe all that the word of God says about God. He enables
us to believe God. He enables to rest in himself
and obey his gospel. It's through Christ Jesus that
we can approach a holy God with confidence and boldness. It's
in the Lord Jesus Christ that we're accepted by God. And it
is in Christ that we know God. Well, that brings me to another
question. Since the resurrected Christ
is the one who's the author of faith and the object of faith,
will his work within us Have any results? Oh yeah. So that brings us to the next
point, the results. Verse 22. You see it just really
unfolds here. You don't have to be a theologian
to understand and perceive what Peter is laying out for us here.
Here's what he's doing, he's strengthening us. Listen, the
gospel is a great strengthener of God's people. So he says this
in verse 22, here's the results. Seeing you purified your souls
and obeying the truth through the spirit and unfeigned love
of the brethren, I see that you love one another with a pure
heart fervently. What does unfeigned mean? Without
hypocrisy. So here are the results. Number
one, by obeying the gospel, your heart is made pure by the blood
of Christ Jesus. It isn't that your faith makes
you pure. It isn't that your obedience
to the gospel in and of itself brings about a purity. But when
you bow to the blood of Christ Jesus as the only sacrifice for
sin, that blood itself purifies you. You're washed in the blood. You cannot say you've been made
pure by God until you've been brought to believe the Lord Jesus
Christ. You can't know of his redemption,
you can't know of his justification of you apart from you coming
to believe him by obeying the gospel. And the obedience to
the gospel is evidenced by love for the brethren. That's what
he says here. And this love for the brethren,
I think we can look at it in two different ways. And both
of them are accurate, both of them are valid. Number one, this
love for the brethren will be a natural result of the work
of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ within us. We will
love one another because we love the same gospel, we love the
same grace, we love the same Christ, we love the same Father,
we love the same Spirit. And so in that sense, it will
be natural to the spiritual man. But there's another way to look
at that. He says, see to it that you love one another. And that's
your responsibility. You know, the Lord, He does these
things for us, and He does these things in us, and there's an
evidence of His work within us, and it is, we'll love one another. And He says, now work on that. See to it that you do it. Will the Spirit of God teach
us? Yes. Will the Spirit of God instruct
us through the preached word to love one another fervently?
Absolutely. Listen, by this shall all men
know that you're my disciples if you have love one for another.
That's what the Savior said. And he says in 1 John, he says,
if you don't love your brother whom you see, whom you have seen,
how can you say you love God whom you haven't seen? It is an evidence of the very
presence of the life of God within the soul that we love one another
and we work on it. Oh God, increase my love. The
Savior says, don't love in word only, but in word and deed. Do for one another, encourage
one another, pray for one another. There are some things we should
do and we ought to be doing so that this will be a fervent love. Not a hypocritical love, not
a love that's made up, A love that consists only of, well,
I love you, brother. I love you, sister. No. A love
that's genuine. A love that really cares. A love
that leads you to reach out to a brother or sister and say,
by telephone call, by text, by visit, and say, how are you today? A love that leads you to embrace
somebody here tonight. He'd just hug me and just say,
I just want you to know I love you. I'm thankful for you. You reckon that helped somebody?
I tell you, I don't want all these hugs after the service,
but if somebody come up to me and hug me and say, I just want
to tell you I am thankful to God for you. That'd kind of make
my day. Would you like to make somebody's
day? Come embrace somebody. Do something for somebody. We
got sick people, visit them. Talk to them. Encourage them. It's a lot you can do to manifest
and show your love. Well, that leads me to the last
point. What's it going to take to bring
us to believe God? To obey the gospel. and to love
one another with a Christ-like love. Because that's how I want
to love you. I want to love you with a Christ-like
love. What's it gonna take? Last point, regeneration. That's
what it's gonna take. Regeneration, verses 23 through
25. Let me read it. Being born again,
not of corruptible seed. May I read it this way? Not of
perishing. seed, but of incorruptible by
imperishable seed by the word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever for or because all flesh is his grass and all the glory
of man as the flower of grass. What happens to the grass? It
withers. What happens to the flower? It falls away. But the word of the Lord, watch
it now, the written word and the incarnate word, the word
of the Lord endured forever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. Regeneration, what is regeneration? Divine begetting. We're begotten
of God. Our Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus,
you must be born again. Didn't tell him how. There's
not a how-to book on being born again. You got all these how-to
books for dummies. And I'm sure somebody has written
a how to be born again for dummies. Well, it's a useless book because
even the Savior, He doesn't say how you can be born again because
in the new birth, you're passive. You're as passive in your new
birth as you were in your natural birth. You didn't have anything
to do with the life that God created when your mama and your
daddy came together And your daddy's seed, which is corruptible
seed, joined with an egg, and you were formed. You didn't have
anything to do with that. And you don't have anything to
do with your second birth either. No, that's not you either. That's
God. That's God. This religious world,
they're always putting the cart before the horse. Believe on
Jesus and get born again. That's what preachers say. Well,
that's ridiculous. How can you do something before
you're even born, before you exist? No, it's be born again,
then you'll believe. Belief is the result of the new
birth, not the cause. You're straight on that, aren't
you? I'm sure you are. Now here's what Peter is saying
in the last part of this chapter. Man's existence, now this is
special in verses 24 and 25. Man's existence and man's glory
is only for a short time. It's temporary. God's word and
God's gospel are forever. That's what he's saying. And
of course this is, those of you who, if you have center column
reference here, my Bible sends you to Isaiah chapter 40, verses
six through eight. And then Peter's giving us kind
of a loose translation of Isaiah chapter 40 in verse six. And
he draws a contrast, and here's the contrast. Two kinds of seed. Corruptible seed and incorruptible. Perishable seed and imperishable
seed. Now you're born into this world,
the first time you're born, the natural birth, that is perishable
seed. You're dying. Your physical life, it slowly, Getting older, you're
gonna die. He says there in verse 24, for
all flesh is as grass. We haven't had much rain. We
had a little bit today, for which we're thankful. I think maybe
we'll have some tonight, if the Lord's pleased to send it. The
weatherman says that rain will come tonight, I think, and maybe
some tomorrow. But it's been very, very dry.
I was walking through the yard the other day. Brother Joe was
there doing some work at the house. I said, I've never seen
it like this. Just crunchy. Grass is dead. I'll tell you what you do tomorrow.
You go out there and look at your grass. It's like, especially
our front yard. It hadn't been too long ago,
it was like a lush green. And I'd mow it. And then the
next morning I'd say to Nancy, you see how that grass has grown?
It's utterly amazing. But it's not doing that now.
It's all dried, withered. Nature will preach a sermon to
you and it will show you the fulfillment of this verse. All
flesh, yours and mine and everybody else's and all the glory of man. So that's the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower
fades away. All flesh, what is meant by all
flesh here? For all flesh is as grass. All
men in their natural state, that's what he's talking about. And
like the grass we wither and we die. And like the flowers,
our blooms are gonna fall petal by petal as we get older. Man's beauty, man's strength,
man's knowledge, man's virtues, man's accomplishments, everything
man can produce with all of its glories is withering and dying. You are. I am. I told somebody the other
day, in fact, I was visiting with Pat in the hospital. And
I said, I get tired. And I said, I'm busy. I'm busy. But I said, I'm not
doing anything that I didn't do years ago. preparing messages, writing,
writing songs, writing bulletins, writing Sun School lessons. I've
been doing that for years, but I said, I just can't do it as
fast as I used to. And I can sit there for a little
bit in the chair, and I've got a watch, and it will vibrate,
and you know what it says? Move. And I'll get up and Oh,
I did need to move. I tell you, my back's getting
stiff, you know. What is happening to me? My flesh
is as grass. It's slowly withering. And you ladies, and you men,
the beauty of women and the handsomeness of men, oh, you're a good-looking
bunch of people, but just give it time. Oh, you have that strength now.
I was talking to Brother John Kuhlman
up in Almont. For years, he'd get down ditches
and digging, and man, I tell you, he's a man's man. He said,
I just can't do that as much anymore, so I got to drop driving
a truck. He said, it's easier on me. What's
happened? All flesh is as grass. All the
glory of man's is the flower of grass. The grass withers,
the flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord, now watch
it, by which we're regenerated. The Lord Jesus who is the incarnate
word and the written word of God involved in us having this
spiritual life. The word of God endures forever
and those who are begotten by the word of God, they do too. So even though this flesh is
withering like the grass and like the flowers, You ladies,
you have your flowers, you have your flower gardens, and they're
so beautiful. But boy, this time of year, the
petals are falling. And you go out and you look at
your flowers tomorrow, and you see another petal or two or eight
or 10 have fallen on the ground. Just look at that and then remember
this. That's you. That's me. Go ahead and pick up some of
that dried grass and just crunch it in your hand and watch the
wind blow it away. That's you. That's me. We're all like that. You say,
well, I'm young. I know you are. And you're in
full bloom. You're beautiful now. But your
petals will start to fall one day, too. And man, I see these weightlifters. I see them on television, they
just ripple, you know. You just wait. One of these days,
if you live long, if God gives you a long enough life, those
guys be walking with a cane. And their hair that's so beautiful,
styled. It'll fall out, turn loose, or
it'll at least reseed, and it'll turn white. You can go ahead
and color it, that's okay. None of y'all would do that,
I know, but certainly none of the men and none of the women
either. You wouldn't even think about doing that, I'm sure. But
it goes gray, it goes white. It's just inevitable. But that life of God, that he's
given you in Christ Jesus. That'll never die. That's not
gonna wither. It's not gonna wither. The glory
of it's not gonna fall away. It never will. You see, we're
born again, not of corruptible seed, not of something that's
gonna perish. but of incorruptible. We have
a life within us, the life of God. God gave that life to us. It'll never die. Isn't that wonderful? It'll never die. That's the reason
the scripture talks about us having everlasting life. This physical life. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna lose that, this
physical life one of these days. Lest the Lord's pleased to come
back Y'all too. But I tell you, that spiritual
life, that new birth, oh, that imperishable seed by which I've
been born again to the glory of God, I believe Christ Jesus,
therefore, that's a life that'll never die. And may these things be truths
that strengthen us, excuse me, They strengthen us, may they
stabilize us. Look how much we got going for
us. And the Lord says in Romans eight,
if God be for you, who can be against you? A wonderful gospel
isn't it? It's a wonderful word of the
Lord, Christ and this book.