Good morning. Let's all stand
together and sing hymn number one. Hymn number one. O worship the King, all glorious
above, and gratefully sing. ? His power and his love ? ?
Power, shield and defender ? ? The ancient of days ? ? Pavilion
in splendor ? ? Anchored it with praise ? ? O tell of his might
? O sing of His grace, whose robe is the heart. Whose canopy space is chariots
of wrath, The deep thunderclouds form, And dark is his path on
the wings of the storm. Thy bountiful care What Duncan
recite, it breathes in the air. It shines in the light. It streams from the hills. It descends to the plain. And sweetly distills in the dew
and the rain. Brill, children of dust. And feeble as frail, In thee
do we trust, Nor find thee to fail. Thy mercies, how tender,
How firm to the end, our Maker, Defender, Redeemer and Friend. Be seated. We'll sing hymn number
255. 255. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory
divine. Heir of salvation Purchase of
God Born of His Spirit Washed in His blood This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior all the day
long. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior all the day
long. Perfect submission, perfect delight. Visions of capture now burst
on my sight. Echoes of mercy, whispers of
love. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior all the day
long. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior all the day
long. Perfect submission, all is at
rest. I am my Savior, and happy and
blessed. Watching and waiting, looking
above. filled with His goodness, lost
in His love. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior all the day
long. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior all the day
long. You will open your Bibles with
me to 2 Kings chapter 4. 2 Kings chapter 4. We'll have lunch after the morning
service. And next week, Pastor Larry Criss
from down in Sylacauga will be with you. I'll be up in New Jersey. In 2 Kings chapter 4, let me
read the first seven verses. Now there cried a certain woman
of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying,
Thy servant, my husband, is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant
did fear the Lord, and the creditor is come to take unto him my two
sons to be bondmen. And Elisha said unto her, What
shall I do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in thy
house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house
save a pot of oil. Then he said, Go, borrow thee
vessels abroad of all thy neighbors, empty vessels, borrow not a few. And when thou come in, thou shalt
shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out
into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is
full. So she went from him, and shut the door upon her sons,
who brought the vessels to her. And she poured out. And it came
to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her
sons, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is
not a vessel more. And the oil stayed. Then she
came, and told the man of God. And he said, Go, sell the oil,
and pay the debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest. our great and glorious and blessed
God of heaven and earth, creator, sustainer of this world, the
universe, and all that's in it, the giver of life, and especially
the giver of eternal life. We are so blessed to be able,
together with the people of God, together to always, hopefully
by your grace, be able to worship, be able to have our hearts taken
off this world and our troubles and our vanities and vexations
just for a moment, that we could just shut out this world for
45 or 50 minutes, an hour, shut out the world and all of its
concerns. And Lord, we know that without
you we can do nothing, nothing spiritual, nothing to bring. We're like the hymn writer said,
in my hands, no price I bring, simply to Christ I cling. So, Lord, meet with us today.
Open hearts, open understandings. Please save your people in this
place. And, Lord, I pray for those who are not with us through
your providence. that you'd be merciful to them
and please you to meet their needs. And, Father, I ask that
you forgive us of everything that's unlike you. And God bless
our children. Lord, have mercy on our children
and grandchildren. Wives, it's lost. Husbands, it's
lost. We pray, oh, God, that you would
please open their hearts to the truth, bring them to see Christ. And then seeing Christ, they'll
see themselves. We ask for your presence and
power in this service today. For Christ's sake, amen. Let's stand together and sing
the hymn of the day in the bulletin. you Thy mercy, my God, is the theme
of my song, the joy of my heart, the boast of my tongue. From the first to the last hath
won my affection and found my heart fast. For unworthy sinners my Lord
bowed his head. For unworthy sinners he suffered
and bled. My spirit rejoices, the work
it is done. My soul is redeemed, and salvation
is won. Great God of mercies, thy goodness
I own, and the covenant of love of thy glorified Son. All praise to the Savior, whose
blood so divine, sealed pardon and mercy and righteousness mine. Great God of glory, how rich
is thy grace! What wonderful love is revealed
in thy face! Be seated. All right, look back with me
at 2 Kings. 2 Kings. We'll talk about the vessels
that God fills. You know, the greatest blessing
God can bestow upon anyone is to give them his word and then
give them grace and wisdom to understand it and to believe
its message. What a great blessing. that God
gives us his word and then the grace to understand it and believe
its message of redemption. You know, it takes a miracle
for that to happen. It takes the power of God to
cause that to happen. But when we see this message
of redemption in the Lord Jesus Christ, what a great blessing
that is. Our Lord told the Pharisees,
search the scriptures. That's what we do, we search
the scriptures. And he says, for they are those
which testify of me. This blessed book testifies the
Lord Jesus Christ. To him, all the prophets give
witness. When Philip was sent down to
talk to that Ethiopian eunuch after he had left Jerusalem,
went up there to worship, and he left as empty as he did when
he came, But he was sittin' and he was readin'. From Isaiah 53,
Philip joined himself to that chariot, and he said, do you
understand what you're readin'? He said, how can I, except some
man guide me? And at that place, he began to
preach unto him, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, he said,
here's water, what's to keep me from bein' baptized? And he
said, if thou believest, all thy heart that Jesus is the Son
of God. You may, you may. And then I
want you, you keep this, you keep I Kings, II Kings, and I
want you to look with me in John chapter 39 for a moment. John
chapter 39, 9, chapter 9 and verse 39. Ain't no 39, 39 chapters. I want you to look with me at
this. This is what I'm talking about. Oh, what a blessing. Blessed, our Lord told his disciples,
blessed are your eyes for they see things that many
righteous men decide to see and couldn't see them. But look what
our master said here in verse 39. And he said, for judgment,
I am come into this world that they will see which see not might
see. He said, if you say, I'm not,
don't have the ability to see, I don't have the ability to understand.
Then he said, I come to save you. I come to do something for
you. And that they will say, I see, I understand. I've got this all figured out.
I've made my covenant with death. I've made my covenant with hell
and I've got my bed and I've got it all made and I'm ready
to go. And oh, and then he says this,
they which see not might see, and that they which see, I'm
gonna leave them blind, I'm gonna make them blind. When a fellow
stands up and said, I got it all figured out, I know exactly
what's going on. And our Lord said, and look what
something happened here. They know exactly who he's talking
about. Some of the Pharisees, which were with him, heard those
words, these words, and said unto him, are we blind also?
Are we blind? Is that what you're saying about
us, we're blind? Look what our master said. Jesus
said unto him, if you were blind and you said we can't see and
we don't understand, you'd have no sin. I'll take care of your
sin. It'll all be taken care of by
me. But now you say we see. We see the law. We see our ceremonies. We see our ritual. We see our
church going, we see our works, we see our separation, we see
our dress codes, but we don't see Christ. And he said, I'll
leave you blind. Your sin remains. And oh my,
so let's go back over again. Second Kings, the most essential,
and I'm trying, this is what I'm saying. The most essential
things in our lives is a knowledge of the scriptures. That's the
most essential thing in our lives, is the knowledge of the scriptures.
Now, I heard an illustration one time. Let me give it to you.
When you look in a mirror, you see three things. When you look
in a mirror. First of all, you see yourself.
First thing you see is see yourself. First, you see the mirror. That's
the first thing you see. The second thing is you see yourself. And the third thing you see is
all the things that's in the view of that mirror that's in
that room. And that's the way it is when we see by faith and
believe the faith by faith, the word of God, you'll see three
things. When you believe God's word and
you look by faith into it, you'll see three things. The first person
you'll see is the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll see the Lord Jesus
Christ. And then seeing, secondly, seeing
the Lord Jesus Christ, you see yourself. And you'll see, I'm
a man of unclean lips. All of my righteousness are as
filthy rags. I have no hope in and of myself. You see yourself as you really,
truly are. You know, the word of God reveals
man's true nature. True nature. And the third thing
you see is you see your relationship with other people just like you
see the other things in the room. You'll see other things about
you and your relationships with other people. You remember Greg
Amquist talked about his two nephews. They both was in their
70s and they got to thinking about eternity. They got to thinking
about their lives and getting older. And they made a special
trip to go down to his house to talk with him and talk about
their soul and talk about what it is to be saved and how you
are saved. He talked to him. They said they
spent probably 20 hours together. And you know what the conclusion
both of those men came to? They both says, listen, we may
be pretty bad. We did a lot of things wrong
with it. But one thing about it, we're not sinners. We're
not sinners. And I'll tell you this, if you
ever see the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll see yourself as you are. And you'll make no pretense or
hypocrisy about it. You'll see yourself as you are. Not like Mama said you was. Not
like Daddy said you was. Not like the Scoutmaster said
you was. Oh my. And oh, God helpin' us. You know, here's what happened.
Here's a godly man who died and left his wife and his family
in debt. That's what I just read to you.
And they didn't have any support. They didn't have welfare. So
she went to someone who knew God. That's the first thing she
wanted to do, go to someone, talk to someone who knew God.
And oh my, she didn't go to the world. He didn't go to religion. She
went to a man of God for help, somebody who had something to
say. And he asked her, said, what have you got? She said,
nothing but a little pot of oil, a little pot of oil. And he instructed her, told her
to gather together all the empty vessels that she could find,
borrow them from her neighbors, borrow every empty vessel she
could get her hand on, Not just a few, but many. Then go into
your house, shut your door, and you pour some, keep pouring that
oil until you get every pot filled of those empty vessels. And then
when it was filled, the last one was, the oil stopped. It
stayed. It stayed. And she sold it and
paid off her debt. Now I won't, I think I got six
or seven things that I won't say about this. And this is the
first lesson I want us to see. Look what it says. Look what
the woman said there. In verse 1, Now there is a certain
woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha. They were sons of
the prophets and they were servants of Elisha. She said, Thy servant,
my husband, is dead. And thou knowest this, thy servant
did fear the Lord, and the creditor is come to take away my two sons
to bond me. This is the first thing she said,
said, my husband's dead and he left me in such a debt. He left
me in such a debt that the creditors are coming to take my two boys
and put them in bondage. And this is how we got in debt
by our father and by his death. When Adam sinned against God,
For while one man's sin entered into this world, and death by
sin, so death is passed upon all men. And Adam passed on to
us a debt. He passed on to us not only sin,
but a sin nature. And this is the thing, our father
left us in debt. And here's the thing about it.
We couldn't pay that debt. If we left us just one sin to
pay, we'd all be in debt till that sin was paid for. We can't
pay that debt. We cannot pay the debt of sin. We cannot pay the debt to God.
We cannot pay a debt to justice. We cannot pay the debt. You know,
he left us in great debt. And you know what? The debt just
grows and grows and grows and grows. That's what happens when
people don't pay their debt. They just get go, go, go, go.
And you listen. And one thing about it, you can't
file bankruptcy with this debt. You can't go to the courthouse
and say, I want to get out from under this debt. You can't get
out from under this debt. It's a great debt. Adam left
us in debt. And it just grows and grows and
grows, and here's what's sad about it. We pass the debt on
to our children. I passed it on to my son, my
daughter, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren. Passed it
on. I just, my debt became their debt. They was born in debt. Oh my. And here's the thing about
it, the creditor's at the door. For the children. He's there to get you, huh? And here's just what this debt
does to us. They're gonna take us and they
took our children, make bond slaves out of them. Slaves to
sin, slaves to self, slaves to self-righteousness, slaves to
works. Slaves. Predators come to make
slaves. Oh my. And you know what we need
so desperately? We need somebody, someone to
instruct us how we can, this debt could be taken care of. We need somebody to come along
and tell us how this debt could be paid and must be paid. We
need an Elisha. Someone knows God. That's what
we need. That's what we need. And the
second lesson is this. The true character of a person
cannot be determined by his possessions and positions in this world. The scripture says here that
this man feared the Lord. Feared the Lord. Oh my. And served the Lord. He lived
poor and he died poor. So just watch your position and
possessions in this world. does not tell what your true
character is. I wanna show you a couple of
things here. You keep 2 Kings and look with me in Luke chapter
12. Luke chapter 12. Oh, I know so many people that's
this way. Oh, Luke chapter 12 in verse
15. Our Lord's speaking again. You
know, and look what he said here, Luke chapter 12 and verse 15.
He said, unto them, take heed. I want you to pay attention,
take heed. And beware of covetousness. Beware
of warning everything. For a man's life, and that's
what we do, we're life, we're living people. A man's life does
not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses.
And all of us have an abundance of things, have an abundant house,
have abundant cars, have, oh my goodness, abundance of furniture.
We have abundance. We have abundance. But is that
our life? Is our houses our life? Is our cars our life? Is our
money in the bank our life? Is this our life? Is this our
life? Or is Christ our life? Oh, look what he goes on to say. And he spake a parable unto them,
saying the ground of a rich man, certain rich men brought forth,
oh my good, so plentiful. And he thought within himself,
what shall I do? What in the world am I going
to do? Because I have no room to put all the things that I
possess now. And he said, I'll tell you what
I'll do. I'll pull down my barns and build greater. And I'll put
all my fruits and my goods in that new big barn. And I will
say to my soul, So you've got much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease. Take it easy
now. Oh, buy the best food you can eat, get the best drinks
you can afford, and be merry. But God said, fool, fool, if
God calls you a fool, you're a fool. This night thy soul shall
be required of them. Then, then, Whose things shall
those be which thou hast provided? Who's gonna have it then? Who's
gonna have it then? Oh my, it's like that rich man
in Lazarus. Everybody knows that story. Rich
man in Lazarus. There was a rich man, fared sumptuously
every day, fared sumptuously. And he would leave his house,
and they'd open the gate, and he'd come out the gate. He'd
come in out of that gate, and he'd come out through there,
and there's a poor old man laying right outside of his gate. And he has full of sores. He
just has sores all over him. There's a bunch of dogs sitting
around there licking on him. Well, it come time for the rich
man to die, and he died. And he went to hell. He said, Lazarus, Father Abraham,
send Lazarus to dip his tongue in some water and just let him
drop one drop on my tongue, one drop on my tongue. He said, son,
in your lifetime, in your lifetime, Had everything. Lazarus didn't
have nothing. Now he's gonna go to glory. He
didn't have nothing. And you're gonna perish. You
can't tell a person's character by what they are and what they
possess. And I'll tell you something.
If by God's providence, and I'll tell you what, God makes rich
and he makes poor, He gives the seeing eye and the hearing ear.
If by God's providence we're well off, God help us to
use those means to do something for somebody else besides ourselves. And if by God's providence we're
poor, let's trust Him to supply our need. Cause we're empty vessels,
empty vessels. Oh my. And I'll test God to supply
all of our needs. And he can supply all of them
according to his glory in Christ Jesus. And the Lord provided
for this woman. Husband's dead. She's poor. Got just a little bitty pot of
oil. That's all she's got left. Didn't even say she had nothing
to cook with it. She said, all I got is a little oil. She didn't
say, I got some food in the refrigerator. She didn't say, I got some food
in the pantry. She didn't say, I got some food under the bed.
She said, all I got is a little bit of oil. Just a little bit
of oil. Doesn't have to cook with it,
but she did. Oh my, but the Lord provided for this woman. The
Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. I shall not want. Let me give
you the third lesson. The third lesson is, look what
kind of vessel she told to get. Verses two and three. And Elisha
said unto her, what shall I do? Tell me what you've got in your
house. She said in the house, and she said, thine handmaid
hath not anything in the house. Just a little pot of oil. A little
pot of oil. Then he said, go borrow thee
vessels abroad of all thy neighbors, empty vessels are not of you.
You know what kind of vessels she is told to bring? Empty. Empty vessels. Oh, Elisha emphasized this. All the vessels that she were
brought to her had to be empty. had to be empty, not half full,
not primed with some power, not using some magic oil or holy
water or holy oil. Oh, no, it wasn't primed. I mean,
you know, this is the hardest lesson. This is the hardest lesson
for human nature to learn. When we come to God for mercy,
When we come to God for grace, when we come to God for salvation,
when we come to God to provide for us, we have to come, we're
empty. And that's the hardest lesson
for human nature to learn. Empty. Empty. What do you want me to have?
What do you want? Nothing but empty vessels. Empty
vessels. I used to have it when we lived
at the farm, the first well we had down there. That thing would
run dry and I'd have to go out and prime it all the time. And
you had to put something in it to prime it. Well, there ain't
no priming this. When you're empty, there ain't
nothing to prime it. When the well goes dry, you can't
prime it. Empty vessels, that's what she
said. And what a hard, hard lesson for human nature to learn. And
all who come to the Lord Jesus Christ are empty of merit. Merit. A lot of folks think,
you know, that I've got some merit. I know that I helped somebody
one time. I went to a soup kitchen and
I stood in line and served some poor people, helped the homeless. I sent some money to a missionary.
And they always looked at something that they did. Some merit. I
got some merit to it. And just like God told Belteshazzar,
said, thou are weighed in the balances, and you've found what? Wanting. And that's what people
want to think. They think that they have got
what it takes. But man has no merit. He has
no worth. Brother Henry used to say all
the time that when people start bragging, he said, it's just
like one worm bragging on another worm. And that's one of them
else too. God said, thou worm Jacob. Men are grasshoppers. He said,
you're grass. When you go out to mow your grass,
would you believe that you're like that grass? God says, man's
like grass. Oh, my. All who come to the Lord
Jesus are empty of merit. They're empty of works. They
got no works that'll get you by. They have no goodness to
commend themselves to God. And there's no prime in this
vessel that works. He makes the dead alive. He makes
the blind to see. He causes the lame to walk. And
he's the one that clothes the naked. You notice all three of
those things are something we are, dead, blind, lame, and naked. He's the one that has to do it,
has to do it. Someone asked a preacher one
time, I'm trying to think of his name, I couldn't think of
it this morning. But someone asked a preacher
one time, don't you think the greatest hindrance to salvation
is our sinful self? Our sinful self. He said, no,
no, no, no, no, I don't. I don't think it's our sinful
selves. I think the greatest hindrance
to salvation is our righteous self. Our good self. Our good self, our righteous
self. No man is too bad to come to Christ. No man is too bad
to come to Christ. But the vast majority of people
are too good. They're just too good. They're
too good. But it's only empty vessels that
are filled. Our Lord says, they that are
whole don't need a doctor. But they that are sick. And he
said, I'll have mercy. I want you to learn this lesson.
I'll have mercy and not sacrifice. I don't want your sacrifices.
I don't want your works. I don't want your merit. I don't
want nothing from you. I don't want anything you got.
But he said, I'll tell you what I will do. I'll have mercy. I'll have mercy. Let me give you another lesson
here. Empty vessels, empty vessels, empty vessels. How many times
have you been empty since you've been a believer? How many times
you've come to a service empty? How many times have you come
with nothing, and left with something? That's what happens here. Oh,
listen to the next one then. He said the number of vessels
to be brought, it says there in verse 3, not a few. Don't
bring just a few. I mean, he says get a whole bunch
of them. But many, many, many. Is anything
too hard for the Lord? You know, our Lord can save many,
many sinners. You know, He says, He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. And the Scripture says that He is able, able to save
to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him. And, oh, you're
talking about a good verse of Scripture, a blessed verse of
Scripture. And God said this, Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Call on the name of the Lord.
Call on the name of the Lord. You know, our Lord is able to
save all kinds of sinners, all kinds of sinners. You know, the
size of the vessel didn't make any difference. He just had an
empty vessel. There's people say, well, I was
a big sinner, bad sinner, not too bad a sinner, but the size
of the vessel, big, bad, it don't make any difference. That did
have nothing to do with it. And the age of the vessel. Some
of them, no doubt, were very, very old. Some of them was probably
brand new. Some of them probably, you know,
been used a few times before. But the age of the vessel didn't
have anything to do with it. Ninety or nine. Fifty or five. If God opens a heart, it doesn't
matter, seventy or seven. God's got to do the work. And
he can work on a young vessel just as well as he can work on
an old one. The age of the vessel has nothing
to do with it. And then the shape of the vessel.
Did it make any difference why shape that vessel? Some of them
was probably little bitty vessels. Some of them probably pretty
good sized vessels. Some of them mid-sized vessels.
But it didn't make any difference about the vessel. It didn't make
any difference about that, the shape of the vessel. You say,
boy, you just wouldn't believe what a shape I'm in. Oh, yes,
I would. If you're in the same shape I'm
in, you ain't got nothing to brag about. I'll tell you that.
Pitiful. I'm a pitiful person. And I'm glad God pities me. The
Father pities these children. as a father pities his children. Because he knows, he remembers,
we're just dust. Just dust. Oh, the shape of the
vessel has nothing to do with it. Oh, my. And the condition of the vessel
is immaterial. Immaterial. You know, Fannie, what's that woman named? Wrote
all the songs. Fannie Crosby, Fannie Crosby,
born blind. And she wrote an incredible,
and she talked about the things that she saw. We sung a song
this morning, The Things That She Saw, when we sung Blessed
Assurance, The Things That She Saw. How could she see anything
in her blind? God. God can, that's exactly what,
listen, that's what I'm saying here. The shape, the condition
of the vessel, blind, deaf, how can a dead man hear the gospel?
Read the Bible. They got braille books. They
got people know how to sign. Oh my, the condition of the vessel's
immaterial. Old, young, it don't make no
difference. The only thing that mattered
was it had to be empty. It had to be empty. Come unto
me, our Lord said. But he qualified who it is to
come. You that are burdened. You that are burdened. He qualified
that. You that are burdened. You that's heavy. and you got
a leg, you got something on your back that you're not able to
carry. Come unto me. You know what I'll do? I'll take
that thing off of you and I'll give you rest. And you'll find
rest for your souls. Not rest for your bodies, rest
for your souls. Huh? Oh my. Our Lord stood and
cried on that last day, the great day of the feast, and said, if
anybody's thirsty, thirsty, come to me. Let me give you another lesson. Verse six, look what, the vessels
were completely filled. Look down verse six. And it came
to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her
son, bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, there's
not a vessel more. And they all stayed." Oh, my. When that vessels were completely
filled, let me tell you something that's full. It's right there. That's full. That is full. Ain't it? And guess what it'll
do for you? It'll fill you up. It'll fill
you up. Oh, so great a debt to be in
full, absolute payment in full, fullness divine, absolute payment
in full. Our Lord Jesus Christ, He says
that we're filled with His fullness. And I heard a little I used to
talk about a bucket being put in the ocean, and when your bucket
was in the ocean, it was full of the ocean. Always empty, but
it's still full of the ocean. And that's where we are. We're
empty, but we're filled with the fullness of Christ. And Todd
Nyberg used a little illustration and said, you put a thimble in
the ocean, and as small as that thimble is, it's full of the
ocean. And as small as we are, and as empty as we are, all we
got to do, if Christ is in fullness, is in Him. You're complete in
Him, who is the head of all principalities and power. Ain't he? Christ has
made unto us wisdom. Made unto us righteousness. Made
unto us holiness, sanctification. and has made us unto us our redemption. I mean, that means he's everything.
The next verse says this, let no man glory in man. Oh, glory in the Lord. If any
man glory, let him glory in the Lord. Oh, my. And I'm telling you, when an
empty sinner, by faith, receives the Lord Jesus Christ, he receives,
now listen to me, HE RECEIVES ALL THAT GOD REQUIRES. WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO HAVE ALL
THAT GOD REQUIRES OF YOU? CHRIST GOT IT. WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO OBEY EVERY
COMMAND THAT GOD EVER GAVE? CHRIST DID. WOULDN'T YOU LOVE TO HAVE ETERNAL
LIFE AND HAVE IT RIGHT NOW? CHRIST GIVES IT. Oh, he commanded the light to
shine out of darkness and shined in our hearts. Oh, he delivered
us from the power of darkness and translate us into the kingdom
of his dear son. Oh my, nothing, nothing needs
to be done. Nothing needs to be added to
who Christ is and what Christ did and what Christ is doing right now.
That old song we sang, all the fitness he requireth is to feel
your need of him. For whom he did foreknow, listen
to me, for whom he did foreknow, them he also called. Them he
called, he also justified. And them he justified, he also
glorified. The next, and then he asked a
question, what shall we bathe into these things? What a question. What are we going to say about God foreknowing us? About God
calling us? About God justifying us? And
then he predestinated us. What are we going to say to that?
What are we going to say to these things? And then he says, It's Christ
that died, yea rather Christ that's riven again, and it's
who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God
that justifies, and he asked that question again. Who shall,
what shall we say to these things? You read those things, he said,
what are we gonna say about those things? You know what I'm gonna
say? Bless God, praise his holy name. Yeah, that's all I'm gonna
say about it. Bless his name for it. Oh my,
oh my. The empty vessels, now listen
to me. The empty vessels were filled individually. Every time
they brought an empty vessel into it, she started pouring
oil in it. Got another one, she poured oil into it. She got another
one, she poured oil into it. Oh my. And I tell you, you know
when she individually, and she did it privately. He said, close
the door. Go in there with your sons. And
let me tell you something. Take your empty vessel and get
along before God. Get along. Take your empty vessel,
get in your closet, and go before the Lord. Oh, my. Let me give you another lesson
here. This is my last one. When did I all stop? Verse 6, he said, it came to
pass that the vessels were full, and she said to her son, bring
me yet a vessel. He said, there's not any more.
And the oil stayed. It stopped. It stopped. You know, the oil stopped when
every vessel was full. As long as there was an empty
vessel in that house, the oil flowed freely. and sufficiently. And as long as there's an empty
vessel, God's going to fill it. You know, when she called for
another empty vessel, they all stopped. And as long as there's
an empty, needy sinner, the grace of God flows full and it flows
free. Ain't you glad it does that?
It flows free. Flows freely. And I tell you,
and it's full. And it's free. Where there's
a spiritual, spiritual need, there's mercy. There is mercy. There's mercy individually for
every soul. And there's mercy collectively. or a group like us, a church,
a people gathered together. Where men are lost, the Lord
Jesus Christ saves. Where you have sinners, you have
salvation. Where you have sinners, you have
salvation. You know when the oil stops for so many people? Like the Laodiceans, we're rich
and increased with goods and have need of nothing. They never
got a drop of oil. And let me say this, when that
last sheep is found, when that last sheep is found, that last
stone is put in the spiritual temple. When that last jewel
is brought into the Lord's treasury, all of grace will stop, but not
till then. Judgment will fall then. It's
like when everybody was in the ark, when they got in the ark,
that's when the door was shut. And when that last sheep is brought
in, you wonder when that's going to be. I wonder where it'll be. Will it be in America? Will it
be in China? Will it be in Africa? Will it
be in Brazil? Will it be in Mexico? It makes
no difference. But when he gets his last lost
sheep, guess what's gonna happen? Oh, and when that door was shut,
you know what happened? That's when the rain started.
When Christ gets his last sheep, the rain's gonna start. Guess
what? Rain ain't gonna get us. No,
we're in Christ. We're in Christ. Our Father, in the blessed, blessed
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for the word. Thank
you for your gospel. Thank you for these precious,
precious truths that's in your word. Lord, I know that I'm empty. I come empty souled. so, so many
times. Lord, you never fail to give
me what I need. You fill this old empty vessel.
You fill it with your grace. You fill it with your mercy.
You fill it with your word. You fill it with joy. You fill
it with freedom. You fill it with the things of
Christ. Oh God, we thank you for it.
God bless the word today. Bring glory to yourself for Christ's
sake, we pray. Amen. Amen. Let's sing 222. 222. And then we'll go back and
eat. 222. Stand together and sing
this. This is watch for empty vessels
now. There is a fountain filled with
blood Flows from Emmanuel's veins And sinners plunge Beneath that
flood, lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty stains. And sinners plunge beneath that
flood, Lose all their guilty stains. The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day. And there may I, though vile
as He, wash all my sins away. Wash all my sins away. Wash all my sins away. And there may I, though vile
as he, wash all my sins away. This is my favorite verse right
here. Dear dying lamp, thy precious blood shall never lose its power. Till all the ransomed church
of God be safe to sin no more. Be safe to sin no more. Be safe. to sin no more, till
all the ransomed Church of God E'er since, by faith, I saw the
stream Thy flowing woe supply, Redeeming love has been and shall
be till I die. And shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. Redeeming love has been my theme. And shall be till I die. And oh, this is my second favorite.
When this poor lit sphinx's stammering tongue lies silent in the grave. Then in a nobler, sweeter song
I'll sing thy power to save I'll sing thy power to save I'll sing
thy power to save And in a nobler, sweeter song,
I'll sing thy power to save. All right. I guess them girls
will holler at us when it's time to come in need.