And oftentimes, when you get
in a situation, say, let's get to the root of this thing. Let's
get to the root of the matter. And the root, when he's talking
about here, he's talking about the beginning. He's talking about
the beginning. The root of the problem that
they have with mistreating him. But whenever you have a problem,
You'd say, well, I need to find out what the problem is. Let's
get to the root of it. A tree can live without its branches,
some of its branches. But it can't live without its
root. It can't live without its root. And roots are essential. Roots are essential to any life,
plant life especially. You know that the plant will
wither and die if the roots get injured. The roots start dying. If the roots are destroyed then
the tree is going to die or whatever it is. And that's the same way
it is concerning true religion. Why do I call it true religion?
Because there's a false religion. There's even another Jesus that
people preach. Another spirit that people receive.
But as concerning true religion, roots are essential. Roots are
essential to Christianity. There are some things that are
absolutely, utterly, utterly essential to Christianity. And
I've got three points today, some things that are essential,
that you've got to have the root of the matter in you. There's
the essential doctrine. There's essential doctrine you
must believe. There's an essential experience
you must have. And there is an essential practice
that you must do. And without these three things,
you can't say you're a believer. Without these three things. So
let's look at the essential doctrine. The root of the matter. What
we call the root of faith. Now there's some things, some
things are not essential to the root of faith. For you to be
a believer, there's some things that's actually not essential.
Prophecy and understanding prophecy is not essential. Understanding
what's gonna happen in the last days is not essential. It's not
essential. To have a great deep understanding
of the Bible is not essential. It's not essential. God calls
preachers to give people understanding. And that's why the first time
that the pulpit's mentioned in the Bible, over in Ezra, it says
over there that they had a pulpit built and that they got up and
they gave the people, read the law and gave the people the understanding
of it. And so listen, and then I'll
tell you something else. When a person first gets converted,
they're like a baby. They're like a child. And a child
don't know everything when he first starts growing up. He has
to learn. He has to be taught. He has to
be instructed in things. Now I'll tell you something.
Some of you may disagree with this, but I believe this. You
do not have to understand election and even know that you are one
of God's elect when you're first saved. You don't even have to
know that. Though when you hear it, you'll
rejoice in it and you'll bless God for it and you'll be thankful
for it. Very few people know about eternal
things, because preachers don't teach eternal things. But when
you're first regenerated, there are so many things that we don't
know, that we do not know. We come into, Herman, when he
first got converted, he's 75 years old, and he told me, and
for years and years, every time I'd mention something to him
about the Bible, oh, I know that, I know that, I know that, I know
that. God saved him, and you know what one of the things he
said after two or three months? He said, I'm a baby, I don't
know nothing. I'm a baby and I don't know nothing.
He went into eternity, 92 years old. I'm a baby and I don't know
nothing. And that's the way we are sometimes.
About the time we think we've got a hold on it, it goes away,
it goes away. And I'll tell you something else,
you know, and people may have such a misrepresentation of the
perseverance of the saints. You know, one thing that they
misrepresented, and it's an awful misrepresentation, is once saved,
you're always saved. Well, that depends on who saves
you. That depends entirely on who
saves you. But that's a concept of grace,
and the way it's presented is very, very distasteful. You see,
it's perseverance doesn't depend upon us, it depends upon Christ's
perseverance. If Christ perseveres, and if
Christ stays on his throne, if Christ stays in his power, if
Christ stays in his glory, every soul whom he died for will end
up in glory. Now ain't that right? They persevere
first and foremost because Christ perseveres. And so that's what
I'm saying. The first and foremost thing
is to know the Lord Jesus Christ. But now there are some things
that are absolute, distinct truths, essential truths that must be
believed before somebody can be regarded as a Christian. And
you know what the first one is? You got to believe that there's
one God in three persons. You got to believe that. Now
let me, you keep Job, and I want you to turn over to 1 John chapter
5. 1 John chapter 5. You know, when we talk about
the Trinity, there are people, we was on the road the other
day, and I seen this And they've got one here at town. It's out
in the country. They call them apostolic Jesus
only So they don't believe in the father, and they don't believe
in the Holy Spirit They just believe in Jesus only they just
do away with the father they do away, and then you got the
Jehovah Witnesses they do away with Christ and his deity and and make God the Father to be
everything. And they leave off the Holy Spirit,
and they leave off the Lord Jesus Christ. So you see, I must believe
that there's one God in three persons. Now look what it says
here in 1 John 5, verse 3. For there are three that bear
record in heaven. Where did they bear record to?
They come to the earth and they bore record. And the first thing
is, is the Father. The Father bore record. God the
Father bore record. The Word, see how that's capitalized,
in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word
was God. And then the Holy Ghost, and
look what it says, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost,
these three are one. Now how can there be three persons
in the Godhead and yet there be only one God? But you've got to believe that.
And all three of them has a part in the work of a soul's salvation.
All three of them do. God the Father has to have a
part in it because there would be no Savior had not God provided
a Savior. And we wouldn't know anything
about the Savior apart from the Holy Ghost. Now let me show you
that in Matthew chapter 3. Look over here in Matthew chapter
3, and all of them are God. Every single one of them is God.
Every single one of them has the authority and the power,
no more than one than the other, but they have places and positions
that they have and a work to do, but it's all one God. And
look what it says in verse 16, Matthew 3, 16. And Jesus, our Lord Jesus, went
to be baptized of John. And Jesus, when He was baptized,
now when He went straight up out of the water, that means
He was under the water. And so when He raised up straight
out of the water, He's went all over, He's been baptized, He's
been immersed. And He comes up out of the water,
and the heavens opened. The heavens themselves opened.
God made a split in the sky. He made the sky to cease to exist
over the Lord Jesus Christ and everybody that was there. John
saw it and everybody that day was being baptized. The sky was
opened up just like you'd open a hole in this roof. And look
what he said. And he saw, who did? John, John's the one telling
about this. John saw the Spirit of God The
Holy Ghost of God, the Spirit of God, descending like a dove,
gentle, kind, gracious upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and stand
on Him. And then there come a voice from
Heaven. This is my beloved Son, and whom
I am well pleased. We got the Son, we got the Holy
Spirit, and we got the Father. And all three of them are visible
and present at that one place at that one time. And all three
of them have something to say. You see, here's the thing about
it. God the Father is the one who purposed salvation to be.
God did that. Man didn't do that. Nothing originates
with man but sin. And so God, He purposed salvation. And He purposed that salvation
should be by grace. And the only way salvation can
be by grace is for Him to provide somebody to pay all the debts
that His people owed. His justice and righteousness
said, a soul that sinneth it must die. Well, how in the world
is God going to keep from killing every one of us and damning us?
Well, He sent His Son. And he sent him in such a way
that that son had nothing to do with us other than just being
flesh. Bone of our bone, flesh of our
flesh. God made him in the likeness
of sinful flesh, and for sin condemns him in the flesh. So
Christ came, born of a virgin, and the Lord Jesus Christ lived
in this world, not for himself, but for those that he had died
for. And so God can give us grace because justice has been upheld
by His blessed Son. And then the Holy Ghost, He comes
and He takes the things of Christ and He said He teaches them to
us. He said, He shall take of mine when He comes, the Holy
Spirit comes, He shall take the things of mine, me, the things
that belong to me, the things that bring glory to me, the things
that honors me, the things that shows that I'm all things in
salvation. He'll take the things of mine
and show them unto me. Now, I've been studying the scriptures
for a long, long time, been reading them a long, long time, but I
tell you what, I feel like I'm just getting started. He is so
glorious. He is so wondrous. He is so infinite. He's so eternal. You think we
got a handle on Him yet? Huh? That's why we're here. More about Jesus would I know?
More of His saving fullness see? More of His love who died for
me? Oh, I'll tell you what. So the doctrine of the Trinity,
and then the Godhead of all three of them, and the work of all
three in our salvation. Those are things you must believe.
And let me tell you the second thing for you to be a Christian,
for you to be a believer, is the vicarious sacrifice of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now what does that word vicarious
mean? It means that it's done or suffered
for others. The substitutionary death of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Vicarious means taking the place
of another, doing the work of another, and the substitution
of one person for another. Now let me tell you something.
That's something everybody must believe to be a believer. You've
got to believe that someone, another, took your place. God made him. Made who? Christ, the Son of God, His beloved
Son. He said, I'm well pleased in
Him. He always does the things that
please me. God said, this is my beloved
son, but God took him, his beloved son, made him to be sin. Whatever sin is, whatever sin
is, I don't care. You can define it any way you
want to. It's called exceeding sinfulness. And I tell you what,
sin entered the world. And all death passed upon all
that caused that sin. God made him to be sin. And then when he made him to
be sin, what did he do to him? He slew him, forsook him, shed
his blood, poured his wrath out on him, sent the very sword of
justice out and punched it through his holy heart. And then the Lord Jesus Christ
said, it's finished, and God drew out the sword. But oh my, you know, you got
to see this, I quote it all the time, but Isaiah 53, look at
it with me. Look in Isaiah 53, talking about
the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ. You got
to understand that there's one God in three blessed persons. And you can find all three of
them all the way through the Bible. But oh, the substitution
of one person for another. I tell you, I heard old Scott
say one time, and he was preaching, you know a lot of times he'd
preach 15, 20 minutes, and say, whew, I'm done. And he'd say
one thing, I did mention this before, he'd always say this,
I did mention substitution. I did mention that. And if you
preached on substitution, Scott Richardson would rejoice. Henry
Mahan would rejoice. Everybody who believes in the
substitutionary death of Christ, one dying for another, one taking
the place of another, one bearing the penalty of another. And look
what he said here in verse 3 of Isaiah 53. He is despised and
rejected of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. And then, you know, and we hid,
as it were, our faces from him. That's what Simon Peter did.
That's what we did. He was despised, and we didn't
say, boy, he's really somebody. Surely, surely this is why it
happened to him. He has borne our griefs. griefs over our sin, griefs over
our flesh, griefs over our wickedness, griefs over our weakness, griefs
over our inability, and carried our sorrows. How many times have
we been full of sorrow, weeping, crying, and heartbroken, and
He hath carried our sorrows. And I tell you what, he is acquainted
with grief, and all surely hath borne our sorrow. Yet we said
God struck him, God smote him, God afflicted him. Why did he
do it? He was wounded for our transgressions. God bruised him for our iniquities. For our peace to be established,
God had to chastise him. And for our sins to be healed
and our souls to be healed, He had to be striped 39 times on
that before they put him on the cross. But what did we do? All of us went our own way. We
went astray. But I want you to notice this.
He called them sheep. He called them sheep. All we
like sheep have gone astray. And one of us went his own way.
And the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed
and he was afflicted, but he never opened his mouth. He was
brought as a lamb to the slaughter, as the sheep before shears was
done, he didn't open his mouth. You remember when the Ethiopian
eunuch was sat and reading from that place, Isaiah 53, Philip
went and joined himself and he said, do you understand what
you read? He says, no, I can't. He said,
except some man guided me. And he looked there and he said,
is this man talking about himself or some other man? And Philip took and said, he's
talking about another man. He's talking about another man.
How can a man and a lamb be the one and the same? How can a man
that's acquainted with grief and sorrow be the one sitting
at the right hand of God right now with all power and majesty
in heaven? How can one who went to a tomb dead and lifeless come
out of the tomb and stand at the right hand of God and pray
for me and you all day every day? Huh? I'll tell you why. Because his death was sacrificial. He did not die for Himself, but
He died in the stead, in the stead, in the place of those
that the Father gave Him. And let me ask you this, listen
to me, have you ever, have you ever seen Him take in your place? Not somebody else's place, yours! My sin, my shame, my guilt, My
grief, my sorrow. Have you ever seen Him doing
that for you? I tell you what, if you ain't,
you ain't seen nothing. Oh my. I'll tell you another
essential doctrine. Not only is the doctrine of the
Trinity, and the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ,
But here's essential too, that our justification is by faith
and faith alone. Now what does that mean? Does
that mean our faith justifies us? No, God justifies us. But
the means that He uses is faith. And where in the world do we
get faith? For by grace are you saved through faith, and that
didn't belong to you. You didn't have it, you weren't
born with it, and He gave it to you. He gave it to you. He gave you the gift of God.
He gave it to you. And the reason He gave it to
us, that nobody could stand up and say, I did this. I had a
part in it. I worked out this salvation.
I had as much part to do with it as God did. No, no. He said
that every mouth may be stopped. That all boasting would stop.
When you understand It's God that justifies us. But you know
what He said? He said, Sit before His blessed
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And He said this. He said, You
believe on Him. You believe Him for all your
salvation. You believe Him for all your
righteousness. You believe Him for all you need
before God Almighty. And God said, I'll justify you
because of what He did. Nothing you've ever done will
be accepted by me all he ever did is all I accept and more
when you learn that You say oh, and you know what you know what
justification is That means that you was that you no matter what
you said what you think and what you do God looks at you says
He's not guilty of nothing He sends them awful things he's
not guilty I Why ain't he guilty? Because he believes on the guiltless
one. He believes on the sinless one. He believes on the perfect
one. He believes on the sacrificial
one. He believes on that one who shed his blood to wash me
from my sins. Huh? Oh my. I tell you, you know. Ah, listen. Where's boasting
then? We conclude that a man is justified
by faith without the deeds of the law. Who's boasting then?
It's excluded. But what principle? Faith. Faith. And I'll tell you something. Is anybody in here this morning
looking at their faith? Are you looking at your faith?
Or are you looking to Christ? Now that's what I'm talking about.
Faith, how do you know it's real? Because it looks outside yourself.
It never looks at yourself. Because the minute you look at
yourself, oh Lord have mercy on me. But you look outside. That's just like they sing today.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus. and the things of earth so strangely
dim, in the light of His glory, in the light of His grace, and
it really, really, really does, don't it? Oh, this was, you know
before men learned that justification was by faith, people was saved,
all they heard was works, and penance, and sufferings, and
salvation was in the church. But now, now we preach that there
was a person who went to glory on his works. That's the Lord
Jesus Christ. And everybody who gets to go,
they're going to go because of his work. I'm going to go to
heaven on another man's work. I'm going to go get to see the
Lord Jesus Christ because of what he did. Grace alone. No merit, no works. Christ alone,
he can save and no help from you, no help from a church, no
help from a priest, and no help from a preacher. The substitutionary death of
our Lord Jesus Christ can be the only way God can be justified
in saving a sinner. That's the only way. Now if we're
sin about it, And there's not a soul in this building today,
not a soul that I've ever met, that sin didn't abound. But where sin abounded, grace,
grace, grace did much more abound. How? Through Christ and His righteousness. That's how it reigns. Through
Christ and His righteousness. That's how grace reigns. Through
Christ. Through our Lord Jesus Christ.
I know the death of Christ declares how righteous God really is.
Now you know fatalism, that's easy to understand. Multitudes
and multitudes of people believe in fatalism. And what's fatalism? That means that people do without
God. There's no wisdom behind anything
that happens in the world. There's no power other than just
fate. Fatalism. You got nothing to
look forward to but living and dying and everything that happens
to you is because of fate. There's no wisdom behind it. There's nothing. It's just fatalism
is easy to understand. Free willism is easy to understand. It really is. It's very easy
to understand. You know, God save me if I let
him. That's just, that's the long
and the short of it. I've got the right, I've got the will,
I've got the power, and God can't do nothing unless I let Him.
That's easy to understand. But salvation by a substitute,
salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ, salvation by His sacrificial,
sin-atoning death, the only way you'll understand that is for
God to reveal it to you. You won't get it no other way.
You'll be an Arminian, you'll be a freewheeler, you'll be a
fatalist, But you won't believe God and you won't believe Christ
is everything to you unless God reveals it to you. That has to
be a revelation. Ain't that right? You remember
when the Lord showed you that? When the Lord began to teach
you? I remember very vividly the Holy Ghost revealing to me
that the Lord Jesus Christ was God. I remember when He revealed
that to me, and I can't tell you how I rejoiced. That He is
more than just a man, He is God. You know, there's only one person
that can save a sinner, it has to be God. There's only one person
that can satisfy God, it has to be equal with God. And the
Lord Jesus Christ was equal with God. Alright, let me give you
this real quick, I'll tell you. Listen to this now. So there's
essential doctrine. Essential doctrine. Now about
essential experiences. Now, a person, this is an experience
he has to have. He has to experience being loathsome
and sinful and having no confidence in the flesh. And how in the
world does that happen? by seeing the Lord Jesus Christ.
You don't see your sin and then go to Christ. It's seeing Christ,
that's when you see your sinfulness. And I'll tell you something,
the older I get, and these older folks in here, Joe and Daryl
and Joyce and some of these folks in here, they would agree with
me that the older you get, the worse you get. And the more necessary,
the Lord Jesus becomes to you. I mean, it becomes such a desperate,
you become so desperate that if you don't have Christ, you
ain't even living. You got to have Him. Huh? But how do we see it? You know,
Isaiah said it like this, I saw the Lord! Boy, I tell you what, let's give
Him a hand clap. He saw the Lord. He made a decision
for Jesus. No. He said, I saw the Lord. And I saw Him high. I saw Him
high. I saw Him lifted up. And I seen these seraphims around
Him. They was crying, Holy, Holy, Holy. And Isaiah said, Oh, He
said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's me. What's the matter, Isaiah? I
saw the Lord. And when I saw Him, I said, oh, whoa, it's me.
I'm undone as far as His light and His glory is concerned. I'm
undone. And then not only that, but everybody
around me, I see just like I am. Do you know what God did? He
set a coal off the fire where the sacrifice was. Taste His
lips. But you'll see Christ, and when
you see Him, I tell you, that's absolutely necessary. You know,
old Maurice Montgomery said something years and years ago, and I never
forgot it. He asked this question, are you
a man-made sinner, a preacher-made sinner, or a God-made sinner?
If you're a God-made sinner, the first thing you'll say about
yourself, oh, wretched man that I am, I know that in me, in my
flesh, I don't dwell anything worth having. How could God save
such a sinful wretch like me? How could God come and do anything? I don't deserve nothing, never
have, never will, but God comes and does something. And the first
ring it happens to you, it's like, like Mephibosheth got in
the presence of David, and he said, oh, got down before David,
and he said, wow, David, would King, would you look upon such
a dead dog as I am? Bad enough to be a dog, but to
be a dead dog, Oh my. Sin doesn't become exceeding
sinful. And if sin doesn't become exceeding
sinful, the Savior won't become exceeding precious. When sin is exceeding sinful,
then the Savior is exceeding precious. Oh my, it's seeing Him and we
see Him, we see how awful, how awful, how helpless, how weak,
how impotent we really are. We learn and we learn this very,
very early on that God cannot be approached by us or anything
that we do and nothing we do say is acceptable to Him. In
anything we say, think, or do, God won't do it. Man has not
and will not come to Christ until he makes the covenant of grace,
say, and this is one of the things, you can look it up yourself.
Ezekiel 36, 31, part of the covenant is this. They shall loathe themselves
over their evil ways. Do you ever feel like you stink
to yourself? You say, oh, I'm the worst wretch
that ever drew a breath. Do you ever feel like that? Huh? Oh, Job. This is a mystery. This is a mystery of Job. God
said he is a righteous man. And they'd been having all these
conversations about God. And Job finally said one day
when God come and said, Job, gird up your loins like a man.
I'm going to talk to you now. I'm going to confront you. And Job said, oh, I heard about
you. Oh, I heard so many things about
you. Now my eye sees you. What's the matter, Job? I abhor
myself. I abhor myself. And Daniel said,
when the Lord come and revealed Himself to him, you know what
Daniel said? And there's two people in the Scriptures that
God never charges with sin other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Two
men that He never does. Joseph, no fault, you can't find
anything said against Joseph in all the Word of God. And Daniel's
another one. Daniel and Joseph. But let me
tell you something. You know what Daniel said? He said, when the Lord come to
me on the river Chabar, he said, my comeliness turned into corruption. And when his brethren revealed
himself to him, he said, you meant it for evil, but God meant
it for good. Oh my, I tell you what, when
God does something for a man, He never gets over two things,
his desperate need of Christ, and his sinfulness. And this
sinfulness makes him see how desperately he needs Christ.
Is that not right? That's what's got to happen,
got to happen. All right, I tell you, I've got to hurry on. And
here's another thing, another experience that you have, not
only being sinful, when you see Christ. But you have communion
with the Lord Jesus Christ. What does that mean? That means
that you have union with Him. You talk with Christ. You converse
with Christ. You come to Christ. You need
Christ. You talk with Christ. And you
don't have to use a lot of words. A lot of times it's nothing but
sighing. And so a lot of times it's groaning. You know, we sing
that song, Zion's Hill, when my sighs shall cease to be. One of these days we'll never
sigh again. And oh my. But communion with the Lord Jesus
Christ. Again some know more of this
than others do. Oh my. Now you take Mary and
Martha. Everybody knows the story about
Mary and Martha. The Lord invited the Lord Jesus to come and eat
with them for supper. Well Martha got up and she went
to cooking. She went to work and cleaned the house. And she
went to doing all things just like you do. If you invite somebody,
you're going to get your house clean, you're going to cook a
good meal. That's what she was doing. Well, the Lord Jesus was
sitting down. Mary was sitting at His feet,
listening to Him, what He had to say. Martha come running to
the Lord and said, Lord, Lord, get Mary up and tell her to help
me. He said, Oh, Martha. And listen,
this is so compassionate of our Lord. He said, Martha, Martha,
you have trouble about a lot of things. And you should be. I'm not chiding you for that.
But Mary, she's chosen that good part. And I'm not taking away
from her. Martha was just as saved as Mary
was. Martha was just as loved as Mary
was. But they had different relationship
with the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's a lot of people like
that. A lot of people come about a lot of things and other people
have sweet, sweet communion with the Lord. Oh, John leaned on the Lord Jesus'
breast continually every time he sat down. And he was always
called that disciple whom Jesus loved. He enjoyed Christ more,
had more intimate relation with Him. than even Simon Peter who
denied him three times, or Thomas who doubted him. But John was
no more saved, no more loved, than Simon Peter was, or Thomas
either one. It's just the relationship they
had with Christ. The root of the matter is this,
to know Christ is the only Savior. That's the root of the matter.
Believe Him, trust Him, Faith in Him is salvation. My hope
is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. All other ground is sinking sand. Oh my. To know that Christ is
your all in all. And then let me hurry and give
you this. Essential doctrine. Essential experience. Sinful? in communion with the Lord Jesus
Christ. Needing Him, communing with Him,
talking with Him. And then there's essential practice.
Now what in the world is essential practice? Look in Galatians chapter
5, 22 with me. Galatians chapter 5. I'm talking
about practice now. And you're going to say, well,
he's going to start telling us what we need to do. No. No, I'm not going
to do that. I quit that years ago. I ain't
going to do that. But I'm going to tell you, this
is one thing that is essential. Essential. And that's fruit. Fruit. Look what he says down there
in verse 22. Fruit. but the fruit of the Spirit. Now one thing about every believer,
he has fruit. Now when a tree's first planted,
you don't expect it to have fruit right away. It's got to grow
a little bit. It's got to grow a little bit.
And when it starts growing, it'll have a little fruit on it. It'll
have some blooms on it. It has some blooms on it. And
I tell you what, faith is essential. But not on a tree, just set out.
And look what he goes on to say. This is essential. Food of the
Spirit, love. Our Lord said, I give you a new
commandment that you love one another. You know that barren
fig tree was tended for three years. And that man said, give
it one more year. Just give it one more year. One
more year. They kept telling that blind
man that Jesus Christ was nobody. He said, He has to be a sinner. He said, Sinner or not, I don't
know. One thing I know, I was blind and now I see. And that
man is the one who made me see. I don't know much, but I know
that. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking
about, friend. Oh, we're made new creatures in the Lord Jesus
Christ. But thou be fruit. A tree is
known by its fruit. By its fruit. And here's what
he says. Love, joy, peace. Peace in our hearts. Peace with
one another. Peace. Peace like a river. Peace from the Father above. Long-suffering. You know what
that long-suffering means? That means being very, very patient
with somebody. And that's what God is with us.
Is He not long-suffering with us? Patient, patient, patient. And then look what He said. Gentleness.
All be gentle to one another. Oh, goodness, faith, meekness,
temperance. And what law would be against
somebody like that? Oh my. I tell you, a root is
a fixed thing. Wind doesn't move it. Don't take
the root. Fixed to God, fixed to Christ.
A root is a quickening thing. It brings the sap up in the spring.
The roots, the vital principle of life. You ever seen these
trees, you know, and that the leaves just hang on, you know,
a lot of them come off and just a few leaves hang on the tree.
You know when those leaves come off? When the sap comes up, life
comes up, and new life pushes them off. And that's what God
does with us. When we start growing, that sap starts kind of quick,
and the spirit comes up, gets rid of all them old dead leaves,
gets rid of them old grave clothes. And I tell you what, it's a supplying
thing. Do you know where that tree gets
all of its roots, it gets all of its supplies, it gets its
strength and fruit for the tree from the roots. And you know
where we get all our fruit from, and where we get all our strength
from, get all our fruit from? The root of David. the Lord Jesus
Christ. And I tell you, that root, true
religion, lives on God, lives on grace, lives on Christ. And
let me close with this one little statement. I do know this, that
whoever has the root of the matter in them, if you got the root
of the matter in you, like Job said, and like I've been talking
about today, Oh, what a blessed comfort you ought to be able
to find out of this. Because if you've got the rule
of the matter in you, you are equal to the greatest
and most full-grown Christian anywhere. Because you're as loved
by Christ, as bought by Christ, cleansed by the same blood of
Christ, have the same Father, have the same Savior. You just
don't grow enough yet to understand it all. Huh? Oh my. You know what He said?
Our Lord said, He said over in Isaiah 43. He said over there. He said, when I see smoke and
flax, that means somebody that's got just a little bit of fire.
Looks like the fire is fixed to go out. He said, smoke and
flax. I'm not going to quench it. It's
going to come on up. It's going to go into a flame.
And he said, and I see a bruised reed, that's a reed that if you,
it's bruised, and if you touch it a certain way, it'll fall
over. He said, and a bruised reed,
I ain't gonna break. So he's talking about baby Christians,
he's talking about young Christians. He said, they just maybe have
a little smoke about them. Don't look like they got much
to them. I'm not gonna blow it out. I see that one, it's just
fixed to break. I ain't going to touch it. I'm
going to strengthen it. I'm going to encourage it. I'm
going to hold it up. Oh, what a wonderful Savior is Jesus our
Lord. What a wonderful Savior to me. Our Lord, our blessed, blessed
Savior, thank you, thank you, thank you. Blessed be your holy
name for the gospel. Thank you for these precious
truths. There's some people here that's got the root of the matter
in them. They believe their fruit may
not be seemingly very much, but they've got fruit. And we're
thankful for it. God bless this Word. You do with
it what seems good in your sight. Holy Spirit, take it and use
it the way that you will and do it for Christ's sake. In His
name we pray. Amen. Let's sing a verse of that. He hideth my soul. That's it.
He hideth my soul. I think that's it, ain't it?
He hideth my soul. Where's that at? I think 256? Huh? 258. 258. Let's
stand together. We'll sing a couple of verses
of this. A wonderful Savior is Jesus,
my Lord, a wonderful Savior to me. He hideth my soul. rivers of pleasure I see. He hideth my soul in the cleft
of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. In the lips of His love, and
covers me there with His hand. And covers me there with His
hand. Is Jesus my Lord? He taketh my burden away. He holds me up. He holds me up. And I shall not be moved. And
I shall not be moved. He gives me strength. He gives
me strength. That's my day. Oh my, bless his
name. He hideth my soul in the cleft
of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths
of His love and covers me there with His hand and covers me there. Number four, number four. When clothed in His brightness, Him This perfect salvation His
wonderful love I'm gonna shout. I'm gonna shout. I'm gonna shout Millions on high He hideth my soul in the cleft
of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty lake. He hideth my life in the depths
of His love. And covers me there with His
hand. And covers me there with His
hand. Lord bless you. See you tonight,
6 o'clock, God willing.