And the purpose and privilege we
have is, first of all, you know, I was in a Presbyterian church. It was a Baptist and a Presbyterian
that were meeting together. And the Baptist church ended
up, Daniel Parks ended up pastoring it. But they were meeting in
a Presbyterian building, and this fellow that had us up for
a meeting, He was a Baptist at the time, but he became a Presbyterian
after that. But I said all that to say this,
that there was a woman there, and they was catechizing the
children. And they go through the catechisms.
And that's the statements of faith, statements of doctrine.
And they brought the kids out, you know, let us see how much
they had learned and how they could recite the catechism. They
brought the kids out, and the first catechism is this. Man's chief end is to glorify
God and enjoy Him forever. Now that's what God made us for.
To glorify and enjoy Him forever. Now those kids, they've been
taught that. But God taught us that in our hearts. We have been
taught that by the Holy Spirit. That our, you know, Bruce Crabtree
got up in one of our very first conferences. And he read one
verse of Scripture, and the power of God fell on him in that one
verse. And it was 1 Corinthians 10.31. He says, Whatsoever ye
eat, whatsoever ye drink, do all for the glory of God. And
that's what I want to talk about tonight. That God's the Creator.
Not unto us, O Lord. Not unto us. It says there in
that first verse of Psalm 115, But unto thy name give glory,
for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake. And the reason is, our
God's in the heavens. Our God's in the heavens. And
He does whatsoever He pleases. You see, it's God that made us.
We're the creatures. He's the Creator. And Paul told
them on Mars Hill, he told them there in Athens, he says, it's
by Him we live and move and have our being. God don't dwell in
temples made with hands. He's not worshiped with silver
and gold in man's hands. He lives by Him we live. By Him we move. By Him we have
an existence. And in God creating all things,
He made all things with a purpose. Everything has a purpose. Everything
in this world has a purpose. That's what is said in Ecclesiastes,
that every time and every season there is a purpose. Everything
on this earth that's made, animate and inanimate, vegetable, animal,
or mineral, has a purpose. God made it for a purpose. And
they have an end. He has a design for them. flies. We don't know why, but
they're there. They eat carrion. They eat rotten
flesh of it. And eat a lot of things. And
they, but, you know, mosquitoes. Things that we don't understand,
but they have a purpose. They have a purpose. But He made
us. We're the highest creation that
God made. He said, let us make man in our
own image. Let us make man. Let's make Him
in our image. And God made all things with
a purpose, and He made us with an end. He made us with a design.
He made us with a purpose. And that purpose is, first of
all, to glorify Him, and secondly, to enjoy Him. And I tell you,
I was telling Todd yesterday, when I walked in and saw Brother
Scott, There layin' that little frail body, layin' there in that
casket. I began to get so happy. I began to rejoice. I thought,
this is the most wonderful thing in the world. There lays his
body, but he's not there. You know, cause he now, he lived
his life to glorify God, and now he's enjoyin' Him forever.
But if you won't enjoy Him, you won't enjoy Him forever if you
don't start enjoying Him here. If you don't enjoy Him now, you
certainly won't enjoy Him forever. If you don't enjoy His presence,
don't enjoy His power, don't enjoy His Word, don't enjoy His
Gospel, don't enjoy His Son, don't enjoy the salvation, if
you don't enjoy Him now, you'll never enjoy Him forever. Huh? And I want us to look at a few
things that we can glorify God with, our Heavenly Father. And
the first one is this. The first one is this. We can
glorify God, and we must glorify Him this way, by never excusing
or justifying any sin we commit. Now, you know, say, that don't
hardly make sense. Well, if you know yourself, it
does. So you know what Adam said? It's
the woman you gave me. You know what Eve said? It's
the serpent that beguiled me. And that's the way man has always
been. He's always had somebody else
to blame for what he's done. And thus the thing about it is
that we can never, ever, that we will dishonor God, bring reproach
on God, if we ever excuse ourselves and justify ourselves in any
sin we do. Whether it's pride, or anger,
or impatience, or whatever it is that we do. That's what we've
got to be very careful about. And I want you to turn with me
over to Luke, just 23, just a minute. Luke 23. Here's a man, here's a man in Luke 23, that
thief on the cross, his whole life, his whole life was lived
in dishonor to God. Luke 23, 39. This man, this one
thief on the cross, his life dishonored God. Both of them
did. Yet when he died, in his death, he brought glory to God
by what? Confessing what he was. Owning
what he was. And that's one of the hardest
things for human nature to do, is confess what they are. To
confess that they're impotent, confess that they're sinners,
and whenever they sin, the only one thing they can do is confess
it to God. You know, I was thinking about
this this afternoon. Over there where it says, confess your false
one to another. And what that means, I'm going
to tell you what that means. That don't mean for us to stand up
here and start telling one another how bad sinners we was, and things
we've done today, and things we should have done, shouldn't
have done, and, oh, I'm sorry that I acted this way, and all
that. That's not what he's talking about. Whenever we're together, privately,
we can confess our faults one to another. But to get up here,
the only place you need to confess your sin is to Him. The only
place you need to confess what's wrong with you is to Him. He's
the only one who can do anything about it. That's right. Look
here in Luke 23, verse 39. And one of the malefactors, which
were hanged, railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, if you are
who you say you are, save yourself and us. You talk about the Christ,
the Messiah, you've come to save men, you've got all power, you
was promised of God. But the other answering him rebuked
him, saying, Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same
condemnation? And, O beloved, one of the first
things that God does for us, He puts the fear of God in our
heart. where we, beloved, are not going to excuse ourselves
or anybody else. And what's this? And we indeed
justly, for we receive the dear rewards of our deeds. And, beloved,
we understand that when God begins to do something for us, that
we receive the just rewards of our deeds. As one fellow said,
it's a miracle that we're not in hell. And the reason we're
not is because of what Christ did. But this man, he says, we
receive the dear reward of our deeds. We're getting what our
lives deserve. But this man, Christ hath done
nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord,
remember me when you come into your kingdom. And what he was
saying was that this man, I'm here justly. I'm confessing my
sins. I'm not excusing my sins. I'm
not excusing my life. I'm not even going to ask Him
to save me off of this cross. When you come to your kingdom,
will you remember me? And he brought more glory to
God in the last moments of his life than most people will bring
to God in all of their lives because they'll never, ever own
themselves to be what they are. Is that not right? And let me
show you another in Joshua 7 about this business of excuse and sin.
Joshua 7. Joshua is right after Deuteronomy. Joshua 7. Y'all know the story
of Achan. Now he stole that wedge of gold
and he hid it. And whenever we confess our
sin, we're just telling the truth on ourselves. We don't have to
make up anything. Joshua 7, verse 19. It says this, And Joshua said
unto Achan, talking about glorifying God now, Joshua said unto Achan,
My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel. Now
watch it. How are you going to do that?
Make confession unto him. Tell him now, tell me now what
you've done. Hide it not from me. Confess
your sin to God. That's it. Bring glory to him
in doing that. And oh beloved, and the thing is, is that we The only person we need to confess
to is Him, and confession glorifies God and not excusing our sin
because it clears Him. It clears Him, and when we confess
and not excuse our sin, we're confessing and acknowledging
that He is just, that He is holy, And that in you understand that
being a sinner, you deserve nothing but just condemnation. And you
know that's why David said, I guess thee and thee only have I sinned
and done this evil in your sight, that when you speak, you'll be
cleared. You'll be just in whatever you
do with me. And I tell you, beloved, a true confession of, you know,
I'm not We've got to do that. Some of you here have never confessed
your faith. None of you have never confessed your sin. You've
never said, I'm a sinner. You've never come before God
and said, Lord, I'm a sinner and there ain't nothing to me.
I'm a sinner from the top of my head to the sole of my foot.
I'm a sinner from the inside of my soul to the outside of
my skin. I breathe it. I see it. I hear it. I do it.
It's me. Some of you have never done that.
But a true confession honors and glorifies the Lord. It's
like the prodigal. When he started home, you know
what the first thing he told his father was? I have sinned
against thee and against heaven. You know what the father said?
Put on the best robe. And until that's done, there
ain't a robe coming on. Until that's done, there's not
going to be a ring put on. Until that's done, there's not
going to be shoes put on. And that's what happens. Let
me tell you another thing about how we can glorify God and bring
honor to Him. Not only by not excusing and
justifying our sin, but actually confessing them to Him. Not justifying
them by what somebody else done, what somebody else caused us
to do. Just don't play Adam and Eve. Just don't do that. And
we bring glory to God by believing Him. By believing Him. That's
why you know they said there, Psalm 115, wherefore David said,
wherefore should the heathen say? When the heathen say, where
is now their God? And that's what people look at.
You know, faith glorifies God, for faith says the Lord God is
true. Faith acknowledged that God is
true. He says He says it. Over in 1 John 5.10, it says
there, he that believeth not God, what does it say? Hath made
him a liar. To believe not God in the record
that He gave of His Son is to make God a liar. And faith glorifies
God, for faith says that God is true, that He is as He says
He is. Look over in John 3 with me just
a moment. John 3.3. John's Gospel 3.3. You know, Without faith it's impossible
to plead. John 3.33, excuse me. John 3.33. I beg your pardon. John 3.33. Look what it says. He that hath received his testimony. What testimony? The testimony
of God. The testimony of John. What John
said about Christ. What the Holy Spirit said about
Christ. He hath received his testimony. hath set to his seal
that God is true." I mean, he set a seal on this that God is
true. Do you receive the testimony
of God? You say, well, God's true then. I give evidence. I give evidence
in the court of heaven. I give evidence in the court
of law. I give evidence to anybody who listens to me that God is
true. That God cannot lie. That God
cannot change. That God Himself is perfect in
every way and has no spots or blemishes. And He is perfect. And faith says that. We received
His testimony. Is there any part of this book
that you don't receive? Tabalites don't want the Old
Testament. And they don't believe that the
Holy Spirit even does any work at all. And in the Jesus only,
all they believe is, is that Jesus only. They don't believe
in the Father, and they don't believe in the Holy Spirit. Pentecostals believe you've got
no evidence of being saved unless you're speaking in tongues. Now, as those folks sit to their
seal that God is true, and they receive the testimony of God. Now, let me show you something
Hebrews 11. Let me go over that for just a minute. Hebrews 11. You know what? Faith is a wonderful
thing. Faith is, oh, it honors God more
than anything a human being can do on the face of this earth.
I don't care how many works you do. I don't care how many services
you attend, how many messages we preach. How much money we
give? Faith honors God more than anything
you can do on the face of the earth. Just believe in Him. Just
believe Him. Just believe Him. And here in
Hebrews 11, it says, Now faith is the substance of things hoped
for. That substance means the confidence of the things hoped
for. In all of mine, we've got an eternal hope. We've got a
hope of righteousness and glory. We've got a hope of being conformed
to the image of Christ. We've got a hope that all of
our sins are gone. We've got a hope that we're going
to be with Christ forever. And then faith gives evidence
of those things that I just mentioned. We haven't seen them. Well, I
haven't seen faith, but I've got it. And that faith gives
you evidence of things you don't even see. Now, watch this. By faith, the elders obtained
a good report. Who gave them a good report?
God gave him a good report. That's what Hebrews 11's about.
God said, by faith, by faith, by faith. God said, Abraham,
believe me, and he's my friend. Moses walked in it, walked with
God. Why would a man walk with God
if he didn't do it by faith? You know, you know, if you're
going to walk with God, you're going to have to walk with Him
by faith. You can't walk with him no other way. And then look
what it says. Not only does God give a good
report, look what God says about him. He says, by faith, Abel
offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice. And by that he obtained,
not only did his, the report that God gave him, that God bear
witness that, which he obtained witness that he was righteous.
Now listen to what God said about him. God testifying of his gifts. How would you like God to testify
of his gifts? He brought a lamb, and God says,
that man has faith, and I'm going to testify of his gifts, and
he died and went the first man to go into glory. Huh? That's right. And even though
he's dead, God's still talking about him. Oh, what a good report. By faith! Enoch was translated,
that he should not see death, and was not found. Listen to
this. For his translation, he had this
testimony, that he pleased God. That's an awful good report.
God said, I'm going to give a report of my people, my children, those
that believe me. And that's what our Lord Jesus
Christ talks about. He says, you know, when he said,
Philip, when Philip said, show us the Father, that would be
sufficient. That would satisfy. He said, Philip, I've been with
you such a long time and you've not seen me. He has seen me.
I've seen the Father. And oh, here we go. And he gives
this wonderful report. Look what else he says in verse
6. But without faith, impossible
to please. Leave out those italics. Without
faith, impossible to please. For he that cometh to God must
believe that he is, and he is a rewarder of them that diligently
seek him by faith, nor of being warned of things of God." Watch
this, going down there in the part, "...prepared an ark to
the Saviour's house, by which he condemned the world, and became
heir of the righteousness which is by faith." Oh, God gave a
good report. And let me tell you something
else, that not only does faith obtain a good report, But faith
gives God a good report. Faith gives God a good report,
don't it? Paul said it like this, I know
whom I have to believe. And not only do I know whom I
have to believe, but I'm persuaded. I'm persuaded. I'm convinced.
That what I've committed unto Him against that day, He's able
to keep it. And being confident in this one
thing, that He has begun a good work in you, what's He going
to do? He's going to perform it. Oh,
faith turns around and you know what faith says? When it says,
not unto us, not unto us, O Lord, but unto thy name give glory,
faith says this, God forbid that I should glory save anything
but the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what faith says. Faith does not get up and start
telling everything that's been done for the Lord. No, no, faith
gets up and tells everything the Lord's done for it, for them. And oh, beloved, faith Faith
glorifies God. Why? Because it flees to God. Flees to God. We sung that song,
Jesus never fails. Jesus never fails. And has He
ever failed? Did He ever fail any of His own
children? He said, I'm out. He says, you go preach. And don't
take no money with you. Don't take a coat with you. Don't
take a purse with you. Don't take shoes with you. Don't
take nothing with you. You just go start preaching. When they got back, he says,
now, when I sent you out, did you lack anything? They said,
nothing. And then when they said, have you caught anything? After
they toiled all night fishing, he said, have you caught anything?
They said, nothing. And you know what he did? He gave them something.
He gave them bread and fish on the fire. Oh, bless his holy name. Faith
flees to God. Faith flees to His Son. God will
have His Son. And we flee to His mercy and
His truth for refuge. Where are we going to hide from
this world, from the lies of this world, the opinions of this
world, the religion of this world? Where are we going to hide from
our own loathesomeness, our own sin, our own weakness, our own
inability, our own faults and our own faith? Where are we going
to hide at? Where are we going to hide at? Only in Him. He said, I'll be your help and
your shield. And wouldn't you know when you
need a shield? It's when somebody's shooting at you. Somebody's trying
to hurt you. And this, he said, I'll be your
shield. And I tell you, beloved, he said, when wind day enters,
I'll be your shield. And oh, beloved, he trusts. And
I tell you, this is what faith does. Faith trusts himself, that
person who has trust himself in all that he has. Everything
he has, his wife, his children, his home, his money, his health,
everything, to Lord God in heaven himself. He just gives it all
into his hands. And what he does with it, that's
wonderful. Look on Titus, right back here
in the first, Titus is right before you get to the beginning
of Hebrews. Left in Hebrews, and you come
to Titus. Look what it says here. Oh, beloved, God honors faith.
You know why God said, I'll honor them. Titus, the epistle to Titus,
right before you get to the book of Hebrews. You know, God said, honor them
who honor me. And God honors faith because
faith honors God. Faith sees Him and endures in
seeing Him who is invisible. Look what the apostles said here
in Titus 1-1. Verse 1 and 2. Paul, a servant
of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ. Listen now. According
to the faith of God's elect. What do the faith of God's elect
do? First thing they do, they acknowledge the truth. That's
the first thing, they acknowledge the truth. Why do they acknowledge
the truth? Because God in me. I saw the Lord, I lifted up.
He acknowledged Him for He was in His glory on His throne. The
second word out of His mouth was me. And faith acknowledges the truth,
which is after darkness, like God Himself. And watch this,
in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised
before the world began. Do you believe that promise? Oh, beloved. Well, let me give
you another one here real quick. And God is glorified, not only
by faith and by us never excusing our sin or justifying our sin.
Don't be like the Pharisees, and don't be like Adam and Eve,
and don't be like those who excuse their sin. You know, it's like
Aaron, you know, when Moses comes down off the mountain, he comes
down with the tablets of stone for the first time. I mean, he
went up there and he got those two tablets. One had the relationship
with God, and the other the relationship with man to man. Here he comes
down off that mountain, and he hears all this noise, and God
said, get down there quick. And he went down there, and he
was standing there close enough to see them. And there they was,
some of them was naked as jaybirds, dancing, and playing, and eating. Moses took that law, and there's
rocks there, and he'd slow them down and bust them all to pieces.
He went up to Aaron and said, Aaron, what are you doing? What
has happened here? You know what Aaron said? He
said, they made me do it. You know, they gave me some gold,
and I threw it in the fire, and out come a golden calf. And they
made me do it. If it hadn't been for them, I
wouldn't have done it. Where's this fellow Moses at?
He ain't coming back, so we need somebody, we need a God. This
Vegas wasn't that quick. And that's what they said over
there, where's now your God? We've got one's got ears, but
he don't hear. Eyes, he don't see. Mouth, but he don't speak.
Arms, but he can't reach. He got feet, but he can't walk.
But our God's in the heavens. And we endure seeing Him who
is invisible. I tell you, God is glorified
when we stand true to His truth. When we stand true to thus saith
the Lord. This is our God's purpose for
us. Stand true to the justice of the Lord. Unto thy name give
glory, for thy mercy and thy truth's sake. The most precious
thing that we possess is our souls. That's the most precious
thing that we ourselves possess. Our Lord said, what would a man
give in exchange for his soul? And I tell you what, we trust
God with that, the most precious thing we have, our eternal souls. We trust God with them. And God
has nothing richer to trust us with than with His truth. Even
as we were allowed to be put in trust with the gospel, even
so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God. And that's why,
you know, I've been going through Jude, and Jude's right there.
He said, I wrote unto you that you should earnestly, earnestly,
earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered unto
the saints. Men contend for their traditions. They contend for
their ceremonies. They contend for their works.
They contend for their denominations. They contend for their professions.
They contend for a thousand things. But the believer only needs to
contend and must contend for one thing, the faith, what we
believe. And we must earnestly contend
for the truths as it is in Christ Jesus. And let me tell you another
way to be glorified, by walking cheerfully and contentedly in
this world. Be cheerful and be content. You
may have to pray, Lord, make me content. And when you're not
contented, just tell him. Don't tell anybody else. Just tell him. You know, walking
cheerfully and contentedly. When a child of God walks cheerfully
in the worst of times, oh, how it glorifies God. How it glorifies
God. Whenever you can say, it's the
Lord. It's the Lord doing this. And I'm not upset with Him. I'm
not angry at Him. I'm not impatient with Him. I'm
not upset with what He's doing to me and doing to my family,
doing in my home, doing with my children, doing with my wife,
doing with my husband. I'm not upset with Him. And, oh, beloved, we have reason
to be cheerful. Let me give you one over in Psalm
100. Let me give you one reason, one thing here, why we ought
to be cheerful. I know two fellas, Fred Wood and Wayne Boyd, whenever
you talk to those two fellas, they just, you know, you'd think
they're both fixing to just leave this world right now. They're
both so happy and cheerful all the time. That's just the way they are. Now, you know, that's the way
they are when they're talking to me. And we have reason to be cheerful.
Look here in Psalm 100. Make a joyful noise unto the
Lord, all ye lands. If God tells the lands to do
it, well, it made a joyful noise today with all that thunder and
lightning and rain. It made a real joyful noise to
it. The land did. Serve the Lord with gladness.
What? Serving with gladness? My goodness. I thought we were
supposed to be burdened down over how far we come short of
God. That's why God provided Christ.
Because we've come short of the glory of God, that's why God
provided Christ. And come before His presence
with singing. Now watch this. Know ye that
the Lord, He is God. He is God. It is He that hath
made us, and not we ourselves. Now when He's talking about we
made us and not we ourselves, He's talking about making us
new creatures. Because He goes on to talk about the sheep of
His pasture. You know, that's what He means, that He has made
us It's He that made us. It's He that made us sheep. It's
He that made us converts. It's He that made us new creatures.
It's He that gave us salvation. And not we ourselves. We didn't
make ourselves new creatures. We didn't make ourselves sheep.
We didn't make ourselves have life. We are His people and the
sheep of His pasture. He does that for us. And so we've got every reason
to be cheerful. We're justified and sanctified.
Talked about that Sunday. Oh, justified freely by His grace. We've been adopted, and as adopted
sons of God, that means that whatever the Son has, whatever
God has for His sons, we get that. As adopted sons of God,
He sent the Spirit of adoption. That means that whatever Christ
inherits, we inherit with Him. And we've been redeemed. Our
sins are gone, and we've been made righteous. Christ has made
unto us all that we need—wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. We have grace for every trial that we go through.
Every trial we go through, we have grace for it. God gives
grace for the trial. You don't need grace for trials
until you're in a trial. You don't need sufficient grace
until you're in a situation where you need it. As your days be,
so shall your strength be. And oh, we ought to be cheerful
and contented because what our Lord Jesus worked out for us.
Oh, what a salvation He worked out for us. What He worked out
for us. From the day He was born until
the day He died, He rendered absolute, perfect obedience to
His Holy Father. And then He took His obedience
and went to that cross and was treated as a disobedient son
of Adam, and God Himself punished him with our sins upon him. And
he was buried, and he was raised again for our justification.
We ought to be cheerful what Christ our Lord worked out for
us, and always ought to be cheerful for what the Holy Spirit works
in us. We wouldn't know anything about what He worked out for
us if the Holy Spirit hadn't worked it in us. And not only did He work it in
us, but He's still working it in us. Still working in us. And
I'll tell you, beloved, if a soul is downcast, walks around downcast
all the time, downcast, like change, countless
and falling. If a soul goes downcast all the
time, sad all the time, you know what it reflects on? Reflects
on its master. If you knew a woman and she was
just miserable all the time, sad all the time, down all the
time, depressed all the time, you know what you'd think? Her
husband certainly don't treat her very well. Husband don't treat her very
well. If they're not content, not happy, They say, well, her
husband must be awful hard to man. If a husband goes with his
face down all the time, well, his wife must be an awful hard
woman to live. And that's what people say about seeing people
that are believers, and they go with an old downcast, old
sad, old blue acting all the time. Well, you know, how you
do it? How you do it? Listen. Life couldn't be any better.
I'm serious about that. Honestly, what God's done for
us, we're going to have heartaches,
we're going to have troubles, and we're going to have tears.
But we can be content in those things. We certainly can. We cannot never say anything
against God about it. And many have tears, and many
have complaints. But oh my, even with my tears,
I want by God's grace, and I know you do too, to say, Bless the
Lord, O my soul and all that's within me.