Greetings, friends, and welcome
to another broadcast of the Old School Primitive Baptist with
Elder Don Martin, Sr. Stay tuned for another gospel
message of God's free and sovereign grace. I would like to invite
your attention to the Gospel of Luke. Where Brother Bunny
was at. Luke's Gospel in the New Testament.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Luke's Gospel in Chapter 12. Luke's Gospel in Chapter 12.
If you have your Bibles and would like to follow me, I certainly
encourage you to do so. Luke's Gospel, Chapter 12, in
verse 22. This is Jesus speaking, verse
22, and he said unto his disciples, therefore I say unto you, take
no thought for your life, for what ye shall eat, neither for
the body, what ye shall put on it, talk about your clothing,
garment, He didn't say no walk around naked. He said just don't
be worried about looking so pretty that you want to be noticed.
But he says the life is more than meat and the body is more
than raiment. In other words, there's more
to life than just food and clothing. And he goes on to say, verse
24, consider the ravens, consider the birds, consider the fowls
of the air, for they neither sow nor reap, and which neither
have a storehouse nor barn. Now listen, a bird. I have a little bird that has
just recently come about my place, and I live in a mobile home,
on about a half acre in a humble little area there near Lake Panasoffee. I can see the lake from my house.
And at this time of the year, my favorite time of the year,
fall is my favorite time because summer has come, thank God, to
pass. The heat has begun to dissipate,
and here comes the cool breeze of some northern fresh air. Hallelujah. But you know something? Other
things come along with that. And birds are one of those things. They come shout, brother. There
was this little bird, now this week, I noticed about Tuesday
or Wednesday, I was sitting in the house there, and I was getting
my computer on, corresponding with some of the brethren up
north that I correspond with about daily. There was a group
of us on a forum called Free and Sovereign Grace. And I heard
this. Well, outside my back door, there's
a railing there and steps going down, and he's sitting right
there. It's like a little sparrow. And he's just sitting there,
and the sun has not come up all the way yet. It just barely started
to peek in. He was there just chirping away. I thought to myself,
well, he's probably just new in the area. He just made this
flight south, and he's landing here, and I guess he's probably
going to turn around next morning, about the same time. I'm a little bird brain anyway,
but I'd go, and he would answer me. Now, this morning he was
there again, and he's just a little old brown sparrow, and I thought
to myself, Why? I said, you know, God brings
them down from the north as the weather begins to move from the
Canadian regions and the fronts bring down the cold fronts that
bring the cool air and the birds, they sense this and in God's
divine purpose the way he's designed them in his sovereign purpose
they come moving southward to find refuge in the wintertime.
And this little bird was one of millions. The Bible says, as Jesus said
here, He said, Consider the ravens and the birds of the air, for
they can neither sow nor reap. They don't go out sowing. And
you all know what it is to sow. You sow by hand. You sow by machine. You fill up those vats on the
back of those supplanters. I've been to an old farm off
F14, a hand crank my granddaddy had. and pulled an old planter
behind it with a cord in it. There was only about four rows
at a time back then. Now they're probably planting
25 or 10, I don't know. But anyway, birds don't sow the
seed. And it says that the birds of
the air, they don't sow, nor go out and reap it like a farmer
would. But it says, which neither have
storehouses nor barns. Birds don't have storehouses,
they have nests. That's where they have their
eggs and their little ones out there which hatch out and they
go and they feed them from time to time with things they bring
in and feed them little birds. You've seen them with a little
house open there and mother drops a worm or something down in there. But a bird doesn't do that. A
bird just relies on God to provide what is needed for them to sustain
life as a fowl of the air. Because whether it's corn or
whatever kind of seed or worm or it is that God has provided,
it is there available. Now, let me tell you something
here, just a minute. I heard this this week. If Bill Gates, the owner of Microsoft,
who was the originator, designer, inventor of the Microsoft Computerware
company, who is worth more than a hundred billion dollars, okay,
if he was to take hundreds of billions of dollars to feed the
piles of the air upon the face of the earth, for one day would
go broke, brother Buddy, before he would accomplish feeding them
all for one day. But yet God feeds every bird
and fowl of the air, provides all of their need, along with
all of the other creatures that creepeth upon the ground, every
other varmint that's out there running through the woods of
the night, and every other thing and every cattle upon a thousand
hills. and has never wanted for nothing,
and never needed anybody to assist him in providing food to take
care of this person. For our God, almighty, omniscient, omnipotent to the point to where
he has provided all things needed for all things he has created
that liveth. Those things that creepeth on
the ground, I don't care whether it's a worm, a snake, or whether
it's that which runs through the woods as a fox or a possum,
whatever. Up where I'm at, at night I see
probably at least a couple, if I'm out running around after
dark in my car, armadillos running across the road there. And they're
so doggone blind. I mean, you run up on them and
they just man across the road. And I dodge them. I don't want
to hit them, dumb things. A lot of times if your car is
low and you hit them, They'll jump up and the next thing you
know they'll come in and bang your grill in or bust your headlight
or something. I mean, but, and turtles the
same way. I wouldn't hit a turtle for nothing
if I could help it. I've had birds fly out in front
of me, just all of a sudden fly out in front of me and I've hurt
my car, hit it, and look in the mirror and see it laying back
there, and I say, God, God, I didn't want to do that. I didn't want
to kill that bird. And then a piece would come over
me. And the Lord would say, you didn't want to kill that bird,
but yet it was time for it to cease its life here on this earth.
I took care of it. If he used me as an instrument
to take care of that bird's disease, so be it. God is God. People
need to realize, we need to let God be God. We don't tell God
what to do, how he ought to do it. Human logic don't make no
sense before the Almighty. But continuing on, he says, consider
the ravens. They don't sow what they eat,
and they don't go out and they harvest things and put them in
barns and storehouses, but God feeds it to them. How much more How much more are ye better than
the fowls? How much more are ye, talking
to the disciples, and to we this morning that be here that believe
on Jesus Christ, how much more important are we than the fowls
of the air? And God feeds every one of them
every day. Now I don't know, this is a fact,
but I would be doubtful if a bird, unless he was trapped somewhere,
ever goes without food for a day. But how much more important are
we that believe in Jesus Christ? For it says this, It says, in
verse 25, and which of you, which taking thought, in other words,
with your mind, can add to his statue one cubit? A cubit is approximately 18 inches. As you know, in the Old Testament,
Noah built the ark and it was so many cubits long. A cubit
was determined about 18 inches long, about a foot and a half.
How many, by just thinking about it, can cause your height to
be higher than it is? Can anyone stand up and say,
let's say I want to be 6'3", can cause themselves to grow
3 inches apart from putting on high heels or blocks in their
shoes? No. It's ridiculous. He says,
if ye then not able to do that thing which is least, why take
ye thought for the rest? Then why are we worried about
trying to do the rest? You say, well wait a minute,
does that mean we're supposed to just sit back in the house and not
do nothing? No, no. The Bible says a man
that does not work should not either. We're supposed to labor
for what we acquire to take care of our needs as God will provide
for us as we all get to that. But it says, consider, listen,
consider the lilies how they grow. You all know how lilies
grow, and all other flowers grow. You plant a seed, or you plant
a plant, you water it, you fertilize it, you nurse it along, take
care of it, and it grows. It produces whatever it does.
This tomato plant is going to produce tomatoes. If it's just
a flower, it will bring forth a beautiful flower. Whether it's
a rose, I don't care what it is. A sunflower, a great big
flower. A little bitty seed like that
brings forth a plant. As you know, Brother Earl, this
high and a plant, a flower that big. But the Bible says, and they toil not. In other words,
they don't work and plant themselves. It says, and they spend not,
and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed
like one of these. Solomon, the richest man in the
world as far as known to mankind, with all of his kingdom, with
all of his garden, botanical gardens, with all of the gold
inlaid things that he had inside his palace, with all of the and
woman servants, of all the horsemen, you know that Solomon had 10,000
prized horses, and he had thousands of horsemen? that not only rode
it but took care of it daily. Do you realize how much labor
went on in one day to take care of 10,000 horses, to keep a stall
clean and to feed them? And Brother Roy was here and
he could tell you. and some of you others that have
worked around horses and cattle all your life. I know, I used
to travel with a couple of guys that had a couple of feral breds
that raced them at county fair tracks on weekends. When I was
about 16, I went with them on Saturdays and we'd go to a county
fair track and I used to e-walk them after the races and then
cool them off. Boy, I tell you, they'd diggle
horses. When they get hot and start lathered
up sweating after running around a 3-8 mile track or something,
and you go walking them around this patch, and there's a water
trough sitting over there, and he sees that trough, buddy, he
wants to go get some of that water. And you let him go get
a little bit and then you got to jerk him away from him. And
you don't want to tell him a lot of times. You got to slap him
upside the head and get his attention and jerk him away. Walk him around
about two more, three more laps. Let him go get some more water.
You can't let him sit there and suck that water up all at one
time. He'll blow himself up. Do you
realize what it would take to take care of 10,000 horses? Do
you realize what Solomon had in all of his vast kingdoms?
And the temple that he made, if you read in the Old Testament,
Solomon's temple and all the inlaid cedars of Lebanon, the
best of wood that was there, the most beautiful inlaid silversmiths
and goldsmiths that were available in his time was there doing the
beautiful works upon all of the engraved furniture that he had
in that palace. And yet it says here that with
Solomon and all his glory was not arrayed like one of these
lilies of the field that God has made by his divine purpose
for us to look at. Isn't that the more beautiful
to look at? Look at these flowers here. Now I know that they are
not real, but they are certainly a demonstration of a replica
of what could be real. What man can make such a thing
as that with the beauty, with the greenery, with the brightness
of the red? Oh, some of the most beautiful
roses I've seen that have been hybridly come about in the last,
I don't know, maybe 20 or 30 years that are a beautiful peachy
looking orange. Oh, they're beautiful. What man
can take and make such a thing that God has put together to
make us to be able to enjoy the things that He makes? It says,
I then God so clothed the grass, in verse 28, which is today in
the field and tomorrow is cast into the oven. In other words,
the heat of the day is going to take and it's going to heat
the grass up and the grass will wilter. It says, how much more
will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? And truly that is a true
fact, O ye of little faith. So often I don't have the faith
that God is going to provide certain things for me. Sometimes
I think, well, how am I going to take care of this? How am
I going to take care of that? And especially before I retired
and was working I got in between jobs, I didn't
have any medical insurance. I had to buy my own medical insurance. I found and got some that had
about a hundred and five or six thousand dollar deductible just
in case I had a major dilemma come about such as a appendicitis
attack that needed my appendix removed or my gallbladder or
had a heart clogged up or something that needed to go in. At least
I got something to get me in the hospital whereas they won't
even I've got a high deductible so
I can afford to pay you. But I thought, how can I afford
it? How can I do this? How much more
important are we than the things of the natural realm as God's
people? And we are often faithless. I mean, some people don't even
have insurance and don't care to buy this. They just trust
the Lord to take care of me. Well, praise God for the measure
of faith they've been given to believe that. I pray that God
will give them the health and the body in the future and not
need to go into hospital for anything because they'll be in
deep trouble. But, nevertheless, it says, God is going to take
care of us. He says, and ye seek not, verse
29, what ye shall eat and what ye shall drink, neither be ye
of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations
of the world seek after, for your Father knoweth that ye what
ye have need of And these things that you do need. He says, for
the Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. Now God
knows everything we need. Now He's not concerned about
everything we want. Now, that's the difference. We
in this nation of America that have become the most prosperous,
industrialized, most comfortable people upon earth, until of late
we are having surveil and hardship financially, and it's going to
get worse, beloved brothers and sisters. We have had it made
and seen of the best of the best of all things regarding creature
comforts in our homes and lifestyles. But the Bible said that to the
Father knoweth all things that ye have need of, but rather seek
ye the kingdom of God and these things shall be added unto you. Another place in the scripture you want and what you need. Now our problem in our society
and the United States is that we have needs of things we want
and have been determined to get them no matter what it takes.
If it takes to max out five credit cards and pay $20 a month on
$10,000 debt and never pay nothing but even the interest, we'll
do it. Because we want what we want and we want it now. Jesus
said that ain't the way to live. Take no thoughts for tomorrow.
God's going to supply all your needs. And we need to get back
to the mindset of what we need versus what we want. There's
a lot of things I have wanted in life and not attained. And
then there is things I have wanted that I have attained. But after
I've attained them, did it bring happiness, joy, and did it bring
spiritual peace in my heart and mind? No! I've had some of the
best of the best of the things that I wanted. I bought new cars
when I was young and foolish every few years until I found
out that I was throwing away money. They depreciated the day
I drove them off the car lot and I had to still pay for them
for another four to five years. Even after the batteries go dead
and the tires wear off of them in three years, I still got to
pay for it two more years. Next thing you know, I did this
and did that and got into this hobby. I built race cars and
I was fortunate in being blessed enough that I was able to recoup
the money I invested in some of those endeavors, although
you never recoup the labor. If that ain't a labor of love,
you're in the wrong business and hobby. When you get into
something like that, whether it's airplanes you're building
at the Experimental Airplane Club, or whether it's building
drag race cars to go out here and play with on the weekends.
If you don't love the labor that you're putting into it, don't
ever think you're going to get your labor back. So it is with
playing in the garden. You don't get your labor back,
you're going to get the fruit of the harvest, you're going
to be able to get the corn, the wheat to go in and take and cook
and eat it and enjoy it. But Jesus said to seek ye first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be
added unto you. Everything you need. Every one
of you that's here this morning, I ask you this question. Has
not God provided for you everything you need? Has He not? And you say, well, yeah, but I would
like to have... No, no, no, no. I said, has He
not provided everything that you need up to this point? Yes, He... I can answer that
question. Yes, He has. anything else he
will supply it. Because he knows you need it.
And he loves his children with an everlasting love, with a sovereign
love, with an unconditional love. That's something that man don't
know much about, that unconditional love. You want me to tell you
the closest thing to unconditional love there is in the human realm?
It's a mother's love for a baby. that we as human mortals can
identify as unconditional love is a mother's love for a baby
she has conceived and carried for almost nine months and has
been begotten from her womb and she will care and love unconditionally
that baby even when that baby is 18 years old kills them dead, a mother will
say, he was a good boy, won't she? Now, won't she? Have you ever heard another on
TV where a son was picked up for killing somebody, or robbing
a place, and said, oh, he's a wicked kid, always has been, I ain't
had no count for him, he's been nothing but a punk? I've never
heard that. I've heard every one of them go say, oh, he's
a good my son that did this, and yet
they got witnesses that he killed a guy dead in a doornail. A mother's
love is unconditional. And you know what exceeds that
mother's love is God Almighty for His chosen elect, ordained
children that are written in the Lamb's Book of Life before
the foundations of the world. All of those elect heirs of grace,
brother Benny, that are then ordained to come and see Jesus
Christ as their only hope In the Old Testament, there were
conditions, but God said that if you shall be willing and obedient,
you shall taste the goodness of the land. Have you heard that
phrase from the buddy out of Isaiah? I've heard him, conditionalist. I'm going to tell him what it
is. I've heard him conditionalist, and what I mean by conditionalist
is primitive practice. that believe that there are conditions
added on to what men can do by duty obligations to gain the
merits of God's blessings. Let me tell you something. of God. They are unconditionally
given to God's children. It ain't dependent upon our obedience
because if it did, none of us would ever get a blessing of
God. Because none can be obedient enough to satisfy and appease
the God Almighty of Heaven's glory. He sent down the law and
he said this law is if if you don't do this, you're condemned.
You are under the curse of it. And men by nature are under the
curse of it from the time they're born from their mother's womb
until blood that was shed on the cross
of Calvary on their behalf. grace down through the ages of
time. There is no sin that can condemn
us now. We have been redeemed by the
blood of the Lamb. We have been born of the Spirit.
We have been sanctified by the grace of God and we shall be
ever in glory in the transformation of these mortal bodies when Jesus
comes back with a shout and the voice of an archangel and the
trump of God, that they which are alive and them which are
dead in the graves shall be raised up. And we which are alive and
remain at that time, according to 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 16,
shall be raised up and we shall be gathered together with him
in glory forever and eternity. That's the promise of my God.
He's going to supply all our needs. He's going to supply all
the atonement required to satisfy sin's debt. He's going to take
and supply everything needed to get our bodies out of this
graveyard in time and transform them into a new body like unto
His. And brother, buddy, we're coming
up with a new body. And we're going to come up and
we're going to be gathered together with the saints of God in glory
to gather around the throne of God and have Him say, come unto
me, my beloved Chosen. in Christ Jesus of whom the Lamb
of God here at my right hand hath paid for on that cruel cross
of Calvary and died for your very sins as you would be redeemed,
atoned for, and he is the mediator and the advocate in your behalf.
He stands here, and he sits here beside me, and he has said Welcome
into the glories of heaven and the bliss of eternal heaven's
home forever and ever. For in my Father's house, Jesus
said, I have prepared a place for you. If it were not so, I
would have told you. But in my Father's house are
many mansions. Oh yes, He's built mansions for
us. And there are many of them for
God's people. Let me close with this verse
here. Paul writing to the church at Philippi in Philippians. If you want to turn to it, I
believe it's Philippians chapter 4. Yes it is. Philippians chapter
4 and verse 19. Philippians chapter 4. Philippians
is one of Paul's epistles to the church at Philippi. He writes
this in chapter 19 of, excuse me, verse 19 of chapter 4. But
my God! shall supply all your need according
to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. My God, our God, shall supply
all our need I want, but all I need, according to his riches
in glory, and what are the riches in God's glory? They are innumerable. They are so vast. And even one
little aspect of it is that he has enough food to feed every
fowl of the land upon the face of the earth throughout all the
ages of time until it comes to an end. God's innumerable riches of grace
and everything that creepeth and especially of all of mankind
chosen in Christ Jesus as the Church and the Bride of Jesus
Christ shall have all their needs supplied according to the riches
in glory by Christ Jesus. The Bible says Paul writes that
Jesus Christ is our sufficiency. He's our sufficiency. He's sufficient
to take care and supply all things that we ever have need for in
this life. He takes and He has provided salvation to those of
the elect of God, chosen in Christ. He has provided salvation through
His royal blood that was shed on the cross of Calvary. He has
provided a life and life everlasting by the Holy Spirit that indwells
us by the new birth. He has supplied for us a body
that is awaiting us upon the day of resurrection. A body that
is going to be immortal, the Bible says. the natural element of this earth.
It shall be raised up a new body, a body like the one that Jesus
had when he came out of that tomb the third day. And he came
and he stood in the front of those that were in the upper
room that Brother Buddy was talking about when he came. time for
him to reveal himself in a resurrected form. And the Bible says the
door was closed and locked and Jesus came in through the door. Huh? Huh? You say, well that's
kind of ghostly. Tell it like it is. There's no
material things that holds back a resurrected body. He came into that room and he
came through and into that room with locked doors and stood in
their midst and he said, peace be unto you. And Thomas wasn't
there, if you remember. When Thomas was told about that
Jesus came and stood in their midst in a resurrected body,
they saw him. He said, oh man, come on now.
I wasn't there. I didn't see that. That was doubting
Thomas, you remember? Eight days later, they were gathered
in the same place. came again in the same room.
And he stood in the midst. He said, greetings, Thomas, peace
be unto you. He said, Lord. He said, come,
touch the wounds in my hands. Place your hand into my side. And Thomas said, Lord, my God, You see, Jesus knew that he was
doubting, but he wanted to dispel his doubt, as he does in our
minds as well. And as His Holy Spirit ministers
to us, our doubts are often dispelled when grace comes and Jesus Christ
is revealed to us in a sweet way. The special times that we
have, that we have when we cry out to God, O Lord, Thank you
for your kindness and mercies towards me. Oh, if it wasn't
for your blessed promises and your watch care over me, where
would I be? And where would we be? We would be so devastated
by sin's degradation that no man could ever have any help
or hope for us. But no, God has had mercy upon
those of whom he's chosen in Christ. The Bible says that Jesus
said that all that the Father had given to me shall come to
me and I shall know why I lose none. And he says everyone that
come to me are going to be those who are my sheep for they hear
my voice and they come. And that's the gospel. That's the gospel message. Jesus
Christ came to seek and save sinners. That he did. Let me ask you something. Is
Jesus Christ fulfilling what he said he would
do? Yes he is. Is he a failure? No way. He's seeking and saving everyone
that the Father has given him and I'm persuaded that when that
last little sheep that God has determined to be sought out whose
name was written in that last book of life, that God's going
to say, OK, my beloved son, bring her to an end, and he shall descend
from the heavens, and he'll send the angels to the four winds
of the earth and gather together at the elect of God. And we shall
be caught up and be with God. And then those who are passed
over by God's grace shall stand on the left side of God the Father
at the throne of judgment. and be told to depart into the
dreads of hell itself. You know, because they are the
ghosts. They are the terrors. They are not the sheep. They
are not the wheat that God has chosen to seek and save. And
so there shall it be. The final end of all things.
This earth shall be burnt with the fervor of heat and the elements
thereof shall be remembered no more as we know it now. You know
that everything on this earth has been made from the elements
that are here. Nothing has been brought in from
outer space or any other planet to make anything we've got. Everything
from the smallest aspirin pill to the largest machine that man
has devised or made has been made from the products that are
of the environment of this world. Whether it's iron, or steel,
or plastic, or whatever, it's made by the elements of this
world. And the Bible says that all things,
all the elements of this earth, shall finally, in the end of
this time, shall be burnt with a fervent heat, and shall be
turned to ash rubble. Then God is going to take and
He's going to make a new heaven and a new earth. And that holy
city of Jerusalem, New Jerusalem, is coming down from heaven's
glory and shall take its place upon a new, cleansed, purged
earth where there is no sin. And God's people shall dwell
there in righteousness with God our Father forever and eternity. That is a wonderful, good news
message. It is my prayer. that you have
been blessed to receive it and believe it. For Jesus' sake.