I have been blessed in my life,
all my life. I cannot remember a time when I was not in church. Now, since the Lord has taught
me what church is, I can remember a time when I was
in one that wasn't much. But the Lord has brought me through
so much. And I'm so thankful to be a part
of His family, to be a part of His church. How blessed we are. How blessed we are. And to know the truth. Somebody wrote a little old tract
one time. They call them a gospel tract.
Most of them ain't gospel. Somebody wrote a gospel tract.
And this was a fellow that was really hung up on the doctrine
of election. And we strongly believe in the
doctrine of election. It's strongly taught in God's
word. But this fellow went at it from an angle that you're
supposed to pick a fight all the time. And he titled his little
tract, The Damnable Doctrine of Election. And he asked a pastor friend
to read it. Yeah, because he'd been told, like myself, a lot
of times, that's damnable doctrine. So that's what he titled it.
But this dear old preacher that he asked to read it handed back
to him and said, everything's fine except the title. Call it the blessed doctrine
of election. And that's what it is. We're
so blessed that before God hung the stars, he chose to have a
family. And he chose that every one of
his family would be just like his son. And he's predestinous
to that, to be conformed to the image of his son. And that's
what we sung about. We're being saved to sin no more. How wonderful. Well, blessings,
blessedness, blessedness are belonging to the church. Not
just a local assembly, but God's church. And so I've asked Brother
Bobby to come first. And personally, I could spend
an hour on each one of these thoughts. But I said we'd work
it all in and let every man speak a few minutes. And Brother Bobby
is going to talk to us about the blessedness of unity in the
church family. Come on, brother. Appreciate
that. In every church that I have been
in and pastored over the years, I cannot help but notice the
differences in people. And as I look out this morning,
I see a very wide variety of types of people. We got Yankees. Uh-oh. They'll get over it. We have
Hispanics. I'm privileged to have a black
gentleman with us this morning. And then you got rednecks like
me. And though we all have our differences,
different cultures, different backgrounds, but there's one thing that unites
us, that brings us together as a family. And that is the blood of Christ. That is what God himself has
worked in each of us, making us one. We are one. Oftentimes I have throughout
my years in the church that I was raised in and a couple of the
churches that I have the privilege of pastoring that that oneness
has not always been evident. There was, it is the, it is the
job of the enemy to sow discord among the brethren. And he has
always been pretty effective at it. Um, I do not believe there is anything
that brings more. Um, dishonor to the name of Christ,
more reproach to the church than does discord and lack of unity. And there is nothing that brings
more honor, uh, to his name than does the church
when they are gathered together. in true unity. And I want to
tell you, folks, we are blessed to have such a church. We may not always agree, but
I have found none to be disagreeable. There is one short portion of
scripture in Psalm 133 that came to mind immediately when Brother
Carol asked me to speak on this subject. Psalm 133 says a song
of degrees of David. Behold, how good and pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Yes, it is like the
precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard,
even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garments.
As the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains
of Zion. For there the Lord commanded
the blessing, even life forevermore. This is a Psalm of David. And
David, as you know, was a man who was plagued his entire life
with conflict and discord. Of course, there was the conflict
with Saul. And even later, the conflict
with his enemies, the Philistines, the conflict after he became
king, even within his own family and his life was filled with
discord. And perhaps this song was written
at a time, a temporary time when there was peace and there was
unity within the nation, because he says, behold, look, look how
good and how pleasant it is. for brethren to dwell together
in unity. Whenever there is unity, true
unity and harmony within the church, it is from God Himself
because He is called the God of peace. It says that He is
not the author of confusion, And the peace itself is referred
to as the peace of God that passeth all understandings. And he says
that it is good. Behold how good. And it is good
because it comes from God. And we receive the good benefits
when we live in unity and in peace with one another. Now,
There can be unity without harmony. We want unity with harmony. You
can tie two old tomcats together by the tail and throw them across
a clothesline and you've got unity, but you don't have harmony. And just because we get together
every Sunday, we may be unified in that sense. But the unity
that he is speaking of here is the unity that brings peace and
brings harmony within the church. And he says it's good. It is
good. And he says also that it is pleasant.
It is pleasant or it is pleasing. First of all, it is pleasant
to God when he observes his children living in unity and in harmony. We as natural parents, we delight
when our children are getting along, don't we? Isn't it wonderful
when there's peace in the home and nobody's fussing and the
kids are not fighting? But we as parents also know that
that's not always been the case if you grew up with siblings.
I remember some of the fights that my brother and I had growing
up, and they got pretty bad. Some of them did. I mean, it
ended up with sticks and rocks. And I remember how upset my mother
would get And she would just cry, just break her heart when
she saw her children fussing and fighting. And if you've ever
had two or three in the back seat together on a long trip, you know how good it is when
they're getting along and they're not fussing and fighting. So
how much more is the Lord pleased when he sees his children in
peace and at harmony with one another? So it is pleasing to
God. It is pleasant to Him. And it
is also pleasant to us. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it
great? Have you ever been to church and you dreaded to go
because you did not know what to expect when you got there?
I grew up in a church where every first Sunday of every month we
had a business meeting, a conference. And I dreaded to go because I
knew there was going to be a fuss and a fight and an argument.
That's not pleasing. That's stressful. But when there
is peace, when there is unity within the body, it's a pleasure. It's pleasing. It's pleasant
to come and enjoy the fellowship of God's people. Something very
interesting I noticed when I was studying a little bit about this,
this same word pleasant is the same Hebrew word that is used
to describe harmony in music. Isn't that interesting? What really makes beautiful music
is when you've got several people who can sing all the parts. You've
got the soprano, you've got the alto, you've got the tenor, you've
got the bass, and all of those voices blending together, each
singing a different part, but creating that most beautiful
music. And you see, all of us as the
people of God, as His church, we all sing our part. We are
here to do what God has called each of us to do, as He had given
grace to each of us. And when each of us sings our
part, not in conflict with the other singers, but in harmony
with them, each part complements the other. And so each of us,
We compliment one another in the church. I got to hurry. I told my wife
this morning, I said, I could preach an hour on this, but I'm
going to hurry through it, I promise. And he also says, good and pleasant
for brethren. Who are our brethren? The Bible
tells us that we are to as much as life in us live peaceably
with all men. But we know that It just doesn't
lie in us to live peaceably with all men because all men are not
peaceable. But we are to especially live
peaceably and in harmony with the brethren. And I do not believe
in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of humanity.
No, no. God is not the father. of this
world, Jesus says you are of your father the devil and the
lust of your father will you do. He is the father of the church. The church is my brethren. For brethren to dwell together
in unity. Acts 4.32 says the multitude
of them that believed were of one heart and one soul. The church is to be in one heart
and one soul, even as the Godhead is in agreement with one another.
As the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in full agreement,
and so the church is to be in full agreement. Now, all of us,
we have our differences of opinion about certain things. But the
church that is led of the Spirit, the church that is filled with
the Spirit, we are here for one common purpose. We have one common
motive, one common goal, and that is to glorify God and to
worship Him. And though we may, like I said,
have differences of opinion about certain things, But we are unified
in purpose. We are not divided as to why
we are here and what our purpose is. And then we'll carry on very
quickly and notice what he likens this unity to. He says it is
like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the
beard, even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his
garment. He locked it into the anointing
oil that was put upon the high priest. This anointing oil was
made of olive oil and of various sweet spices and it was very
fragrant. And when there is unity in the
church, there is fragrance in the church, spiritual fragrance.
It was poured upon his head and it was poured liberally. They
didn't just take a little bit and dab it. He took the vial
and poured it upon his head, and it ran down his head, down
through his beard, and even onto his garments. And as the high
priest was anointed, so it says that Christ, our great high priest,
was anointed with the oil of gladness above all of his fellows. Psalm 45 and verse 7. And so as Christ, the anointed
of God, the anointed one of the Father, As he was anointed, so that same
anointing, he as our head, the head of the church, that same
anointing flows down from him onto us. And we carry the sweet
fragrance of that anointing to one another. I think of Mary
when she anointed the feet of Jesus. and how that she took
that box of spikenard and she broke it and she anointed his
feet with it. And when she was rebuked, Jesus
says, leave her alone for she hath anointed me for my burial. And the fragrance of that anointing
was carried by Christ to the cross. But it was also carried
upon Mary because as she worshiped, that fragrance saturated into
her hands. It filled the house where all
the people were sitting. And so we as the church, when
we are gathered together in unity and in worship, so in a sense,
we are anointing Christ. And so we receive ourselves the
benefits of that anointing. And then lastly, I'll close with
this and just read these few verses in Ephesians chapter four. Verses 1 through 6, and I will
not even comment. I'll just read these verses. Ephesians 4, 1 through 6. I,
therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you should
walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you're called with all loneliness
and meekness and long suffering for bearing one another in love,
endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of
peace. There is one body and one spirit, even as also, even
as you are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is above all
and through all and in you all. Amen. Amen. Amen. God bless you. Thank you, Brother
Bobby. So well said. The blessedness
of the unity of the church. Next I've asked my friend, brother
Dennis Grail. Dennis is the pastor of the Valley
View Baptist Church over in Jonathan Creek near Maggie Valley. And,
uh, I've asked him to speak out about the blessedness of interaction
and fellowship. with a sister church. I don't
have to tell most of you that for many years, all the years
I've been here, we haven't had a lot of fellowship with neighboring
churches in this area. And the reason is because of
what we believe and because of what they believe. And it's just,
it's not just a matter of what we believe, but of what the Bible
teaches, what God's word teaches. Doctrine. that God's not on the losing
end. He's the winner. He's the winner. And I confess
that my attitude has not always been right about this. I've struggled
for a lot of years to talk to people and try to change people.
I'm not going to change what they believe, but I thank God
they're not going to change what I believe. And so we rejoice in the truth. And Brother Dennis and I have
been friends for a lot of year. Brother Jack James, that many
of you know, goes to Dennis's church. And I appreciate these
dear brethren with all my heart. It's good to have Dennis and
Brenda. So Dennis, I want you to come talk to us just a few
moments about the blessedness of God providing a sister church
to have fellowship with. We've had his group over numerous
times for a fire pit and food and singing for an hour or two,
disturb the neighborhood. And then we've done the same
thing over at their place. And we're going to be doing it
again right away. Come on, Dennis. It's good to be here. Carol and
I have associated for a lot of years. And I don't know about
Carol, We used to have what we'd consider pastor conferences. Yeah. And it more or less what
it amounted to, the pastors had services and each pastor would
have a message. And during that period of time,
that was the greatest help that I had because in my mind, I've
never really realized what it is to be a pastor, because I
never thought I'd ever be one. I do realize God called me to
be in the ministry, but I always just looked at it as maybe a
teacher or something. But nevertheless, that's, it's
been, He has in fact blessed me. And I personally, all I can
say about The whole concept of church and combination of churches
being together over the course of my Christianity life, I found
that there's so many differences in thoughts that people have. And what I'm seeing in our society
today is that the main function that you have as even a Christian,
is the fact that you can, in fact, identify, associate with,
and relate to the Holy Ghost, God's Spirit in that sense. Because
anything about your life that revolves around Christianity,
religion, it is geared by the Holy Ghost, which is here because
Christ accomplished what He accomplished. He said, He must leave so the
Comforter could come. And the Holy Ghost is here operating,
and He's in every Christian's life. Now the thing about that
being there, you have to cultivate it. Now that is your responsibility.
When God enters your life and becomes a part of you, well,
you are in God's family. And just like he read, you were
put in Christ before the foundation of the world. And in this life,
there was time passed before God identified the fact that
you were part of His family. And doing that, it puts you in
what we consider the church. So if you have your Bibles, go
to 1 Corinthians chapter number one, 1 Corinthians
chapter number one. And in my Bible, it's page 202. I don't know if that'll help
you or not. Not at all. Now let me read,
I'm going to read several verses, but I want to deal with just
one aspect of this. Let me begin reading it at chapter
1, verse 1 in 1 Corinthians. And it noted, Paul, called to
be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and Soselus,
I can't pronounce part of these words, our brother, unto the
church of God, which is Corinth. Well, we're aware of the fact
that Paul traveled around a lot of places and undoubtedly this
church was established or had been He says, To them that are
sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints with all in every
place, call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs
and ours. Grace be unto you and peace from
God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God
always on your behalf for the grace of God, which is given
you by Jesus Christ. Now, in these verses coming,
it's where my thoughts derive from when Carroll asked me about
the unity that he said was going to be subjected, and then the
unity or the differences in the church world being in one mind
with another assembly. We have assemblies all over.
You can leave here now, we're over in Haywood County. You can
leave here, there's churches all over the place. But how many
of them really are sound, spiritually oriented by the Holy Ghost in
their worship? And is it really worship? Or
is it all in your hands? Now, one of the most prevalent
statement that's said, I've been in church too, I was talking
about, I was taken to church whether I wanted to go or not.
And unfortunately, when I was growing up, he mentioned all
of the different people. I'm a hillbilly. He missed that. A redneck hillbilly. But I was
taken to church whether I wanted to go to church or not. But I
went, and I listened to a lot of things. But the one thing
that's been prevalent in my mind over all these years It's always
been all you have to do is accept. Well, I wondered about that. Well, if I'm accepting, you know,
why don't stuff change? And it didn't. And at that time,
I, well, unfortunately, I wasn't a very good little kid. beyond mischievous, I guess.
But anyway, so whenever we would, I was taking the church and I
said, well, then I won't pray for somebody. Well, my mama,
first thing my mama done, thought about me, that I needed it. And she was right. There's no
doubt about that I did. But over the course of time,
I found out, well, why are all these differences in ideas about
church and about religion, about your salvation? and your relationship
to God. And the biggest thing I found
is the Spirit was missing. I didn't realize it, but the
Spirit was missing. Now, so I got to looking whenever
Paul asked me, this scripture came definitely to my mind. Go to verse 5 there in the text. He said that in everything you
are enriched by Him. in all utterance and in all knowledge."
Now you notice the terminology. It says, enriched by Him. In other words, if you have a
knowledge, you didn't just get out there and grab up a book
and get it. And if you read this text of Scripture that we have,
the Bible, it's a comic book if God does not, by His Spirit,
open it up to your mind. And that's what the Spirit does.
And then we go on. Verse 6 is, Even as the testimony
of Christ was, and this word is what I want to deal with,
confirmed in you. Now, you notice the things that
goes with that. He first started out with utterance,
knowledge, and then testimony. And then it says, Of Christ was
confirmed in you. Now I'm going to come back and
talk about that just for a minute. Down verse 7. He says, though
that you come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ. And yeah, He will come. There's
no doubt about it. And then he goes on and says
when He comes, He says, who shall also confirm you unto the end
that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, that confirmation carries a lot of stuff with it. Now,
we're talking about the unity and the things that revolve around
churches becoming alike. In other words, they have the
same ideas, the same doctrines, the same beliefs. Well, that
comes through what Paul's talking about. If Christ is confirmed,
God is confirmed. And if that be so, you have to
look, well, what does confirm mean? Just exactly what takes
in that confirmation? Well, the first thing about it
is, it is an establishment of truth. Now, today we are taught
that there's a gray area. You know those bigums? And little. No, there ain't. There ain't. You think, well, if I tell, just
twist the story just a little. No. What happens if you twist
the story just a little? It's a lie. And there's no way
you can change it. You know? The concept of our society in
all of our churches is not based on Scripture. It's based on an
opinion. Everybody's got an opinion. We
all do. But an opinion doesn't always
coincide with what has been recorded in this book. And the confirmation
is an establishment of all of those things that, first off,
it becomes that your concept of truth and that God does exist,
that everything that you know about God, Him being totally
sovereign, is established in your mind and heart with no doubts
there. gentleman here taught the class,
he had doubts lots of times. Well, if you're human, you have
a corrupt nature that comes from Adam. And you're going to have
those doubts. And there's times that you'll
be just wondering, where is God? But I assure you, He's there.
And He has never left you. Once He enters your life, He's
there. What happens is you let Adam get over here and get in
control. That's the reason I say cultivating the Spirit is important.
That confirmation I'll go goes down to it's a solid thing about
belief. Now, why do you suppose that
people don't care about going to church? I mean, you think
about it. Have you ever, and I take for
instance, You leave your home on Sunday morning, and you'd
think, well, if everybody's concerned about going to the church assembly,
why is the road full of cars? There's something going on. And
how many sports events are on Sunday? All of them. Just about every sport. They
hold it all through the week. Got to peg it on Sunday. Well,
I've studied here for a long time, which may be off track
a little bit, but you're in the big ear of this Antichrist system.
You're in it. And that's hard to receive, but
anyway. But being confirmed, how do you
do that? First off, God puts it in your
mind, because now I read it right there. Now notice, even as the testimony
of Christ was confirmed in you. Now we find that one scripture
where it says two people or more will make something solid. You
know, the testimony of two or more. And then we're also told
to forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. Well,
that's the question. That's what Carol was asking
me to talk about. Why churches, you know, can come
together and worship together and have the same mind. Simply
because that spirit has to be there to confirm the truth. If it does, that will automatically
create harmony. Because, in effect, the reason
that you come to assemble together is to receive that confirmation.
If you read a scripture and don't understand it, what does God
tell you what it means? He puts you in an assembly. Somebody
will be there. Now you take Carol, he comes
on Sunday morning and stands here. Do you know who you're
talking to? Do you know who that message
is really for? But in your hearts you know the
message is there, don't you? God puts the message there. You
have to understand, you may not be the one that message is designed
for that day. But I can assure you, if you
remember it, you will need it sometime in your walk. Because
God does not do anything that's not purposed. Now we don't know,
if we send a message that God has put on our heart, we don't
know who that message is for. Maybe for us. But nevertheless,
God will take that message to where it goes. And whenever God
does that, that's what brings the assembling of harmony. And if every church in this country
was confirmed by God You wouldn't have a bit of trouble going to
that church and hearing the truth if God was in it. But that's
not the case because God's not, they don't have the confirmation. And that's what gives us the
desire to gather together. You might have a thought that
God put there. You might get an answer through
a song. You might get it through a testimony. And chances are
the message will probably be for you whenever you've been
praying and wanting an answer. And that's the whole concept.
When I got to looking at that confirmed, that's what I was
seeing. In other words, you think about
it. The world today does not even
want to believe there is a God. They refuse it. Now you take
just like this episode with the virus that we have. Now think
about it. Can you die if God says you can't
die? Well, really, think about it.
Can you stay alive if God says you ain't going to stay alive? Well, I mean, that's the whole
concept being confirmed. A man has to understand that
God is supreme. He is sovereign. And for all
practical purposes, if you were to get the coronavirus, if God
had not before the foundation set it up for your time to be
going, you ain't going to leave. And I personally, I lost count
of how many times that if it wasn't the fact God had something
else for me to do, I'd be dead. I can't count how many times
that stuff's happened that should have killed me. I even died on
the operating table. I had a stent put in my heart,
and I just died. I know I was dead for a while.
People say, well, you see, life's not all that stuff. No. But I
was at the most peace I've ever been in before. While I was there,
I did not feel nothing. I was hurting before I passed
out. But when I woke up, I was feeling really good, and then
all of a sudden, that pain come back. Good. I might have been
better off to have stayed dead. But anyway, and the wife of mine
said, yes, leave him there. But anyway, in that thought, if Christ has
been confirmed in you. And you associate with another
group, and that same concept is there. The confirmation of
Christ is there. You won't have any problems associating
with that establishment. But the thing that I've found
that it's hard to associate with when it's all you, you, you,
you. If you do this and you don't
do that, and if you do this and do that, God's going to be favors
to you. Well, unfortunately, that ain't
how it works. God is already in your behalf. God is already
taking care of you. You have to ask yourself one
question. I'll close and let the other fellow come. How many
times a day did you breathe? How many times in a week do you
breathe? No, honestly, God did it. That's
it. That's it. Thank you, Brother Dennis. Blessed,
blessedness of the church. Well, another thought, we'll
move right along here. I've asked Brother Darrell to
come in a moment and speak to us about the blessedness of the outreach of the church. Now, I realize that we're just
a small group. Many of you are not here every Sunday. Sometimes
there's less than this number of us here. But the Lord has
blessed us through the years of people being faithful in attendance
and faithful in giving. And I emphasize this quite often,
we don't give to the church, you give to the
Lord. You give to the Lord. Brother
Bobby was on a unity thing. I remember years ago, we had
a custom fight here one time. And this fellow said, well, I
put more money in this church than anybody. And I said, you don't supposed
to be putting it in the church. Supposed to be giving it to the Lord. We give to the Lord. And he has
been so faithful in using it and dispensing it. And so we're
just a small group. It may not seem like we do a
lot. So far as outreach, we do support an evangelist friend,
Brother Tom Hayes. And he told me just a few days
ago how truly thankful he is. that we've helped him because
he preaches in churches around the country. And during all this
virus thing, he went about two months and didn't preach. So
that means no money. But the Lord has used this assembly
to help him a little bit through the years. Also, we support our
local rescue mission down here on Seventh Avenue with a gift
every month. Am I totally in favor of everything
due there? I'm sure I'm not. But that's not the issue. The
Lord put it in our heart to start helping them years ago. We also
support a Gracia, I don't have that name
with me, printing ministry. Dear brother, it was God put
it in his heart to start printing old, old sovereign grace materials. solid stuff, old, old books out
of print. And he sends them to South American
countries and in this country to pastors for Bible schools
and so on. Sound, solid stuff, gills, virgin,
pink, all these. And that ministry has grown. They're printing thousands and
thousands and shipping them out. It's truly a blessed thing. And
we have a small part in that. to pat ourselves on the back,
but this is what God does through the church, through the church. I had a fellow one time, oh Bobby,
now I'm having trouble, I could go an hour. I had a fellow one
time, preacher, supposed to be, live close to Bobby, not your
problem, invited me to a prayer meeting.
Well, I knew he'd caused trouble in every church he'd ever been
in. He invited me to a cottage prayer meeting, and I love cottage
prayer meetings. But I said, well, what church are you affiliated
with? What church are you out of? Oh, well, this ain't nothing
to do with church. It's totally different. Totally different.
Nothing to do with church. I want to tell you what this book says.
Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. And I'm a firm believer that
every ministry, any type of ministry, any type of charity, everything
should be an outreach of a local church for God to honor it. I know of lots of so-called ministries
that have bit the dust. I know of Christian schools that
have bit the dust. I want to tell you right now, the
church. And the outreach of the church is God's doing. So, and,
and, and as I said, it may seem like we don't do a lot, but every
week, almost every week, we print a little bulletin to give out
to the people here. Monica does a tremendous job in printing
that, uh, typing that in and printing it for me. I do most
of the articles, print that. And, uh, brother Daryl takes
these and distributes them. And also, the Lord blessed us
some years ago with our friend, Brother Don Fortner, out of Kentucky
to put some of our sermons online on Free Grace Radio. And Brother
Darrell keeps up with that and sends out copies and tapes and
so on. And he converses with people
around the country. So I didn't mean to say all I wanted you
to say. I've asked Brother Darrell to come and share with us just
a moment about the blessedness of the outreach of a church.
And this is God's doing. It's us. Not something we dreamed
up. God's doing this. Thank you, brother. I'd like to share a few thoughts.
Pastor Carroll has been here 32 years. I've known him over
half that time. And I'm very thankful for it. We are very blessed to have him
as a pastor. With sovereign pre-grace message
that is We hear that weekly and we can be thankful for that.
I'd like to read a couple of verses, scripture. Amos 8, 11. Behold, the days come, saith
the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine
of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the
Lord. Yes. And they shall wander from
sea to sea and from north even to the east. They shall run to
and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it."
Also in Judges, the last verse of Judges, it says, there is
no king in Israel. And each man did that which was
right in his own eyes. And I believe we are living in
that day and age again, which they had at their time, and we
have been blessed by the Lord of heaven and earth that he has
brought forth a sovereign great message unto us that we hear. And in so hearing that, I have
shared it with other brethren, sisters and brothers all around
our nation. I've sent it four, five, six
different states and many hearts and souls in those states. and
I do it fairly often. Some of them I take off of sermon
audio and text them to different brothers, sisters, all over the
nation and they have been blessed to them. Some of the brethren
have been here for services, some of them have never been
here. But the messages we hear here go a lot further than just
Hendersonville, North Carolina. And I am very thankful for Monica
and printing the bulletins. They have been very enriching.
I share a little story. My brother-in-law, who is a missionary,
he's been in 30 countries. He came here two years ago, three
years ago, maybe two, three years ago. And we came early, came
for Sunday school, and they passed out the bulletins. And he was
reading in the bulletin, he came, tapped me on the shoulder, look
at this, look at this. And after the Bible study was
over, he said, did you hear what he said? I said, yes, I did.
He said, wow. And then on the way home after
the message, he said, did you hear that message? I said, yes.
He was so thankful to have heard. And it was a three-part blessing
for him from the bulletin, the Sunday school, and the message. And I thank God. that we hear
today, yet, as it spoke in Amos about the famine, for that living
food. There are multitudes of churches
around. We've been to many of them. And they speak about God. They don't speak of God. And
that's a big difference. And when the heart has truly
partaken, it speaks of God. And without that, We are lost. And we are blessed here. And
so that's why, on my little part, I try to send it to all the brethren
I can. All the people that I can. We
don't know the end of it. I don't know where it all goes.
I went to South Dakota last October. I took a stack of all the things
with me. I left them at the church we were at. I don't know where
they all went. It doesn't matter. God knows. That is very, very blessed. When we look at this religious
but lost world and the despising of the sovereign God in multitudes
of places, our heart laments for them and we cry that God
would yet awaken and bring forth leaders, pastors, and brethren
that would feed the sheep. And so it is that we here have
been blessed by God with a pastor that feeds us. And I don't praise
Carol as a person. I praise God in bringing the
message through him. As I said, I've known him for
over half the time that he's been a pastor here. And I know
we didn't know each other very long. And we were out doing tree
plantings, and we were discussing the word of God. And it's been
wonderful ever since. So with that, I close. And I
thank you all. Thank you, dear brother, for
those comments. OK, we've got one more. Won't
be too long now. See, if you went to a black church,
Lee will tell you this. You'd get to eat in another hour
or two. But now we see we might get to
eat quicker than that. I asked Brother Jim to come and
speak a word about this other blessedness of the church. The privilege to minister to
each other in our times of need and sorrow and trouble. A lot of people live like, you
know, I won't ever need anybody that much. I've needed somebody
that much many times. And you know who it's been? It's
been the Lord's people that he would use to help me and lift
me up. And I could tell you time and
time and time and time again, through these many years, when
I had a personal problem, a family problem, physical problem, financial
problem, Every kind of problem you can think of, a preacher
has. A preacher just is a problem. It's that simple. But God, that's the key. But God used His people to bring
us through. And many others, if you could
say the same thing. And a lot of people think when you get
in deep trouble, that's the time to quit the church. Oh boy, I
tried God. He didn't do it for me. I'm going
on my own. Well, that won't do it for you
either, my friend. Here's where you need to be to get to know, to fellowship
with, and enjoy the blessedness of being together with God's
people. There's strength in it. There's healing in it. Come on,
Jim, I'm taking your message. Give us just a few moments and
then You didn't get to sing today, then we'll let you sing and then
you can be closed. All right. I am grateful to have a opportunity
to talk some more. This is wonderful. This is very
wonderful. The unity in the church. What
a privilege. To get together with people that
we belong. That's one of the things that
rooted us here right out of the gate. We walked in and almost
instantly felt we belong. The Lord's work in Terici U has
made it part that way. The joy, the privilege it is
to know that there's other groups of like-minded, like-hearted
Christians that we can dare to be comfortable with. What a blessing. What a privilege
to be able to serve together with people we don't see all
the time. Some that we've never even met,
we just hear about. It's a privilege to be able to
do that. It's a privilege to be trusted with an outreach
to those who haven't heard or to those who need to hear something
that's been given to us. To take what we have and to pass
it on. Turn with me now, if you would, to Matthew chapter 25.
I'm not going to promise to be short. I know better than that. Yes. Okay. Matthew chapter 25. The privilege of ministering
to one another in our time of need. Matthew 25, verse 34. Then shall the king say unto
them on his right hand, come ye blessed of my father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
That sounds wonderful. For I was hungry and you gave
me meat. I was thirsty and you gave me
drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. Naked and you clothed
me. I was sick and you visited me,
I was in prison and you came unto me. Then shall the righteous
answer him saying, Lord, when saw we thee in hungry and fed
thee or thirsty and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger
and took thee in or naked and clothed thee? Or when saw we
thee sick or in prison and came unto thee? And the king shall
answer and say unto them, verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as ye
have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye
have done it unto me." The privilege of ministering
to one another in our time of need. We all have needs, we all
have those times, and we all have each other. That is God's arrangement of
things. And He did it on purpose. And
He did it well. I only have a little bit of notes. And that is the gist of what
I wanted to say. We all have one another because
God has put us together. He's put us together for one
another. I need you. in ways I can't describe
or request or ask you about. I need you to be you. You need
me in ways that you don't know how to ask. And then together
we serve the Lord in serving the needs of one another. As
much as you have done it unto the least of these, my brethren,
you have done it unto me. That is what he said. That's
what he meant. Serving God. You want to serve Christ. You
want to be a minister. Folks, these shoes fit every
one of us. That's the way they belong.