Turn with me now to Genesis chapter
35. Jacob has said in his heart to
obey the Word of God, leave that place that promised peace but
could not deliver it. And so he calls for his whole
house and calls for their attention to what he's about to do. He tells them to surrender their
false gods and to get shed of everything that identified them
with these idols. And they willingly brought them
to him, handed them over, took out their earrings, took off
the foolish things of this world, And he told them to cleanse themselves
in clean water, change their clothes. You know, I was thinking
as I brought this message last week, anything, anything, I don't
care what it is, that we put before God is an act. I don't
care what it is. Paul even went so far as to call
covetousness idolatry. We see things. These eyes see
things. It wants things. Those things
become idols if we're not careful. Not careful. And I thought about this. Do
not treat worship. Do not treat worship as a common
thing. Don't come here with the same
attitude and spirit that you come to go to a ball game. Don't
bring it with you. Leave it home. And I refuse to
make a lot of silly rules and regulations like churches do,
but I'm just going to simply say this. Bring your best. Bring your best mind. The best
mind. That mind, if you was figuring
up your bills, you sat down and you're figuring up your bottom
line, I guarantee you ain't going to do it when you're like this.
You're going to get the best time, when your mind's as sharp
as it can be, and you're going to sit down and figure up your
taxes and figure up what you owe and pay your bills. Bring
your best mind. Bring your best attitude. Don't
come here with a rotten attitude from the day. I know what days
bring. I've lived enough days to know
what days are all about. Don't bring those things here.
Leave those things at home. Bring your best attitude down
here. Bring your best. Put on your best clothes, your
best smile, the best attitude. Prepare yourself as best you
can. And I'm saying that because I
don't know what you've just gone through that day. I don't know
what you've gone through. I don't know where you're at.
I don't know how much time you've had to spend. I don't know how
much time you had before you come down here. All I'm saying
is do your best. If your best is your work clothes,
wear your work clothes. If your best is tired, come tired. But do your best. Do your best. Bring your best attitude and
prepare yourself the best you can. And pray for the services. Pastor, I have trouble with prayer. I do too. I don't know anybody
that don't. But do the best you can. Do the
best you can. And don't do these things to
impress men or especially not to impress God. He's not impressed. But because the God we worship
and the God who has begun a good work in our hearts demands it
and deserves it. You know, they brought some things
to David and David just to offer to God. You remember reading
about that? David said, I'm not going to offer anything, I'm
not going to sacrifice anything to God that didn't cost me something.
This didn't cost me nothing. I'm not sacrificing it. And I
honestly believe, I believe if the president called us to a
meeting at the White House, I don't think we'd assume it to be one
of them come-as-you-are arrangements, do you? I think we'd take, even
if we hated his guts, We'd have enough respect for the majesty
and dignity of that office to take the best we had when we
went. And that's what I'm saying before
God. And this is not about works.
This is not about self-righteousness. This is not about making broader
phylacteries like the Pharisees did. This is about the majesty
and dignity of the living God. Jacob is beginning And that's
what faith is. It's a lifelong turning. It's
a lifelong coming. It's a lifelong walking. It's
a lifelong revelation. And his revelation of God is
beginning to mature. And he's beginning to see some
things. And now he's sitting down here in this mess. And God,
according to the Word of God, he's ready to come back up to
the house of God. But he's doing it now with some
reverence. He's doing it now in reverence.
And having set his house in order as best he could, and I know
what that's like, he goes to Bethel. And arriving there, he
builds him a new altar. The old altar he called Bethel. The new altar he calls El Bethel,
the God of Bethel. And somewhere, I don't know,
I wrote this down, I believe this is the truth. I believe
this is my personal experience. Somewhere in the confusion and
mundane affairs of life, we seem to lose sight of God. Now, you
do it, and I do it. We do. We lose sight of God as
the day begins to pour out its problems and difficulties and
troubles and trials, our minds and hearts just wallowed up with
it. Kathy and I lived in a little town, and the name of the town
was Crestline. This is way up in north central
Ohio. And the reason they called it
Crestline is because that's where the New York Central Railroad
and the Pennsylvania Railroad crisscrossed in that town. And
the town was just built around it. And in its heyday, they had
roundhouses and railroad work and things there that was just
out of this world. But by the time we came along,
all that was done away and it was just trains. going both ways,
but no matter where you went in that town, you had to cross
the railroad. And I remember going to school
one day and going down Main Street, and I know in my subconscious
I seen that train. There was a train sitting right
there on the track, dead standstill sitting there. And the gates
were down and the cars were there and the trains were stopped.
And I remember seeing it, but I was a young kid. And I got
my mind on basketball and Whatever. And I'm walking and I'm walking
and I'm walking and when I got out in the middle of those tracks,
that engineer reached up and blasted that horn. And I'm telling
you, when I turned around, that thing was as big as a battleship.
Just a little old kid, you know. I'm standing there and this thing's
about ten feet away. I looked at that train and every
thought in my mind and heart was gone. I couldn't see anything
except that train. That's all I could see. Now isn't
that just exactly how things come up on us in this world?
We got our minds and hearts on this and that and something else
and they come in unexpected and they come in suddenly and boom! Everything in your mind gone.
Gone. And all you can see is the trouble.
All you can see is the trial. All you can see is the train.
And life has a lot of horns and a lot of trains. It's full of
them. And they all come suddenly and they all come unexpected.
And we quickly lose everything we have on our minds and hearts.
And I know that God's everywhere present. I know that. I know
that the Holy Spirit of God dwells in us and will never leave us
or forsake us. You can see throughout the travels,
throughout the sojourn of these old patriarchs, you can see God's
presence with them every step of the way. He was with Jacob
down in his father-in-law's house. He was with him in those troubles.
He was with him when he took his bride. He was with him when
he was lied to. He was with him out on that mountainside
to protect him from his father-in-law. He was with him at that riverbank.
He was with him when he met Esau, and he was with him down in Succoth.
And now he's with him going up to the house of God. God is everywhere
present. The Holy Spirit of God dwells
in us. He'll never leave us nor ever
forsake us. But his presence is known in
the house of God like it is nowhere else. I can't possibly emphasize
that enough. His presence is known here more
so than it is anywhere else in your journey. This is going to
be the most significant part of your faith if you're a believer,
right here in this place, worshiping God. That's where you're going
to learn who God is and that's where you're going to learn who
you are. And that's what the Lord, He uses these experiences.
He uses these trials. He uses those things that we
go through out in the world. But He brings you in here to
teach you what those things were all about and how to face the
next one. It's the most significant place
as far as His presence is concerned, that we'll deal with in this
world. It's here that He takes those
experiences of life and teaches us what they're all about. It's
here that the Word of God is applied, and it's here where
we're stirred to worship. You know, the disciples were
believers. They were believers. Christ prayed
and said that He gave them His Word, and they received it. I've
got no reason to doubt that they were believers. But they never
talked when they walked down that road about their heart burning
in them, did they? Until he come along. And then
when he began to speak, and then when he gathered them together,
and he began back at Moses, and he went through those things
again, he said, then opened to their understanding, that they
might understand the Scriptures. And then they looked at one another
when he's gone and said, boy, you remember back when we were
walking down that road and he come out and started, didn't
our hearts burn within us? Oh, I hunger for that. I hunger
for it here. I hunger for it for you. And
it's here that we find encouragement and fellowship and kinship of
heart. You're not going to find that
out in the world. A young man called me this week.
He wants to be baptized. He wants to join the church.
He's been coming here now ever since I've been here. He's been
coming here and listening and listening and listening and he
had no Strange experiences. He didn't have anything. It felt
like it fell on him out of heaven. He said, it's just week by week
listening to you and listening to your tapes and things and
listening to you teach the scriptures. And he said, I was raised in
Armenian religion. And he said, I never saw these
things. And I began to see them. And
now I find them everywhere. I find them on every page. And
he said, it's just been a two-year persuasion of God that's convinced
me that what you're preaching is the truth. I believe it. I
rejoice in it. I want to be a part of it. So there's no kindred spirit out
there. His family thinks we're a cult. His family's pretty much
cut him off and told him that That place you're going over
there has separated you from us. It's separated you from everything
we've taught you about God and everything we've taught you about
salvation. That place over there is a cult.
And it's pretty much separated him from his family. There's
no kindred. There's no kinship of heart out
there. The kinship's here. You know,
our Lord had just brought this message on the strong man. And one stronger than he must
come in and overcome him and spoil his house and take his
goods. Talking about Christ coming into our hearts. And while he
was teaching that great lesson, a bunch of folks run up to him
and tapped him on the shoulder and stopped him from teaching.
Interrupted his preaching just like I'm here tonight. Somebody
come up and tugging on my shoulder saying, hey, hey, your mama and
your brothers and your sisters are outside. He said, who is my mother? And
he pointed to his disciples, and he said, there's my mother,
my father, my sisters, and my brothers. This is them. Now if the others can fit in,
they can come on in. James came in, didn't he? Some of them did. Some of them
did. And we rejoice when they do.
But this is your family. This is God's family that gathers
here. There's a kinship of heart. And
the only thing that I've got in common with my own family
is my blood. That's it. If we can talk about
fishing or talk about skiing or talk about something like
hiking or camping or, you know, go back and talk about when we
were kids, then I can talk to them all day long. But if we
get off of those things, I've got no common ground whatsoever.
And we seldom agree on anything because we're standing on two
different foundations and we're living in two different kingdoms.
And we've got two just separate minds. But most especially, when we
come into the house of the Lord, we learn two things. And I've
decided to split this message up into two parts. Here's the two things. We're
going to learn who we are. who we are in the widest possible range
that you can imagine. We're going to learn who we are,
and then we're going to learn who He is. Now, that's what you're
learning here. And in learning these two, that's
where salvation's at, knowing God. Now, tonight I just want
to focus on these four statements here in Genesis 35, verse 10. He makes four statements to Jacob
concerning his name, and all four statements are found right
here in Genesis 35, verse 10. First of all, God declares to
His elect, He said, Thy name is Jacob. You're not going to
get out of it? That's what it is. That's what
it is. Now, name is a word with a lot
of meaning. I suggest you go home, get your
dictionary, get your Webster's Dictionary or some good dictionary
and set up and look up that word name. It means to designate. We give names to designate or
classify according to certain characteristics. Our Lord said,
I am Alpha and Omega. That classified him, didn't it? A name can mean denomination,
religious groups, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and so on. It
can mean political groups. It can mean monetary value. A $1 bill is one denomination. A $5 bill is another. Sometimes
a name means rank or position, like a captain or a general.
Sometimes a name is used as what the old writers called an appellation. What in the world is an appellation?
Well, let me give you some examples. Abraham. That was his name. God
changed his name to Abraham. But he was given another appellation. And his appellation was the Father
of the Faithful. Old Lincoln. Abe Lincoln. Honest
Abe. Some people call him. He was
the Emancipator. That's an appellation. And sometimes
a name is given as a nickname. I'm talking to you about this one down in Suckath who
come against Jacob, whose son had committed this awful crime,
and I called him Old Smoothie. That's a nickname. That's a nickname. The Lord called Herod a fox. That was his nickname. Fox. So names refer to things in relation
to their place, in relation to their character, to their function,
to their station, and to their reputation. And it's given to
distinguish as an individual or sometimes it's given to include
into a group, a name. And as we consider the name of
Jacob, he's talking about everything that I mentioned tonight when
he talks about Jacob. So as I go through here, I'm
not going to make the application again. I've already told you
this. This is what his name means. So you just keep in mind that
he's talking about all these things. Now the name Jacob means
one who lies in wait, waiting for an advantage, plotting and
planning his moves. Setting things up in his favor.
We like to get things in our favor. I remember with the big
church split years ago. Everybody got together for about
a week and they got everything arranged around where everything
was right in favor with what was going on. And then it means
plotting and planning his moves and setting things up in his
favor. And it also means finagler. He's ready to trick or delude
by crafty means. to get what he wants by his own
hand. He's got things figured out.
He gets things planned and lined up. All religion talks about
today is the plan of salvation. God doesn't have a plan of salvation. God decreed salvation. Salvation's
fixed. It's not a plan that's got to
be worked out. It's something already accomplished.
Already accomplished. It's decreed of God. It's from
everlasting. But to get what they want here,
they like to work things out. So they get this plan, and they
present it as a plan. And this is the name that identifies
all God's elect. Your name's Jacob, God said.
I know you for who you are. Your name's Jacob. You remember
back when he wrestled with him back there on the brink of that
stream right there just before it emptied into Jordan. He came
to him. And he wrestled with him, and he got a hold of him,
and he said, what's your name? He said, Jacob. And that's what
God's reminding him of now in his house. He said, your name's
Jacob. We're all penegulars by nature, trying by advantage to
gain entry into the kingdom of God. That's man's nature. It's our nature. It's everybody
else's nature. We are, every one of us, penegulars. A necklace. We want an advantage. We look for loopholes. Trying
by wisdom of words to broaden out the Word of God or narrow
God's Word according as to what suits the occasion that we're
ready. And the Apostle Paul, let me
use him as an example. The Apostle Paul was a religious
man. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.
In his own eyes and the eyes of religion and the eyes of his
own family, he was an honest man. He was honest in the community. We know a lot of people like
that. Maybe some of them don't go to church anywhere. Maybe
some of them go here and go there. But they're honest people. They
pay their bills. They don't try to cheat people.
One of them tells you, well, I'll be over Wednesday night.
You can count on it. He'd be there Wednesday night,
whoever. They're honest folks. Paul was like that. He paid his
bills. He kept his promises. He did not defraud his neighbor.
And as far as natural men could see, Paul was an honest man.
But now turn with me over to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Just
hold your place in Genesis and turn over there to 2 Corinthians
chapter 4. Paul makes this declaration not
only about himself, but about all those that came and preached
the gospel to this church at Corinth. And he's talking about all those
that received that gospel. Now watch this here in 2 Corinthians
4, verse 2. This is an honest man. This is
a man who had a perfect reputation. He said, as touching the law,
I was blameless in that old natural state. But here he says in verse
2 of 2 Corinthians 4 that he had renounced the hidden things
of dishonesty. What on earth is he talking about?
He wasn't a dishonest man. But he was. He was in his heart. And he was by nature. And he
was by deceit. We renounce the hidden things
of dishonesty. Not walking in craftiness. That
old finagler. Watch this. Nor handling the
Word of God deceitfully. We don't take the Word of God
now and try to finagle and twist it and turn it and make it say
something that it don't say. God loves the sinner and hates
his sin. That's handling the Word of God
deceitfully. That's what that is. But He said,
by manifestation of the truth. of the truth, and we commend
ourselves to every man's conscience. Anybody who comes in here and
sits and listens to me, I commit what I'm saying to your own conscience
before God. And these hidden things of dishonesty
are the things concerning the kingdom of God. These are the
things that concern salvation and your natural state and what
must be your spiritual state. These things are hidden. They're
spiritual things, things not seen with natural eyes, not known
by natural minds, not perceived by natural understanding. And
he says in verse 3, if our gospel be hid, and that's what's hidden,
is what's declared in the gospel, if this be hid, it's hid to them
that are lost. In whom the God of this world,
now watch this, hath blinded the minds of them that believe
not. Lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the
image of God, should shine unto them. They're blind to it. They
don't see it. And they still operate. I don't
care who he is. He operates not necessarily knowing
what he's doing, but still there are hidden things of dishonesty
that motivate him. They're in his conversations.
They're in the way he thinks, just like this young man's family.
has told him that we're a cult. Their family don't even know
us. They don't know us from having
never been here. Hidden things of dishonesty.
Our name is Jacob, a niggler, ignorant of God, influenced by
the world, drawn in by its schemes. Until God declares who He is
and shows us who we are, we'll defend and identify with the
religion of this world. But I'll tell you this, Jacob
is also a beloved name. Before a world who despised him, before a father who preferred
Esau over him, God said, I love Jacob. He didn't say, I love
Israel. He said, I love Jacob. Jacob. That's hard. That's hard to conceive
of. God loves you. If you're His
at last, He loves you. Walter as you are, Jacob. Jacob have I loved, he said. He said, Jacob is going to rule. And he said, I am the God of
Jacob. It was a beloved name. God was in that name too. Your
name, Jacob. All right, here's the second
declaration. He tells him back here in Genesis
35 verse 10, thy name shall not be called anymore Jacob. You're not going to be identified
with these hidden things of dishonesty anymore. That's not how folks
are going to know you. I know you. You go down there
to Nazarene church. No, they're not going to know
you that way anymore. They won't know you that way anymore. I
remember you. I was at the church that night,
and you come down the aisle. I remember that. We all got up
front and got around that mourner's bench and wept. We remember that.
You remember we had a party after that, and that following Sunday,
you was baptized. You remember? You ain't going
to be known that way anymore. You're not going to be known
Jacob anymore. They're not going to identify
you with that old religion anymore. You're going to be identified
with a new name, with a new name. He's not going to call you Jacob
anymore. Jacob describes us to a T. It's how we distinguished ourselves
among men. Jacob defines our old walk. Jacob
is the name of the way we travel. Jacob is our name. Praise God,
no one in heaven, earth, and hell can call you Jacob anymore. God said, you're not going to
be called by that name because God decreed it. Listen to what
Paul tells those folks. They was over there. These were
saved men and women. We're just as foolish as they
were. But here they are, and they're arguing over who saved
them. They're arguing over who they
heard, and which preacher was the best, and which one was the
closest to God, and which one could was most accepted of God
and which conversion would be the highest and all, just like
the apostles, questioning one another, one who's going to be
cheapest in the kingdom of God. And Paul said, who maketh thee
to differ from another? Who maketh thee to differ? Did
religion do that? Was that their speaker that did
that? Who made you to differ? Paul said in Romans 3 verse 9
that the Jews were no better off than the heathen because
they were both unto sin. And he said, we've already proved
it. And then he asked him this, what
do you have that you haven't received of God? What do you
have? You've got a clear mind. Who
gave it to you? We have the mind of Christ. But we have that mind
by the grace of God. We have understanding. We understand
the deep things of God. The Spirit has come and give
us that understanding. But it was given. Huh? Now tell me that you don't sometimes,
when you get in conversation with somebody, think, well, how
dumb can you get? You're just as dumb as they was
until God gives you an understanding. Maybe dumber. I know I was. You're not going to be Carl Jacobs
anymore. I'm going to be called Jacob.
Now let me tell you something. When God determined to save a
people, He determined also everything in time to bring it to pass.
At that instant, when He decreed eternal salvation of His elect
and put them in Christ, He determined everything all the way through
to the end, to the perfection of it. All these things were
decreed. He left nothing to chance, nothing
to circumstance, nothing subject to chance. The whole of the work
He freely gave. Paul said in Ephesians chapter
2, and you need to mark this down, take a yellow highlighter
and highlight both of them. He said, by grace ye are saved. You are saved through that eternal
quickening. Even when you were dead in trespasses
and sins, you were quickened together with Christ. When did
He quicken you with Him? When he become a man? No, when
he appointed him back before the foundation of the world.
He quickened you together with Christ. And then when he appeared
on this earth, you appeared with him. When he died on that cross,
you died with him. And when he raised him from the
dead, you raised with him. And now he's seated in glory.
And Paul said, we're seated up there with him. By grace, ye
are saved. And then right after that, he
says, in these ages to come, he's going to show that to you.
And when He does, you're going to sing this song, by grace ye
are saved. By grace are ye saved. Are ye
saved. By full, free, and sovereign
grace, God says to His elect, your name shall not be called
Russell anymore. Not going to be called Walter
anymore. Now it won't be called Winston
or Jesse anymore. His name is Israel, a prince,
a prince with God. All right? Thirdly, Genesis 35
verse 10, he said, Israel shall be thy name, shall be thy name. In that great day when all the
nations will be gathered before his great throne, kings and princes
and nobles and governors and carpenters and loggers and beggars
alike. Revelation chapter 20. John said,
I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it from whose
face the earth and heaven fled away and there was found no place
for them. And I saw the dead small and
great stand before God and the books were opened and another
book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were
judged out of those things which were written in the books according
to the works. And the sea gave up the dead
which was in it. And death and hell delivered
up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every man
according to the works. And death and hell was cast into
the lake of fire. This is the second death. And
whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast
into the lake of fire. Ain't you glad your name is Israel? Israel's name is recorded in
his book. In chapter 17 of Revelation,
he talks of every man following after the great beast, Satan
and false religion, and going into perdition, dead while they
lived, blinded eyes, like I read to you a while ago from Isaiah
29, had ears that couldn't hear. They had prophets who couldn't
prophesy. They had teachers who couldn't
teach. The learned men couldn't understand it, and the ignorant
people couldn't get an understanding of it. Prediction. Prediction. That all would follow
after him, he said, whose names were not written in the book
of life from the foundation of the world. That's Revelation
17. Israel, he said, shall be thy name. And I think it's in
Revelation chapter 7. He said, the great wrath of God,
the four angels are standing on the four corners of the earth
and they're holding back that great wind to keep it from blowing
on anything until the servants of God were sealed in their foreheads.
You remember reading that? And he said, and I looked and
all the children of Israel. And he names the 12 tribes. 144,000 of them. All of true Israel is going to
be sealed. Going to be sealed with the Holy Spirit of God.
Going to be revealed who they are. That name is going to be
written on their heart. Written on their heart. Our Lord told His faithful apostles.
They come back and they said, man, let me tell you. I cast
out devils. They said, even the devils are
subject unto us. He has given us such power, even
the devils are subject unto us. And our Lord heard him, and he
said, don't rejoice about that. He said, you want to rejoice?
Let me tell you something to rejoice. Your name's written
in the Lamb's Book of Life. Your name. You see what God's
telling him in his house? Your name's Israel. Your name's
Israel. It's not going to be called Jacob
anymore, but it shall be called. It shall be called in that day
without controversy. heaven, earth, and hell all gathered
before the throne, justified for everything that he did. God
said, this is my child. This is Israel. Anybody got any
objections? Huh? Not one. Your name's going
to be called Israel. Israel. Israel shall be thy name. Now watch this. Here's the last
thing God said to his elect concerning his name. It said God called
His name Israel. Israel. What God intends to be in that
day, He manifests in this one. There was not a doubt in His
mind, Russell, that in that day you're going to stand there.
If you're one of His elect, and He's going to save and work in
your heart, and the Holy Spirit abides with you, in that day
you're going to stand unblameable, spotless in the presence of His
glory, you're going to stand there wearing that name Israel.
And right now, right now, by faith, God says, Your name is
Israel. I'm not waiting. Your name is
Israel. God called His name Israel. Christ appeared to Jacob wrestled
with him on that river bank until he brought him into submission. And though a man wounded, he
wounded, that man of God wounded him. So pushed his hip clear
out of John. Wounded him. He wouldn't turn
him loose. You remember being wounded? But the wounded man won't turn
him loose. Jacob cried out in pain, but he held on to the man. And as it began to break day,
he said, What's your name? He said, My name's Jacob. And
the Lord said to Jacob, Your name shall no more be called
Jacob, but Israel. For as a prince, as a prince
hast thou power with God and men, and hast to pervade. There's
a set time in the life of all God's elect when Christ will
wrestle with the strong man. And the stronger than he'll overcome
him and spoil his house, God will take from him what's rightfully
his, and that man will be wounded. And faith is that glorious work
in man that will persevere the wounded. It'll persevere it. It will not let him. He said,
I won't let you go till you're blessed. I tell you, once faith
learns who God is, it won't turn him loose. It won't turn him
loose. And he wounds you. He will wound
you. But you won't turn him loose.
You won't let him go, even when your soul cries out in pain.
Even when the hand of God presses the hip out of joint, faith still
clings to Christ. That's how God declares His name.
The name of His chosen, that's how He declared it. And that's
how it's acknowledged by His elect. What God will one day
declare before all creation, He declares now to the hearts
of chosen sinners. God called His name Israel. Hateful
men call us hypocrites. How? Did you know that? They call you a hypocrite. Those
hypocrites. They say one thing, do something
else. They promote one thing and follow another. They talk
about peace, but they're always fighting. They talk about love,
but they show no affection. They talk about fellowship, and
they all disagree with one another. They're just hypocrites. They're
all hypocrites down there. Men identify us as a cult, enemies
of God, enemies of men, enemies of the gospel, idolaters, angry
men, stirring up trouble in the community. Turn with me to Acts chapter
24. I want you to see over here how men talked about the apostle
Paul. Acts chapter 24. Men call us hypocrites. They
call us a cult. They accuse us of sedition, stirring
men up against our government, stirring men up against the people,
trying to tear down established religion, trying to destroy men,
take them out of their homes, destroy their fellowship with
their families. There's a cult over there. Watch this here in
Acts 24 verse 5. They brought Paul into the court
and they said, we found this man a pestilent fellow and a
mover of sedition among all the Jews. He's trying to stir them
up against the Roman government. Not just here, but in every known
part of the world. And he's a ringleader. He's the
ringleader of that sect of Nazarenes. Called him that because he believed
on Christ. Verse 6, and he's gone about
to profane the temple. He spoke evil about our place
of worship. And then they brought in a great
host of false witnesses to swear at everything that they said. Men say we're hypocrites. They
say we're a cult, accuse us of stirring up sedition to our government,
causing division in the churches and among people's homes. But Paul stood up when they got
done. He quietly sat there and watched.
And when they got done, he said, y'all a bunch of liars. That's
what y'all are. You liars. You liars. He said, I didn't
do those things. But he said, this much will I confess, verse
14, that after the way, we're talking about the way of salvation,
after the way they call heresy, here's the fire that's burning
in the britches, here it is. Here's the needle that's sticking
in them, the splinter in the eye, here it is. After the way
they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing
all things which were written in the law and in the prophets.
That's what they're upset about. That's what they're upset about.
After the way they call heresy, that's exactly how I worship
God. God sees your name's Israel,
no matter what people say. Huh? I tell you, I'd rather have
God call my name Israel than I would everybody else in the
world. Paul said, let God be true in every man alive. All
of them. If what God has joined together,
let no man put asunder. Listen to what Paul said. Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? God did justify. Who is He that condemns? Christ
did die. What shall God spare who spared
not His Son? Huh? Whoso separates you from
the love of God in Christ? You see what he is saying? Your
name is Israel. His name is Israel. And you're going to be treated.
Now listen to me. He's going to treat you right
now. Not in that day when you stand there. Not in that day
when it's perfected. But right now, right now, every
day you live, every step you walk, every prayer you pray,
every time you come in this house to worship, He's going to treat
you as Israel. God called His name Israel. Israel. Oh, I'd rather hear God
say that. Huh? Your name's Israel. Israel. To Israel gave He power to become
the Son of God unto all His spiritual seed. God Himself Take heart in this. God Himself
defends that man who wears His name. And not even Satan himself
can touch him without the permission of God. I can't remember the two verses.
I believe one of them is in Jeremiah chapter 23, where it says, In
that day his name shall be called the Lord our Righteousness. And
then on over in about chapter 33, right along there somewhere,
33 and 34, where he's talking about that covenant, it said,
In that day her name shall be called the Lord our righteousness.
We share His name. We're Yisra'el right now. That's
what he said. Right now. God help us as we
come into this place and seek His name to first hear what He's
got to say about ours. Jacob was all upset, confused,
So on about who God's name was, God wasn't the least bit confused
about his. And they told him in these four
declarations exactly who he was. Exactly who he was. Next week
we'll take a look and see what God says about himself.