I want to read beginning in verse
12. The Apostle Paul had been telling
us here about the gifts that Christ had given to his church. They were told of the gifts here
in verse 11. They were apostles, prophets,
evangelists, and pastors and teachers. And now he goes on
to tell the cause, the reason that he gave these gifts. For
the perfecting of the saints, the work of the ministry, the
edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity
of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
man, and unto the measure of the statue of the fullness of
Christ, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and
fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sly of
men and cunning craftiness whereby they lay in wait to deceive us.
But speaking the truth in love may grow up unto him in all things,
which is the head, even Christ." He gave gifts. He gave gifts. were told that Christ gave these
gifts to His church. And there's many other gifts.
These are the prominent ones, no doubt. But these aren't the
only ones. You read 1 Corinthians chapter
12, and some of those gifts may have ceased in the early church,
but you know when I think of the church, you know one of the
gifts that I often think of more than anything else. It's helps. Helps. What would we do without
helps? We're a help to one another,
aren't we? Would you help me do this? Would you help me do
that? We can hardly do anything without helps. The Lord has given
helps to His church. So what we say here that these
offices, these gifts that he mentions here in verse 11, may
be the more prominent ones. They're not the only gifts by
any means whatsoever. But there's something very important
here that I want you to notice, and maybe I brought this out
in one of our other studies, concerning these gifts. And they're
just that, they're gifts. They're gifts. They weren't dependent
upon these men. But these men were dependent
upon these gifts. And by that I mean this, the
Lord didn't choose these men and give them gifts. He didn't
call these prophets and these apostles. And He don't call pastors
today because they're brilliant thinkers. He don't call them
because they're disposed to be taught and they love to sit and
read. He doesn't look at these men
and say, right there would make a good pastor, look at him. It's
not a man that makes the pasture. It's the gift. It's the gift. That's so important for you and
I to remember that. Well, you say, Bruce, what about
the Apostle Paul? He was a brilliant man. He spoke
with languages more than most people. Yes, but when the Lord
called him, what did he have to do with all his learning and
all his abilities? He said, I count it naught, didn't
he? I count all that as nothing. That don't profit me, he said,
at all. This gift that I've got is just that. It's a gift. And
it's not dependent upon me, but I'm dependent upon this gift.
I'm not saying by this that there's no labor involved. There is labor
involved. Man, look how those apostles
labored. They stayed in the Word and they
prayed. They didn't have time to take
care of the money, the finance. They gave themselves to the study
of God's Word and to prayer. And if a man's going to be a
pastor today, I'm telling you there's labor involved in it.
But you don't labor to get the gift, do you? You labor using
the gift. You may labor in proving it by
the grace of God through study and prayer, but I tell you, you
don't get it by any means but it being given to you. I know we've had complaints for
years from the church that there's been men who went to seminar
and did theological studies with the intention of becoming a pastor
just to make a living. I tell you, that's not the way. That's not the way. I have nothing
against education. My soul, if a man's got time
to take courses or go to the seminar, by all means, if he
can find a good one, But for a man to go just to learn
how to be a pastor? To make a living? I'm telling
you, he's going to be miserable himself, and those he preaches
to, if they're honest people, they're going to be miserable
too. And the sooner that he can get out of the ministry, the
better off he's going to be. Here's what makes a pastor. The
same thing that made an apostle. First and foremost, he has to
have the gift. That's where it lays. And then
he studies and then he improves by God's grace with that gift. And since it's a gift, they can't
glory in it themselves. They can't glory in it as though
they've obtained something because of who they are or their much
labor. They can't exalt themselves and
lord it over the congregation as some dictator does. Why are
they pastors? The Lord has gave them a gift
for it. And the Lord said this, Let him
that is greatest among you be your service. If a man thinks
he is anything, then let him bow down and do the service.
Let him be the servant. These gifts are not for the minister
to glory in and gloat over. But they are for this purpose,
and we see it here in verse 13, to serve the church. They're
gifts to serve the church. Now having said all of that,
I know you love me. I know the churches love their
pastors. The best thing you could do for
your pastor is attend this ministry and pray for me. That's the best
thing you could do for me. But it's not so much about me,
is it? It just ain't about me. I'm sorry, it's not. What's it
about? What the Lord is doing through
me for His church. That's all it is. I know Brother
Scott Richardson, bless his heart, he was one of the best examples.
Him and Brother Mayhem both have been two great examples for all
of us to look at. If you've never seen Scott's
house, if you've never been in Scott's house, you'd be amazed.
People that knew Scott and saw sometime how he loved to dress
up, man, he loved to dock out, didn't he? With those fancy shoes
and those big boots and shiny slippers. They had him decked
out there in his casket. Boy, he looked great. But I'm
telling you, he lived in a one little bedroom house. You could
shoot off of his roof and jump down on another roof if you could
jump for it. And they said, Scott, let us build you a house. I don't
want a house, he said. I don't want a house. I got a
house, he said. Don't need a car. I got a car.
His life was about this, preaching to the Lord's people, using the
gift that God had given him, the incarnate God had given him
to his church. That's what he was about. That's
what he's about. Now we come here to verse 12.
And we haven't been here for a while. It's been a few weeks.
And that's been on purpose. And I could story to you and
tell you, well, it's because I had all these other things
on my mind that I was wanting to preach about. But to be honest,
I got bogged down. When you start reading Paul's
epistles, I'm telling you, you'll finally go up to him and say,
Brother, I'm sorry. But you've got to part ways for a while.
I need a break. I've got to have a break. When you study his writings,
you see why Peter said many things that he wrote is hard to be understood.
And you come here and you begin to study some of the words that
he used and the way our translators translated them. And I'm telling
you, it's difficult to understand. Here's the way I handled this
sometime. And here's the way I looked at
verse 12. I just back up. I back away from
it and say, I've looked up some of these words. I know what the
words mean now, but I can't put it together. What is he saying? What's the idea? If I can't get
a hold of these words and bring it all together, just ask yourself
this question. What's the idea that Paul is
relating to us? What does he want us to know
and understand about this? The Lord Jesus Christ gave these
gifts to His church. We can still read the gifts.
Right here is the gift. These apostles and these prophets.
And now he's given pastors. And he's given them to help his
church. How are these gifts going to help the church? Let me read
this verse 13 like this. Verse 12 like this. For the full equipping of the
saints in order for them to minister with a view of building up the
body of Christ. Now, does that make any sense
when you read that? He's not writing to perfect saints. He's writing to equip them, to
supply them, that they may be ministers themselves,
with this in view that we're going to build up the church,
the body of Christ. The local assembly. What's the
duty? What's the responsibility of
the pastor? It's this. It's to equip you.
It's to supply you. It's to help prepare you to be
involved in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. The ministry
of the church in this world. To feed you with wisdom and with
understanding. To preach to you the clear gospel
of Jesus Christ. To instruct you from His Word. Preach the Word to who? To the
church. To the church. To reprove you
if you need it. Even to rebuke you if that's
required. And to lift you up. To build
you up. To encourage you. That as you
live your life of faith, you'll be involved in the ministry. The whole church has a ministry.
You have a ministry. I have a ministry, but you have
a ministry. And my part, as a pastor, is
to get you involved in that ministry. I'm to equip you in what little
way that God will use me to do that. Moses said, I would, that all
God's people were prophets. I wish all of them were prophets.
I wish all of them were preachers and ministers. Not publicly pastors. But I tell you, I wish they were
all ministers they should be and preachers as they should
be. People come here to hear me preach and they may say, I
didn't get anything out of that. Well, you try your hand at preaching
to them. Really, maybe they'll hear you. John Bunyan used to
go to the worship service and he left and all he did was got
so self-righteous, he couldn't live with himself. So self-righteous.
He quit doing so many things. He said, I was amazed at myself,
how I got straightened up. But he's walking down the street
one day, and on the other side of the old board fence, these
two older ladies were talking about the love of Christ. And Bunyan said, for the first
time, I saw, man, I missed something here. I missed something. And
he began to really, really seek the Lord and found Him. The church
has a ministry. We minister as we witness to
others, don't we? What's the Lord done for you?
You have a ministry. And that ministry is simply to
tell other people what the Lord's done for you. Go home to your
friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for
you. And I tell you one thing, when they saw that Gadarene,
buddy, his life gives some credit to what he was saying. Because
the last time his friends saw him, he was naked. I mean, he
was filthy and stinking. He was bound with chains and
arms. And now here he is free. Here
he is clean. He's in his right mind. They
said, something's happened to that man. Look at him now. And
he said, I'll tell you what's happened to me. The Lord has
had compassion on me. He's delivered me. He's saved
me. We have a ministry, brothers and sisters. You have a ministry.
Not only with what you say of the Lord Jesus with your testimony,
but I tell you, I tell you what will give some credence to that
testimony is the way you walk in this world. You know that's
a ministry, the way we live, as we live by faith in this world.
You know that's just as much a testimony as what we say with
our lips. So many have lost the testimony
with their lips because their lives just don't agree with what
they're saying. But boy, when your life and lips agree, when
you'll say, look what the Lord's done for me, and they'll say,
I know He's done something for you. I can tell it. I can tell
you love somebody. I can tell you're different than
what you used to be. That's the ministry, ain't it?
We befriend people. We help people. We visit those
in need. Pure religion and undefiled before
God and the Father is this, to visit the with us in their affliction. And to keep himself unspotted
from the world. That's the ministry of the church.
Well, I'm going to call my pastor and see if he'll go and visit
us. No, that's your ministry. That's your ministry. You never know this, but Sister
Shelby Fortin, she goes, I think, almost every day and reads to
an old lady in the nursing home. That's a good ministry, ain't
it? That's a good ministry. I was hungry, you fed me. What a ministry. I was naked,
and you clothed me. I was thirsty, you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took
me in. I was in prison, and you came to me. That's a ministry,
see? That's a ministry. Each individual
believer has a ministry as he lives his life of faith in this
world. And as all of this is happening,
as you go about to ministry, you come here and it helps you
get equipped. I can't fully equip you, but
these apostles, boy, they can help. Your pastor can't fully
equip you, but I can help you. I help you by preaching to you,
ministering to you. And then as you go out here,
in whatever capacity you minister, the church is edified. The church is built up and encouraged
and strengthened. and comforted. See what he's
saying? The Lord Jesus has left these gifts to equip you, to
supply you with what you need. That you may go out and minister
as a body of Christ to this world and to one another. And as you
do that, the church is built up. The church is edified and
strengthened and comforted. I tell you, one of the things
that does me more good is to hear some of you talk about what
you're doing through the week. It disblesses my heart. How sometimes
you corner somebody up and talk to them about the Lord. Or on
your job you get to talk to someone about the Lord. Or the Lord opens
the door for you to help somebody. That disblesses my soul. It blesses
the church. It comforts the church. It helps
the church. The Lord never saved us, brothers and sisters, to
sit and do nothing or be busybodies in somebody else's matters and
troubles. But He saved us to be busy. Be
busy. Be busy. Be involved in the ministry. Look in verse 13. until we all
come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son
of God into a perfect man. This equipping and supplying,
it just goes on. That's what we're doing tonight.
And we hope it increases, we hope it deepens, until we all
come to the unity of faith and of the full knowledge, the experimental
knowledge, of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And to
a mature man. A mature man. I thought of two things as I
was reading here in verse 13. Till we all come into the unity
of the faith. Till we all come. You know, there's
some folks out there that haven't come yet. They haven't come yet. They shall come. Thirst and elect,
we trust that the Lord ain't called. I don't think He's finished
calling yet, do you? One fellow in Spurgeon's day
got a little bit afraid that nobody was being saved much,
and he said, Mr. Spurgeon, what happens if the
Lord has called in all His elect? And Mr. Spurgeon said, we'll
pray, elect some more. That's not very good theology,
but I know what he's talking about. No, He's got some. Other sheep I have. which are
not of this foe, them I must bring." They'll come. Paul said we just keep on equipping,
the church keeps on ministering, the church keeps on building
itself up and edifying itself until we all come. Until every
elect soul, until the fullness of the Gentiles, until all Israel
is saved. This is to go on until the coming
of Christ. All that the Father gives to
me, He shall come to me until we all come. But it's also to be taken like
this, not until all the elect are called in, but until the
church as one, as one, looks to Christ alone
and believes in Christ alone. to be justified. When you see
this faith, this word, the faith, in the Scriptures, it sometimes
simply means the body of truth. This is the faith. Jude said,
earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered to the
saints. We have a body of truth that has been given to us. It
was given just one time. We're not having truth given
to us now. It was revealed. It was written down. We have
it in our Bibles. And Jude said, study God's Word.
Contend for these truths. Seek these truths out. Get them
in your heart. But sometimes when you see this
faith, it simply means the grace of faith. We believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ that we might be justified by believing in Christ. That's what we have unity in.
Until we all come unto the unity, until we all see clearly, That
it's faith in Christ that justifies us. You and I don't understand.
We don't have the same understanding. We just don't. We see some things
we see different, and both of us may be wrong. There are cardinal
truths that we must see alike. But this year is talking about
the unity of that faith that justifies us. And if we don't
see eye to eye there, we have no unity, do we? How are we justified before God? God is holy. We're sinners. How can we be justified? By faith
in Christ. That's so important, ain't it?
Remember the Galatian church, how it erred? And boy, I'll tell
you what that error cost them dearly. Paul came down and preached
to them and they believed in Christ. He said, you heard my
gospel. You believed in Christ. And you were justified. And all
of you had unity and peace because all of you believed in Christ
to be justified. But then you got off on law keeping.
I've got to be circumcised to be justified. I've got to keep
holy days to be circumcised. I've got to be baptized to be
justified. And he said, look at you now.
Now you're biting and devouring one another. You've lost this
unity of this faith. I tell you, we can disagree on
a lot of things if we believe this together. We conclude that
a man is justified by faith in Christ without the deeds of the
law. We must never err there. Luther
said the church stands or falls here. on what it believes about
justification. And I believe that. How are we
justified? By faith in Christ. By faith
in Christ. The church has unity in this
truth, the faith. The Worldwide Church of God,
we have a... I had a... It may have been Brother Larry
gave this to me. Somebody gave this to me. Herbert
W. Armstrong's group. He preached such awful heresy. And I'd listen to him all the
time I was growing up because my dad was a pre-world Baptist
preacher and my dad loved him. And he was a heretic. Preached
heresy. He laughed at those who believed
in a new birth. He said, you believe you're born
again? He said, pinch yourself. Pinch yourself and see if it
hurts. You're not born again. You're the same old person. He
didn't understand the new birth. He preached all kinds of heresy.
But the Lord opened the heart. of two or three men in his congregation.
When Herbert W. Armstrong stepped down from the
Worldwide Church of God, he appointed another man to take his place. And that man's son had begun
studying the Scriptures on his own, and the Lord opened that
man's heart to the way God justifies sinners. And he went to this man who took
an over in Armstrong Place, which was his dad. And he said, Dad,
I got something here that's going to turn this church all to pieces.
He said, well, son, what are you seeing? He said, I'm seeing
here that all these rules that we've been told that we had to
keep to be justified, all these holy days, all this stuff we've
been doing, that ain't the way God justifies sinners. He justifies
sinners by their faith in Christ. And boy, the Lord opened that
man's heart too. And he got in the pulpit and he preached that.
And they got it on tape. Did you see it, Larry? You see
it on tape, and boy, you can still feel it. It's like the
shock that went around the world. They were listening. He had a
worldwide audience. And man, that fellow got up and
from the pulpit opened his Bible and he told them it's not by
their ceremonies and circumcision and all this law keeping. It's
by faith in Christ that God justifies them. I mean, there's people
in Africa, all over Europe that heard that. And they said, man,
that was a thunderclap. And it turned that whole thing
upside down. They sold their big university,
split their churches wide open. But one man said everything cleared
up when he saw that. All the error that they had been
involved in, he said, as soon as God opened my heart to see,
justification was by faith in Jesus Christ. He said everything
cleared up. That's what Paul is talking about.
Until we all, the elect sinners who have been called, and all
the church, we come to this unity, to this oneness, Faith in Christ
alone. That's what Luther was doing
crawling up those steps. He had brought him indulgence. And he was going to walk those
steps. And every time he touched a step, why, he'd pray. He'd pray. Crawling up those
steps. And there was a Scripture that
came tumbling into his mind that said, the just shall live by
faith. And he saw it. He saw the error
of Rome, its heresy, and came out of it. Until we all come
into the unity of the faith. Brother Larry is going to be
the man here in a few days, if he hasn't already done it, and
make sure that he's established in this. Ain't that what you
said? Why would he do that? Because this is serious. This
is where we must have unity. And if we don't have it here,
we don't have it. Unity of the faith. And notice this, Paul
is saying here in verse 12, we preach to you and we write to
you in all of this to equip you for the work of the ministry
and to build up the body of Christ until this happens. We're going
to keep doing this until this happens. Until we come to unity
of faith. And look here, until the knowledge,
the clear, experimental knowledge of the Son of God. Well, he kept
talking about this. There in chapter 3, in verse
18, look at this, what he said about this knowledge. That we
may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ. Which passive knowledge? The
love of Christ. Look what he said over in chapter
1. And look in verse 17. Chapter 1, verse 17, that the
God, I pray for you, that the God of our Lord Jesus, the Father
of glory, may give unto you the spirit and wisdom of wisdom and
revelation in the knowledge of Him. That you may know Christ. That we all come to a fuller
knowledge, a clearer knowledge, an experimental knowledge of
Christ our Lord. Oh, to know Him in His love,
To know Him in His offices? I want to know Him as my prophet,
don't you? I want Him to teach me. Lord Jesus, teach me. Be
my prophet. Open my heart. Be my King. Reign in me. Set up Your throne
in my heart. Give me grace to submit. Subdue me. Reign in me. Be my priest. I need a priest
between me and God. I need an advocate when I've
sinned. I need somebody there to plead and maintain my cause
before my Father. Let me know you as this. What
is salvation about? What is living about? What's
life about? It's knowing the Son of God.
All shall know me from the least to the greatest. This is life
eternal, to know Thee. Look here right quickly in Philippians. Look in Philippians right quickly.
Just over to your right. For if there's ever a man who
knew the Lord Jesus Christ and knew Him pretty well, it was
Paul. But here's what he said in Philippians 3. And look in
verse 7. He's talking about all of his
zeal there in verse 4-6. How self-righteous he was and
what he hoped in. Then he had to turn all that
loose. Verse 7, what things were gained to me? Those I counted
lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless, I count all things
but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of everything, and count
it done that I may know Him, and win Him, and be found in
Him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law of works,
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness
which is of God by faith, that I may Know Him. Know Him experimentally. Know
Him better. I want to know Him. I want to
know the power of His resurrection. Oh, the power! All power has
been given to Christ in heaven and earth. I want to experience
that power. And the fellowship of His sufferings. And I want
to be made conformable unto His death. If by any means I might
attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though it
already attained, neither were already perfect. But I follow
after. If that, I may apprehend that
for which also I am apprehended of Christ. Brethren, I count
not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do. I'm
forgetting those things which are behind, and I'm reaching
forth unto those things which are before. I press towards the
mark for the prize of the high calling of God. Christ Jesus. You know what Paul wanted? He
wanted to know Jesus Christ the Lord and Savior as much as it
was possible to know Him. He wanted a heart to know Him. And he says that's the prize.
That's the goal. To know Him. All we know Him
when He makes Himself real to us. But we don't know very much,
do we? And it's not just knowing about Him. That's good. More
about Jesus would I know. That's wonderful to know about
Him. But I want to know Him, don't you? I want to know Him. He that hath my commandments
and keeps them, that's the man who loves me. And he that loves
me shall be loved of my Father, and I'll love him, and I'll come
and I'll manifest myself to him. Manifest myself. I'll reveal
myself unto Him. Oh, the knowledge. The knowledge
of the Son of God. That we may know Him. That we
may know Him. And Paul said, I ain't arrived
yet. He said, I'm not telling you that I've arrived. No, I
haven't arrived. I haven't arrived to that maturity
yet. But he said, I'll tell you this, I'm present. That's my
goal, to know Him. That's my goal, to know Him.
And look back over in chapter 4 of Ephesians again in verse
14. He's looking at the positive
things. He says we have these gifts in verse 11. He tells us how they affect the
church in verse 12. He tells us, that being so, that
we're going to come to the unity of this faith. And we're going
to come to know Christ better until we become mature, until
a mature man, perfect man, a mature man. And that's what we do, ain't
it? That's what we do. When we're
born into this world, what are we? We're babies. We're infants. It's the same way in the Kingdom
of Christ. We eat right. We exercise and what do we do?
We grow up to be healthy young men. We watched Shane grow up. I remember when Shane was born.
He was a little tiny baby. Just like his baby is now. Wanda
fed him good. He got plenty of exercise, running
all over the place. He grew up into a young adolescent. I remember that. We all remember
that, don't we? Now look at him. He's a young
man. He's a man. It's the same way in the Kingdom
of God, ain't it? We're barned, and what are we
when we're barned? We're babes. All we can do is suck the bottle,
or suck the breast. But that's what Peter said for
us to do. As newborn babes, desire the sensual milk of the Word.
But then what happens? We become young men, don't we?
How do we become young men? Drinking a lot of milk. Drinking
a lot of milk and exercising. And then we start eating more
meats and potatoes and beans and getting our proteins and
salads and vitamin C. And then what happens? We grow. We grow. And then what happens? We become adults. That's the
picture you get as you read this. You get these newborn babes who
are being taught and equipped and they're growing. And finally,
they've matured into Adult, strong person. And now Paul is going
to tell us the negative side in verse 14. Look at this. Here's
why this is so important. This is why it's so important
that we come into a perfect man, a mature man, verse 14, that
we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried
about with every wind of doctrine. Boy, you know little babies,
little infants. They're taken advantage of so often. Little
children are taken advantage of. Sometimes by their parents,
sometimes by strangers. They force little children to
do things and force themselves off on them. The children can't
stop them. It's easy to deceive a child because a child believes
just about everything you tell them. And you give them all kinds
of trouble. You just tell them something,
they'll believe it and go on and do it and give them trouble. And
sometimes children are abused because they're children and
they're weak. But boy, after a while, after
a while, when that child grows up and he experiences some things
and he gains some knowledge, ain't nobody going to come in
then and overcome him and abuse him and deceive him. Why? Because he's mature. And he's
wiser. That's what Paul is telling us
right here. Would you believe, could you believe, I know you
believe it, but there's a lot of people who would never believe
that man, one man could be so cruel to another man. Look how
Paul describes these people. That we be no more children tossed
to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine. Look at this. By the trickery
of men. I mean, for one man to trick
another man and sell him a used car that's no good, that's bad
enough. But for one man to trick another
man about his soul? That's awful, isn't it? And he
says here, not only by their craftiness, but cunning craftiness. And not only that they deceive,
but they lay in wait. to deceive. They're like a lion
crouched down in the way, waiting to deceive somebody, waiting
to lead them astray, waiting to lie to them, waiting to twist
God's Word. You see it on TV all the time.
If you and I don't believe in the depravity of man, then watch
these religious shows on TV and look how they're tricking people
and deceiving people. Paul said, oh church, listen
to me, he said. It's essential that you grow.
It's essential that you mature. You don't stay children and infants.
You must become men in understanding and faith and be established.
Why? So you won't be overcome and
tripped and led astray. Paul wrote to the great Corinthian
church and he said, I can't speak to you as unto men, as unto spiritual,
but as unto babies. He said, you're still babies.
I fed you with milk and not with meat. Why? You're still a little
baby. And he said, meat belongs to
them who are of the full age. That's what the picture we see
here. Adults growing up. Adults. And verse 15. But speaking the
truth in love may grow up unto him in all things which is the
head. Even Christ. Speaking the truth
in love. That's what mature Christians
do. They're established in the truth. They speak the truth. They love the truth. They're
born with the truth. There was a cardinal, a Catholic
cardinal called Martin Luther. I went one time to examine him.
I was trying to stop him from preaching the gospel. And the Cardinal said, said,
Luther, listen. He said, we're involved here
in some wars and it's going to get worse. And he said, the church
is being torn apart. And here you are causing trouble.
He said, don't you want comfort? Don't you want comfort? In other
words, he is saying, you ought to be concerned about comfort.
Throw away that Bible. Throw away the Gospel. We need
some comfort. Don't you want some comfort?
You know what Luther said to him? Comfort. Comfort. Who wants comfort? Give me the truth. That's what Luther said. Give
me the truth. That's what you wanted. I don't
care about peace if it's at the expense of truth. I don't care
about comfort and assurance if it's at the expense of truth.
Give me truth. And boy, you take a church that
they've reached there. I don't care about entertainment.
There was a time when that may have soothed my flesh. I want
the truth. I ain't concerned about building
a big congregation. I'm concerned about the truth.
That's what we say. And buddy, when you've got a
group of people, when you've got a church, when you've got
the church all over the world, that she rises up and says, you
keep your commandments. You keep your traditions of men.
You keep your forms of godliness and deny the power thereof. Give
us the truth. That's all we want. We don't
want unity at the expense of it either. Give us truth. Give
us truth. Speaking the truth in love. Let's pray.