Take your Bibles and turn with
me to Genesis chapter 12. In the beginning of this chapter,
he speaks of how the Lord had said unto him to get out of his
country. He said, Get thee out of thy
country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house unto
a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great
nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and
thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless
thee, and curse him that curseth thee,
and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed as the Lord
had spoken unto him. And Lot went with him. And Abram
was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haman. I want to continue looking at
God's call to Abraham tonight. And I've got three very simple,
plain, easy-to-be-understood points. I don't know, judging
from my notes, that we'll ever get to point number two or point
number three, but I have them written down. And the first one
is that Abraham's calling was a call to leave everything that
he loved and everything that he knew. God called him and told
him to leave it, depart from it. And then secondly, that God's
call to His servant was a call to be blessed. God told him to
leave, leave his country, and to leave his kindred, and especially
to leave his father's house. And then immediately he began
to bless him. And then thirdly, that God's
call to Abraham was a call to faith. Abraham believed what
God told him and did. And he gives us that example
over in the faith chapter in Hebrews chapter 11, talks about
Abraham, talks about his leaving his kingdom. So let's look at
these three things and see if the Lord will open to us the
scriptures and give us a better understanding of his will and
of his ways. And the first thing I see as
I said to you right at the outset of Abraham's calling was the
summons of God for him to leave his country and leave his kinsmen
and leave his father's house. God gives this man Abraham instruction
to depart from everything he'd ever known. This is where he
was raised. This is where his grandfather,
his grandmother were buried. where his father lived, where
his brothers and sisters lived. That's all he ever knew. Some
of you have been right here, right here in Taylor and Walker
Creek all your life. This is all you've ever known.
Suppose God were to tell you tonight, pack it up. Where am
I going? I'll tell you later. You just
pack your stuff. Pack your stuff. That's pretty
rough, ain't it? Huh? That's pretty rough. And I think this is something
we need to deal with. I think we need to kind of fill
in some of the blanks here. Over the years, I've seen a lot
of things go sour because of a bad understanding of what this
is talking about here in this first few verses here in chapter
12. And I want to begin tonight by saying this. Most of the time, folks don't
understand what you're saying when you talk about election. They don't understand where you're
coming from. If you just bust out and start
talking about election, religious folks, and I was raised that
way, don't have a clue where you're coming from. They don't
know what you're talking about. They don't know why you would
even say such a thing or why saying such a thing would even
be important. You throw out the term predestination
and they just stand and look at you like you're a two-headed
lizard or something. They don't know where you're
coming from. They don't hear these things. They've never heard
any of the doctrines of grace. They don't know anything about
an absolute sovereign who governs all things. They don't hear this
type of thing. What they hear is, is that you
need to be a better person, that you need to clean up your life,
you need to leave your old habits, you need to turn over a new leaf,
you need to make commitments toward God, you need to start
praying, and you need to start coming to church, and you need
to come down now, and you need to be baptized, and you need
to take part in church functions, and you need to get involved
in the issues of the world, and that type of thing. They've never
heard the gospel. I never did. And I mean, we went
every time the church door was open. We went to the camp meetings
down in Columbus, Ohio. I remember my dad used to load
me up and take me down there. And then some nights we'd go
over to the old missions downtown where they fed and clothed and
housed the old bums and the homeless down there. And we'd go down
there and listen to that guy talk to them. And then sometimes
we'd go to revival meetings. But we was in church all the
time. All the time. And not one time did I ever hear
the Gospel. Not once in all those years. But I do know this from my own
experience, and that's where I want to start tonight, by saying
this, that it is the assumption of men and women that what the
Bible calls sin, when we talk about sin, forgiveness of sin,
When the Bible talks about sin, they believe that it consists
of things that they have done and things that have come into
their life and crept into their life in moments of weakness,
in moments of temptation, kind of snuck up on them. They was
in the wrong environment. They had the wrong friends. They
were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And there's a lot
of truth to that. A lot of truth to that. But it's
not the whole truth. They believe that these things,
that sin consists of what they do in their everyday life, like
lying and cheating and stealing and disobedience. Or sometimes
it can consist in things that they don't do that they know
they should. It can consist in things like prayer, and going
to church, and reading the Bible, and giving, and other so-called
Christian duties. But the truth of it is, if you
could take these things out of their lives, they feel like their
lives would be a pretty good testimony for God. Now you just
examine your own. What if you could go through
today? And I know without asking, you had a moment of anger. I didn't. And you just blew up
over nothing. And then the phone rang and you
couldn't get to it. Or the phone rang and you didn't
want it to ring. Or somebody called trying to
sell you something and you didn't want it. Or you thought, boy,
I need to sit down and read my Bible. Well, I got this stuff
I need to go do. I'll go do that. Suppose you could just take all
of those things out. Take them out of your day. Just
take them out. Take all the things that really bother you, whatever
it is that bothers you. You didn't feel good enough like
you know you should toward your husband, or you're a husband
and you didn't feel that way toward your wife. Take those
things that bother you, those things that you go in and ask
God to forgive you for in the evening. Take those things out
of your life. How do you feel about what's left? Most people feel like it would
be a pretty good testimony for God if they could just get rid
of these things. Boy, if I just hadn't stole that,
if I just hadn't said that, if I just hadn't done that, if I
could get these things out of my life, my life would be in
pretty good shape. Now, that's where men and women
are. That's what they understand when the Bible talks about sin.
But the truth about sin is that the part of your life that we're
proudest of gives the most evidence of the sin that's in us. It's
not the part that we repent of, it's the part that we're proud
of. Can I give you a scripture for that? I'm going to give you
three. I'm going to give you three. Turn with me to Psalm
39. I'm saying this, that the truth
about sin is that the part of our lives that we're the proudest
of is the worst. It's worse than the part that
we repent of. Now watch this. And I want us
to take an honest look at the Scriptures tonight. Let me see
if I can show you what kind of shape we're in. We're in a bad
shape. We don't know what sin is. We
call black, white, white, black, night, day. I'm telling you we're
in a mess. Look here in Psalm 39.4. David
said, Lord, make me to know my end and the measure of my days,
what it is, that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast
made my days as a hand-breath. You know what a hand-breath is?
That's a hand-breath. David said that's all his life
was, just that much. Now watch what he said. Thou
hast made my days as a hang breath, and my age is nothing before
thee. Verily, he said, verily, think
about this, every man at his what? Uh-oh, his best stage is
altogether vanity. At his best stage, not his worst. Listen to this one over in Luke
16. This concerns those Pharisees. They knew in their hearts that
they didn't serve the living God. They knew that their living,
their positions, their offices depended on the people. If the people, they were so worried
when Christ called Lazarus from the tomb, when Christ called
him out of that tomb, they said, if we leave this man alone, everybody
on earth is going to follow him, and we're going to lose our nation,
and we're going to lose our jobs. Because their jobs depended on
the people, the favor of the people. And so they catered to
the people. They catered to the people. And he said unto them, these
covetous, self-righteous Pharisees, down here in verse 15, he said,
You are they which justify yourselves before men. What's he talking
about? He's talking about a justification of that relationship they had
with God. They claimed to be children of
God, teachers of God, preachers of God, prophets of God, priests
of God. And to justify that, they wanted
the approval of the people. They didn't care what God thought.
They just assumed it was okay with them. They went after the
approval of the people, because that's who paid their bills. They justified themselves as
teachers and preachers and children of God, instructors of the blind.
He said, you make long prayers to be seen of men. He said, you
pray in the marketplace to be seen of men. He said, when you
fast, you let your face get drawn. You don't wash it, but you let
it appear drawn so everybody can see you and know you're fasting.
You make broad defilectories on your garment so everybody
will know you're a Pharisee. You do these things to be seen
of men, be seen of men. They loved, he said, you loved
to be the greetings in the marketplace, master, rabbi, father, reverend,
all these things. You loved it. You loved it. Everything they did was geared
to justify that relationship with God to men. But God, he said, looks on the
heart. This is what Christ told His
men. God looks on the heart. He knows the heart. For that
which is highly esteemed among men. That's what we're talking
about. The good part of your life. The part you're the proudest
of. That which is highly esteemed
among men. Now watch it. He didn't say this
or that was. He said it is. Abomination. You know what he calls abomination?
Go back and look it up. Horrible things. Things that
we wouldn't even want to talk about in mixed company. That's
what he called an abomination. He says here are those things
that we highly esteem are abomination in his sight. Abomination. God looks on the heart. To esteem myself and base my
relationship with God and my favor with God and my calling
with God. by the standards of men is abomination
to God. If I do something and I feel
good about it, I feel good about it, that's abomination in the
sight of God. Now that's what he's saying here.
That which you highly esteem. Can you do anything to please
God? The Scripture said without faith
it's impossible. to please God. It's not hard,
it's impossible. Listen to this scripture, Isaiah
chapter 64. You see, this is what religion
does. Religion says you don't pray enough. You don't come to
church enough. You don't give enough. You don't
sacrifice enough. You need to cut your hair. You
need to put on a certain type of dress. You need to do this.
You need to do that. And so we go do it. I set a new
standard for myself. I'm going to pray three times
a day. So I go pray three times a day. Now I feel better about
myself. That feeling is abomination to God. You're trying to approach God.
You're trying to gain in favor with God by something you do.
And we're all together sin. That's what I'm trying to say.
Now watch this here. Isaiah chapter 64 verse 6. He's not talking about the strange
nations here. He's not talking about Canaanites
and Hittites and all that. He's talking about Israel and
the prophets. Now watch what he said. But we
are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rank. And we do all fade as a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. Now, the picture here is one
of three things. He's either talking about a menstrual
cloth, or he's talking about the rag over the face of the
leper, or he's talking about the rags used to clean the corpse
of a dead man. These things were all unclean.
I don't care whose mama crocheted it. I don't care whose daddy
prayed over it. I'm not going to take one of
these rags and put it on my pillow and lay my head on it at night,
are you? I'm not going to use it for a
napkin. This is what I'm talking about.
Everything we do is unclean before Him. He gives us these pictures
on purpose to show us how repulsive we are in our nature in the sight
of God. Not in my sight, not in the sight
of the world, but in the sight of God. I mean repulsive. Repulsive. We bring this righteousness up
to God or present these things to men as approval of God, and
in reality, they're an abomination to it. We're lepers. That's what we
are. We're lepers. We're sinful lepers. We eat up
with you. Old Naaman, think about him. You know that that chapter back
there, I think it's in 2 Kings, When he starts talking about
Naaman, he's got the biggest list of qualities that there
was when he talked about that man. It just don't matter. He was
the captain of the Lord of Hosts of Syria. Said he was a great
man. He said he was an honorable man
and a mighty man of valor. But now listen to what Scripture
said. But he was a leper. And it don't matter. If the Catholic
Church elects me Pope and I sit on a throne over in Rome, it
doesn't make any difference. If I'm President of the United
States, it doesn't make any difference. I'm still a leper. I'm still
a leper. And if I go to seminary and they
give me a little hat and some letters after my name and give
me a church and I take over the pastorship of it and I stand
up here and everybody calls me Reverend, it doesn't make any
difference. I'm still a leper. You see what I'm saying? We're
sinners. We're sinners. Don't matter what
I do, how much I do, or how often I do it, I'm a leper. And as
a leper, I defile everything I do. The leper was not permitted
to do anything. Outside the camp. Is that correct? He couldn't come to the priest.
He couldn't do anything. He was a leper. He was a leper. And natural men are spiritually
what Naaman was physically. So then, the world in which we
live, the nation of which we're citizens,
all of my kindred and even my father's house are cursed of
God. That's what I want you to see.
They're cursed of God. All of them. He tells us in Ephesians
2, verse 11, to remember who we were when God called us. We
were Gentiles in the flesh. He said you were aliens from
the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise,
having no hope without God in the world. And when God calls
a man, He calls him out of the world. Out of the world. Out of its reasoning and philosophy. And the death out of which he
says we were quickened is a death described as walking after the
course of this world. John said all that's in the world,
all of it, bundle it all up in one giant veil. Everything, all
that's in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father. It's of the
world, and the world passes away. Jesus said this, He said, The
friendship of the world is enmity with God. And whosoever therefore
will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God. That's James
chapter 4 verse 4. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter 6. 2 Corinthians chapter 6. has to
do with believers and unbelievers joining together in marriage,
business deals, any type of partnership, and he tells you don't do it.
Don't do it. He's talking to believers here.
And he's telling them don't do it. 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14. Be ye not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light
with darkness? And what concord hath Christ
with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth
with an impotent?" Now, I've got an English lesson this afternoon.
I was looking up this word belial because I wasn't sure exactly
what it meant. Now, I know in its context it
has to do with wickedness of some kind or evil of some kind,
darkness of some kind. But in this particular case,
it means worthless. It means of no profit. And it's like an evil nickname. An evil nickname. And that's
how he's using it in this sense. He's talking about the world.
I want you to just think about this a minute. When he talks
about sin, just hold your place there. When he's talking about
sin, what does he usually sum it up as? Doesn't he usually
talk about the world, ain't he? That's what he's talking about.
What concord hath Christ? And he just uses a a slur, a
nickname. Actually, the word in my Strong's
Concordance, and I can't even pronounce it now, but the word means a word like a nickname, something
like a nickname, but it sums up the character of the person
or thing that you're talking about. Wasn't it epithet? That's the word. And I didn't
know what that was either. I had to look it up. And that's
what it means. It's just like Ivan the Terrible. That's what that is. It was something
to describe what it is. And he's talking about this world
and its relationship to Christ. And he said, What concord hath
Christ with Belial, with this wicked, worthless world? And what agreement? Verse 16,
at the temple of God with idols, for you are the temple of the
living God. As God has said, I will dwell
in them and walk in them and I'll be their God and they'll
be my people. Wherefore? Are you with me? Wherefore? Verse 17, come out from among
them. Be you separate, saith the Lord,
and touch not the unclean thing, and I'll receive you. And I'll
be a father unto you, and you'll be my sons and daughters, saith
the Lord Almighty." I don't believe there's anything more abused
and misused and misrepresented to men than their earthly relationships. Every son of Adam is dead in
trespasses and sins, and sins including our sons and our daughters
and our mothers and our fathers and our brothers and our sisters.
When he talks about this world, that's who he's talking about.
Somebody's mother, somebody's father, somebody's son, talking
about all men. And they're dead in trespasses
and sins. Every son of Adam is a rebel
against God, including mine. Every son of Adam walks in darkness
and prefers his darkness to the light of Christ, especially them
of our own household. And the closer the relationship,
now listen to me, the closer the relationship, the greater
the threat. What is the one thing that religion
uses today to get men through the door? Do you listen at all
to their programs and stuff? I do so I know how to preach
against it. But the one thing that they use more than anything
else, children, your children. I'm telling you the truth. Everything
they do is geared toward those children. They'll have plays
for them and concerts for them and they'll have all types of,
they'll build basketball courts and have sporting events and
have carnivals and they just have all kinds of things for
those kids because they know when they get the kids they got
you. You think Satan doesn't understand that? You don't think
that's of him? He'll use anything. And he uses
earthly relationships. He'll use your wife if you let
him. She'll wire you down to the point
where you say, heck with it. Throw in the towel. Now, I'm
telling you the truth. These earthly relationships, the closer the relationship,
the greater the threat because we're easily influenced by those
we love. Well, pastor, are you saying
that we need to disown our families and disown our children, our
brothers, our sisters, our aunts and our uncles? No. No, I don't
suggest that at all. But I'm saying this. You need
to re-evaluate that relationship. And you need to view it as it's
set forth in the Scripture. as it's set forth in the Scripture.
And I know what that relationship was before you were saved because
I've been there. And you're going to have to relieve
that and come over here to a new relationship with them. They're
still your sons. They're still your daughters.
But they're not your brothers and sisters in Christ. That's
just a fact. I'm saying that you need to reevaluate
these relationships in the light of the kingdom of God, in the
light of the salvation of your own soul, and in the light of
the will of God. He said, Don't keep that same
tie. Don't keep that same tie. Don't
look at it the same as you always looked at it. You look at it
a little different. Mary came to the house. Her other sons, daughters, brought
them with her. Stopped at the door and said,
you go tell Jesus I need to see Him. And they come in, they said,
your mother called for you. He kept right on preaching. They said, your mother called
for you. She'd be all right. Your mother and your brothers
and your sisters are all standing outside waiting on you. These
are my brothers and sisters and my mother and my father. Ain't
that what he said? She can stand out there and wait.
That earthly relationship, even though she was saved, the Lord
would have her know those earthly relationships do not have priority
over these. And he said, you just tell her
to wait. You tell her to wait. And our sons and daughters come
to visit, what's the first thing we do? Well, I can't be there
Wednesday now because my brother comes to visit. You better tell
your brother to sit there. You'll be back. This is my church
night. I always go to church on Wednesday
nights. I'll be back about 8.30. I'm telling you the truth. You
do what you want to do. But a saved man is called to
a change of relationship concerning this world. He's been called
to an adoption of sons. Ain't that what he said over
there in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 a while ago when I read it
to you? He said, and be my son. and be my daughters. See, that's the problem today.
Everybody gets saved in a moment's time. They come in, they're in
trouble, something happens, they sit down, they listen for maybe
one service or two, and then they come up, well, pastor, I
won't be baptized, I believe. Maybe you do, maybe you don't.
Faith is something that comes to a man after he's weighed things. The Lord said, you don't sit
down and build a house without planning, do you? You can count
the cost and sit down and see how much is going to be involved
in this thing. How much is going to be required in this thing?
What's my part of this thing going to be? Otherwise, you start
a house and get it up on the roof and run out of money. And
there you sit. You ain't got any drywall, no windows. Everybody's
laughing. Look at him. He thought he was
going to do something. Look over there. He can't even
sit down and count up the cost. That's what happens with faith.
You come in here and sit down, and this is why I don't like
to take folks and pin them back in the corner and say, what do
you think about elections? I don't like to do that. I want them
to come in and sit down and listen. And I'll do everything in my
power apart from compromising the gospel to keep them coming.
I want them to hear. I want them to hear what I'm
saying about this and about that and about this and about that
and sit down and in plain, simple, childlike faith evaluate what
I'm saying before you make a commitment to God. I just don't think we've
done that. I think we just rushed into this
thing and didn't count the cost, and then all of a sudden it comes
up. And I've told you and told you,
God's going to try your faith. See what kind it is. See what
kind it is. And I tell you this, we're called
to a change in relationships concerning this world where His
sons, His daughters, Listen to this over here in John chapter
1. I want to read that again. That's
so good over there. To as many as received Him, to
them gave He power to become sons of God. Sons of God. John, if I'm a son of God, and
it's in the purpose of God to burn this world up, I'm not going
to do much building. I'm just going to do what I have
to do, because he's going to burn it up. There's not going
to be any sense in me having 12 cars. I just need one to get
where I'm going. There's not no sense in me building up
this great big bank account so I can leave it to my kids who
don't know God, who are going to take it out and squander it
anyway. There's no sense in that. And I'll tell you why we do it.
Because we don't have these relationships straightened out in our mind
and in our hearts. That's exactly why we do it. It said, "...to
as many as received Him." This receiving Him is to see Him in
His relationship to this world, in His relationship to fallen
sinners, in His relationship to God and the character of God,
and to view these promises. My soul looked at the promises
that He talked about to Abraham. Think about those promises. And I say this to you, do not
give natural relationships priority over spiritual ones. Do not look at these relationships
for security and safety. Do you know that the Mother of
Christ, and I know what I'm saying when I say that. The Scripture
called Her His Mother. He's hanging on a cross. And
John's there, and Mary's there. And he looked down at his mother,
and looked at his disciple, and he told John, he said, that's
your mother. Huh? Ain't that what it says?
You read over toward the last few chapters of, I think it's
in John. And it said from that day, John
took Mary home and took care of her. From that day. Don't view these earthly relationships
and look to them for security and safety. Do not listen to
their advice on spiritual matters. They don't know God from a billy
goat. Do not let their relationship hinder you in following the will
of the Lord. Do not. I know folks all over
the country right now. Every time I talk to them, they
talk to me about, boy, I wish we were somewhere where we had
a church. What's holding you back? Huh? What's holding you back? If you
know that's the will of God and you know it or you wouldn't be
sitting there thinking about it, what's holding you back? I'll tell you what's holding
you back, earthly relationships. Now, I don't say that a man ought
to pull the plug and run out of town. You've got to leave
honorably. You've got to pay your bills.
You have to have a job to support yourself and your family. You
have to have these things. We don't just pull the plug and
run out. Abraham didn't either. He didn't go very far, and then
he went to work, got some money together and got some substance
together, and we'll get into that. Then he went on. He didn't
just pull the plug and go out the door. Some things had to
happen, and we have to wait on the providence of God. But I'm
saying this, some of these people have been here forever, and they're
still there, and they're still whining about no church. Pretty
obvious to me, God's not going to raise one up. Pack up your
bags and get out. Go find one. What's holding you
back? Earthly relationships. That's
what it is. Don't let these earthly relationships
hinder you from following the will of God. The Lord called
a man. He said, follow me. He said,
wait a minute. He said, my daddy died. He said, as soon as I get
him buried. He said, let the dead bury the dead. Take up your
cross and follow me. You burying somebody is going
to be in hell anyway. Just pack up your suitcase and
follow me. Either this thing is real or
it's garbage. There is no in-between. There are no gray areas. It's
either so or it ain't. That's what you've got to make
up your mind. Make up your mind. Do not let them intimidate you
or influence you in any way concerning the will or the way of God. And
I tell you this, I say this to you, do not cultivate their company
more than you do the fellowship of the saints. Don't do it. Don't
do it. I know folks who look forward
to family reunions more than they do the fellowships that
we have here every so often back here. They wouldn't come to this,
but they'd go to that family reunion in a heartbeat. They'd
take off work and go to it. I worry about folks who go off
to themselves, have nothing to say, no cheerful greetings, no,
I'm glad to see you. I tell you, that tickled me to
death. I looked out there. This fellow and his wife that
was here Sunday had been listening to me ever since I'd been on
the Internet, and I didn't know it. I'd never gotten a response
from him, didn't know anything about him, until the day before
he called me up and said, I'm coming up to you. He said, I
want to come up and worship with you. Man, I was excited. I was tickled to death. You've
got to talk with them for a little bit. And then I come to find
out they live just right outside of Wichita Falls, so I'm hoping
they can come up there a little more regularly when I go over
there to preach and be with us. We're called into a spiritual
kingdom, and God's saints all love one another. I'm going to
read for you just a few scriptures. John said this, he said, A new
commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and
in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light now
shineth." This is in 1 John 2, if you want to follow along.
In verse 9, "...he that saith he is in the light." Now, he's
talking about what's happening here. This darkness has passed,
and now you're walking in the true light, true faith. Eyes wide open. You understand
what the world is. I just went through the Scriptures
and showed you how God describes it. You know what that is. But now the true light has come.
And you see something about the righteousness of Christ and the
promises of God that tell you and His predestinating purpose
that one day you're going to stand exactly as He is. Exactly. The true light now shining. Now he says here in verse 9,
ìHe that saith he is in the light, hates his brother, he is in darkness.î
He didnít have no light. He didnít have any light. ìHe
that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none
occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother
is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and knows not whither
he goeth, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.î Look over
here in 1 John 3, verse 1. He said, Behold, what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called
the sons of God. That's something. These folks
jumping up and down on TV talking about being born-again Christians.
They ain't no other kind. But I'm more happy about this. Look at this. Look what kind
of love the Father has bestowed upon you. He called you His son. His son. Oh, He said, Beloved,
now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we
shall be, but we know that when we shall appear, we'll be like
Him, for we'll see Him as He is. And every man that has this
hope in him purifies himself. He wants to be like Christ because
he is walking in the light. He wants that character. He wants
that righteousness. He wants that holiness. He wants
that goodness. He does not want to be what he
is. And he has got nothing in common with folks who do not
give a hoot what they are. I go to things because I have
to every now and then and I go down there and I sit down with
them and we got absolutely nothing in common, nothing at all. And
it's just the nature of the event when you go in there and they
know you're a preacher or they know you're a believer and had
been for a long time, they got to get in some kind of a religious
conversation right off the bat to try to find some common ground
and there just isn't any, just isn't any. All through the first epistle
of John, he points to these relationships of Christ and the believer and
the believer with other believers. Now listen to me for a minute.
This calling of Abraham out of his country, away from his kinsmen,
out of his father's house, was not meant to be a curse. It's
meant to be a blessing. Do you know sometimes the Lord
said there's somebody in here and they do something wrong And
you go tell them it's wrong and they continue to do it. He said,
break off the fellowship. Just quit talking and quit visiting
and quit associating. Why? It's not up to me to punish
him. It isn't sin against me, it's
sin against God. Why do I want to break off that
relation? So he'll know what he's doing. That's why. And a lot of times when God breaks
these family relationships, when He breaks these worldly relationships,
that man takes a long, hard look at what's going on. And that
breaking up of that relationship becomes salvation to that man.
Have I got some Scripture for you? Right back in Genesis. Abraham
packed up his stuff to leave. You know what it said? And a
lot went with him. Huh? A lot went with him. How come Lot didn't stay? Because
he saw something in those promises that God gave to Abraham. And
he said, I want this worse than I want this. And he went with
him. Naomi, drought came. Left there and went to Moab.
While they were in Moab, her two sons married two Moabitess
women. Well, the hard times passed.
Things began to pick back up at home. The husbands of the
two daughters, well, first of all, her husband died. And then
her two sons died, left her with two daughter-in-laws and her
in a foreign country. And she said, you all just go
on back. Go on back to your folks. Go on back to your gods, is what
she told me. She said, I'm going to go back
over here. I'm going to go back to Bethlehem.
And the one packed up her suitcase, off she went, back to home. But
you know what Ruth said? I don't want to go back. How come? Because she saw something
in the God of Naomi. And she said, and she knew something
about that love that she showed that girl. And she said, Wherever
you go, I go. Wherever you lodge, I'm going
to lodge. And your God is going to be my God. And your people
are my people." That went back. And you know the rest of the
story. Broken relationships. Sometimes they can lead to the
salvation of a soul. That's why he tells us over there
not to get rid of our wife. Just because you're born again
doesn't mean your wife is immediately. And they don't match. I'm telling you, when you take
these things serious and these things go into your heart, they
don't match. And there's trouble. And Paul
said, if she'll surrender, or he'll surrender, whichever it
is. I had a lady, the only thing I can remember her first name
was Grace. And I remember it because of
what it stands for. But I used to preach to her,
and her husband hated the gospel with a passion. He'd do everything
in his power to keep her from coming out. And when she did,
boy, she had to pray for it big time. But she was there almost
every time I went down to pray. And I thought about her and prayed
about her all the time, these relationships. But if they'll
surrender, if they'll bow, and they won't cause the division,
they don't just throw in the towel and go off. He said, just
leave it alone. Leave it alone. It might be.
It might be that the Lord will sanctify her for your sake. It
might be. It might be. We come to understand at least
in part what we are being saved from. In Galatians 6.14 he said,
But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ Now watch what he says here, "...by whom the
world is crucified unto me." You know what the crucifixion
was all about? Righteousness. A righteous judgment. God laid our sins on Him, made
Him to be sin for us, saw that sin in Him, and judged that sin
righteously on the cross. Killed Him. He said that's what
we do with the world. We see God's righteous judgment
against this world and we get on His side on this judgment
and we crucify it. Crucify it. The world is crucified
unto me and I unto the world. That's a two-sided coin. The
world looks at you and hears what you profess and hears what
you confess and sees your life and they crucify you because
it don't fit their religion. In 1 John 5, there's a statement
made that I think every believer will acknowledge, not only with
his mouth but by the tenor of his life. John said, and we know
that we are of God and the whole world, Life and wickedness. So what is this? What is this? It says, Abraham departed as
the Lord had spoken unto him. Now over in Hebrews 11, it tells
you why he departed. It said he sought a city whose
builder and maker was God. That's what he was going for.
But this coming to Christ is a leaving this world. Not all
it wants. Not all it wants. But it's losing
interest in its affairs. It's ceasing to have anxiety
over its crises. It's ceasing to love its applause. It's ceasing to run after its
treasures. It ceases in seeing its wisdom. It looks at the wisdom of this
world and you know it for what it is. It's foolishness. That's
all it is. Foolishness. Seeing its religion
for what it is, the great whore, drawing away foolish men into
eternal ruin. They go like the ox. Just go
like a dumb ox. That's what this leaving is all
about here with Abraham. That's what it's all about. It
wasn't about that old dry dirt over in Canaan. Abraham would
stand as the father of the faithful. He's going to stand as an example
to us. And every detail of his life
that God's preserved in these next 12 chapters, I hope He'll
give me some insight into them so I can sit and just talk to
you in plain language the way I'm talking to you tonight. Beware. I'm telling you, beware. I still
have a relationship. We're going up next month to
see my son up in Washington, D.C. Want to go up there and
see him? But I'm not going to give up
what I believe, go up there and see him. And that's what I'm talking about.
We've got to view these worldly relationships. Folks come over, sit down, time
to go to church, say, well, I've got to go. I've got to go. Y'all
want to stay here? I'll be back about 9 o'clock,
10 o'clock, whatever time you get back.