Scripture says that when the
Lord ascended up on high, He led captivity captive and gave
gifts unto men. He gave pastors and teachers,
such as He's given you, a gift. The greatest gift that God can
give to a people is the gospel of His Son, and He does that
through preachers. And a man who preaches the truth
is himself a gift of God. And the Lord also gifts those
men, gives them gifts. And you have a gifted pastor,
don't you? In so many ways. He doesn't want
to hear this, I'm too bad. He's a gifted man. I admire him,
I do, in every way. Mindy and I were talking about
how we like the way he does things, like the way he conducts himself,
like the way he conducts his service. And he made this very
pulpit and this table. I was admiring that this morning.
The Lord's gifted you. The Lord gets the glory for you.
I couldn't help, Brother Chris, but think about what a wonderful
carpenter he must have been. Didn't need a ruler. Did he? No, sir. It's perfect. Would you turn with me to Hebrews
chapter 12? Hebrews 12. And while you're turning, let
me thank you again. Sincerely thank you on behalf
of Mindy Myself, thank you for your hospitality, food, and all
the hard work that's gone into this. Hebrews chapter 12, read with
me the first two verses. Wherefore, seeing we also are
compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, Let us
lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset
us. And let us run with patience
the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of faith, our faith. For the joy that was set before
him endured at the cross, despising the shame, and is, right now,
is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Now these verses are a conclusion
to chapter 11, which gives many examples of men and women just
like us. who lived and died in the faith,
lived by faith and died in the faith. He says a great cloud,
very many witnesses. If you put them all together
and looked at them from afar, it looked like a cloud, dense
cloud, so many people. So he says, let us, those of
us who believe by his grace, who have this gift of faith as
these people. Let us do the same. That's what
these verses are about, an exhortation, looking unto Jesus, it said,
the author and finisher of this faith, the faith, our faith. Now this is no mere motivational
message to tell you that you can do it. Not at all. Let me tell you what faith is.
Faith is looking unto the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what they
say. Without whom we can do nothing. Not something. Nothing. Looking unto means to believe. To believe Him. To trust Him.
To depend upon Him. Looking to Him. on Him to save
you. That is faith. That is saving
faith. I can't make it any simpler.
That's it. Faith is looking unto Him. He's called the author, the one
who begins it, and the finisher, the one who ends it. The one
who hath, Paul wrote, begun a good work in you. If this work of
salvation is in you, He's the one that began it, and He's the
one that will finish it. It's all completely in Him. The author, He's God, the author. He's the one who wrote the book
of life, and He's man, the finisher. The man God sent to do this work,
who fulfilled this book. unto Jesus. Very simply. Very
simply. Looking unto Him is to see Him,
see Him as your everything, as your all, as your righteousness. If you're going to get into the
presence of a holy God, it's going to be in Christ, your righteousness. Isn't that right? Completely
covered in Him. Your sin offering, Passover,
that we heard about the other night. Christ is the Passover
lamb. He is the lamb. Everyone must
have a lamb. To look unto Him is to see Him
as your prophet. Our Lord is called the prophet,
priest, and king. And He's called Jesus here. He's
referred to as Jesus because He did all those things in His
manhood, didn't He? As a man. He's the prophet. The woman at the well said, Well,
when Messiah has come, He'll tell us all things. He's that
prophet. She was referring to that prophet
of whom Moses wrote. Moses said, A prophet will the
Lord, capital P, will the Lord raise up. He'll tell us all things. Well, the woman said, When He
comes, He'll tell us all things. A prophet. We won't need another
prophet after Him. He'll tell us everything. Our
Lord said, I'm He. Don't need another prophet. He's
a priest. Prophet. He's a priest. Looking
unto Him is to look to Him as the priest. The only mediator.
He's the one we confess our sins to. We heard about last night.
All our sins to Him. Why? Because He's the only one
that can take them away. No mere man can forgive us our
sin. So we don't confess them to men.
They have their own sins they must confess. But this man, Jesus,
is the priest. to confess to and offer up this
sacrifice to God that God will accept. He's king. He's king. Like the thief on the cross said,
remember me. You're the king. It's your kingdom.
If I get in there, you're going to have to let me. Would you
remember me? Would you allow me to come into
your kingdom? He said, I will. So he will to
all who look to him, who ask him. And he's the author and
the finisher. If you believe, if you have this
faith in Him, it's because He gave it to you. By grace are
you saved through faith, and that is not of yourselves. It's a gift from this One that
gives it to you. And if you keep believing, if
you die in the faith, you're kept by Him. You'll keep believing
because he kept you. He kept you. That's what it means
to look under him. Now, let me illustrate that a
little bit. I have an old dog named Abner,
and he's old now, about 13 years old. And I chose him, I purchased
him, I trained him, I taught him. And even after all that
and after all these years, he still is just a poor, ignorant
old dog. I am his everything. I'm everything
to him. He could not live without me. When I go out in the morning,
he's waiting on me. And he's looking not at me. I see him, he's laying on the
porch all night long. When I walk out there, he sits up and he's
looking to me, waiting for me to give him everything. He won't be fed if I don't feed
him. He won't be led if I don't lead him. He's so old now, and
he loves, you know how dogs love trucks. He loves that better
than life, to ride in the back of my truck. He cannot get, he's
so old now, Jim, he can't get in the back of my truck. I have
to pick him up and put him in the back of my truck. He looks
to me for everything. He's looking unto me. He's waiting
on me. I'm his all and end all. He doesn't
know anything, Tommy. He doesn't have a clue what I'm
going to do next. In fact, I'm sure he often wonders,
where is he going now? But he trusts me. He trusts me
completely. I'm his wisdom. I'm his everything. He's looking unto me. He trusts
me. And after all these years, I
will in no wise cast that old fellow out. No way. Though he's
just a dog, I love him. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher. That's how we look under our
Lord. Worship, you know the word worship, actually means just
that. Like a dog licking his master's
hand. I know you've looked that up,
Brother Cribb. Maybe you've already said that. But that's true. You
know the Canaanite woman, you remember the woman whose daughter
was vexed and she came to the Lord beseeching Him to help her? Remember that? Well, the Lord
said, it's not right to give the children's bread to dogs.
And she said, truth, Lord. She's saying, I'm your dog. If
I get anything, I want to get it from you. I'm looking to you
like a dog would look to his master. And our Lord said, O
woman, great is thy faith. That's faith. That's faith. Look unto Him, to see Him. See Him as our everything. And he says here in verse 1,
he says, seeing this great cloud of witnessing, people just like
you and me, who bore witness to the sovereign power, the sovereign
providence, The mercy, the saving grace of the same One. Every one of these persons in
the Old Testament looked to the same person. They looked to,
though He hadn't come yet, though they didn't know His name was
Jesus, they looked to the same person. Every one of them. Beginning with Abel. Beginning
with Adam. They looked to the same person.
Often we miss a blessing when we look at Scripture, the Old
Testament especially. And look at these names, like
in the book of Numbers and so forth, people we might not know,
but you need to look at them as actual people who lived on
this planet and they were just like us, men and women, husbands
and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, people just
like us who walked in this world just like us, common people,
common centers, saved by looking to the same Lord. Fathers, mothers
and so forth that struggled with sin, struggled in this world
just like us. Just like us. No different. Didn't have any special privileges.
But looking to the same One. And they were saved from their
sins and saved from this present evil world by looking to the
same Lord that we must look to. Real people. Real people. Without Him, they could do nothing. It tells these things that, look
at chapter 11, verses 33 and following. We look at these amazing
things that people went through, verse 33, who through faith subdued
kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the
mouths of lions, like old Daniel, you know, thrown in the lion's
den. We think, these were great people. No! No, no, no, no, no. We've already said, without Him,
they could do nothing. They're ordinary people, but
they had a great Lord. A great Lord. Same Lord we have. Without Me, He said, you can
do nothing. A man can't walk on water. Can
he? A mortal man cannot. It's humanly
impossible. I don't care how hard he tries.
He can't do it. Simon Peter walked on the water.
How? Looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. When the Lord bid him, he gave
him the ability. But it wasn't in him, it was
by looking he derived his ability and all the power from the one
he was looking to. The Lord didn't say, try real
hard, Simon, you can do it. The rest of you can too. If you
try real hard, don't believe it's water, just let your mind
over matter. No! No! All his ability, all
his power, all, everything he received, he received from the
Lord. The virtue went out from the Lord and enabled him to do
what he could not do. Same with Ollie, because he gets
all the glory. All of it. The Lord Jesus Christ. Let's look at a couple of these
examples here in chapter 11, okay, of faith. And then we're
going to look at this race that all of us must run, he said. It begins with Abel. It says, By faith, Abel offered
unto God a more excellent sacrifice, blood, more excellent than cane. Abel was one of, as we said,
these are common, ordinary people just like us. This was one of
two brothers, maybe there were more, we don't know. Could have
been. But one of two brothers who were raised by the same parents,
taught the same thing. Adam and Eve taught both of these
sons. They heard the truth. And one believed and one didn't. Right? Abel believed and Cain
didn't. Why? Abel would testify, he would
tell you that he believed by the grace of God. He would testify
to the truth that salvation is a revelation from God. I have
a brother who does not believe this gospel, rejects it. Who made me to differ? And there
was a long time that I didn't believe this gospel. I rejected
it, thought it was foolishness. But one day, like Abel, one day,
he believed. He didn't decide to believe. Someone had already decided that
a long time ago. You will believe. Jacob have
I loved. Jacob have I chosen. Jacob will
I give faith to. Jacob will I keep by my power. Jacob I have I loved, he's mine. Esau have I. Salvation is of
the Lord. Abel would testify to the fact
that salvation is by the sovereign electing grace of God and a revelation
of His Spirit. Abel brought blood. And Abel
is a testimony, a great cloud of witnessing. He would tell
you that you'll be persecuted for the truth's sake. That those
of your own household will be your enemy. Right? Anybody in here have a brother
or sister who you try to tell the truth to and they hate you
for it? Anybody? Abel did, didn't he? A man in our church was one day
reading Romans 9 to his sister, who was a very religious lady.
He was reading Romans 9, merely reading Romans 9 to her, and
she got angry with him. And she said, you're saying to
me that I'm not saved. That's what you're saying. He
said, I didn't say anything to you. I just read you God's Word. That's all Abel did. Cain? God
said, bring the blood. Don't bring your works. Mom,
Dad taught us that. We've heard the truth from the
beginning. They said, bring the blood. Without the shedding of
blood, there's no remission of sin. Cain? You know better. You've been taught better. Bring
the blood. It's only the blood. Not the best we can do. God won't
accept that. He got mad. He said, I don't
believe that. Anybody else? Who made you different? See, this faith is a gift of
God. It's a gift of God. Testimony. Enoch. What about
Enoch? Verse 5. Enoch, it says, was translated. That is, walked out of this world.
Walked right on into the presence of God. You'll read the story. of Enoch back in chapter 5 of
Genesis. He lived 365 years. And it says that he walked with
God. 300 years. I think that's how long
he walked, actually 300 years. 300 years. And he's a youngster. compared to Methuselah and some
of them. But he had a wife. He was a real man. He had a wife. He had many children. He had
many children. Brother Chris, have you ever
thought about the fact that he could have had 25 teenagers in his
house at one time? I'm talking about problems. How many chariots did he have
to provide the kids? This is real. Jobs, how many
jobs did he have to work? Did he have struggles? Did he
have worries? Did he have problems? 300 years! He lived in a sinful world, among
sinful people, right before the flood. God looked down and said,
it's a wicked place. He lived there. He walked with
God. He worshipped God. He believed God. He called on
God. He believed God in the face of a world that rejected His
God. And he did it for 300 years. How? Looking unto the Lord Jesus Christ. The only way. You reckon, O Weenock, thought,
how long is this going to go on? How much longer? We live
a short three score and ten, don't we? And we think, how long,
oh Lord? Like David, how long, oh Lord?
I can't make it another day. All these troubles. What? Look into the Lord. Look into Him. One day old Enoch
went to work. It may happen to you, Brother
Jimmy. He walked on to work. See you, honey. She didn't see
him again. He walked on into glory. And
that's going to happen to every one of God's people one day.
Walk on into glory. That's right. Your mother did. She walked on into glory. How did Enoch walk with God in
the midst of this wicked world? By looking unto the Lord Jesus
Christ. Not as an example, mind you,
but looking unto Him for everything. His strength, His grace, His
provisions, His preservation, His wisdom, His righteousness,
His everything. And time would fail me, like
the writer of this book says, time would fail to mention all
these people. All these people. My, my. So
he says, let us. Let us. Or as someone might say,
shall we? Let us. Come on. Let us. Verse 1 of chapter 12 says, Let
us lay aside every weight. Let us put away, put aside anything
that hinders us from worshiping God, from this walk with God,
like a weaned. Anything that is detrimental
to this walk of faith, this race of faith, lay it aside, put it
aside, it can wait, that's what, lay it aside. Hindrances and
so forth. The sin and the sin which does
so easily beset us, what is that? That's unbelief. Unbelief that
we're all so easily beset with. that we sing the song all the
time, prone to wonder. Lord, I feel it. Ready to halt,
David said then. I'm ready to halt. You reckon
old Enoch was ready to quit? All the time. Worries, doubts,
fears, that's so easily beset us. You know, we can turn on
the news and we can hear the gospel for years and turn on
the news and two buildings fall and, oh, two buildings fall and
think, oh no, terrorists are going to kill us all. Come on. How could you be so unbelieving?
Oh, ye of little faith, the Lord kept telling his disciples. Oh,
ye of little faith, have I been so long time with you and showed
you so many things and proven myself to you so much that at
the drop of a hat you could be beset so easily with unbelief. Look to me. Don't look at these
other things. Look to me. I'm God. Beside me there's none
else. That's what he read, didn't he?
I'm the Lord. I do all these things. Nobody does anything except what
I allow or what I direct. Is that just a doctrine or is
it a person? A doctrine won't give you anything. But look into a person. Look unto me. Be ye saved. You know, that's the same person,
the one who said that in Isaiah 55, it's the same person, the
Lord Jesus Christ. He said, look unto me, the same
one later on said, come unto me, all you that labor in a heavy
land. Same one, same God, same yesterday, today, and forever.
Look unto me. I'm God. And I'm a man. So he says in verse 1, let us
run with patience. Let us run with faith. Let us.
Over in chapter 10 of Hebrews it says, let us hold fast the
profession of our faith. Over in chapter 3 it says, let
us hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the
end. And he says in chapter 10 also,
let us exhort one another. Don't forsake the assembling
of ourselves together as a matter of some ill, but exhorting one
another." So much more as you see the day approaching. Exhort
one another. Let us, he said, let us run. Now these verses came to my mind when I began running, jogging not long ago. My wife talked me into to start
running with her, and something I never thought I'd do. No way. I remember Brother Todd ran,
still run, and he would try to get me to do it, and I'd just
scoff at him. I'd say, that's for sissies out there in their
little shorts. That's for sissies. You'll never
catch me doing that. Well, lo and behold, I'm doing
it. But I thought about that too. I would not be in this race.
I would not be standing right here before you. This is something
I never thought I'd be doing. In fact, as a young man, a young
unbeliever, I remember telling one of my friends, and I'm so
ashamed of it now, but just to show you the grace of God in
my life, I remember telling one of my young friends, that I could
disprove everything my dad ever preached. A bunch of old-fashioned nonsense.
I know more than that. I was one of these, you know,
raised in the 60s, one of these enlightened, gaze at your navel,
you know, one of these, where you learn everything looking
at your navel. Don't ask me about that. Anyway, I never thought I'd be
doing this. I never thought I'd be running.
Well, anyway, these verses came to mind. And we started doing
that. And he says, let us run. Let us run with patience. Let us, all of us, let us run. This is urgent. Today is a day
of salvation. There may be no tomorrow, right? Run. Run. It's not a stroll in
a park. It's not a game. It's not a game.
You're running. Running from something. And you're
running to someone. Running from something. Oh, John
Bunyan's pilgrim, the Pilgrim of Progress, that he was leaving,
fleeing the city of destruction. Save yourselves, Peter. preach
the Pentecost from this untoward generation, from the city of
destruction. You see John Wicketgate? Run, just as fast as you can. Make notary and run. And that
pilgrim who says he was running out of that place, and people
where his wives and his children and his friends and his neighbors
were all hollering at him and laughing at him, scoffing at
him, put his fingers in his ears and said, Put his fingers in
his ears while he was running toward that celestial city, toward
that wicked gate, which is a picture of Christ. He put his fingers
in his ears, crying the whole time. Life, life, eternal life. No matter what anybody said,
run. Run. Flee to Christ. Flee to that
refuge, that city of refuge. We're running. Running from something
to someone. It's a race, they say, run this
race. Race, not recreations, not a
contest. This race, this word race, doesn't
mean a contest. You're not racing other people.
No, that's not it at all. That's not what that means. The
word race here means a group, means there's a lot of people
in it. That's what the word means. There's a lot of people. You
see how many people have run this before you? That's what
it means, not racing people. If you begin to look at other
people, you'll quit. If you look at, because there's
some faster, some people have more faith than you do. If I
look at Noah, if I look at Moses, I get discouraged actually. I
say, I don't have that kind of faith. Well, don't look to him. Don't look to him. You'll either,
you'll quit if you look to people as you're encouragement or look
to people to help you. You'll quit one way or another.
You'll see they're too fast, I can't do that, and you'll quit.
Or you'll look and say, well, they quit. He quit, so I will
too. Peter, Simon Peter, remember? His buddies looked to him. Peter
said, I'm going fishing. They said, we'll go with you.
He quit. Don't look to him. You look to somebody to help
you, a preacher or whoever it may be. What's going to happen
when he falls? You'll quit. Don't look to him.
Don't look at people. It's not examining ourselves
by people. Look into them. It says, let
us run with patience. With patience. This is not to
the swift. This race is not to the swift. This is an endurance race, as
it were. Endurance race, not to the swift. We run with patience, waiting
on the Lord. This race that is steadfast,
set before us, this race that is set before us. Mindy and I
have a particular track that we run on in a county park. where we go, a county park with
this path, this one path, and it's marked well. It tells you
how far it is and around this field, this path. And there are
many other paths that go off of this path up into the woods. But unless you keep on that path,
you'll miss the mark, the mark. If you go off on any other path,
it'll take you into the wood, you could get lost. Christ said,
I am the way, the truth, and the light. This race that is
set before the way, looking unto Him and Him alone. Him and Him
alone. I am the way, Christ said. And
He is the prize. He's the gold. When racing, Paul wrote this
earlier, he said, I'm not running uncertainly, nor fighting as
one that beats the air. Shadow boxing, he said, I'm not
running uncertainly, I have a goal. And over in Philippians he said,
this one thing I do, this is the one thing needful, I press
toward the prize, toward the mark for the prize of the high
calling of God that's where? In Christ Jesus. He's the prize. He's not only the one we look
to for all salvation, for all power, but He's the prize. He's
the goal. He's our aim, to be with Him. To be with Him. Our little track that we run
on, it finishes, there's a mark at
the end of this track that we shoot for. And it's what we're
running for. And what it is, at the end of
this track, the mark is a porta-potty. A porta-john. That's what we're
running to. That's our goal. If we can make it to that, we've
made it. Seriously, I'd be running around
this track as if I could just make it to the job. But you know, that thought occurred
to me. That's exactly what people in
this world are running for. You take everything in this life,
whatever it is you strive for and run after and go after, that's
what it ends up. Dung. What are you running for? Just have this or have that.
It's going to end up dust. Dung. Useless. It's a useless
goal. If I can make it to the John,
I've arrived. I thought, how fitting. How fitting. Christ is called the Pearl of
Great Price. In fact, one time a woman told
me that. She said, I was talking about
preaching on the Lord Jesus Christ, that Pearl of Great Price, and
she met me at the door and she said, He forgot to say what all
we have to give up to have that pearl. I said, you mean dung? You mean
we had to trade dung for pearl? Yeah, like we've really given
something up. Paul said, I count all this but
rubbish, trash, dung, for the excellency of the knowledge,
the unsearchable riches. But we'll see someday, won't
we? He said, the former things, these former things will not
be remembered, won't even come to mind, like dung. Like dung, when we see him, when
we're with him. Here's a few things to note about
this race and then I'll quit." Our Lord is an unseen Lord, isn't
He? Whom having not seen, you look. We can't see Him. When we're
on our little track, you know, there's often times we can't
see the port-a-potty. It's out of sight. We go into
an area where it's dark and the sun's not shining and it's in
a curve and I've got my back to the finish line, and that's
when I think I can't make it. But I know it's there. I wish
I hadn't said that now. I can't get that John out of
my head. But I know it's there. I know it's there. And our Lord, He said, Lo, I'm with you always,
even under the end of the earth. He is right now set down at the
right hand of the majesty on high. The Lord Jesus Christ. There is right now a man in glory.
Not a figment of our imagination. He's not a cunningly devised
fable. He's a real person. This is not mysticism. This is
fact. This is fact. Fact of things we see now are
temporal. The unseen things are eternal
and real. This is all a soap bubble. The unseen world, that's real. see Him and looking unto Him.
You remember the people over numbers that were bitten by the
serpents? And Moses, the Lord told Moses
to tell them to look unto that brazen serpent on that pole,
which represents the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, some were bitten,
some were in the last stages of dying, weren't they? Some
were laying on the ground. Some couldn't see that serpent on
the pole. They couldn't see for the crowd couldn't. Like the
woman with the issue, couldn't see for the crowd, but look anyway. Look. We look with the eye of
faith. Though we can't see Him, look
to Him. He's there. This race is sometimes
uphill, sometimes down. Our Lord said you must, through
much tribulation, enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Trials, difficulties. Yet they're good times, thankfully.
He won't give you more than you're able to bear, but will give you
pleasant paths of time. But not always. Not always. Only
one way. In the pain, in the suffering,
in the trial. Look to Him. Look to Him. Only one. It's often
mundane, isn't it? Mundane. I remember Mindy, you
know, wanted me to go running with her. Okay, I'll run. That
sounds like fun. Go about a hundred yards, you know. I was ready
to quit. And I got through that first
day, and then the next day or whenever it was, she said, you're
ready to go running again. Again? You mean again? Yeah, and again, and again, and
again, like old Enoch. Every day, day in, day out, same
thing. Go to work, come home. Go to
work, come home. Feed your kids, wash your clothes,
come home. Mundane. Every day the same. How? This is where the Lord's
put you. And you're serving His purpose.
And you're His servant. And you do what you do, whatever
your hand finds to do, looking unto the Lord. As unto the Lord. And looking to Him. Monday. Here's the good news. Often, as with our little course,
the finish is faster. Years are flying by, aren't they?
It's flying by. As I said, I'm a grandfather
now. That's unbelievable to me. Just unbelievable. I still feel like I'm 18 years
old. But life is a vapor. It has gone
by. And in the last years, the last
of the years, your older years, they go by like years seem like
days, don't they? You older people, tell me. Don't
they seem like days? Clipping off like days? Teach
us to number our days, Scripture said. They're flying by like
days until it's over. Almost as soon as it started. And then what? Then what? Rest. Rest. That's what we're looking
for. Eternal rest. No more running. Seated with Him in glory. Rest. All of these people have entered
into His rest. are seated with Him in glory.
Every one of these people, Brother D., every one of these people,
people just like us, have run this race just like us, with
all the same problem. Maybe a little longer, maybe
a little less. The same way, by looking unto Him one way. He says, let us exhort one another. So much more as you see the day
approaching. Brother Donnie Bell came to visit
me years ago, and when I first moved to Rocky Mount, and he's
a runner now. And when I talked about running,
Brother Todd asked me, how far are you running? He said, you
don't want to compare yourself to others. I said, I'm up to a mile and
a half now. I could see him go smirk. How long do you think he'd last
with one of these Olympic runners? Somebody better. Somebody faster.
Don't look to them. Don't laugh at anybody else either.
But anyway, Brother Don came to visit. And there's a place
near us called the Peaks of Otter, and it's a beautiful mountain
range and park, state park, Peaks of Otter, River Otter. I heard
about it, never been there, told him, let's go look, let's go
see it. There's a mountain there, and I hear the view from the
top is just beautiful. We'll walk up, hike up that mountain.
He said, okay, great. So we went. It was before he
was running and me too. And we went there. And there
it is, a big mountain. So we started out. Took off,
both of us together. Fresh and relaxed, you know,
just walking and talking and talking about the Scripture and
the Gospel and the whole way. And we were walking all along
and started getting tired. Started getting tired. Donnie looked at me and said,
How much further do you think it is? I said, It couldn't be too far.
Come on, there's a sign. There's a sign right there. Let's
go. We can make it to that. We walked on to the sign and
there's a sign. The sign said, You've come one
quarter mile. You have another mile to go.
And Donnie said, let's go back. There's a bus. You can take a
bus up that mountain. I said, no, no, let's go on.
I was exhorting, no, let's not do that. Come on, come on. Brother,
we can make it. So, Brother Jim, we walked on,
you know, kept talking. And it passed the time wonderfully. We were talking about the Scriptures,
talking about the Gospel the way you do, you know. And we
were talking and finally after a little while I said to Donnie,
I said, let's go back. Let's take the bus. He said,
no, come on. That's what exhorting one another.
Come on. And this happened all the way
up through. He'd want to quit and I'd want to quit. We exhorted
one another until finally we got to the top of that mountain.
And sure enough, you could see for 360 degrees all the way around. You could see, I forget how far,
well, as far as the horizon goes, 50, 60 miles in every direction. It was the most glorious sight
to behold. You know, we were tired, but
we immediately forgot all about it. Forgot all about the climb. Now look at that gorgeous view. That's the way it's going to
be. That's the way it's going to be. Looking under him. Author and the finisher of our
faith. Who for the joy set before him
endured the cross. despise the shame, is right now
sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, looking unto
Him, lest you be wearied and faint in your mind. Okay. May the Lord bless you. Well, that encourages me not
to quit, doesn't it, you? Let's keep going. Well, take
about five minutes, stretch a little bit, and I'll see you back in
about five.