Let's turn together to the book
of Luke. I know you men usually meet on Mondays, and I appreciate
so much you coming in today. I'm sorry my schedule has been
such. The last few times I've been here I haven't been able
to come on your regular day of meeting. And please convey my
best to the other brethren that I won't see this trip. and for your churches, please
convey to them that in Danville, Kentucky, we regularly pray for
you. for you men who preach the gospel
of God's grace here, and for your churches. Thank God so much
for making you part of our lives. Luke chapter 24, the Lord Jesus
is walking with the disciples on the Emmaus road. He's risen
from the dead, and he is instructing them before he revealed himself
to them. Verse 27, And beginning at Moses, you know
where Moses began, in the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth. Beginning with Genesis 1.1, and all the prophets. That goes right through to the
end of Malachi and John the Baptist. Now, that does not mean that
in this brief period of time, the Lord Jesus opened the Bible
and started reading in Genesis 1-1. read all the Old Testament and
repeated everything John the Baptist had said. But beginning
at Moses and all the prophets, he is giving the message, the
doctrine, the teaching of all the scriptures. He expounded
unto them en todas las escrituras. Now, underline that in your minds.
En todas las escrituras. The things concerning himself.
Verse 44. He said unto them, These are the words which I have
spoken to you while I was yet with you, that
all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law,
the law of Moses and all the prophets, and in the psalms. The Old Testament, the Jews divided,
the Old Testament, these three categories. The Law of Moses,
what we call the Pentateuch, Genesis through Deuteronomy,
and the Prophets, all the Prophets being the historic books, the major prophets, and the minor
prophets, and the Psalms, all the poetic books. So our Lord, we're told by Luke,
says to his disciples, I've come to fulfill everything written
in the Old Testament. Now that's a big statement. To
fulfill all the law, every commandment of it, every type, every prophecy
concerning that which is written in the scriptures, you're looking
at it. you're looking at everything
the book talks about. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. That is to say, anyone in the
world who looks upon that man crucified
at Calvary, seated in glory, and he says, that's him, He fulfilled it all. But what
about the prophecies about Israel? They're not about Israel. They're
about Him. But what about the law, and all
the ceremonies, and the commandments? It's all about Him. All right,
lead on. Then opened he their understanding,
O God, do that for me, that they might understand the Scripture,
and said unto them, It is written. And thus it behooved Christ to
suffer, and to rise from again the third day, and that repentance and remission
of sin should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem. I remind you, the Apostle Paul considered Quiero recordarles lo que el
apóstol Pablo, lo que él consideró que la predicación de Cristo
crucificado, que esto es la predicación de todo el concejo de Dios. Porque
Cristo crucificado, esto es todo el concejo de Dios. is a book with one message, and
that one message is redemption, eternal life, salvation through
Jesus Christ the Lord. The message of this book is substitution. It is the declaration of salvation
accomplished. for all God's elect by one man. As we were lost, the whole race
of humanity, by the act of rebellion of one man, Adam, so all God's
elect have been saved. I don't mean shall be saved,
have been saved. By the obedience of one man,
that man who is God, Christ Jesus. We were saved by his accomplishments
as our surety. as the land slain from the foundation
of the world. We were saved by His accomplishments
as our surety when He cried in His fetish and gave up the ghost. And we are saved by His accomplishments,
as our sugar tea sitting on the throne of grace, in the experience
of grace by His Spirit. The gospel of Christ, the gospel
message of substitution, is the message. It is the message God sends His
servants to proclaim. As a young man, I started pastoring
when I was 21 years old. I was away at a Bible conference.
Several older preachers. Men I respected. I was riding down the road with
a couple of them, and one of the fellows had begun pastoring
in a different area, and he said to the other man, he said, Brother
Ernie, if I could just get an issue, I believe I could make
things happen. And I listened to him talk a
little bit. And I said, Ron, we have an issue. Only one issue. And that one issue is the Son
of God. We have no other issue. nothing else to preach, nothing
else to talk about, nothing else to discuss except Christ crucified.
I try very hard when we meet as a congregation to direct the
thoughts of our people. to this one thing. I meet with
our men before every service. We drink coffee and talk. And
after a little bit we'll have scripture reading and prayer.
But while we're talking, we may do just what we've been doing
outside, joke a little bit, Podemos hacer esto que estamos
haciendo aquí afuera. Podemos esperar. Or talk about
the weather. Empezamos a hablar del tiempo. Empezamos a hablar
de cosas ligeras. Or discuss sports. O discutir
deportes. And sometimes politics. Y algunas
veces política. We may discuss something about
history. Tal vez hablemos algo acerca de la historia. But I
deliberately take great care. Yo me ocupo de esto. Never let
it go too far. No permito que esto se vaya muy
lejos. Lest we forget why we've come together. We've come together
to hear from God and worship our Redeemer. This is the purpose
of a local church. What's the name of that place down here
where you've got that wall? You can stand on one side and
hear from the other side a whisper? The purpose of church is to be
that. We are to be a sounding board for the gospel. We have
no other purpose for existence. Any church that has any other purpose ought
to cease to exist. Our churches have just one purpose. To preach Christ crucified to
this generation. And that mission never varies. Not in any generation. Not in any country. Not in any
circumstance. The Old Testament Scriptures
all point us to Christ. They all call for faith in Christ.
From the moment in the garden, when the Lord God spoke to Eve Cuando Dios habló a Eva y prometió
que enviaría la simiente de la mujer para destruir la cabeza
de la serpiente, Él estaba en ese momento declarando la salvación
por Cristo el Sustituto. Cuando Él quitó la ropa, estas
hojas de hielo de Adán y Eva, and slew a sacrifice for him,
and robed him in the skin of the slain sacrifice. He was proclaiming righteousness
and redemption by a slain substitute. And that's the message of all
the Old Testament. Christ is the central fact The primary figure of all the
Old Testament prophecies. All the pictures we have with
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the pictures we have
with Moses, and all the pictures of Elijah and Elisha. are constantly pointing a wave
to Christ the Lord. Abraham took his son Isaac up
to Mount Moriah. And Isaac looked at his daddy.
And he said, Father, we have the wood. And we have the fire. Now, you told me we're going
to worship God. And Abraham had taught his son well. You can't
worship God without a sacrifice. He said, Father, where is the
lamb for a burnt offering? Where's the sacrifice? And Abraham said to Isaac, My
son, God will provide himself. Not my son, God will provide
for himself. My son, God will provide himself
a ram for a burnt offering. And Abraham fully believed. sacrifice his son Isaac, his
son Isaac would rise up off that altar and bear a seed, and The seed would be Christ the
Lord. The ram provided for a burnt offering. We know that because
the Spirit of God said Abraham received his son raised from
the dead. Abraham believed God and understood
back then redemption by substitute. Before Abraham was around, a
fellow by the name of Noah built an ark. In that ark, Noah and his family
were shut in by the hand of God. It was pitch, within and without,
covered with pitch. The word is really very similar
to the word atonement. And Noah and his family suffered
all the horror of God's holy wrath in that ark. All the wind
that blew from heaven blew on Noah and his family. All the rain that fell from heaven fell on Noah and his family. All the breaking up of the deep
that created havoc and threw both on the earth broke upon
Noah and his family, and they never felt a bit of it. y ellos, sin embargo, no sintieron
ni siquiera una gota. The ark took it off. El arca
lo soportó todo. And when the wrath and fury of
God was over, y cuando la ira y la furia de Dios se había consumido,
when God's fury had spent itself entirely, cuando la ira y la
furia de Dios se había desgastado completamente, Noah walked out
of the ark with a word of assurance from God. There's no more wrath.
That's Christ our Redeemer. You and I, and all God's elect,
suffer all the fury of God's holy wrath, to the utmost extremity of divine
justice and purity, until God said, that's enough. And the
wrath of God never touches me, because Christ is our substitute.
That's the message of the Old Testament. Everything written
in the Old Testament Scripture, All the history of the Old Testament
Scripture, all that happened to the children of Israel, came
to pass by divine design. and is revealed in the book of
God, recorded by perfect inspiration,
to testify Christ's crucifixion. We call those things types, typical
people, typical things, typical events, and typical places. Adam was a type of Christ. Noah was a type of Christ. We
have numerous types of Christ in the Old Testament. Jacob's
ladder, the brazen serpent, the man that fell from heaven, the
smitten rock, The scapegoat, the paschal lamb,
every time you read these things, when you read the Word, thank
Christ, it's all about Him. The events of the Old Testament,
Israel's deliverance out of Egypt, They're crossing the Red Sea,
they're going through the wilderness, in all the way. The book says
God led them in a straight way. They made an eleven-day trip
in forty years. And God called it the straight
way for the declaration of God's prophecy. And the way ordained,
ordering all things for our good, the whole history of the universe, is a straight path for God's
elect to heavenly glory. Now, if that doesn't sail your
boat, I don't know what will. We serve a God who rules, absolutely
rules. Everything for our soul's good.
The tabernacle, the temple, the cities of refuge, all those things
are typical places for Him to Christ our refuge. But Brother
Don, it sounds like you're saying, Everything in the Old Testament
is talking about Christ and nothing else. Well, you got it, didn't
you? That's what it's all about. The same thing is true of the
New Testament. The four Gospels are called the Gospels because
they record the good news. They're very similar, declaring
one message. Much like any of us who stand
up to preach, when you get up to preach Sunday morning, Your folks hear you preach, and
they have heard what you hear here today, and so we all sound
alike, but it's different. We're preaching the same thing,
but preaching the same thing with a different emphasis, or
from different experience, but the same message. Matthew presents Christ as the
promised king. And as you read through the Gospel
of Matthew, it's obvious, Matthew is saying, this is the Messiah.
He shows the Savior's royal table. Both in his genealogy, and in
his character, and in his miracles, and in his speech. He's Christ
the King. Mark doesn't even mention his genealogy. How come? It's unimportant in Mark's gospel. Mark is presenting Christ as
the servant of God. And all the way through the sixteen
chapters of Mark, you see the Savior's obedience to his Father. as his voluntary bond-servant,
as portrayed in the law. Luke deals with the genealogy, but Luke is not dealing with
him as king, or so much as Jehovah's Servant, but rather as a man. a real man. And I find it interesting. God chose to use a doctor to
describe our Lord's humanity. The Apostle John comes along,
and there's something distinctly different about John's
gospel. We see here a man, a man who
is obviously one who rules as a king, a man who is a good shepherd,
a man who is under commandment, A man who must be obedient. But
a man who is God. And that's the purpose of the
Gospel of John. In the Book of Acts, we see a
pattern. The pattern is of The book of Acts records the
first thirty years of this gospel age after our Lord's death. The words preach, preached and
preaching are used thirty-seven times in the Book of Acts. Would you care to guess what
the subject was every time? Every time the word preach is
used in the Book of Acts. No exception. The subject preached is Jesus
and the resurrection. I take that to mean any preaching
that is not about the crucified Christ who accomplished redemption,
the proof of which is his resurrection from the dead. is but a mockery, a sham, and
a show. It ought not to have been done.
The epistles, the local church epistles, and the general epistles,
are the Holy Spirit's recorded explanation of all that
the Lord Jesus taught while he walked on this earth. The inspired
apostles say, remember when I said this? This is what it means. The epistles are the explanation
of Christ crucified. The book of Revelation declares
the sure triumph of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let me help you
with the book of Revelation. From beginning to end, The book of Revelation has one
theme. It is the sure triumph of Christ over this world in
the saving of His people. John has seven visions, but the
visions are not mixed together. If I had a picture Yo tuviera una foto, una fotografía. Over here's a picture of my son,
my grandson when he was two. Aquí tengo una foto de mi nieto
cuando tenía dos. And here's a picture of my grandson
at seven. Y aquí hay una fotografía de
mi nieto cuando tienes siete años. And I clipped those veins
and started trying to shuffle them together like this. Y trato
de juntar esos dos mezclados. You couldn't recognize anything.
No puede reconocer nada en esta foto. All you see is just a bunch
of color mixed together. And you say, well, that looks
like this to me. And that's not to say, no, it
looks like that to me. But neither have clue what you're
talking about. Because pictures are designed
to be seen separate. And these seven visions that
John has in the book of Revelation are seven different visions of
one thing. The triumph of Christ over Satan
and hell in this gospel age. What's that mean? That means
lamb always has his way. Do you remember how John first
saw that lamb? He saw a door open in heaven,
and a throne, and one sitting calmly on that throne. And around
that throne, a rainbow. symbol of God's covenant, and
change of the throne, a book written within and without, from
backside and seal with seven seals. And there John saw something
else. He saw one standing on the throne, like
a lamb that had been slain, with seven horns and seven eyes,
perfect wisdom and knowledge and absolute power. I live in
the country, and I tell you what I've observed. Animals with horns always get
their way. Our Savior always gets His way. He always gets His way, and He's
saving His people. That's what He's doing in Mexico,
in the United States, and throughout the universe. We have two ordinances. Two ordinances, not sacraments,
ordinances. An ordinance is an order. Not a means of grace. The Lord
Jesus gave two. Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
The one is the confession of Christ. The other the remembrance
of Christ. You remember what the Lord Jesus said to John the
Baptist? When he came to be baptized with
him, John said, Oh no, I can't baptize you. And the master said,
Suffer it be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all
righteousness. Now wait a minute. How does somebody being dusted
in water fulfill righteousness? Well, the papists say it does.
And the Campbellites of the Church of Christ say it does. But I'm of the opinion that you just
go in dry and come out wet. Unless you're confessing Christ. The baptism of our Redeemer was
the picture of righteousness fulfilled. He died. He's buried.
He's risen again. Made sin. Punished for sin. Castigado por el pecado. Freed
from sin. Él fue librado del pecado. Made
sin. Hecho pecado. Cursed under the
guilt of sin. Maldito bajo la culpa del pecado. Justified from all sin. Justificado
de todo pecado. That's what Christ did for us.
Eso es lo que Cristo hizo por nosotros. And this is what we
acknowledge in baptism. Y eso es lo que nosotros reconocemos
en el bautismo. When He died. Cuando Él murió.
I died with Him. Yo morí con Él. When He was buried,
I was buried with Him. When He arose without sin, bless
God I arose without sin in Him. Therefore, I'm His forever. That's baptism. The Lord's Supper,
every time you eat the bread and drink the wine, It's the remembrance of what
Christ has done for you. His bread, now that bread, representing
his holy humanity. That wine, representing his blood. The wine crushed from the grape,
as his body was crushed under the wrath of God, and he pours
out his life's blood unto death. Lord Jesus, I'm yours. Because you love me,
you gave yourself for me. That's what the ordinances are
for. That's their whole purpose and
their only purpose. To preach the gospel is to declare
from the scripture all that is written in this book of the accomplishments
of Christ and our need for His accomplishments. To preach the
gospel is to tell people the truth about who says. Brethren, when you stand to preach,
make it your determined business to expose the sin in the hearts of every man, woman,
and child sitting before you. Make it your business to make
people uncomfortable. To strip away every refuge of
lies, to destroy every false hope, and point them to the redeemer. To preach the gospel is to tell
people the truth about God. to declare His holy, sovereign
character, how that He may be just in the justifying, only
in a way that shows forth His grace, His justice, and His sovereignty in the exercise
of grace and justice. That's what God calls His glory,
when He showed Moses His glory. To preach the gospel is to declare
to sinners the truth about Christ the Redeemer, who He is. Why he came, what he did, where
he is now, and what he's doing there. Who is he? He's God in
human flesh. Why did he come? To save his
people from their sins. What did he accomplish? He redeemed us from the curse
of the law. He saved His people from their
sins. Where is He now? He's yonder in glory. What's
He doing? He's saving His people from their
sins. Learn to read your newspaper
that way. Learn to read the events of your
lives this way. There would be no faith involved
in this thing of providence if we understood the details of
how God is saving his people. How he's working all things together
for good, to them that love him and are called according to his
purpose. But looking yonder, to him who sits on the throne,
in my flesh, With my name inscribed on his
heart, with the reins of the universe in his hands, by his
grace I can believe it. He's ruling the world to save
his people, brother. That's it. Now turn to Ephesians
chapter three. Talk to you briefly a little
bit about the work of the ministry. Quiero hablarles brevemente acerca
de la obra del ministerio. Verse seven. Versículo siete. Paul said, I was made a minister. Del cual yo fui hecho ministro. Made a servant. Hecho ministro. That's what a ministry is. Hecho
siervo. Eso es lo que es un ministro.
He's the servant. Es un siervo. He is not a servant. No es un siervo. Under the thumb
and rule. Bajo el dedo, bajo el gobierno,
el poder. Of the people he serves. No está
bajo el poder del pueblo a quien él sirve. He's not a servant. No es un siervo. Controlled by
deacons. Controlado por los diáconos.
are controlled by a religious hierarchy, or any group of men.
If he's God's servant, he serves men, but he's not one made to
serve by men. Does it make sense? Please let me know. If he's God's servant, he serves
me, but he can't be made to serve
by me. He's not under the rule of men,
he doesn't need to be ruled by men, and he won't be ruled by
men. He's God's servant. and you and I are one or the
other. If we're the servants of men made to serve by them, Men can tell us what to do, what
not to do, what to preach, what not to preach, how to behave
or not behave. Try that with a prophet. It doesn't work. But
faithful men, serving God, faithfully serve
men. Ellos realmente sirven a los hombres. They serve the souls
of men. Ellos sirven a las almas de los
hombres. Faithful men, los hombres que
son fieles, don't use people for their gain. No utilizan a
la gente para su propio provecho. They are used by people. Ellos
son utilizados por la gente. For the gain of the people they
serve. Para el provecho de la gente a quien ellos sirven. Faithful
men aren't seeking yours. They're seeking you. Not for
themselves, but for God. God make us faithful servants.
And He's the only one who can. I was made a servant. According to the gift of the
grace of God, this is God's gift. Oh my! Now you will hear people
tell you, don't take yourself too seriously. There's no danger. Our only danger Nuestro peligro es to take this
work too lightly. Es de tomar este trabajo muy
a la ligera. I was made a minister by the
grace of God. Yo fui hecho ministro por la
gracia de Dios. According to the grace of God
given to me. Según el don de la gracia que
me ha sido dado. By the effectual workings of
His power. Según la operación de Su poder. Who's that that
was made a minister? By the gift and power of God.
By God giving him an understanding of the Scriptures and the gifts
needful to communicate that understanding to other people. unto me, whom less than the least
of all saints is this grace given." Imagine that. Brother Rogelio, God has taken
such things as you and I are. worthless pieces of human trash,
and put in us, into our hands, the treasure of the gospel. Paul
said, look around you. You see your calling, brethren.
Not many wise men, flesh. Not many mighty. Not many noble
has God called. But God's chosen the foolish, the base, the corrupt,
the nothings and nobodies of this world. to bring to naught the things
that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. He uses such things as we are,
so that anything accomplished, we know, and the world knows,
the power of God is not ours. All right, back to Ephesians
3. This grace is given that I should
preach among the Gentiles. Now, you stop and think about
this. For a proud Pharisee who hated Gentiles, I may be hating
them, His common speech was, as we might be taught as a young
child, give us this day our daily bread. He was taught to say,
Oh, God thank you. I'm not a dog or a woman. Or worse yet, a Gentile. He said, God's given me grace
to preach the unsearchable riches of His grace to the Gentiles.
And to make all men see, to make all men see, My purpose in preaching is to
make you see the fellowship of the mystery. He tells you later
on what the mystery is. The mystery is Christ and His
Church. The fellowship of this mystery
is that there is one place es que hay un lugar, en donde
la humanidad es uno. Hay un lugar, donde la nacionalidad
no importa. Hay un lugar donde el estatus
social no importa. Es un misterio y este misterio
está escondido de este mundo. Siempre ha sido escondido y hasta
ahora está escondido. But it's plain as day in the
gospel, and we're sent to preach it. In Jesus Christ, we are one,
because we're one with Christ. This mystery, which from the
beginning of the world has been hidden in God, who created all
things by Jesus Christ. Now, there could be no greater
possibility of work than this on the world. Take it seriously. We're sent to preach with God's
authority as God's ambassadors. Gifted and called of God to do
the work. Now, I say to you, my brethren,
addict yourselves to the work. Make it your life, no matter
the sacrifice, no matter the cost, and you'll miss nothing. I am a man greatly blessed of
God. I am married to a woman who loves me and adores me. I
have one daughter who honors me greatly. And for that woman
and that daughter, I have provided little, really nothing. I own nothing. I have nothing to leave when
I'm gone. And I've done it for one reason. To preach Christ to this world. To devote myself. With dogged
determination. Every day. To the business of preaching. To find every open door, to use
every means, personally, As a husband and a father, and
as pastor of a little church in Denver, Kentucky, to use everything
at my disposal to make Christ known. And sometimes we all get
to feeling a little sorry for ourselves. And we're kind of
like Peter. Lord, we've left all that's fallen
to you. What shall we have there for?
Do you remember how the Lord answered Peter? He asked Peter
and his disciples a question. Yes, you've left all and followed
me. You did that 45 years ago. Threw away good litter? Y'all forgive me, I'm going to
embarrass him a little bit. And brought your wife and children
down here to Mexico? Throw away good beds, sleep in
hammocks? Walter Gruber, have you lost your mind? No. I've
been called to God. light, ghee, anything? That's
Master's question. Nothing more. Nothing. Everything's supplied. Every
day. All the time. That's what God does for His
own. Let us devote ourselves. addict ourselves to prayer, to
study, and to preaching. And everything else is secondary. Everything else can be thrown
away. This cannot be. Well, brother Don, how does a
man know It has been called to preach.
I can't tell you whether God's called you to preach or not.
I wouldn't attempt to tell any man. But I'll tell you a few
things I'm certain of. If God puts a man in the ministry, He first puts grace in his heart.
Second, if God puts a man in the ministry, he first proves
his faithfulness among his people in a church. Paul told Timothy, Pablo le dijo a Timoteo that
the bishop must not be a novice. Que el ministro debe ser un neófito. A novice is not necessarily a
young man. Un neófito no es necesariamente
un hombre joven. A very old man can be a novice.
Un hombre viejo puede ser un neófito. A novice is an inexperienced
man. Un neófito es una persona que
no tiene experiencia. One whose faithfulness has not
been proved. Uno de que no ha sido probado su fidelidad. If
God puts a man in the ministry, He makes that man faithful in
His Church. Third, if God puts a man in the ministry, He gives
him a message, and he doesn't have to guess about it. The Word
of God burning in his heart. And the message is just two-fold.
All flesh is grace. Oh boy, that's not popular, is
it? All flesh is grace. I don't want
to make folks feel good about themselves. All flesh is grace. behold your God." That's the
sum of it. If God puts a man in the ministry,
He makes him apt to teach. That is, He gives him the grace
and the gifts to feed his people with knowledge
and understanding, Jeremiah 3.15. God's promise is, I will give
you pastors after my own heart. who shall feed you with knowledge,
knowledge acquired by study, prayer, and revelation, and understanding,
understanding acquired by experience, so that the pastor understands, the needs of the people he preaches
to. When I say go home to preach
Sunday morning, I'm going to be preaching to some folks, some
of whom have children who are breaking their hearts. Others have a husband breaking
their heart. Another, a wife. Folks who hear me in so many
ways, I think, my soul, what are they going through? Another
wife who just buried her. Child diagnosed with this disease. Ese niño fue diagnosticado con
esta enfermedad. Got a man at home just lost his
job. Tiene un hombre que está allá, que acaba de perder su
empleo. Sixty-year-old man's hard to
get a job. Es difícil que un hombre de sesenta le den un empleo.
Another man... Otro hombre... Owns a company
that had to lay off 140 people last week. Él tiene una empresa
y tuvo que darle baja a 140 personas la semana pasada. People who
hurt... Gente que duele... who hurt,
who need comfort, not somebody beating the air. Seek God's message
and preach Christ passionately as one who understands the experiences
of men, not just standing around talking about religion. If God puts a man into the ministry,
He gives him a place to preach. Y'all have possums down here? Old preachers
say God never made a possum, but He didn't make a persimmon
tree. And he never made a preacher.
And he didn't make a pulpit. Don't talk about God that's called
you to preach. That God hasn't given you a place to preach.
You will know He's called you when He puts you there. And if God doesn't put you in
the ministry, don't let anybody talk you into going into the
ministry. And if God calls a man to ministry, God's people want
to hear it. God gives them a hearing. The
people want to hear what God has given him to say. está diciendo por medio de él.
When God puts a man in the ministry, cuando Dios pone un hombre en
el ministerio, He gives him the support of his fellow laborers.
y les da el apoyo de sus ministros colaboradores. Brother Peter
Mene here, hermano Peter Mene, aquí estamos nosotros. I met
him actually two years ago. Yo lo conocí hace dos años. We've been corresponding for
eight years, maybe? Pero hemos estado correspondiendo
como ocho años atrás. Somewhere in that. He can tell
you. One of the first things he heard
from me was about Walter Cody Gruber, preachers around me in
the States. How come? Because God's servants promote
one another, and one another's labors, one another's works,
just as you men do. The man who's called to preach,
other preachers like this church, recognize God's servant. And
if God calls a man to the work of the gospel, he knows how to
be abased. and how to avail, how to be abused,
and how to be honored, how to be despised, and how to be loved
without those things in any way affecting his work. Two hundred years ago, a man
by the name of John Rusk, Fr. Peter Minnie is also a book publisher. A couple of years ago, he published
a book by this fellow named Rusk. This is what he wrote about preaching. He said, I want an experimental
preacher. One who, when he has had one
meal, has tried how he shall get the next. One who is tormented
with devils. Devils fit to tear him limb from
limb. One who feels hell inside himself.
And every corruption in his nature stirred to oppose God. One who feels so weak. that every day he gets over,
he views it as next to a miracle. God make me, God make you, preachers,
daily, in desperate need of his grace. Our Father, Will you be pleased now, to bless
these dear brethren. With your grace, make them faithful laborers in
the gospel. Make their labors fruitful to
your people. Sustain and strengthen them. Sustenus fortaleserus. PRABHUPĀDA Bless them, I ask
for Christ's sake. GADĪSERUS PĪDASENYOR for Christmas. PRABHUPĀDA Amen. Thank you so
much.