If you have turned in your Bibles
to the book of Romans chapter 1, I invite you to look beginning
with verse 14. The apostle Paul who has been
commissioned by God and sent by God, he is an apostle, and
he is separated unto the gospel of God. Separated unto the gospel
of God which he had promised to for by his prophets in the
Holy Scriptures concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. I'll get to verse 14 in a minute. I wanted to tell you who was
speaking here. The Apostle Paul is speaking,
and he's going to talk about the Lord Jesus Christ, because
the Gospel concerns the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, one of the
ways that you can tell whether a man is preaching the Gospel
or not is he preaching Christ. Is he preaching Christ? Well,
the gospel concerns God's Son. That's what it concerns. Now
you say, well, don't it concern whether or not I go to the dance? Does it not concern whether or
not I drink a can of beer now and then? Does it not concern
whether or not I attend the movie house, movie theater? Does it
not concern these things? Beloved, many have made the gospel
to concern these things, and there are many preachers out
throughout the world that are attempting to pick the fruits
of sin off of the old nature of man, thinking that they're
going to make him better by doing so. The gospel concerns God's
Son, our beloved Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the only
one who can get a sinner fixed up so it can go into heaven and
be acceptable with a holy God for all eternity, is the Lord
Jesus Christ. And until you are washed in His
blood, and until you are robed with His righteousness, then
my friend, you are not acceptable to God. And you can stop all
of these other things, and just make you a list as long as you
want. And many of them maybe you ought to stop. But I'm telling
you that if you want to get to heaven, if you want to go to
heaven by and by, then it's going to be through God's Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. Because Christ Himself is salvation. And until you're joined to Him,
then you are not a child of God. You're not saved. If you're not
in Christ, then you're not a child of God. And so it concerns His
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know, I think we belittle
Jesus. when we begin to add or begin
to subtract here and there and say, well, this has got something
to do with it, that's got something to do with it. Well, the Bible
says that when Jesus came into the world, the Father gave Him
a work to do. And do you know when He died
on the cross, before He expired, He said, I have finished the
work? Do you know that? He said, I
finished the work. Well, I believe He finished that
work and I believe that He wrought salvation. He bought our redemption
fully there on the cross. But now beginning in verse 14,
the apostle now says, I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the
barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. What he says
here is, I am obligated. I feel an obligation. I feel
an obligation. And I believe that everyone who
knows the Lord Jesus Christ in the fullness of saving grace
and mercy should also feel an obligation. Now he says, I'm
debtor. Now he did not mean by this that
he owed anybody any money. He did not mean by this that
he owed the justice of God one cent, because he didn't. He did
not owe the justice of God one cent. because Jesus Christ had
paid his sin debt in full. But what he's talking about here
is being a debtor to the cultured Greeks or to the savages, both
to the wise, those who are intelligent, and those who have no education,
the ignorant. the ignorant savage. He says,
I'm a debtor to these people. I'm a debtor to preach the gospel.
I'm a debtor to give out the message of grace, the message
of life. I'm a debtor to see to it that
the message which was taught me by the revelation of the Spirit
of God, not by any man, But by the revelation of the Spirit
of God, that that message, that it be sent out, that it goes
forth, and that the Greeks and the barbarians and the wise and
the unwise, that they hear this message. And so in verse 15 he
says, So as much as in me is. He says, As much as I am able
to do, being gifted and blessed by God in His perfect will and
providence, as much as in me is, I am ready. I am ready to
go forth with whatever ability God has gifted me with to preach
the gospel to you that are at home also. I'm ready. I'm ready
to go. Paul said, I'm ready. Well, I'm
not involved myself in any way in worldly matters that I'd be
tied up and unable to go. I'm ready. I'm ready to go. wherever it be. If it's to Rome,
I'm ready to go and preach the gospel to you at Rome. I'm ready
to go. As much as my ability would enable
me, I'm ready to go preach the gospel, the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. For I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. I'm not ashamed of it. Number
one, I'm not ashamed of it because it's been my salvation. It's been my salvation. I was
saved by the gospel. And that gospel, as we said earlier,
is Christ. And I'm not ashamed of that gospel. I'm not ashamed to identify myself
with it. I'm not ashamed to identify myself
with anybody that preaches it. I believe the gospel wholeheartedly,
and I will stand with the gospel and with the people of God, the
favored people of God in divine covenant election that preach
that gospel. I will stand with them. I am not ashamed of the gospel. He said, for it is the power
of God unto salvation. It's God's power. It's the power
of God. Somewhere or another, God connects
power to His Word. As it goes out, the message of
the gospel, there's power in it. There's a word of power. There's dynamite in the gospel
that is able to shake a man to his foundation. It will bring
a man to to where that the old rebellion in his heart is put
down and where he runs up the flag of peace in his soul. Through Jesus Christ, he comes
to peace. And it's the dynamite of the
gospel that does that. And Paul said, I'm not ashamed
of it. He says it's the power of God
to everyone to believe it. to everyone that comes to faith,
everyone who is enabled to believe the gospel, everybody who gets
a gift from God, that gift being the gift of faith. He said it's
the power of God unto their salvation, everyone that believeth. Now,
if you're a believer in Christ, you say, but I'm a weak believer
preacher. Well, my friend, if you're a believer, are you a
believer? That's the question. Are you
a believer? You say, well, I'd like to be
a stronger believer. Well, we all would like to be
stronger believers in the gospel. But are you a believer in the
gospel? If you are, it's your salvation. It means you got salvation. It means that you've been delivered
from your sin. It means that you've been made
meat for the inheritance of the saints in light. It means glory
by and by, blessing now and glory by and by, salvation, salvation. That word means deliverance,
that God has given it to you. You say, well, you mean even
if I got just a little bit? Well, the Scripture said, if
a man had faith as the size of a grain of mustard seed, he could
say to this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into
the sea, and it be removed. Oh, my friend, don't be waiting
around until you get what you call a great amount of faith
before you lay claim to the promises of the Word of God. Do you believe? Do you believe? If you believe,
my friend, and with a God-given faith, you've got the salvation
of God in your soul. To the Jew first, he said, and
also to the Greek. Paul, over and over again in
the Scriptures, made it clear that there was no difference
between the Jew and the Greek when it comes to salvation. Both
of them got saved the same way. Circumcision didn't enter in.
Nothing entered in except faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul
said in Galatians, We are all the children of God by faith
in Christ Jesus. And so that's how you get in.
You get in by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He goes on in verse
17 saying, For therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith. He says in the gospel it's revealed,
it's made clear, it's made known how God makes men righteous. And God makes men righteous on
the basis of faith. It is, as our brother quoted
here, to him that worketh not, but to him that believeth on
him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. His faith is counted for righteousness. And so this is how God makes
men righteous. You say, well, you mean you don't
make men righteous by them obeying the law? No, because no flesh
is able to obey the law. The Bible says that the flesh
is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Neither indeed can be. While
you're in your youth, while you're in your middle age, while you're
an old man with gray hair, the flesh is not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can be. If you're going to get righteous
in this world, it must be on the basis of faith. It cannot
be any other way. Nobody will ever be righteous
enough to go to heaven until they are enabled of God to believe
unto it. You believe unto righteousness,
you can't get it any other way. You cannot get it. You say, well,
but I mean, wouldn't it be alright if I tried to keep the law? Go
right on, go right on and try, and hope you all the success
that you can possibly muster up. But my friend, remember,
in the end, you must be made righteous by faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life. who did no sin, no guile
was found in his mouth. He was the righteous one, God's
righteous Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and you must believe
on Him. And that's the only way you can
get righteous enough to go to heaven. Well, we ve talked a
little bit about the gospel here, but I want you to turn with me
to Galatians chapter 1, the chapter our brother read to us a while
ago. Turn to Galatians chapter 1,
and I don t know, I may get wound up in this and take a little
longer than I figured to, but nevertheless, we re going to
look at this anyway. In Galatians chapter 1, in verse
6. Paul said, I marvel that you're
so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of
Christ unto another gospel. These people had been called
by grace, and they had been effectually called by grace into Christ. And he said, I'm amazed that
you are removed And I think it's better set forth in another translation,
and I'd like to share that with you at this time. I think these verses could be
better understood. Look at this this way. Just follow
or listen to what I'm saying. Paul is saying this, I'm amazed
that you have so quickly transferred your allegiance from him who
called you into the grace of Christ to another gospel. Not,
of course, that it is or ever could be another gospel. But there are obviously men who
are upsetting your faith with a traversity of the gospel of
Christ. Yet I say that if I or an angel
from heaven... Now I want you to listen to how
emphatic he is. Yet I say that if I, Paul, or
an angel from heaven, an angel coming down from heaven with
the wings on and the halo around his head, walking up and down
the street preaching a gospel, he says, a gospel or an angel
from heaven would have preached to you any other gospel than
the one you have heard, may he be damned. You have heard me
say it before, and now I put it down in black and white. May anybody who preaches any
other gospel than the one you have already heard be a damned
soul. Does that make you think now
that I am serving man's interests or God's? If I were trying to
win human approval, I should never be Christ's servant. Now
then, we see that the Apostle Paul was quite, he was quite
taken up with the gospel of Christ. That's what he was taken up with.
He was absolutely possessed by this gospel to the point that
he said, let the soul that preaches it be a man or angel, let him
be a damn soul if he preaches any other gospel than what you've
heard, what you had preached to you. Now, beloved, we know
that there are many gospels being preached in our day. However,
there is only one true gospel of Jesus Christ. We have the
gospel of the workmongers. We've mentioned that at different
times. Those who believe that you can
do the best you can, and they're telling people, you do the best
you can, and God will accept it. Just do the best you can.
My friend, that sounds like pretty good gospel, but it just isn't
so. That's all. It's like what Brother
Barnard used to say, makes mighty good preaching, it just ain't
so. That's all. My friend, this work-mongering
gospel is not to be heard. If you hear it, it'll damn your
soul. It'll tell you just do the best you can, and God's going
to look over all your failures and your shortcomings, and that
you're going to be ushered right into glory when you die. Well,
number one, there isn't anybody I know of that ever done the
best they could on the best day of their life. Never done the
best they could. Always room for improvement.
Somebody said the biggest room in the world is the room for
improvement. Plenty of room for improvement. But my friend, that's not going
to save anybody. And then we've heard also many
other gospels in our time. There's a social gospel where
the preachers are trying to get the prodigal son a better job
in the forecountry. You know, he went down, he left
his father's house, he went down into the foreign country and
spent all of his money on riotous living, and then he got down
to the place where he had to feed hogs to live, and so people
find him in the hog pen, they like to try to fix him up, you
know, with a better job, and fix it up. Well, that's what
the social gospel is. trying to give the prodigal son
a better job in a foreign country instead of preaching the gospel
to him that will get him to come home to the Father's house. You see, that's what we want.
We want you to come home to the Father's house. And so we're
not going to try to fix up things for you here to where you're
just perfectly satisfied and everything okay with you. Now
my friend, this is a very serious thing. this business of hearing
the true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And someone may ask,
well, how can we know? How can we know that the message
that we're hearing preached is the true gospel of God, or that
in that the fact that the world's full of preachers and many, many
voices clamoring to be heard, and many, many voices on the
airwave, many, many voices on the television, preaching all
sorts of gospels? Well, how can we know? Preacher,
we would like to know here in 2005, in September, we'd like
to know how we can know for sure that we're hearing the gospel,
the true gospel of God's grace. Well, I come now to bring you
four things that I believe will help you to see and to know what
is the true gospel of God's grace. My reply to you this morning
is this. Number one, this is the test
that you must apply to what you hear when you hear somebody get
up and preach. Number one, does it exalt what
that man is preaching? Does it exalt the sovereign mercy
of God as the only and entire reason and cause of salvation? The mercy of God. You know, in
Titus 3, Paul said, Not by works of righteousness which we have
done, but according to his mercy. Holy Ghost, by His mercy, by
His mercy. Oh, it was the mercy of God that
delivered our souls. It was the sovereign mercy of
God. Ephesians 2.4, Aaron talked about
this verse last week. We won't say much about it. But
there in that verse it says, But God, who is rich in mercy
for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were
dead in sin, hath quickened us together. By grace we are saved. It quickened us together with
Christ, by grace we are saved. In Paul in Romans 9, you remember
these classic verses, and we never get tired using them and
quoting them, and some people will never mention them, so the
more we mention them, Well, we're just trying to just balance the
scale. That's all we're trying to do,
balance the scale. For he saith to Moses, I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, so then, it is not of
him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy. So salvation is all dependent. The cause of it is the mercy. The entire reason for salvation
is the mercy of God. The mercy of God. Now mercy is
only due the guilty. Only due the guilty. Now you
say, well, I don't need any mercy. Well, that's because you don't
know how guilty you are. You ever get to the place where
you know your guilt before God, you'll know that you need His
mercy. Sovereign mercy. Sovereign mercy. You need God to come along and
lift you out of the mess that you're in. So the first thing
you want to listen for is that man telling me that if God saves
anybody it'll be because God is merciful. Is he telling me
that? And is he telling me that God's
mercy is sovereign mercy? The second thing you need to
be listening for is does his message humble man in the dust
of inability and reveal his total spiritual deadness? Now, beloved,
this is one point that we need to be very clear on, and that
is, I want to say it like this. A sinner, being a sinner is the
prerequisite for salvation. It is a prerequisite for salvation. It is our sin that commends us
to God, not our goodness and righteousness. The sinner needs
to be told that he doesn't have the ability, spiritual ability,
to come to Christ. He needs to be told that. And
I'm glad that Aaron, that he makes a point of stressing that. And that, my friend, is extremely
important. that man has total inability,
spiritual inability, and he cannot, oh yes, he can walk just like
anybody else, he can talk like other people, but he's spiritually
unable to come to Christ. No man can come except the Father
draw him. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 1
verse 15, ìFor this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation.î
Well, why Paul? Why should all accept this saying? ìThis is a faithful saying, and
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, of whom I am chief,î he said. But why should
all accept it? All should accept it because
all have sinned. and come short of the glory of
God. All men by nature are dead in sin, and they need to be quickened
by the Holy Spirit to life. And so listen to what the man
says. Is he preaching the sinner dead?
Is he preaching him with his inability? Preaching the sinner
down? Is he telling the truth about
the sinner? Now, if you don't tell the truth
about the sinner, how can you trust him to tell the truth about
God Himself? Well, you cannot. And one of
the most famous preachers in America now, if you want to call
him a preacher, he says he never says anything about a man being
a sinner. He just won't do that. Oh, well,
then there ain't nobody he's preaching to going to get to
God. Because there ain't nobody but sinners saved by grace, I'll
tell you that. Well, the third thing that we
must listen for when a man is preaching to us, if we are to
identify the gospel, the true gospel, is does it provide a
perfect righteousness before God's holiness? Now by this I
mean, does it provide, you listen to
what the man says, does he tell you that whatever God demands
of you as a never dying soul living in this world, in God's
world, that he provides, that God himself provides what he
demands. Now if he tells you that you
got to add something, that you're listening to a false prophet.
If he tells you that there's something that you've got to
put in the equation, that you've got to make a contribution, that
there's some conditions here, if he tells you that, you know
that man don't know anything about a suitable atonement, that
that man knows nothing about imputed righteousness. He knows nothing about it. Now
my friend, God provides what He demands. Now we worship there. I worship right there many, many
times, many, many days. I have worshipped right there.
God provides what He demands of this old sinner. And because
if He didn't, I'm going to come up short. I'm going to come up
real short. Are you going to come up short?
Well, I say to you, you're going to come up short. You may not
think you are, but you will come up short. God must provide everything
He demands, and a true gospel message will tell you that. It'll
tell you that. It'll not leave you thinking
when you leave a building that you must have Christ plus something. It'll leave you with the thought
when you leave the building It's Jesus only. It's Christ. It's
Christ. Okay? Now then, that's the third
thing. The fourth thing and the last
thing is this. When a man preaches to you, does
he shut every door but Christ? Shut every door but opens one,
and that is the door of Christ Jesus. Do you remember what John
said in the Gospel of John? He said that, or Jesus himself
made the statement, it's recorded in John's Gospel. He said that,
I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he
shall be saved, should go in and out and find pasture. I am
the door. So when the preacher preaches,
he must shut every door, but open one, and that's the door
that you must enter in, and that door is Christ. Bar every way, he must bar every
way. He must not daub with untempered
mortar. He must preach a clear gospel. Bar every way. Can I get in this
way, preacher? No, you cannot climb up that
way. You cannot get up that way. We
bar that way. That gate is shut and locked. You can't get through there that
way. It won't happen. Destroy every hope. He must destroy
every hope you have but Christ. Now, is that painful? Yes, it's
painful. It's painful to the religious
folks. It's painful to those that all
their lifetime has been led to believe that you keep the golden
rule and you'll enter heaven. It's painful to those who've
built up a huge cache of good works that they talk about all
the time and think that they're so much better than everybody
else. It's painful to them. But oh, my friend, listen, we
must destroy every hope, every false hope, and when we preach
the true gospel, we do that. We destroy every false hope but
Christ, and Christ is our hope. He is our hope. Now, Christ,
we must present Him as our life, our hope, our salvation, and
acceptance before the Father. This, my friend, identifies the
true gospel that Paul was ready to preach to Rome, that he was
ready to die for. This is the true gospel. Now then, I want to come to the
place of exhortation. I am going away for a while. And I don't know how long I'll be gone. I'm going out east
this week, if God wills. And I wanted to give you just
a word of exhortation at the end here this morning. If you
have your Bible, would you turn with me to the book of 1 Peter
chapter 4? 1 Peter chapter 4. I'd like to begin with verse
7, down through verse 11, make a few comments. But the end of
all things is at hand. The end of all things is at hand. Be ye therefore sober and watch
unto prayer. And above all things have fervent love or fervent charity, deep
love among yourselves. For love shall cover the multitude
of sins. Use hospitality one to another
without grudging. As every man hath received the
gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards
of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak
as the oracles of God, If any man minister, let him do it as
of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things may be
glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion
for ever and ever. Amen. I wanted to use another translation
for a moment here on these verses. The Apostle Peter begins here by saying that we are near the
end of all things now. Now this was long, long ago that
he said this, long, long ago. But the Apostle Peter knew that
we were in the last days, and the end of all things will come
to pass in the last days. He didn't know when it would
come to pass, neither do I. But there are several things
that you can look at in connection with this But the end of all
things is at hand. We know that Peter is stirring
up the people of God so that they would have the right attitude
and heart, or heart attitude and right mindset toward the
coming of the Lord and toward the end times. And so he says,
the end of all things is at hand. It is so for all men, for every
man. Our life is as the width of a
handbread. It's like a tale that's been
told. It's like a vapor that appeareth for a little time,
then it vanisheth away. The end of all things is at hand.
Our lives are nearing the end. Every day that passes, we're
one day closer to that time when the Lord's going to call us out
of this world. One day closer. And so the end of all things
is at hand. Therefore he says to you this
morning, to this church, be you therefore sober. Now this word
sober here means temperate, just the opposite of being intoxicated. And many, many people are intoxicated
with this world. and the things of this world,
those professing people of God, and many people in our day and
time is so carried away with material things that they have
no thought for prayer, and they have no mind for prayer, and
they're kind of like a drunk man. And the Jewish canon said
that a drunk man could not pray. It said he could not pray, he
had no intentions toward God. Therefore, while a man was drunk,
he should never try to pray. Wait till he's sobered up to
pray. Well, there's a lot of Christians,
professing Christians, and I hope that there's none here that are
intoxicated with the things of this world and with what's going
on around them to the point where that they really cannot pray. They have no desire to pray.
They have no heart for it. They don't want to pray. But,
beloved, we need to come back to the place where that we would
be sober, temperate-minded, and somebody who has a gluttonous
appetite that gets to the place where that they, just so full,
they loathe a honeycomb. The Bible says, A full soul loatheth
a honeycomb. In other words, nothing is precious
anymore. They're intoxicated. And I don't
want you to be that way. I want you to become more sensitive
toward the fact that you're living in the last day. And that we
give an account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and
the dead, as He said in verse 5. So watch unto prayer. Watch
unto prayer. Be earnest and watch unto prayer. Be prayerful. And then He goes
on to say, And above all things, have fervent charity. Above all
things, he said, you have a fervent or a deep love in your heart
for each other. A deep love in your heart. Oh,
we need this deep love in our hearts. Above everything else,
be sure that you have real deep love for one another, remembering
how love can cover a multitude of sins. Now, love does not cover
a lost man's sins, and love does not cover our sin before God. It's the atonement of Jesus Christ
that covers our sin before God. But in the congregation, among
believers, love for each other will cover a whole lot of the
mistakes that we make and the petty of our very persons and
the way we deal with each other. Sometimes we aggravate and we
discourage each other by things we say and by our attitudes. But love, according to Proverbs
10 and verse 12, will cover a multitude of those sins. And so make sure
that above all else, that you have a fervent love among yourselves,
a deep, deep love for yourself. And I'd recommend you read 1
Corinthians chapter 13. It's real good on the subject
of loving for the brethren. And then use hospitality one
to another without being sorry that you have to. Now this means that you need to be hospitable toward
each other, and if somebody needs a meal, feed them a meal. And
if somebody needs something, supply it. And don't be grudging
about it. Don't wish that you didn't have
to do it. Do it with a glad heart, a cheerful heart. Be mindful
of each other's needs. Be hospitable. Scripture says, Be kind one to
another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for
Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Scripture says, Be good to all
men, but especially they of the household of faith. Be good to
all men, but especially those of the household of faith. Okay,
use hospitality then one to another without grudging. As every man
hath received the gift. Now beloved, whatever we have
in nature or in grace is a gift from God. Now I want you to get
that fixed in your mind. Whatever we have in nature or
in grace is a gift of God. So he says, as every man hath
received the gift. You say every believer has got
a gift. Every believer has a gift. Every believer has something.
He has a unique something that has been imparted to his soul
by the grace of God in salvation. You may not know what yours is
yet, but you keep searching, praying that God will reveal
to you what it is that you have been set in the body of Christ
for. And keep looking to the Lord for understanding. God has
given each of you as faithful dispensers of the magnificently
varied grace of God. You are to be a faithful dispenser
of the grace of God given to you. What has God called you
to do? What is it He put you in the
church to do? Now, he goes on a little further here and he
says, Minister the same one to another
as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. And if any man
speak, now this is talking about public speaking, preaching, let
him speak, let him get his message from God. True preaching is getting
a message from God from my heart and then preaching it to your
heart. A message from God. Let him speak as the oracles
of God. And if any man minister, and
that refers according to John Gill, mainly toward deacons,
includes deacons, but also includes the minister, and it also includes
all of the saints of God who make up the church, because every
one of them has, as we said, a gift. But these gifts differ. So let him do it as of the ability
which God gives. And there is the scriptural proof
for the statement I made a few minutes ago that whatever you
have by nature or grace is the gift of God. And so let him do
it as of the ability which God giveth. God gives ability and
he gives it to all of his people. That God in all things may be
glorified through Jesus Christ. And if any of you, we read in
this other translation, preach his message as from God, and
in whatever way a man serves the church, he should do it recognizing
the fact that God gives him his ability. So that God may be glorified
in everything through Jesus Christ, to him be glory and power forever. Amen. And so, what we need to
do, somebody says, well, I think that a man should have, he should
be, have a seminary education to be able to preach to us. Well,
I tell you what I believe, and I believe this with all my heart,
having had not a novice in the matter, I believe that If our
brother Aaron was to go off to seminary for about four years,
he'd come back here and you wouldn't know him. And another thing,
if he came back here and got his feet back on the ground again,
he'd have to unlearn everything he learned in the seminary. I
say to you that a man who preaches should get his message from God,
and that he ought to preach that message with the ability which
God gives him. the ability which God gives him.
It may not be the same ability of somebody else you heard on
the television, but he preaches that message with the ability
which God gives to this end, that God in all things would
be glorified. The attention would be given
to God. And the time and days will come whenever this man will
be preaching, and you will say, It's evident that God is in this
man, that God has said something to this man, that God is speaking
through this man. Glorify God because it's the
gift of God in the man. A man preaches with the ability
which God gives, that God may be glorified in all things. And
the dominion and the power belongs to him, and he can do what he
will with his own. Look for the gift that you have,
beloved, and use that gift to minister to God's people, and
minister to those around you, the lost, and anyone you can
find to minister to, because every one of you have something
that's precious that God has given you. Every one of you.
And I know there's people who say, well, no, I don't have a
thing. Well, that's not so. That's not so. You've got something
that God can use, that He gave you to use on purpose. This is
just a word of exhortation I want to leave with you. I don't know
why, but I want to leave it with you. The end of all things is
at hand. Be you therefore sober, and watch
unto prayer. But above all things, have fervent
charity among yourselves. Have fervent charity among yourselves,
because love covers a multitude of sin. And there's so much in
all of us that's detestable. If we get along, it'll be by
the grace of God, And it will be as we love one another. Love
one another. Let brotherly love continue.
May God bless you.