Singing and Preaching

If you want to turn back, if
you will, to the 66th Psalm this morning, I'd like to read the first four
verses. Psalm 66. Make a joyful noise unto God,
all ye lambs. Sing forth the honor of his name. Make his praise glorious. Say unto God how terrible art
thou in thy works. Through the greatness of thy
power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee. All the
earth shall worship thee and shall sing unto thee. They shall
sing to thy name, Selah. I wanted this morning to say
some things that kind of been building up in my heart for some
time. And I hope these things will
be God honoring. I hope they'll be edifying to
your soul. I hope they will some way or another Educate all of
our hearts to some degree and the things of God and the things
that have to do with worship I want to talk about singing
and preaching the singing and preaching of a New Testament
church this morning now I do not mean to minimize the subject
of prayer. Now, I recognize that we sing
here, we pray here, and we preach when we come together, and that
takes up the meeting time that we have. It takes up our time
that we are allotted that we might be able to worship the
Lord, but I do not mean to minimize the subject of prayer by not
mentioning it this morning, because I recognize that prayer has the
priority even over preaching. And it is very, very important.
And we will deal with that when the Lord enables us to at a future
date. But this morning I want to talk
about singing and the preaching. And there are seven things that
I want to talk about that characterizes, that concerns, I believe, every
worship service that takes place here and any place else. It should concern the people
of God. And these seven things characterizes
the worship service. Singing and the preaching of
the gospel now first of all I want to talk about the singing Because
we read here in our text this morning that were to make a joyful
noise unto God and then in verse 2 sing forth the honor of of
his name, make his praise glorious. And then in verse 4, all the
earth shall worship thee and shall sing unto thee, they shall
sing to thy name, Selah. Now, the congregational singing,
I believe, is one of the most important aspects of public worship. It certainly isn't the most important,
but it is one of the most important aspects of public worship. The
singing of the hymns, that is, the singing of hymns to the praise
of the name of the Lord, to the praise of the great God of the
Bible. Congregational singing inspires
our hearts to worship. It inspires our hearts to worship
God. It instructs our hearts and it
comforts us. I believe that probably there's
not one here that would not testify that one time or other that one
of the old hymns of the faith was a definite encouragement,
was a definite comfort to their heart, and I believe that congregational
singing prepares the hearts of the people of God for the preaching
of the gospel. It prepares our hearts to listen
to the Word of God expounded. Now, the selection of hymns must
never be taken lightly, and I'm sure they're not here. There
are many, many times when I find that the selection of the hymns
is right in accordance with the subject of the message which
the Spirit of God has led us to bring at a given time. And so I know that even when
you select the hymns yourself, as Mike has started allowing
the congregation to do on the first Sunday of every month,
that the selection of the hymns are never taken lightly, that
you consider the content, the message that are in those hymns
and their effect, what effect they would have upon your own
heart and upon the hearts of the people that will sing them
with you. Now the singing itself must never
be performed mechanically, and those who are called to lead
the congregation at any time in worship by special music must
never do so without prayerful and thoughtful preparation. Every song that is sung in a
New Testament church in a worship service must be unto the Lord. It must be as unto the Lord. It must be unto Him. And every
song is to be an instrument of edification, instruction, and
admonition to one another. Now, I'm sure that you might
think, well, that's a big bill for a song. to meet, but I do
not believe that it is. I believe that the hymns of the
faith that we sing here and that are selected here are all of
these things. It is therefore imperative that
our songs be both doctrinally accurate and also devotional
at the same time. Now, there are many hymnals out,
and there are some of them that are real good, and there are
some of them that are not. But if we're careful, we can select
those hymns that are doctrinally accurate. And I believe that
to be so very important. There's no need for a preacher
to get up and preach the Word of God, and preach the truth
of the Gospel, and then for the congregation to be singing hymns
that deny everything that he preaches. I think that we must
be faithful in selecting the hymns and that they must be doctrinally
accurate and devotional. Now there's no place for sentimentality
or emotionalism or show in the worship of God. I've heard songs
and I've I've been acquainted with some various people who
would sing particular songs that about all there was to it was
show. There wasn't anything in it that was worshipful. There wasn't anything in it That
would honor God really that there was more of a show of the flesh,
but we cannot have that There's no place for that in the New
Testament Church Our songs are not and must not be songs of
flattery to the flesh but songs of praise to the one God of heaven
and earth songs that praise him and Would have would have praised
the Lord and let all the earth hear the praise of our God now
the scripture I believe if we were to take a concordance and
if we were to look up the word sing, I believe that the scripture
plainly tells us what the proper subjects, the proper subjects,
the themes of our songs, what they should be. I just want to
give you a few this morning just simply now the list could be
made a great deal bigger Larger than what I've given you or what
I will give you but nevertheless this gives you the idea This
gives you tells you what I'm trying to say here this morning
in Psalm 7 and 17 David says I will praise the Lord according
to his righteousness and And will sing praise to the name
of the Lord Most High. So I believe that one of the
themes, and of course we also read here in verse verse 2 Yes
in verse notice in verse 4. He says they shall sing to thy
name Sela So the first theme that I would offer for a song
a scriptural song To be sung in a Baptist Church to be sung
in a New Testament worship service is a song that has to do with
the name of the Lord and The exaltation of the name of the
Lord. Now in Psalm 21 and 13, I think
also the theme of the power of the Lord. And also here in Psalm
66 and verse 7. Let me read Psalm 21 and 13.
It says, Be thou exalted, Lord, in thine own strength. So will
we sing and praise thy power. And then here in Psalm 66 and
verse 7, it says, He ruleth by his power forever. And so if
the Lord rules by his power forever, then David said that we ought
to sing and praise the power of God. Because it is the power
of God, Jesus said, all power is given to me in heaven and
in earth. God has all power, and he is the God that rules
according to that power. Now in Psalm 51 and 14, we have
another theme, and that is the righteousness of God. He said,
deliver me, David did, from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of
my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. My tongue shall sing aloud of
thy righteousness, so when we find a hymn that exalts the righteousness
of God along with the name of the Lord and the power of God,
then this is to be certainly a song that we're to sing as
the Lord's people in this place. And then in Psalm 59 verses 16
and 17, the mercy of the Lord. The mercy of the Lord is to be
a theme for our hymns. And in verse 16, David said,
But I will sing of thy power, yea, I will sing aloud of thy
mercy in the morning, for thou hast been my defense and refuge
in the day of my trouble. And then in verse 17, Unto thee,
O my strength, will I sing, for God is my defense and the God
of my mercy. God is my defense and the God
of my mercy. What a theme for us to sing about,
the mercy of our God. Has God had mercy upon you? If
you felt the mercy of God in your own soul, if you know that
God has not taken away His mercy but has been pleased to sovereignly
show it unto you, then certainly you can sing about it. You can
sing about it from the depth of your soul. Then also we read
in Psalm 66 here and verses 2 through 4 that we're to sing and one
of the themes of our hymns is to be the honor of our God. And you can see it right here
in verse 2, sing forth the honor of his name. Sing forth the honor
of the name of the Lord. Now, I want you to look a little
bit further here. In this third verse he says,
Say unto God how terrible art thou in thy works. Through the
greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves
unto thee. Now, beloved, the honor of God
is involved in all of his works. God is a God who is glorious
in His works. And when the psalmist speaks
of the terrible things that God has done, what he means here
is that God has done such things as would appear to be to His
enemies terrible things, but they build the honor of the Lord
in the eyes of His people. Certainly one of the great and
glorious deliverances that are recorded in all the Word of God
is that deliverance which God wrought when He delivered the
children of Israel when he turned the Red Sea into dry land, and
the children of God went over dry shod. And certainly he destroyed
the enemies there as he allowed the waters to come back over
Pharaoh and his armies. But this builds the honor of
God, and so when we think about God's deliverance of us, When
we think about what the Lord did, reaching out with a strong
right arm and delivering our poor souls from a certain eternal
death, then my friend, we see the honor of God established
and we can sing about that. Now, I want you to look next
with me to the book of Exodus and here we have the next theme
and it is similar to what I've just mentioned and that is the
salvation of the Lord. Turn to Exodus 15. And I wanted
to read here just a few verses to begin with here this morning,
and then maybe you could read the rest of the chapter later
on and you'd get the idea. But I want to just leave the
idea with you that we're to sing of the Lord's salvation, sing
of His deliverance of our souls. Then sing Moses and the children
of Israel, this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will
sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse
and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my
strength and song, and is become my salvation. He is my God, and
I will prepare him in habitation, my Father's God, and I will exalt
him. The Lord is a man of war, the
Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host
hath he cast into the sea, his chosen captains also are drowned
in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them,
they sank unto the bottom as a stone. Thy right hand, O Lord,
is become glorious in power, thy right hand, O Lord, hath
dashed in pieces the enemy." So here we find an expression
of praise unto the God of their salvation by Moses and the children
of Israel after God had so gloriously delivered them from their enemy.
You remember that the people of God had been down there in
Egypt for 400 years and were slaves there, and God gloriously
delivered them, and so here they sang this song unto the God of
their salvation. He said there in verse 2, And
is become my salvation, he is my God, and I will prepare him
an habitation, my Father's God, and I will exalt Him. So certainly
the salvation of God, if you understand it, if you've experienced
it, if it's something that you know something about, God's deliverance,
then you can see readily why it should be a theme of our hymns,
why it should be the theme of many of the hymns that we sing
in the New Testament church. And then lastly here in connection
with our singing, you turn back to the book of the Revelation.
And I want to show you that the glories of redemption, the glories
of redemption also is a theme of our hymns and is to be a theme
of our hymns. Now we begin here with verse
9. Now listen to this, and this is of course a future because
this is in Revelation 5 and verse 9. We begin reading here, and
it says, And they sung a new song, saying, Thou worthy to
take the book, and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast
slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us
unto our God kings and priests, And we shall reign on the earth.
Now, this is in the new song that the people of God will sing
when their travels are over and they're at last gathered on that
blissful and eternal shore. And there they'll be singing
this new song. And it'll have reference to the
redemption by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. that Jesus
Christ has redeemed them to God by His blood out of every kindred
and tongue and people and nation, and has made us unto our God
kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld
and heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the
beast and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand
times, ten thousands and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud
voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and
riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.
And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under
the earth and such as are in the sea and all that are in them
heard I saying, blessing and honor and glory and power be
unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb, that
Lamb that was slain in the mind of God from the foundation of
the world, to redeem his own forever and ever. And the four
beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders
fell down and worshiped him that liveth forever and ever. Now
beloved, if we're going to sing that sort of a new song in heaven,
certainly I believe that it would be appropriate for us to begin
to rehearse now and to sing the songs of redemption here in this
world, and to sing the worthiness of Him, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was the, what we might say, the covenant head, and who was
the number one in God's election, and that one who was sent of
God into this world, and who laid down His life to redeem
us. If we could sing songs of praise unto His glory, unto Him,
then I believe that we'd be preparing ourselves for that day when on
that shore we should praise the Lord. Now like I said, I think
this list could be lengthened, but at least you get the idea
about what I'm talking about this morning. Our song should
always be filled with the glorious attributes of our God and the
wondrous works of His free grace in the Lord Jesus. No song should
ever be sung in a New Testament worship service that is not a
song of heartfelt prayer, praise, and thanksgiving to the Lord
our God for the glory of His great name. Now get these three
things quickly. The standard of our music is
the Word of God. The theme of our song or our
music is the work of God and the object of our songs is the
glory of God. Now, I think this spells out
what we are trying to say this morning. It's a bottom line on
singing in a New Testament church. This is what it's about. And
I believe as the Lord's people, it'll be a good guide for us
as we continue here to sing unto the Lord Until the Lord comes
for us now Then I want to get into the some things and the
rest of the things the other six things that I have talked
about This morning has has a connection with the preaching of a New Testament
Church Did you get those last three things that I gave you
the standard for our music is the Word of God? The theme is
the work of God and the object is the glory of God Now then,
sometimes I kind of think people trying to take notes while I'm
preaching is about like the lady over in Wisconsin that was trying
to speak to the deaf and dumb. She was trying to sign for them
while I was trying to preach. And it was one of those days
when, you know, you kind of felt greased and you kind of could
speak, you know, quite rapidly. And she had been trained in college
to do it. And the first and only time I
ever spoke to a meeting where somebody was trying to do that.
Well, when we got finished, she said, well, I just had to leave
part of it out. I just couldn't keep up. And
so that's maybe the way it is taking those two. But number
two here, I want to talk about the things that should characterize
the preaching that comes from a New Testament pulpit. And then
there's six things here and I'm not going to spend long on them.
I'm going to be very brief on them because our time is getting
away. But I want to give you these
things because I believe them to be very important. And only
God knows how long we'll be here. I recognize that my voice is
a very temporary voice. I do not know anything about
what God has for me. I don't know anything about how
long that I'll minister this church. I know my voice, regardless
of if I stay here the rest of my life, that my voice is a temporary
voice. in this congregation, in this
church. And so I want to say these things
to you because it'll be a guide to you in listening to anybody
preach. It'll be a guide to you in ever
choosing anyone else to stand before you, not to preach to
you. It needs to be God-honoring.
The preaching must be God-honoring because, my friend, you cannot
preach God too holy. You cannot preach God too sovereign. You cannot preach God too high. No way that you can preach God
high enough. We must exalt the Lord in our
preaching. Now, in these desperate days,
the people who make up the Lord's Church must exalt the Lord, and
they must do it on purpose. They'll not do it accidentally.
You must exalt the Lord on purpose. And a preacher that is preaching
the Word of God, he must spend time and he must put out effort
in that direction to see to it that the name of God, that the
Lord, the God of this Bible, is exalted. The preacher especially
must see to it that he sanctifies God before the people and preaches
Him up, that he preaches God up on the throne. Now it's kind
of like the sign along Interstate 80 that I read about just outside
of Winnemucca, Nevada that reads, if you don't stop here, who will? And if a preacher, the man who's
preaching in a New Testament church doesn't preach God up,
if he doesn't honor God, who will? And I believe, it is my
conviction, that God put this little body here in Great Falls,
here in this area where we find ourselves, to exalt Him. And I believe that those that
honor God, He will honor. And I believe that it to be our
purpose, our business here. And I've deliberately, as a preacher
of the gospel, I have deliberately went in that direction. I think
maybe somebody said, well, you've gone to seed on it. But I do
not believe that any man has the ability, no man has the ability,
I don't care, God-given ability, natural ability, whatever kind
of ability you want to talk about, He doesn't have the ability to
preach God too holy, God too sovereign, God too high. There's
no man that's got the language, the ability to so exalt God beyond
what he ought to be exalted. And so when a preacher gets at
the business of preaching God up, my friend, there just isn't
any place where anybody ought to say, just quit. Just time
to quit. You said too much and you said
it too eloquently and there's no need to say anything more
about God being high, God being up. No, my friend. We don't have
the ability. If we who claim to know God,
if we do not preach Him up, then who will? And this church has
the responsibility, and I suppose that we've taken it, maybe we've
taken the responsibility, I believe we have, and we've tried to preach
God up. We've tried to preach Him sovereign,
holy, and on a throne. And that, my friend, is what
I believe, that every message in a New Testament church Must
do. Number two, every message in
a New Testament church, or I should say this is number three, must
be man dishonoring. Man dishonoring. Now, beloved,
you can't preach man sinful enough. You can't preach man dead enough. And you cannot preach man low
enough. Because the Bible is so desperately
clear on it that man in his best state is altogether vanity, that
man is dead in trespasses and sin, and that there is no good
thing in man's sinful, corrupt nature. Now, I know that this
is not acceptable in this day, and the reason it's not acceptable
is because if you've got man, something more than what the
Bible says about him, if you've got him in a state where he's
got, you know, a spark of divinity, a spark of goodness in him, and
all you've got to do is fan it and then he becomes a great Christian
by just fanning this little spark of fire that's in his breast. then you rob God of His glory
in the salvation of the sinner. But if you've got the sinner
dead, if you've got him down, if you've got him low, if you've
got him where the Bible pictures him to be, then my friend, God
gets all the glory in picking up that sinner and saving that
sinner. But we're living in a day and
time when sinners, when men want the glory, part of the glory
for their salvation. They're kind of like the woodpecker
sitting on the side of the big oak tree. And he was pecking
away on the side of this tree and there was a bolt of lightning
come out of the sky and split that tree right down the middle
and it just fell over like this, one side over here, one side
over there. And the old woodpecker reared back and said, just look
what I've done. Just look what I've done. Well, that's exactly
the way sinners are. They want part of the glory in
salvation. They want to say, this is what
we've done. This is the thing that we've
done. We want the glory. But my friend, every message
that is preached in a New Testament assembly and what I've said about
God, what I've said about preaching Him high, what I've said about
preaching Him sovereign and holy is the same thing I would say
about man. There isn't anybody able to preach
man any lower than the Bible pictures him to be. And never
do you throw up your hand and say, Preacher, it's time to quit.
You preach man too far down. Man's got to have a little plane
a little higher than what you're preaching him. Preach him as
far down as the Bible pictures him to be and he'll be dead.
Dead as a door... Nail, he'll be completely without
life, spiritual life. He'll have no ability to come
to God, no ability to will to do anything contrary to his dead
and sinful nature. And until God intervenes in his
life, he'll be a lost sinner and he'll only become a saved
sinner when the sovereign God makes the choice and moves upon
his soul and draws him out of sin's death unto life. And so
we must preach the sinner down, man dishonoring every message
in a New Testament church. Now if that makes a man uncomfortable,
it ought to make him uncomfortable. And it's right for him to be
uncomfortable if he's a sinner, lost in rebellion against God,
born with a nature that would stick a butcher knife in God's
back if he had an opportunity. He ought to be told what he is. And if a church is faithful,
they'll tell the sinner where he stands before God. Now, that
brings me to the next thing, and that is that every message
preached in a New Testament church must be Christ-centered. Christ-centered. Now, if Christ is all, and we
believe He is all, then you haven't preached at all if you haven't
preached Christ. If you haven't preached His person,
and you haven't preached His work, if you haven't preached
Christ, you haven't preached at all. Christ is all. Now any sermon, and you've heard
me say this before, but Charles Spurgeon, I got it from him,
any sermon which does not have Christ in the first part, Christ
in the middle, and Christ in the end, is a mistake in conception,
and it's a crime in execution. Now then, so the message must
be Christ centered. Now there's no man who can preach
too much Jesus for me. Do you think somebody can preach
too much Jesus for you? There are people, listen to me
now, there are professing Calvinists within less than a hundred miles
of this place this morning that you can preach too much Jesus
for. I'm telling you the truth. I'm not mentioning any words,
I'm telling you the truth. You can preach too much Jesus
for a lot of people in this world and they get upset about it because
it's got to be in some measure Jesus and me. Some measure it's
got to be us and Jesus. It's got to be me and Jesus get
together and we mix this thing up and we've got salvation. But
when we preach Christ is all. And when we preach Christ and
there's people that'll argue and they'll get mad at preachers
that say the only message of the Bible is Christ and Him crucified. Paul said, I'm determined not
to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
And I know people that will argue with those kind of men that say
that, and literally, I mean, get to a place where they detest
them, and show contempt toward them, because these men are dedicated
to preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they say, well, that's
not enough, preacher, there's a lot more in the Bible besides
Christ and Him crucified. I want to tell you this, Christ
is to be, every message in a New Testament church is to be Christ-centered. And you remember that. You remember
that. Alright, now that brings me to the next thing, and that
is that the message is to be a scriptural message. Now this
is rather trite, maybe, to say, because most of you would be
aware that it's to be a scriptural message, but it is the preaching
of His Word that God has promised to bless, and not man's thoughts
and opinions about the Word, but the Word of God itself. Let
me make this statement that the Word of God alone is authoritative
in the Kingdom of God. The Word of God alone. Now I'll
turn back quickly to the book of Jeremiah. The book of Jeremiah
in chapter 23, 28 and 31. It depends on where you was at
whether you have to turn back or forward. I shouldn't have
said that, but anyway, in Jeremiah chapter 23, 28 and 31, the prophet
in verse 28, that hath a dream, let him tell a dream. And he
that hath my word, Let him speak my word faithfully. What is the
chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord? Is not my word like as
a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock
in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against
the prophet, saith the Lord, that steal my words, every one
from his neighbor. Behold, I am against the prophet,
saith the Lord, that uses their tongues and say, he saith. Now then, every sermon that's
preached should be examined by the scriptures to see Whether
these things be so, like those noble Bereans in Acts 17 and
11, they searched the scriptures daily to see whether or not those
things that were being preached were so. Whether they were so. So I'm telling you that every
message must be, it must be scriptural, it must be according to thus
saith the Lord, and the prophet must be faithful to God's word.
Faithful to God's Word. Okay, that brings me the next
thing every message ought to be plain and it ought to be simple
plain and simple now our Lord Jesus Christ was a preacher and
He who made man's mouth could have spoken so eloquently That
nobody could have understood a word that he said He could
have done that. Don't you believe that? I believe
he could have Now listen to me, yet the Lord Jesus spoke simply
so that all could understand except those that were wise and
prudent, except those Pharisees and those who were so, they were
blinded by the providential hand of God, they were blinded by
God's purpose, they were blinded because God would hid that he
would have the truth from them in order that he might reveal
it unto babes but the message of the Lord Jesus Christ was
a very plain and a very simple message and these men were blinded not so they could not see the
truth but because they would not see the truth they were blinded
and we're to understand that the message is to be simple and
plain and when a man gets up and preaches so that you can't
understand a thing on earth he's talking about. That's not because
he's smart. That's not because he's intelligent.
That's because that individual is not preaching the Word of
God. He's not imitating the Master. And I've heard people say, well,
I couldn't understand a thing that so-and-so was talking about.
Couldn't understand a thing he was talking about. No way, I
mean, just simply couldn't tell where he was going. Well, my
friend, that's not superiority of ability when it comes to preaching. To me, that man's wasting his
time and everybody else's time. I think that you ought to be
able to follow a man that's preaching the word. I don't know whether
you can follow me half the time or not, but nevertheless, I think
you ought to be able to. And a man you listen to should
be the kind of man that is plain and simple and straightforward
in his preaching of the Word. Now that brings me to the last
thing, and I want you to hear me. And you're probably going
to say, physician, heal thyself, when I make this statement. But
nevertheless, I believe that every message in a New Testament
church ought to be brief. It ought to be brief. Now, I
think that our messages are brief compared with the Puritans. We
are very brief because the Puritans, they preach for two hours, two
and a half hours sometimes, and they generally had to break in
the middle and have a song in order to wake the people up.
Now, I won't blame all for that, all the preachers, because a
lot of them was interesting and people could listen to them for,
you know, never bat an eye. Some of them were very interesting
preachers. But there was a whole lot of them that had people fell
to sleep. One fellow I heard about, and
he couldn't, got to the place where he had insomnia, he couldn't
sleep at all, and so he said, just take me to the church. I
never had any problem sleeping there. But most, listen to me
now, we ought to be brief. We really should. They tell me,
I never was at one of them long enough to hear this, but they
tell me that in preacher school, they tell the young preachers
to stand up, speak up, and then shut up. And they tell them also
to preach short sermons, because they said that if you preach
short sermons, the people will like you for no other reason.
They'll like you that you just preach short sermons. Now then,
I want you to turn to the book of Genesis. I remember hearing
Bruce Prentice, who was formerly in Lewistown, and he told me
that his father, who was a Methodist preacher, had told him a long
time ago that if you get up and drill for 30 minutes and don't
strike oil, it's time to quit. And so I guess there's something
to this being brief, but nevertheless, I found something here in Genesis
42 that I thought was outstanding, and Jacob got up one day and
preached the shortest but the best message his family had ever
heard. And here in Genesis 42 verses
1 and 2, we have that message that Jacob preached. And now
when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto
his sons, Why do you look one upon another? And he said, Behold,
I have heard that there is corn in Egypt. Get you down thither
and buy for us from thence that we may live and not die. Church dismissed. Now, brother,
sister, that's a very simple and short sermon, isn't it? It
really is, but it's a powerful sermon. It really is. Now, what
he was saying basically was that we're in a famine and we're all
dying, but I've heard there's corn down there in Egypt. That's
what we tell sinners. Same thing, basically. So don't look at one another
to try to find the answer. Don't sit there looking around
at each other trying to find the answer. Get down to Egypt.
Get down there where the corn is. Get to Christ. Just a simple
and very brief message, but it's the best. So try to keep it simple
and short, brief. Now in Matthew 10 and 24, it
says, the disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above
his Lord. He's not above his master. Truly, I believe that through
my reading through the years that our Lord's preaching was
all these things. that i've said this morning i
believe there were all these things i don't think that you
could find anything uh... in our lord's ministry that would
indicate that he was anything other than what i tried to tell
you this morning and may god be pleased to grant us the wisdom
to follow his example in our preaching i hope this morning
that the lord is been pleased to give us a hearing ear, receptive
heart and mind toward these things, and that we will continue as
we have in regards to the singing of hymns that are to the glory
of God. We have, and I've heard from
people that have come here to visit us, the bakers in particular
from down in Texas, they've said that the singing here is about
as good as they've heard anywhere, that people sing out and there's
good selection of hymns, And I praise God for that. And I
do feel that we do honor God by our singing. And we try to
honor God by the preaching. And we must keep these things
in mind. We must keep them before us and
not let them slip. Follow the example. of our lord
jesus christ father we thank you this morning this privilege
of being together here without people incurring job father each
one of our hearts stay our hearts upon the and upon your truth
and i pray father that you'll be pleased to give great victory
uh... in this church each one of us
in our lives that we may be strength and to do that what you've called
us to do and that each one of us in our various places where
you planted this that we might truly bring glory to your name
and honor to you father forgive our sins our shortcomings and
strengthen us and forgive our father in any way that this church
has failed the lord to exalt thee and to honor thee and to
preach if we have in any way been unfaithful father forgive
our sins We did not fail knowingly. Father, help us, we pray, and
be merciful, O God, unto us, and allow us to continue to preach
your word and to exalt your great name. We pray it in Jesus' name,
and for his sake alone, amen.

Singing and Preaching

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Singing and Preaching

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