I turn this evening to the book
of Genesis chapter 50, the last book or the last chapter of the
book of Genesis. Genesis chapter 50. The word visit, visit is defined
by Webster as to go to stay for a short period of time. Now we've
all been to visit relatives or friends or even a place. And
most of us have had someone come to visit us or both. God visits his people. As a matter of fact, God visits
all men and women in this world. If you're sitting here tonight,
I promise you, before your last day on this earth closes, you
will not be able to say, I never heard from God. He will visit. every man and woman. And I'll
show you that in the scriptures in a few minutes. But right now
I want you to go back to Genesis chapter 50 and begin reading
here in verse 14 where it says, Joseph returned unto Egypt, he
and his brethren, all his brothers, 11 brothers, and all that went
up with him to bury his father after he buried his father. His
father had come down during the famine. And he died there. And they took him back up to
Canaan and buried him there. Verse 15, And when Joseph's brethren
saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure
hate us. There's a chance he's going to
hate us. And as you'll see with good cause, Joseph will peradventure
hate us and will certainly requite us. That is, he's going to get
even. They thought, He's going to judge
us now. We're now going to have to pay
for what we did. He'll requite us all the evil
which we did to Him. And they sent a messenger unto
Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,
So shall you say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the
trespass of thy brethren and their sin. For they did unto
thee evil. And now we pray thee, forgive
the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And
Joseph wept when they spake unto him. It caused Joseph to weep
when his brothers asked for forgiveness. And I want us to begin to see
that Joseph is a clear picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our
Lord weeps when his people come to him and say, forgive me. Verse 18, And his brethren also
went and fell down before his face, and they said, Behold,
we be thy servants. And Joseph said unto them, Fear
not, for am I in the place of God. But as for you, you thought
evil against me. But God meant it unto good to
bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now
therefore, fear ye not, I will nourish you, and your little
ones. And he comforted them and spake
kindly unto them. And Joseph dwelt in Egypt. He
and his father's house and Joseph lived 110 years. And Joseph saw
Ephraim's children of the third generation, one of his brothers,
Ephraim. The children also of Matthew,
the son of Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph's knee. Joseph
is a picture, loves the little ones. Our Lord loves little ones. He surely does. Verse 24, and
Joseph said unto his brethren, it's time for me to die. I'm
about to die. And God will surely visit you
and bring you out of this land into the land, which he swear
to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the
children of Israel saying, God will surely visit you. And you
shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died. You remember the verse Claire
read? That was 400 years later. And when they took his bones
up as they came out of Egypt and buried him there, Claire
was reading the proof of that, what his request was. You take
me with you when God visits you. So Joseph, in verse 26, died
being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was
put in a coffin in Egypt until they took him up. Notice in verse
24 and 25, two times, not once, but two times, Joseph declares. He even, an oath here means that
he swore a declaration that God would visit his brothers, his
brethren. And the purpose of this visit
would be to bring them out of Egypt into Canaan, or the promised
land. Now, Joseph didn't declare that
God might visit them, or that He could visit them, or even
that He should visit them. You know what he said? God will
surely visit you. If you came here tonight looking
for a blessing, for some good news, This is the best I know
to tell you. If you are brethren, brothers
and sisters to the Lord Jesus Christ, one day God will visit you to
take you out of this place. He's going to take you up to
the place He's promised you. The destination of all God's
children. God's word declares, it swears
by itself because it can swear by no greater. The word of God
declares that he will surely visit you to bring you out and
to carry you up. That's the best news I know. Now some things happened in Joseph's
day before these events. Notice Joseph said to his brethren,
you thought evil against me. Well, his brethren admitted that
they trespassed, that they'd sinned, that they did evil to
Joseph. And I want us to turn back to Genesis 37 and read about
this. To see what preceded all this,
what was done to Joseph by his brethren. In chapter 37, verse
one, Jacob dwelt in the land where his father was a stranger
in the land of Canaan. And verse 3 says, Now Israel
loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was a son
of his old age. And he made him a coat of many
colors, a patchwork. He cut out material and had it
sewed together for a special coat for Joseph. And when his
brethren saw that his father loved him more than all his brethren,
they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him. And by
nature, Joseph here is a picture of Christ, by nature we hate
him. Verse 5, Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told this dream
to his brethren, and they hated him yet the more. He said unto
them, Here I pray you, this dream which I dreamed. All he was doing
was declaring the truth of what he dreamed. For behold, we were
binding sheaves in the field." You kids, Halloween's coming
and you know when they gather up those corn sheaves and corn
stalks and tie them together, they make them into a sheaf and
they stack them in a field, all out across the field. Well Joseph's
dream was that he was one of those sheaves and his brothers
were also sheaves in the field and he dreamed that those sheaves
bowed down to him. Well, that upset them. They didn't
like that. And I tell you, by nature, men don't like bowing
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't want any part of that.
No siree. And verse 9, and he dreamed yet
another dream. And he told them about that dream. And it was another that the stars
of the heaven bowed to Joseph, who was another, who was a star
there also. And they didn't like that either.
And you see down in verse 12, well verse 11 says, And his brethren
envied him, but his father observed the same. In verse 12, And his
brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel
the father said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the
flock in Shechem? Come, and I'll send thee unto
them. And he said unto him, Here I am, I'll go. And there again,
God the father had some children that were so lost on this earth. And he said to his son, can I
send you down there for him? He said, I'll go. I'll be happy
to go. Verse 14, And he said to him,
Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren,
and well with the flocks, and bring me word again. So he sent
him out of the vale of Hebron, and he sent him to Shechem. And
a certain man found Joseph, and behold, he was wandering in the
field. And the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And
he said, I seek my brethren. Tell me, I pray thee, where they
feed their flocks. And the man said, Their departed
tents. You see, they weren't where they
were supposed to be. Boy, that's us. We're not doing what we're supposed
to be doing. We're not, no sirree. Adam was in the garden and he
stopped doing what he's supposed to be doing and did something
God told him not to do. And these brothers of Joseph
went off somewhere and weren't taking care of the sheep like
they were supposed to. And this fellow said to him, I heard them
say, let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren
and he found them there. And when they saw him, his brothers
afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired
against him to slay him. They got their heads together
and said, here he comes, here comes that Punk little brother
of ours, here he comes. And you see then it says in verse
19, they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer comes. Come
now therefore and let's kill him. Let's slay him and cast
him into some pit. And we'll say, some evil beast
hath devoured him. We shall see what will become
of his dreams then. And Reuben, the oldest, knew
he was going to have to give a count if this happened. He
heard it and he delivered Joseph out of their hands and said,
let's not kill him. Let's not kill him. He said, no, don't
shed his blood, but let's just throw him in the pit and let
him die of thirst. And he said, that way I won't
have to explain this to daddy. Verse 23, and it came to pass
when Joseph was coming to their brethren, He got close to him
that they stripped Joseph of his coat, his coat of many colors
that was on him. And they took him and cast him
into a pit and the pit was empty. There was no water there. Does that ring a bell? Our Lord
said, our thirst, our thirst as he hung on that cross. And
verse 25, and they went down to eat bread and they lifted
up their eyes and looked and behold, a company of Ishmaelites
came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and
myrrh going to carry that stuff down to Egypt. And Judah said
unto his brethren, you know, what profit is it if we slay
Joseph? and then conceal his blood. He
said, We might as well make some money from this. He said, Come
and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hands be upon
him, for he is our brother, and our flesh and his brethren were
content. Now they had it both ways. They
could make money in the deal, And it would be like I handed
one of you a gun, and you shot the person next to you, and I
went, I didn't have anything to do with this. This is really evil, isn't it?
Verse 28, Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen, and they
drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to
the Ishmaelites. for 20 pieces of silver, and
they brought Joseph into Egypt. Does that sound familiar, 20
pieces of silver? Well, Judas sold our Lord for
30 pieces. And I suspect that the difference
there is because nobody's worth what our Lord Jesus Christ is.
And even as a picture, he's not going to use 30 there. But the
principle is the same. Judas sold him out, as these
fellas did their brother. And Reuben returned unto the
pit, and behold, Joseph was not in the pit, he went somewhere
apparently, and he rent his clothes. And he returned unto his brethren,
and said, The child's not there, and I, whither shall I go? Joseph,
by the way, is seventeen years old here. Seventeen! He's a boy, barely a man. Verse 31, And they took Joseph's
coat, and they killed a kid, of the goats, and dipped the
coat in the blood, and they sent the coat of many colors, and
they brought it to their father and said, This have we found. Know now whether it be thy son's
coat or no." Here's a picture again. Jesus Christ is the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. What was the evidence
to Joseph's father that the boy was dead? The blood of the Lamb. Christ died. His blood was shed,
make no mistake. And Joseph's father in verse
33 said, I know it. I know the coat. And said, it's
my son's coat. An evil beast had devoured him. Joseph is without
doubt rent in pieces. And Jacob rent his clothes and
put sackcloth upon his loins and mourned for his son many
days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort
him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, for I will go down
into the grave into my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.
And these Midianites, sold Joseph into Egypt unto a man named Potiphar,
an officer of Pharaoh's and captain of the guard. You know what this
man was, Potiphar? He was the executioner for Pharaoh. Joseph was put in the hands of
the executioner. And God one time put his son
in the hands of us. And we became his executioner.
We killed him. You may be thinking, turn over
to Genesis 6. I wonder if anybody here is thinking
what I'm thinking. These guys were one nasty lot. They were working overtime to
make this as diabolical and wicked and vicious as it could be. When Joseph said, you thought
evil against me, that's way too kind and generous. for what these
boys were doing. It wasn't enough that they hated
him, that they wouldn't talk to him, that they mistreated
him. It wasn't enough they were going to throw him into a pit
and let him die of thirst. No, they thought, well, let's
profit by him, sell him and send him down to Egypt where he'd
become a slave and he'll work himself to death. He'd be beaten
to death down there. And that's not enough. Let's
dip his coat in blood and take it to daddy and say, you know
what happened to him? An animal ate him. Shoot him
up in 80. I mean, this is some bunch of
boys, isn't it? You know who these fellows remind
me of? I wonder if anybody here is reminded
of who this reminds me of. You know who this reminds me
of? Me. To my great shame, These guys
remind me of me. And it shouldn't surprise me.
The Word of God clearly says it's exactly what I am. You see
here in Genesis 6, verse 5, "...God looked down and saw that the
wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Describes
those boys pretty good, doesn't he? And that's me too. That's me too. Now this story
continues. Even more evil befalls Joseph
as a result of what his brothers did to him. Potiphar, somehow
or other, after he bought him, found out Joseph was a pretty
smart fellow. And it wasn't long before he was in charge of his
whole house and all his land. But as you recall, Potiphar's
wife lied, falsely accused Joseph, and he wound up being thrown
in prison. He got thrown into prison. And what do you know? The head prison keeper found
out Joseph was a pretty good guy. He put him in charge of
the whole prison. And then some fellows had a dream. Pharaoh's baker and butler got
thrown in there. They had dreams. Joseph interpreted the dreams.
And he said, all I ask in return is that the one of you who's
not going to lose his head, when you get back to the Pharaoh,
you tell him there's a fellow down here who did you a service. And the butler said, okay, I'll
do that. Well, you know, he's only evil continually. He got
back to Pharaoh, forgot all about him. Two years later, Joseph's
still rotting in the prison down there. Being the head guy in
the prison was no good time joy. And then the Pharaoh had a dream.
And the brother went, oh, I know this fella down there in the
prison who can interpret dreams. Pharaoh sent for him, brought
him up there and told him the dream. Joseph said there's going
to be seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. Pharaoh
said, you're a wise man. I'm going to make you king of
Egypt. And Joseph suddenly went from
the dungeon to the palace. I tell you what, our Lord came
down here for a while as a man. He lowered himself into this
pit, this dungeon. But it's not permanent. He went
back, and you know what He is now? He's King of kings and Lord
of lords. And lo and behold, Joseph is
now 30 years old, and you know what? The famine came, and his
brothers got hungry. And their daddy said, go down
there to Egypt. They got bread down there. There's food in Egypt. And they came to Joseph, and
you know what they wound up doing when they got down there? They
didn't know who he was, but they walked in to the man in charge
of giving away all the food. And when they saw him, they bowed. Imagine that, the dream came
true. The prophecies of God all come
true. Now, go back to Genesis 50 with
me. When they came to Joseph, he
revealed himself to them in time. And all this evil done to Joseph
at the hands of his brethren, they meant it for evil. They
actually enjoyed it. But God had other plans. And
here's what Joseph has to say about that in verse 20. Look
what it says. Joseph says to his brothers,
But for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it
unto good. to bring to pass, as it is this
day, to save much people alive. Now listen to the gospel application
of this. God took the evil of men and
used it to save untold thousands from starvation and death, including
Joseph's wicked brothers. That's a picture. God took the
evil of men that was done to his son. The Lord Jesus Christ
at Calvary was abused, mistreated. Joseph's evil cannot compare
to what was done to Christ at Calvary. What was the result?
God used it to accomplish great good. He saved a vast number
of people from eternal death. God had mercy on the wicked brethren
of Christ. How? Just as Joseph suffered
great evil, even at the hands of his brothers, that one day
he could show mercy to them, Christ was made sin and punished
for it, that his brethren could be saved alive. If Christ didn't
die, we'd have no hope. Even though we did it to him,
Joseph's brothers would have died, had no hope, had they not
done to Joseph what they did. Do we see how in all things we
mean it for evil? God reigns and rules and He'll
do good by it. Had Joseph not endured all he
did, he never would have been the king who could save his brethren
from dying. And Christ endured death, the
death of the cross that His brethren could be saved from their sin.
Joseph's brethren were treated as princes in Egypt because Joseph
was the king who did great things. And because of the great things
Christ has done, because of His perfect life and righteousness,
His people, we're made princes. We're the very sons of God. It's
not what we deserve, but it's what we get in Christ. And all
of this had to happen before Joseph ever made this declaration,
this oath. That all happened. And then Joseph
says this to his brothers. will surely visit you. I said earlier, visits. God visits everyone, all men
and women, sooner or later, at least one time. And this word
visit is unique. It means the same thing, but
in two different ways. Let me explain that to you. It
does mean to visit, to come and stay for a short time. But it
can be meant in a friendly, benevolent, and kind way. or it can mean
in hostility and judgment. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. You see, if God visits with hostile
intent, it's a very short visit indeed. God may forbear, but
when God visits in judgment, He comes quickly. Turn a couple
books over to Leviticus 18. Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus
18. And while you're turning, I want
to – and there are many references in the Scriptures about God visiting
in judgment. I'm going to read you one out
of Jeremiah and not have you turn to it. But listen to what
it says. God says, Behold, I am against thee, O thou most proud,
saith the Lord God of hosts. For thy day is come, the time
that I am going to visit you has come. And look at the result. And the most proud shall stumble
and fall, and none shall raise him up. would be sent down with
no hope of retrieval. And I'll kindle a fire in his
cities, and it shall devour all around about him. We don't want
to be visited in judgment. Nobody does. And here's a sobering
scripture in Leviticus 18. And I'm sorry to have to go here,
but notice what it says in verse 20 of Leviticus 18. Moreover,
thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbor's wife, to defile
thyself with her. Verse 22, and thou shalt not
lie with mankind as with womankind. It's an abomination. And it goes
on to talk about bestiality. I tell you, I doubt if there's
any pastor in the city of Lexington besides ours who would dare to
read those verses this morning without expecting a firestorm
from the media. Did y'all see what that said
there? It's pretty clear, isn't it? What evil is evil? Listen
to what God says about that in verse 24. It says, Defile not
yourselves in any of these things, for in all these the nations
are defiled, which I cast out before you. You see, this is
when the time came that God visited His children in Egypt after 400
years and He brought them out. And where He was taking them,
the Lord was speaking to those people saying, this is who's
there, people that do these things. And look what he says, I'm going
to judge him in verse 25. The land is defiled, therefore
I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself
vomited out its inhabitants. I'll tell you, this is, you know,
most religious folks would say, well, I've never done any of
those things, that vile stuff, that really bad stuff. Well,
maybe not, but you know what everybody, Religious or not,
it's done a lot worse than that. We killed Christ. We murdered
the Son of God. We're all guilty of that. It's
as vile as any of these other things that are so repugnant
to us. God warned Sodom and Gomorrah, and then he visited in judgment.
That firestorm didn't take long. And we would think, wouldn't
we, that nobody wants to be visited in judgment. Nobody here wants
that, do you? Of course not. Why don't men and women then
heed the warnings? It's a terrible consequence of
Adam's fall and our sinful nature is that we don't heed. You say, why don't we heed? Listen
to this simple condition that everybody in here is in by nature. We don't heed because we're deaf
to the warning of God's Word. We're deaf. We're born blind
to the coming storm of wrath. Why didn't everybody run out
of psalm? They didn't see the storm coming. We're determined not to bow or
yield. We're full of hatred for God's Son. We'd rather die in
our sin than to ask God to visit us in mercy. But thank God, He
does visit some in mercy. He does. Turn to Acts chapter
9. Let me show you this. It bothered me at first. that
the definition of a visit is that it's brief or fairly short
in time. And then this occurred to me
that God's Spirit can accomplish more in a millisecond than you
and I could in a lifetime. And we judge it the wrong way.
You and I, we can spend a lifetime. I know what you mothers do. You
devote yourself completely and totally to your children, trying
to mold them and conform them and change them and bend them. And oftentimes, we give our whole
life to it with little or no effect. Are some of you old enough
to realize that we see that all the time? Parents who do everything
they know to do, And they can't bend one of those children. Well,
I got some good news for you. God's Spirit can change one of
God's children in a heartbeat. Literally. When He visits, it's
with a purpose, and He accomplishes that purpose. Look at Acts chapter
9, verse 1. This is the man who would become
the apostle Paul. His name is Saul of Tarsus. He
was yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples
of the Lord. And he went into the high priests
and desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues,
that if he found any of this way, any who were involved with
the Lord Jesus Christ, any Christians, whether they were men or women,
he might bring them, tie them up and drag them back to Jerusalem.
Do we see this man Saul has the same attitude that Joseph's brothers
did. He didn't want to just kill them, he wanted to torture them.
Do the worst he could to them. Because he's like us. And as
he journeyed, he came near to Damascus. Oh, and suddenly there
shined round about him a light from heaven. And Saul fell to
the earth, and he heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul,
why persecutest thou me? And Saul said, Who are you, Lord?
He recognized him immediately when he got his visit, didn't
he? The Lord introduces himself in a way you'll never forget
who you met. And the Lord said, I'm Jesus,
whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against
the branch. It's hard for you to resist me,
buddy. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what will you have
me to do? And the Lord said to him, Arise
and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what you must
do. And a man which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing
a voice, but seeing no man. He didn't visit these other men,
did he? He visited Saul. And Saul arose from the earth,
and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man. He didn't see
anybody with these eyes, but boy, he knew he'd had a visit.
But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.
And he was there three days without sight, and neither did he eat
or drink. The Spirit of God has to come
for just a short visit and the results will be astounding. Listen
to these three things, the results of a visit from God. They'll
be permanent, everlasting. The visited in mercy will not
go back. Once they came out of Egypt,
his brethren never went back. They'll be profound. The visited
in mercy are never the same again. And they'll be immediate. The
visited, they change. They turn. They repent. They're
baptized. Paul is the perfect example.
Just a few days before, he despised the gospel. Now he's going to
preach the gospel. A few days before, he was killing
the people of Christ. Now he's trying to save them.
Earlier he persecuted Christians, now he's in love with them. He
used to curse Christ, now he worships him. Do we see the change
that a visit will bring? Christ visited fishermen and
made them fishers of men. Christ visited the blind, made
them see. Christ visited a crazy man and
made him sit down in his right mind. Christ visited a leper
and made him clean. Christ visited a palsied man
who couldn't walk, made him walk. Christ visited a tongue-tied
man, made him talk. Christ visited a cheating publican
and made him an honest disciple. Christ visited a man's dead daughter
and made her live. Christ visited a widow's dead
son, her only son, and made him alive. I got a question for you. What's your problem tonight? What's bothering you? What's
your condition? You need a visit from God? If you hadn't had one, you do.
If you've never had a visit from God, would you like to be visited? Let's not do this. Let's not
sit here and deceive ourselves, thinking somehow this is all
going to work out somehow, some way. when in fact it's not okay. If we've never had a visit from
God, may we be made to know it right now. Philip said to the
eunuch, do you understand what you read? And he said, how can
I unless some man show me? May God show us this night, this
moment with a visit from his spirit. If you don't have any
real problems at this time, it's because God's Spirit has paid
you a visit. He's let you know Christ took
care of all your real problems. He put away your sin at Calvary.
It's under His blood. He gave you His righteousness.
You're perfect before God. You may still have some trials
and afflictions, but your real trouble went away with God's
first visit. If anyone here doesn't know what I'm talking about,
if you've never had a visit from God, I beseech you, I beg you,
please bow down. Christ doesn't beg, but I'm begging you. As somebody
who wants to meet a new brother, a new sister in Christ, I beg
you, call on God to come see you in this very hour to visit
and mercy. Some folks never have a visitor.
Did you know that? And I'm talking about in this
world. Some folks sit in their home and they never have a visitor,
ever. There's a reason for that. Most
of the time, you know what it is? They never ask anybody to
come visit. You say, that's too simple. It's
just the truth. If Christ never comes to visit
you, There'll be only one reason. You never asked Him to. You never
asked Him to. But what if I'm not one of the
elect? True enough. If you're not one of God's elect,
He won't come visit you. But all the blame will still
be yours. Why? You never, ever asked Him to
visit. Turn over to John 14 with me. Can a person know if God has
visited in mercy? It'll be too late if you wake
up and He's visited in judgment. Be too late. But can a person
know if God's visited in mercy? That's a good question. And the
answer is yes, we can know. Here's the proof of it. You see
in verse 15, we read of John 14, 15. If you love me, keep
my commandments. Now, let me explain something
to you here about this keeping of commandments. I don't care
if somebody's talking about the Ten Commandments or you're talking
about how Christ summarized them when He said, Love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbors
yourself. I don't care which one of those you're talking about.
You and I haven't kept them in and of this flesh. Now we want
to keep, we want to be honest, we want to be truthful, we want
to tell the truth, we want to be kind, we want to love our
brothers and sisters in Christ, but the truth is that old man
in us just fights it all the way there, doesn't it? But I'll
tell you what, in Christ, we've kept every one of them perfectly. In God's sight, we're perfect. We're commandment keepers. The
difference is we don't try to keep these commandments so God
will save us. Oh, we keep them because He's
visited us and He's laid it on our heart. Keep my commandments.
Keep them. We want to, don't we? And then
verse 16 says, And I will pray the Father, and He shall give
you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever. Now
notice a word. You see that word abide? You
know what that means? If you get a visit from the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God, you know what? He's going to
stay for a little while, as a visitor would do, and then He's going
to set up residence. He's going to abide. He's not
leaving. If He comes to visit you, He
never leaves. That's the good news of the Gospel.
That's the new person in you. Verse 17 says, "...even the Spirit
of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him
not, neither knoweth Him." You know why the world can't receive
the Spirit of Christ for a visit or to abide? They never ask Him. They don't want Him in there. But you know, "...for He dwelleth
with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you." He's saying,
if I came to visit, I'm not leaving. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad
He won't leave? We would leave if we could sometimes.
I'm sure of that. The old man says, I've had enough
of this. He says, I'll not leave you. I won't do it. Because I live, you also shall
live. Verse 20, At that day you shall
know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
He that hath commandments that hath my commandments keepeth
them. Do you get the difference here?
It doesn't say you keep them so you'll have them. No, we've
kept them in Christ and therefore we have them in God's sight. He it is that loveth me and he
that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I'll love him
and will manifest myself to him. Now, once God visits in mercy, He
abides and He won't leave you. If I cry out, will Christ answer?
I said the only reason you don't have visitors because you're
not inviting anybody in. If you ask, will he come? Well,
after what I just read about how God visits and abides and
won't leave, I want you to see what it says right before that
in verse 13. Whatsoever you shall ask in my
name, that will I do. that the Father may be glorified
in the Son. If you shall ask anything in
my name, I'll do it. You suppose tonight if you said,
Lord, would you come visit me? You think He wouldn't do that?
Oh, He will. He will. Very quickly turn to
1 John 3. 1 John 3. God's people know when
they've had a visit in mercy. How? The Holy Spirit came to visit
and never left. I tell you what, some months
ago you might have been able to convince Jamie that there
was no baby in there. Not now. Not now. No sirree. Time will tell. Time will tell
more than anything else if the Lord's visited and abides with
you. It'll tell on you. In 1 John
3, look at verse 22. And whatsoever we ask, there
it is again, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments.
and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this
is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son,
Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He hath gave us commandment.
And He that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in Him. And hereby we know that He abides
in us by the Spirit which He hath given us. Now I don't know
if I can explain this or not. How does the Spirit manifest
itself in God's people? Well, when you can't find comfort
in anything, you can't. But the one who abides in you,
he's able to comfort you. You ever so tired on a Wednesday
night, you think, I can't make it, I can't get there, I can't
suck it up and go, I can't. Well, you're right, you can't.
But the one who abides in you can draw you. He can put it in
you to get up and go. When you would have your little
ones believe the gospel and fall in love with Christ, I'm sorry,
you can't. But the one who abides in you
can. When your loved ones are sick and the doctors, you can't
heal them, you can't even help them. You can't. But the one
who abides in you can. When you lay dying and realize
you can't even get up anymore, you can't. But there's one that
abides in you who can pick you up, carry you where you want
to go. No matter the case, He that abides
in you is able to do for us whatever is required. When did Joseph's
brothers go to Joseph? When they were starving. When
will sinners beg Christ to come to them? When we're so lost and
starving, so helpless and miserable, so disgusted with ourselves,
when there's no hope or help at hand, then we'll cry what
the publican in the temple did. Oh God, be merciful to me, the
sinner. You know what happened the instant
those words came out of that man's mouth? The Spirit of God
flew to that man, rushed in his heart, paid him a visit, and
didn't leave him ever, ever, ever. God's Spirit is faithful. He'll come to visit you, and
He'll abide forever. That's the best news I know.
May the Lord bless His Word. Okay. Y'all can thank Brother Paul
for that message. He read that passage of Scripture on Wednesday
night. I couldn't get it off my heart. Thank you, Paul.