1 Corinthians chapter 4, and
I want to begin reading in verse 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 4. Let a man so account of us as
the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover,
it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. But
with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you,
or of man's judgment. Yea, I judge not my own self,
for I know nothing by myself, yet am I not thereby justified. But he that judgeth me is the
Lord." Therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord
come, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness,
and will make manifest the counsels of the heart. And then shall
every man have praise of God." I want to look at these few verses
with you this morning, and I want us to begin here with verse 1. What a count! How do we estimate
the preachers? How do we estimate a preacher,
a minister, a teacher? That is what Paul is asking us
here. What esteem do we put upon preachers,
even the apostles? He speaks of himself as the apostle
and these early prophets in the Christian church. Well, he says
here that we are simply apostles We are preachers, we are teachers
of the gospel of Christ. We are ministers. We get that
word from rowers. It came from the old means that
they used to have by propelling ships. We have not always propelled
ships as we do now with engines. Used to be we did it with manpower. Down in the hull of the ship
they had men who rowed the ship with oars. That's where we got
the word minister from. The rowers. That's what Paul
said he was. He's a preacher. He's not an
apostle. He's a rower. And he says here, not only is
he a minister of Christ, but steward. He's a steward. He's a trustee. of the grace
of God, the mysteries of God's redeeming grace, the mysteries
of the kingdom. Often we have two extremes of
esteeming God's preachers. We go to one extreme or the other. And they did this with these
early preachers and these apostles. Look here in chapter one. There
is a danger of always exalting the minister too highly in a
bad way. And that's what they had done
to Paul and to Simon Peter, Cephas, an apostle, and some of these
other ministers in the early church. Look at it here in chapter
1 in verse 11. It hath been declared unto me
of you concerning you, my brethren, by them which are of the house
of Chloe, that there are contentions, there's divisions and quarrels
among you. And in verse 12 tells us what
it was about. Now this I say, that every one
of you who saith, I am of Paul. I was converted under Paul's
ministry. I read his epistles, and that's
who I hold to. I am of Paul. And another one
said, well, wait a minute, I don't particularly like him. I am of
Apollos. I was converted under his ministry.
I like his elegance. I love to hear him preach. I
don't like Paul too much. Well, somebody else come along
and said, wait a minute, I don't like either one of those I'm
a follower of Cephas, Simon Peter. And then you have this last group
who said, well, wait a minute, I knew Christ in the flesh. I
heard him preach. I was there when he fed the 5,000.
I was one of them. I don't have to hear anybody
else. I'm not of Paul or Cephas or Apollos either. I'm of Christ. So there was these divisions,
and the whole problem was, They esteemed them too highly. Paul
said, we're ministers. We're trustees of the grace of
God. But they tried to exalt them
too highly, you see. And look here in chapter 3, in
verse 3, he deals with the same thing here. In chapter 3, in
verse 3, look how he deals with this. Are you not carnal? For whereas
there is among you envy and strife and divisions, are you not carnal
and walk as men? What was their problem? What
caused this division? The same old argument. Look at
it in verse 4. For while one of you saith, I
am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are you not carnal? Who then is Paul? Who was Paul? He was just a minister. He was
a trustee of the mysteries of God. And who is Apollos? Just
a preacher. They are just ministers by whom
you believed. They preached and you believed
their preaching and you come to faith in Christ. But where
did you get that faith? Where does any man get saving
faith? Did he get it from Paul? Did he get it from Apollos? No. Look at it. Even as God gave
to every man. If a man believes the gospel,
where did he get the grace to do it? From God. If any man has faith, it's God
who gave it to him. So he goes on in verse 6 and
says, I have planted, and Apollos watered, but it's God who gave
it. I ain't anything, Apollos is
nothing. Look at it. So then neither is
he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God that
giveth the increase. We have a tendency, and there's
something in us, if we love someone's preaching, we'll exalt him too
highly in a bad way if we're not careful. You know where the
first Pope came from? You know why this world got its
first pope of Rome? A group of men got together and
exalted another man that they could glory in that individual.
And they kept it up ever since. That's where we got a man. That's
where we got a man. I saw just a clip from the Royal
Wedding. I didn't watch it, had no interest
in watching it, but I saw a little clip of it. You may have saw
it. And you saw this, if you saw it, you saw this man just
like you, just like me. But I never seen such a garb
that that man was dressed in, had his big pointed atoll, and
all this robe that went down to the ground. Philip said one time, bless his
heart, he was a minister and a good preacher, but he wore
a robe when he preached. And the reason he said was this. He said, when we preach, all
the attention should be focused on us. No, no. Not unto us, O Lord. Not unto
us. The attention should be focused
on us. You know who we are. We're just
ministers. John said, I must decrease. He said, I'm just a voice. Just
a voice. Don't look to me. Don't exalt
me. It's Christ that we must look
to. Behold the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world. That's why we often say as preachers,
God, hide me. behind the cross. Just let me
be a voice pointing men to Him, the Lord Jesus. Just a voice. Look here in chapter 3, in verse
21, how he says, I think this should settle, it
should. Therefore, let no man glory in men. Don't glory in men. Glory in
the Lord. That's what the Bible says for
us to do, isn't it? Don't let the wise man glory
in his wisdom. Don't glory in himself, and don't
let anybody else glory in him. Don't let the rich man glory
in his riches, nor the mighty man glory in his might. Well,
who are we going to glory then? Heed that glory, let him glory
in this, that he understands and he knows me. I'm the Lord,
and I exercise love and kindness and mercies and judgment in the
earth, saith the Lord. But I tell you, I tell you, it's
prominent. And there's something ingrained
in humanity, even in Christian people, that's out to exalt one
of God's little ministries. One of his water boys and seed
sowers. Over another. Over another. But here's another extreme also
that we can get at. It's having no esteem. It's having
no respect for God's preachers. Look over here in the second
letter of Paul to Corinthians. Second Corinthians chapter 10. Look here in 2 Corinthians. You
hold 1 Corinthians chapter 4, and look in 2 Corinthians chapter
10. Some of these men were glorying
in Paul and despising Apollos and despising Peter. But some
of them didn't like Paul at all. I mean, they judged him to be
not fit to listen to. Look here what he says in verses
1, chapter 10, 2 Corinthians chapter 10, look in verse 1. Now I call myself beseech you
by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence, in
my presence I know I am base, I am lowly among you, but being
absent I am bold toward you. But I beseech you that I may
not be bold when I am present with that confidence, wherewith
I think to be bold against some which think of us as if we walk
according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh,
we do not walk according to the flesh, or after the flesh. Look
down in verse 7. Do you look on things after the
flesh, after the outward appearance? Do you do that?" He said. Is
that the way you're going to judge me by my outward appearance?
If any man trusts to himself that he is Christ, he's Christ's
minister, he's Christ's apostle, let him of himself think this
again, that as he is Christ, even so we are Christ. I'm Christ. Apollos is Christ. Peter is Christ. And verse 8, For though I should
boast somewhat more of our authority, which the Lord hath given us
for your edification, and not for your destruction, I should
not be ashamed, that I may not seem as if I would terrify you
by letter. Now look at verse 10, For his
letters, say they, this is what some said about the apostles,
they are weighty and powerful. But look at this, but his bodily
presence is weak and his speech is contemptible. And you know what? This was what
his critics said. But there had to be some truth
behind this or they'd have never judged Paul this way. But what
they said was, look at him, look at his outward appearance, look
how weak he is. And the accounts that we have
of this Apostle, we've got some accounts of him. How true they
are, I don't know. But we have some accounts of
men who actually seen the Apostle Paul and wrote down the account
of what he looked like. And they said he was a little
fellow, a short fellow, bald-headed, and had a big, long, crook nose,
and his eyelids had a tendency to come down over his eyes. He
wasn't a good-looking man. And Paul said, you judge me that
I'm not fit to sit under because of my bodily appearance. He fasted
often. He probably was well. He had
this thorn in the flesh. And when you saw this man, this
minister of Christ, if you was going to judge by outward appearance,
you'd look to him and say, I ain't sitting under that ugly man.
You know there's congregations. You may not believe this, but
there's congregations who they change pastors every once in
a while. They'll send them the pastor from up at headquarters. And you know one of the first
things they want. The first thing that congregation wants is a
photograph. Not the message. Send us a photograph. We want to know what he looks
like. That's the way they judge the Apostle Paul. But not only
that, look at this. They said his speech is contemptible. That is, it's base. It's not
eloquent. It's too plain. It's too down
to earth. These people at Corinth, a lot
of them were philosophers, eloquent people. And you know Paul wasn't
eloquent at all when he preached. And he did that on purpose. Do
you know that? He said, I'm determined to be
base. When I came to you preaching
Christ, I didn't come preaching with eloquence of speech or of
wisdom declaring unto you the testimony of God. Here was a
man who could preach to kings and did, didn't he? He preached
to governors, but he could turn right around and preach to children,
and he could preach to slaves and did. And everybody who heard
him understood him because he used plain, base language. Isn't that what we need? That's
what we need. We don't need pretty boys. We don't need well-dressed and
refined men. We don't need eloquent speech. You know what we need? We need
men whom God has taught the gospel. He's put the treasure of the
gospel of His Son in their heart. And He's given them the ability
by plain speech to relate that gospel to us. That's what we
need, isn't it? Somebody gave me a tape not long
ago. This fellow, he graduated from
some seminar or something. I sat and listened to him probably
ten minutes is all I could take. And everything he was saying
was the truth. But he was so refined and articulate
and smooth, I thought, I can't take this anymore. I don't like that, do you? Scourges
said, when you preach, tie some knots in your message. Don't
let it go down too smooth. It's all right to stutter. It's
all right to drift away sometimes. We don't have to pronounce everything
exactly correct. God give us men that is full
of the Holy Spirit and can preach to us the simplicity of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Charles Spurgeon was just a young
teenager. Thirteen years old, if I'm not
mistaken. Thirteen or fourteen. And he'd
been sitting under all of this high doctrine, he called it.
And all of these preachers, he'd been sitting under them. And
he never understood a thing they were saying. They were all over
his head. And he was going to church one
day. And it had become a deep snow, and he couldn't make it
to the congregation where he attended. So he went in this
little Methodist chapel. And the snow was so deep the
pastor didn't show up there. And this illiterate man that
could hardly read the scripture got up and read, Look unto me
and be ye saved. And he looked down at Spurgeon
and he said, Young man, you look miserable. And Spurgeon said, he looked
at me and said, you'll die miserable if you don't look to Jesus Christ
and be saved. And that was so plain. And it
went home to Spurgeon's heart. And he said, right then and there,
I obeyed His Word and I looked and I lived. That's the kind
of preaching we need, ain't it? Look back over here in our text
now. We're just ministers. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels. Don't set us up and make us something
that we're not. Don't hear us because of the
way we look or the way we speak. Just look upon us as ministers
of Christ. That's all we are. Preachers
of the mystery of God. And look what Paul says here
about these ministers of Christ and stewards of the gospel. In verse 2, moreover, I'm a minister,
I'm a steward. But it's required in these stewards
that a man be found faithful. He first of all must be faithful
to believe God for himself. A minister of the gospel must
know Christ for himself. No sense going telling other
people to know Christ if I don't know him myself. And it's essential
that the minister first and foremost and always work out his own salvation
with fear and trembling while he's telling everybody else to
do it. I must walk in the light that God's given me. I must do
that for myself. Every preacher, every teacher
has to do that for himself. And secondly, he must be faithful
in his study of God's Word. If he doesn't study, he can depend
on this. God's not going to use him. He's
not going to use him. Paul said to Timothy, the young
preacher, till I come, give attendance to read him. To read him. They asked me to preach one time
to a group of preachers, and I emphasized three things to
those preachers. I said, if I just had one thing
to instill in your heart, it would be this, read, read, and
read. That's it. Those apostles in
the early church, they had women with us that needed to be waited
on and helped out. And those apostles said, we're
not going to do that. Don't look to us to do it. We don't have
time. We're going to give ourselves
to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. We're going to read.
We're going to seek the Lord. We have to be faithful to that
as ministers of the gospel. And thirdly, we must as ministers
be faithful to God's glory. It's required. That's required. That's not an option. His glory. We're faithful to that. If men
are damned, we're going to be faithful to God's glory. We're
going to be faithful to the honor of the person of Christ. We're
going to preach Him, who He is and what He's done. We're going
to be faithful to the truth. We're going to be faithful to
the souls of men. It's required. It's required. A man may put himself in the
ministry and not be faithful. But if God's put a man in the
ministry, it's required. It's required. And I tell you,
it's required to the end. To the end. Paul said, I've fought
a good fight. I've finished my course. I've
kept the faith. I've kept the doctrine of faith.
The Lord Jesus said, Be thou faithful unto the end, and I'll
give you a crown of glory. Be faithful. Be faithful. Paul
was a faithful minister of Christ. He said, I'm ready not only to
be bound, but I'm ready to die, Jerusalem, for the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ, for His glory, for His truth. Back here now in our text again.
Look in verse 3. Now look at this. But with me
it is a very small thing that I should be judged or viewed
or of man's judgment. It wasn't here that Paul disregarded
their opinion of him altogether. He was like we are. He wanted
men to think rightly of him. But what he's saying here is
this, if you judge me and your opinion of me is that I'm just
a leader of some sect, he said, you've lost all credibility with
me. Your judgment means nothing. And if you judge me because I
don't look very pretty, And my speech is base and plain that
I'm not fit to sit under. He said, you've lost credibility.
Your judgment means very little to me, if that's the way you
judge me. And then he goes on to say this in the last part of verse 3. Yea, I don't even judge myself. With me, it's just a very small
thing, the way you're judging me. I'm not going to pay much
attention to your judgment. You're exalting me and some of
you are basing me. And he said, I don't even judge
my own self. You know there is a sense, and
this will help you teachers here, there is a sense in which preachers
and teachers have to be careful about what judgment they pass
on themselves. We have to be careful because
we're prejudiced. We're too favorable to sell.
We'll leave the pulpit sometime thinking, man, that was great. Who told you that? My heart told
me that. Well, your heart's prejudiced,
ain't it? Have to be careful about that. Solomon said, let
another praise you. and not yourself. Let a stranger
do it and not your own lips. But here's another extreme also,
and this is just as dangerous. We can judge ourselves too harshly. Too harshly. We can get too down
on ourselves. If we have said what we've said
for God's glory, and we've set forth the truth, then don't be
too hard on ourselves. Don't get so down you're ready
to just quit. Well, I left out this. Well,
that's all right. I've said this and I should have
never said that. That's all right. Don't be so down on yourself.
Don't judge yourself so harshly. Paul said, I don't judge myself.
I don't judge myself too favorably and I don't judge myself too
harshly. I just don't do it. Sometimes when you and I think
that nothing has been accomplished, that's when God's done something. Todd Niver told me something
one time. He knew that I was getting down after I preached. He said, don't take yourself
so seriously. I know what he meant. I know
what he meant. Don't judge yourself too strictly.
You'll get discouraged. You'll get yourself in despair.
And look what he said. in verse 4, for I know nothing
by myself. And that word there, by, is really
against. I looked the word up and it said,
being conscious of. I do not know, I'm not conscious
of anything in my ministry that's wrong. That's what he's saying.
I don't judge myself and I know nothing against myself. I'm not
conscious of any error in my ministry. I'm not conscious of
any error in my life. And Buddy, when you read some
statements he made about himself, listen to this. I have coveted
no man's silver and no man's gold. That's not what I'm about,
he said. I work with my own hands to supply my needs. I've served
the Lord with all humility and with tears. I've kept back nothing
that was profitable to you. I've taught you publicly. I've
even come to your houses and taught you the whole counsel
of God. And he says, I am pure from the
blood of all men. And he did all of this with a
meekness and the lowliest of attitudes. That's what he says
about himself. And if any man could ever say
that I'm not aware, I'm not conscious of anything in my attitude or
in my ministry that's wrong, then I can accuse myself. But
boy, he goes on in verse 4 and look what he says. He's getting
close now. Yet, am I not justified He said, well, I can't find anything
wrong. I'm not judging myself guilty
yet. I'm not seeking to be justified
by my judgment on myself. I don't know some things about
myself that God knows. I may have committed error that
I don't know about. Not in his writings there were
absolutely inspired. No error there. But in this man's
own self, as the man Paul, he says, I know that I may have
missed something. I know God can see sin in me
when I can't see it in myself. So I'm not attempting to clear
myself of any blame. We can err. These apostles, as
men, could err. And Paul recognized this. He
recognized this. You know what this shows us about
these great men, these great preachers in the early church?
They were infallible men. They were just men. And they
admitted it. Look here in chapter 5. No, chapter
4 and verse 19. Look at this. This shows you that Paul didn't
know everything. In verse 19, But I will come
to you shortly, look at this, if the Lord will. You mean he didn't know? Surely he would know if it's
the Lord's will. No, he didn't. That was a lot
of things that they didn't know. Paul said here, I'm just telling
you the truth about myself as I know it in my heart. My conscience
doesn't convict me of anything wrong in my ministry. But I'm
not going to justify myself on my judgments. Because I'm not infallible. What
are you going to do then, Paul? Well, look at it in the last
part of verse 4. But he that judgeth me is the Lord. I'm going to leave judgment of
myself to him. He'll judge me and He'll do a
fine job in doing it. If I've erred, He'll bring me
to the light and show me where I've erred. When I've tried and
I've failed, He knows it. He knows it. Isn't that comforting? That is so comforting. How often
we misjudge ourselves. How often we misjudge others. Isn't it a joy and a source of
great peace to the honest and sincere heart just to say this,
the Lord knows. The Lord knows. If I judge myself
wrong, what does it matter? He's the judge. I'm content to
leave it with Him. Look what he says now in verse
5. And this will be the last verse. Therefore, therefore,
judge nothing before the time until the Lord come. Judge nothing. Now, we have to qualify this
because the Lord teaches us another place to judge righteous judgment. When we serve on the jury, if
you've ever done that, you've got to make a judgment. You're
going to be in trouble if you don't. You're going to turn murderers
loose on society. You've got to look at the evidence
and examine it and make a judgment. Is this man guilty or is this
man innocent? In spiritual matters, we judge
all the time. How do we judge? We go to the
Scriptures and we judge who God is. We determine who God is with
the Scriptures. We determine who Christ is, don't
we? How do we know who Jesus Christ is? We go to the scriptures,
and there we say, that's Him. We judge sin, don't we? We judge
what sin is. We judge salvation. We make all
kinds of judging. But when it comes to judging
one another as God's children, as the family of God, well, we
have to be so careful. We have to be so sure, because
we don't have the wisdom to judge one another. We don't have the
understanding to judge one another. We don't have the authority to
judge one another. Who are you that judges another
man's servant? To his own master he stands or
falls. Who are these people to judge
Paul? Who are we to judge one another? I had a pastor tell me a story
one time of this church member who called him and said, I was
out in a bad part of town last night, and I saw old so-and-so
come out of one of the bars, and I wanted you to know it.
And the pastor said, well, I already know it. I knew he was down there
at the bar last night. The fellow said, what are you
going to do about it? Are you going to bring charges against
him? Are you going to demand that he repent of it? Pastor
said, I ain't going to do anything right now but just pray for him.
What do you mean pray for him? You're not going to bring him
before the church? No, I'm just going to pray for him. I know
why he was down there. He left his bed and went down
there to get his drunken son and bring him home. You going to judge that man and
condemn him? We don't know everything, do
we? We look on the outward appearance. We don't see the motives. We
don't know the circumstances. Therefore, judge nothing before
the time. I used to be so grieved with
some of you when you missed a worship service. I've gotten some better
now. Some better. Not all together better. But
I've gotten some better. And you know what's helped me?
I don't know your circumstances. I don't know your motives. I
don't know why. Why you've had to miss. If I'm
going to judge at all, I'm going to judge this way. I have enough
confidence in you that if you could have been here, you would
have been here. You want to be here. Oh, I find great comfort in this. I find a lot of relief in verse
5. Judge nothing before the time. Judge nothing before the time. What about this and what about
that? It's not time. It's not time. When is time? Well, it goes on to tell us,
doesn't it? When the Lord comes. When the Lord comes. Judge nothing
before the time until the Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Christ is coming. He's come one
time and put away sin, and He's coming again. He's coming again,
and He's going to call all of us up to judgment. Every man
that's ever lived, every woman that's ever lived, every boy,
every girl, He's going to call us all up to judgment, and we'll
all stand there before Him. And He tells us here what He's
going to do. He's going to bring to light
the hidden things of darkness. Christ will bring to light the
works of darkness. Those things now that are too
shameful even to be mentioned among the saints, He's going
to bring it to light at the Day of Judgment. It's all going to
come to light. All the wickedness that men have
done, all the evil, all the murders, all the rapes, all the robbery,
all the hatred, all the killing. All these things are going to
come to light when they stand before the judge of all the earth.
Christ will bring all the hidden, the hidden wicked motives of
men to light. Hypocrites that we thought were
honest, good men, they will be exposed in that day. Actors whose
motives were wicked, though their deeds seemed so righteous. You
know why I don't spend a lot of time worrying about these
TV evangelists robbing widows, preaching a false gospel? You
know why I don't get too worried about that and get so grieved?
I know the Lord's going to judge them. No sense in me getting
so upset and carrying the burden of that around with me. He's
the judge. Why are they even in the ministry?
I don't know. But he knows. And he will expose
it someday. Why are they saying this? Why
are they lying on God? I don't know. But he knows. And
he'll expose them someday. Something else. I'm not going
to get overly grieved for the wickedness of this nation. I'm sorry for it. I pray against
it. I pray that God will restrain
the sin of this country. I pray He'll send us a revival.
But I know this, brothers and sisters, this nation is going
to give account of all its deeds to the living Lord. And I'm satisfied
with that. Aren't you? I rest in that. That's all right. A lady came
to Brother Mahan. Her son had gotten killed. And
she was so tore up about it. She was weeping, sobbing. Didn't
know where her son was. Didn't know what had happened
to him. He's dead. Where is he? Is he in hell or
is he in heaven? That's something to be concerned
about, ain't it? And Brother Mahan looked at her and said,
Dear sister, listen. The Lord will do what's right
with your son. I'm content with that, brothers
and sisters. Judge nothing. All the wrong you may think is
wrong may not be all that wrong. The Lord will judge. Therefore,
judge nothing before the time until the Lord comes. But not
only did he say he'll bring the hidden things of darkness, but
look at this, he will make manifest the counsels of the heart. He's going to reveal and expose
the aims and the motives and the purposes and desires of the
hearts. Now, this is something that's
wonderful, because there's things in your heart that's good. You may not even know about it. And someday he's going to be
exposed. David desired to build the Lord a house. Remember that?
And the Lord wouldn't let him. He said, you're a man of war.
You shed too much blood. But it was good that it was in
your heart. You did well that it was in your
heart. I tell you, the Lord is working
in the hearts of His people. And when He does, it's good.
And someday He's going to say, well done. You're good and faithful
shall be. Well, listen to this. Every desire
after Christ, He's going to expose it someday. He's going to bring
it to life. Every thirst of your soul after
God. My soul thirsteth for Thee. You
ever have those times when your soul wanted God so bad? You wanted to drink of His mercy. You wanted to drink of His grace
and His love. Your soul, just for a moment,
went out after Him as a thirsty heart after a water cup. And
then it was gone. You know He's going to bring
that to light someday and expose that. You have forgotten about
it. But He has. And that groan over sin, your
own and the sins of others, He's marked that down. And someday
He's going to expose that and say, I saw that sigh. I heard
that groan over your sin. That secret longing and desire
to be like Christ and to be with Christ Paul said, I have a desire
to depart and be with him. You know what the Lord says of
that desire? That's well that you have that.
That's good. The heaviness for another person's
burdens, that's a good thing. That's good. That's well. And someday he'll say to his
dear children, Well done. You're good. You're good and
faithful, sir. He sees the heart, don't he?
He sees the heart. Oh, what great things we've done,
the one group said. But the Lord says, how about
your heart? I'm concerned with the heart.
where men can see. I'm concerned with motives, not
actions. Motives. He's going to make manifest
the counsel of God. And then when he does this, look
at this, then every man, every honest man especially, and every
sincere man will have praise of God. They'll have praise to
God, and they'll have praise from Him when He says, Come ye
blessed. Come, ye blessed of my Father. Turn with me in closing to Isaiah
26. Let's read this together. Isaiah 26. And look in verse 8 and verse
9. The heart, the counsels, the
purpose, the desire of the heart. Isaiah 26 and verse 89. Yea,
in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, we have waited for you. The desire of our soul is to
your name and to the remembrance of you. With my soul have I desired
you in the night. Yea, with my spirit within me
will I make secret search. I will seek thee early. And when
thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world
will learn righteousness, desires, seekings of the Spirit. And someday,
He's going to manifest those things. Things that you and I
didn't even hardly recognize. What we longed to do for His
glory and couldn't do it because of this old sinful flesh. He's
going to recognize it. He's going to reward it. And
I'm content to that day, aren't you? Let's pray.