This Jesus Is the Christ

Q: What does the Bible say about God opening hearts?

The Bible teaches that God must open the heart for individuals to understand and believe the gospel (Acts 16:14). In Acts 16:14, we see the example of Lydia, a seller of purple, whose heart the Lord opened to heed the words of Paul. This emphasizes the need for divine intervention in the process of faith; without God's work in the hearts of individuals, they cannot truly understand or accept the gospel. The act of God opening one's heart highlights the sovereign grace aspect of salvation, underscoring that it is not a result of human effort or decision, but of God's unmerited favor.

Q: Why is the concept of Christ's suffering important for Christians?

Christ's suffering is crucial because it fulfills the prophetic requirement for the Messiah and is central to the gospel message (Acts 17:3). The suffering of Christ is foundational to understanding the nature of the gospel. As Paul reasoned with the Jews in Thessalonica, he pointed out that the Christ must suffer and rise from the dead (Acts 17:3). This suffering was necessary for the redemption of sinners; it fulfills the prophecies concerning the Messiah and reveals the heart of God's salvation plan. Acknowledging Christ's suffering allows Christians to appreciate the depths of God's love and grace, as He willingly bore our sins and suffered in our place. Without this crucial aspect, the message of salvation would be incomplete.

Q: How do we know that Jesus is the Christ?

We know Jesus is the Christ because He fulfills the prophecies of the Old Testament and is declared as such in Scripture (Acts 2:36). In Acts 2:36, Peter proclaims that God has made Jesus, whom the people crucified, both Lord and Christ. This declaration is rooted in the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies which indicated the coming of a Messiah who would redeem His people. Jesus' life, death, and resurrection align with these Scriptures and confirm His identity as the promised Christ. This assertion is foundational for the Christian faith, as it establishes that Jesus is not merely a great teacher or prophet but the Savior who has accomplished the work of redemption. Believing in Jesus as the Christ is essential for salvation, as it acknowledges His lordship and the truth of the gospel.

Q: Why is sharing our homes important in Christian fellowship?

Sharing our homes reflects the hospitality and generosity that God has shown us, fostering community among believers (Acts 16:15). Hospitality is a vital expression of Christian fellowship, as illustrated by Lydia in Acts 16:15, who opened her home to Paul and the other apostles after her conversion. This act of hospitality not only demonstrates a heart transformed by God's grace—where the opening of one's heart leads to the opening of one's home and hands—but also reinforces the communal aspect of faith. When Christians share their homes, it fosters deeper relationships, nurtures spiritual growth, and provides a haven for fellow believers. Thus, practicing hospitality becomes a means through which we serve one another and exhibit the love of Christ in practical ways.

erect a synagogue. There was
none there. But there was a group of women
who met down by the riverside to pray. And Paul discovered
where they were meeting. And he went down there and met
with them. And it says, And we sat down, and we spake unto the
women which resorted thither. He preached the gospel to them.
And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city
of Thyatira, which worshipped God, now they were following
the Jewish pattern of worship. And she was worshipping God,
and she heard us. That's what I was talking about
this morning. She heard us. She heard that gospel that Paul
preached. from the Old Testament scriptures.
She heard us. Whose heart the Lord opened. God must open the heart. He must
give us ears to hear and a heart to understand and enter into
the things which we hear. And she attended unto the things
which were spoken of Paul. She heard him. God opened her
heart to believe that gospel. And she wanted to hear more,
and she listened to more. Paul taught her in verse 15,
and when she was baptized and her household, she besought us
saying, now listen to this, if you have judged me to be faithful
to the Lord, come into my house and abide there. And she constrained
us. God not only opened her heart
to receive the gospel, but in opening her heart to receive
the gospel and believe the gospel, he had opened her hands and her
home. And I read on further here, you
know, he went to her home, and her home became thought of Paul's
headquarters. He stayed there, he ate there,
he met the brethren there. Her home was blessed of God to
have the servants of the Lord there. I thought about when we
were in Mexico on a Tuesday and Wednesday night, it was two or
three weeks ago. Our home was so blessed over
here to have Ken and his wife and children, his mother, his
sister and brother-in-law and their children all in our home,
you know. That's the blessing of God, to
entertain His people in your home, to share what you have
with the people of God. Lydia, when God opened her heart
to lead the gospel and receive Christ, she just opened the doors
and she said, would you come to my house? Would you abide
at my house? Would you make that your headquarters?
And I read on further. I won't read all of it, but you
know the story, how that he went out one day, it says in verse
16, it came to pass as we went to prayer on another day, that
a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us. She brought her masters much
gain by soothsaying. Now, Paul wound up in prison
in Philippi, and here's why. Here was a young woman with an
evil spirit. Sort of like a Jeanne Dixon that
prophesies the future, that sort of thing, fortune telling, and
soothsaying, which is evil, tea leaf reading, palm reading, card
reading, that sort of thing. And she followed Paul and Silas. Verse 17 said, and she followed
Paul and she cried, these men are the servants of the Most
High God and show us the way of salvation. Or you say, that's
pretty good. That's a pretty good announcement.
That's a pretty good advertisement. We see the devil's a tricky devil.
He's subtle and crafty. And this wasn't of God. This was of Satan. And I don't
know why he, this spirit, evil spirit, led her to say these
words. I don't know why. But I do not
agree, Paul. He didn't like it. I do know
that something was wrong with it because Paul didn't like it.
And he didn't welcome her attention. He didn't welcome her following
him, talking like that. So he turned. He turned, the
scripture said. Verse 18, she did this many days
and Paul was grieved. Turned and said to the Spirit,
I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ, come out of her.
And he came out the same hour. Now, here's why I was in jail,
and when her masters, her owners, people that were using her for
their gain, when they saw that the hope of their gain was gone,
they caught Paul and Silas and drew them to the marketplace,
to the rulers, and brought them to the magistrates and said,
these men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city. They weren't
troubling the city, they were troubling these profiteers, conmen. And they teach customs which
are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans.
They're Roman citizens. And the multitude, you know what
a lynch mob can do. A man's usually a coward by himself,
but you get him with a bunch of people and he becomes a roaring
lion. So the multitude rose up to gather
against them, and the magistrates went off their clothes and commanded
to beat them. And when they laid many stripes
on them, they cast them into prison. charging the jailer to
keep them safely, who receiving, having received such a charge,
threw them into the inner prison, down into the deepest dungeon,
not a cell with light coming in the window, but the inner
dungeon, and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight,
Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God, rejoicing in
the grace of God, even in the inner prison, in the dungeon.
in shackles, and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there
was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison
were shaken, and immediately all the doors were open and everyone's
bands were loose. The shackles fell off. And the
keeper of the prison, awaking out of his sleep, seeing the
prison doors open, he drew out his sword And he was going to
commit suicide because he knew he was responsible for these
men, and now he was afraid they had escaped, supposing the prisoners
had fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice,
saying, Do thou set no harm? We are all here. He called for
a light and sprang in, came trembling, and fell down before Paul and
Silas, brought them out of the inner prison, and said, What
must I do? Sayers, what must I do to be saved? And they said,
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy
house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord unto all
that were in his house. Paul then preached the gospel to these
people. And he took them the same hour of the night. The keeper of the jail, the Philippian
jailer, washed their stripes, and he was baptized, and he in
all his straight way. And when he brought them into
the house, he set meat before them. Here's another house, open
to the service of God. God visits in grace. It brings
grace to the heart. opens the hand, opens the home.
And he sat and ate before them and rejoiced and believed in
God with all his house. And when it was day, the magistrate
sent the sergeants and said, let those men go. Now, like I
said, over in Africa, when God struck in judgment on this former
pastor, it frightened the people. And these men are frightened.
And they said, let them go. Let's get them out of here. And
the keeper of the prison told this saying to Paul, he said,
the magistrates have sent to let you go, now therefore depart
and go in peace. But Paul said, they've beaten
us openly, uncondemned, and being Romans. Now Paul was a Roman
citizen too, and he leaned on this for whatever reason. God's
providence and purpose being accomplished. But he said, we
hadn't been condemned or tried in being Romans, and they cast
us into prison. And now, do they thrust us out
privately? No, verily, let them come themselves
and fetch us out. He stayed there. He stayed there. Brother Barnard
lived in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was familiar with
the Scripture. A young man came to the Salem
Baptist Church to preach for Dr. Charlie Stephens. This was
way back yonder. Barney died in 1969, must have
been around the late fifties. This young man came and he was
preaching in Salem Baptist Church where Piedmont Bible College
headquarters and he took on himself to attack Ralph Barnard. Barnard
was holding a tent meeting over for the North Winston Baptist
Church at the same time in Winston-Salem. This young man, one of the large
Baptist churches in Winston-Salem, he took upon himself to attack
the man in the tent. Well, after the service Mr. Ziegler and two or three other
men in that church who loved Brother Barnard. Barnard taught
school there for some time, taught preacher school. They came to
the young man and they said, you've severely transgressed.
You've overstepped your bounds, young fellow. You've attacked
the man of God, a man who's a great blessing to us and to this church
and to people all over this nation. and you've got to do something
about it. So the next morning the young
man got in his car and went over to Brother Barnard's house. He
never met Brother Barnard, didn't know him. He'd heard he was a
heretic, preaching hyper-Calvinism. He sat down in Brother Barnard's
living room, introduced himself, and he said, I want to apologize
for what I said last night over at Salem Baptist Church." Well,
I guess he figured Brother Barnard would say, you're forgiven. But Barnard
said, I will not accept your apology. He was taken aback. He said, why not? Barnard said,
young man, you sin publicly. You attack the gospel publicly.
You get back up in the same place where you attacked God's gospel
last night and God's preacher, that's where you've got to apologize.
And then I'll accept your apology. Is that understood? It's dangerous to attack God's
preacher and God's gospel. And this is what Paul is saying.
You've condemned, you've beaten us and imprisoned us, uncondemned. And you're not going to get off
privately. You're not going to apologize privately. You're going
to come yourself and escort me out. And so the sergeants told these
words, verse 38, to the magistrates and they were afraid when they
heard that these men were Romans. They had some power behind them.
And God's servants have power behind them too. greater authority
than Rome. And so they came. Verse 39, they
besought them, pleaded with them, and brought them out, and desired
them to depart out of the city. And they went out of the prison.
Now, here's where I'm coming, and I've taken a long time to
get here. But where did they go? They entered again into the
house of Lydia. You know, we think about Paul
being blessed to have a friend like Lydia, and being blessed
to have a home like her home. It says here they entered into
the house of Lydia, and when they'd seen the brethren, where'd
they see them? They saw them at the house. That's where they
were. And they comforted them. And then they departed. But we
think about Paul having a a person like Lydia in a home like that
in which he could find a refuge and rest. He'd just gotten out
of prison. He was beaten. He was in bad
shape. They took the clothes off, whipped
him naked, put him in stocks in the inner prison. Now here
they are, these men just out of prison, been washed to stripes
and taken care of, but they were wounded, injured men. Now wait
a minute. What a blessing God gave Lydia. What an honor He gave her home. And that's what I'm saying here,
and I hope all of us realize it. What an honor, what a blessing. And I know these missionaries
and people over in other countries that this church has helped,
and people around here this church has helped. you know, that those missionaries
are blessed to have us, I think we're blessed to have them. I
think just when one of them opens that door and walks in here and
feels welcome and feels at home and sits down and his needs are
met, what an honor God has given this church. And Brother Ken
Wymer made this statement. I wish I could have the one that
told it to him to come up here and tell it. in the words he
told it, but he said something to this effect, that he'd been
all over the world and that he'd been in other churches, he'd
been a member of other churches. Am I telling this correctly? But there's no place that he felt more at home and
more cared for and more welcome than the 13th Street Baptist
Church. this home here. And I'm just, that causes my
heart to skip a beat. And to thank God for giving us
that privilege. Down in Mexico, there's a woman,
some of the people who've been to Mexico know this woman. Mandilla. Out in a little village called
Tlachibachin, you go out the highway toward Cancun for about
an hour, hour and fifteen minutes. You make a right turn, And up
until a couple of years ago, you hit a one-lane dirt road
that went through the jungle. And I mean jungle on both sides. And it's about another hour,
45 minutes out. Did you go out there, that Chiba
Chin, where Ondillion Wan lived? She loves Doris. They love each
other, and they greet each other like two sisters that hadn't
seen each other in years. We rode up there for the service
that night. She ran out and grabbed Doris,
and Doris had a gift for her, and they hugged one another.
But she's the mother Israel in that church. I mean the mother
Israel. Her daughter married Rotilio,
who pastors at Yobe, and she's justâ€”everybody looks to Fondilia. That's where the church met first.
First time I went down years ago, they were meeting in her
home. And then it got so big, they met in her yard. And she
cared for the people. She just, like Lydia here, God,
she was an instrument God used in that village to establish
that church. So I asked Walter, I said, how
did you meet her? How did you meet her? He said, well, it's
an unusual story, the providence of God. He said, I had been in
Mexico very many years till the government offered some of the
natives living out in the Pueblos some land out beyond Tad Chiba
Chin, out that dirt road for an hour. That's the road we were
on when we stopped one night and I was driving. I cut the
motor off and Scott said, don't turn off the motor. I said, well,
why didn't you tell him before I turned it off? He said, I didn't
think you was dumb enough to turn it off. Anyway, the government offered
him some land out there. And so seven or eight men in
a Pueblo got $20 apiece, what the government offered the land,
to start a village. And one of the men backed out
and asked Walter if he wanted to have a part in the land. Well,
Chandra. And Walter said, I'll put up
$20. So he and these five or six men went out there, out beyond
Pachibochit, out into the jungles to survey this land. There was
another village on beyond it. And while they were surveying
the land out there, they stayed out there three days, here came
a woman and her two or three children walking along with a
horse, and on that horse's back all kinds of things to sell. Crafts and pies and bread and
things she'd bake. She was out peddling. It was
fondilia. That's the type of woman she
is, aggressive with ingenuity. And she was out there and they
met her and they bought some things from her. But anyway,
they got acquainted. She was a strong Catholic. She
was the head of the Rosary circle, you know, the Rosary, and a strong
Catholic. But anyway, she somehow told
them they could stop at her home for refreshments or something
on the way back. And they stopped there, and her husband liked
Brother Walter. He liked what he said. She hated
it. Oh, Walter said she hated what he said, but her husband,
Juan, liked it. And he said, you want to come
back and preach to us? So Walter came back and preached,
and want Fondilia to stand outside. She was the rosary head, you
know. And she, what, if Fondilia's against you, she's against you.
If she's for you, she's for you. But Walter said she could start
listening. God opened her heart, like Lydia. Juan didn't do anything, but
God opened her heart, and she grabbed this gospel, took hold
of that gospel, and oh, what God has done through her leadership
there, you know, among the women. A lot of men had come, they had
free preachers come out of that church, Cantanillo, Marcello,
and Gustavus, all out of that church right there. And that's what I'm saying about
Lydia. You know, if God opens a person's heart, pleased to
reveal the gospel to us, and opens our hands and our hearts,
there's no telling what He'll do for us and for those associated
with us. Open up. Let's go on. I want
to show you something else. So he left Philippi, verse 17. Now, stay with me just a little
bit. I've got a couple of other things
I want to show you. Chapter 17, verse 1. Now, when they had passed
through Amphipolis and Apollonia, They came to Thessalonica. You've read the first and second
epistles to the Thessalonians. This is where he came, to Thessalonica.
Paul hadn't been there, but he came there from Philippi, where
there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner
was, went in the synagogue, into the people in the synagogue,
because he was a Jew. He was a Pharisee at one time.
He was a ruler of the Jews. I think he was a member of the
Sanhedrin. Is that right, John? He was a member of the Sanhedrin,
the highest cult, one of the highest cults. So he had an entrance
into the synagogue. And he went there, it says here,
for three Sabbath days. Three Sabbath days, Saturday,
where they met to worship and reasoned with them. Reasoned. What did he use? What was his
foundation? What was his text? He reasoned
out of the Scriptures. He took the writings of Moses
and all the Old Testament prophets and the law, and he reasoned
with them. Now what did he reason with them
about? Here it is, verse 3. Opening the scriptures and alleging
or preaching or reasoning or contending that the Christ must
needs have suffered and risen again from the dead. That was
his first thing he dealt with was this. Now, all the Jews were
looking for the Christ. You remember when John the Baptist
came and they said, are you the Christ? He did strange and marvelous
and wonderful, strange, marvelous, wonderful messages. He had a
great power. God was with him at his unusual
birth. So they want to know if he's
the Christ. You remember the woman at the well. Here was a
seemingly ignorant woman, and yet she knew. She said, when
the Messiah comes, He'll tell us all things. So this is where
Paul began with these Jews. He began where they were. They understood there was going
to be a Messiah, seed of woman. Eve thought she had the Messiah
when Cain was born. That's what she said. She said,
I've gotten the man. That's what she thought. It wasn't. That's what she thought. He was
going to be the seed of Abraham. They knew that. They knew he
was coming through the tribe of Judah. They knew he'd be the
root of Jesse. They knew he'd be the son of
David. They read in the Old Testament scriptures that he would be the
Redeemer of Israel and the Messiah of Israel and the Deliverer of
Israel. But here's what they didn't know.
They were looking for a king, not a serpent. They were looking
for a Lion of Judah, not a lamb. They were looking for one to
reign. and not suffer. You see, they didn't understand
their very tabernacle. They didn't understand, you see,
the table was a snare to them, and the sacrifice is a stumbling
block. They thought the way to God was
through these sacrifices, and through these holy days, and
through these types, and through these laws, and through these
priests, and the way was not through these things to God,
These were pictures of the way to God. And just as every lamb
of the Old Testament was slain, it was a type of the Lamb of
God. And that's where Paul, he took their scriptures and contended
with them that that Passover lamb is Christ, is the Christ. That the Christ is a king and
will reign as a king, but he must first suffer as a lamb.
lay him slain before the foundation of the world. And that's why
he was contending. He was contending. That must
be established with them first. They knew Jesus was a great man. They knew that Jesus had great
power. They knew that Jesus could raise
the dead. They knew that Jesus could heal
the sick. They knew all those things. But they also knew he
died on a cross. And that couldn't be their king.
That couldn't be their Messiah, that couldn't be their Christ,
because they knew nothing about their Christ dying on a cross.
Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree. And they just dismissed
Him as they did all the others that claimed to be the Christ.
But what Paul is showing them is that the Christ, according
to the Scriptures, must suffer. He must die. The Son of Man must
be lifted up. That's what all these types are
about. Now listen, here's the second point in this message.
And that this Jesus, this Jesus, this same Jesus, which I preach
to you, He is the Christ. Now can we get a hold of those
two things? That's the gospel summed up in two statements.
That the Christ, the one about whom this whole Old Testament
is written, The one of whom it says someone's coming, a redeemer,
a righteousness, the Lord our righteousness, a high priest
like Melchizedek, a Christ. But this Christ must suffer.
He must die, and he must rise from the grave. And what I'm
saying, Paul said, is this Jesus of Nazareth, this Son of Mary,
whom you crucified, He is the Christ. If you can settle on
that, And believe that, you got a hold of the gospel. Hold that
place and turn back to Acts, and see if this is not what,
Acts chapter 2, and see if this is not what the Apostle Peter
said at Pentecost. Acts chapter 2. Verse, let's
start with verse 29. And here Peter is talking about
David, of course. They loved David, they believed
David, they knew David was a prophet and a king, that Messiah would
be the son of David. But verse 29 of Acts 2, Peter
said, Men and brethren, let me speak freely unto you of the
patriarch David. And he's dead, and he's buried,
and his sepulchre is with us to this day. Therefore, being
a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him
that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would
raise up Christ, the Christ, to sit on David's throne, he,
seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that
his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did seek corruption,
and this Jesus, this same Jesus, hath God raised up, wherefore
we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise
of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and
hear. Dave is not ascended into the
heavens, but he said himself, the Lord said to my Lord, sit
thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy foes
too. that all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath
made that same Jesus whom you crucified, the Lord and the Christ. This Jesus is the Christ. And if you take the Old Testament
scriptures and see what is said about the Christ, the types and
pictures and shadows and patterns, well, this Christ, this Jesus,
he's that Christ. He fulfilled it all on our behalf.
Now look here, verse 4. And some of them believed. And
some of them believed. And that's what you find wherever
you go. Some believe. Some don't. Some don't, but some
do. I'll tell you this. The Scripture
says as many as were ordained eternal life believed. those
whom God hath chosen, those whom God hath in grace given to Christ,
those for whom Christ suffered on the cross and prayed and for
whom he prayed, they're going to believe. I'm as confident
of that whether I'm preaching up on a mountain in Mexico or
down in a Pueblo or whether I'm preaching here or on television. Our God is not defeated. Because some do not believe,
does that make the purpose of God of non-effect? Absolutely not. Some believe,
and wherever we go, and we're not going to be discouraged.
I shall not be moved, and we're not going to employ methods to
try to convince men to believe. We're going to preach this gospel,
and that's where Paul is. He said Christ must suffer, and
Christ must die, the Christ. And this same Jesus, whom we
preach to you, is that Christ. And some believe. And what they
do, those who believe, they consorted with Paul. What's that word?
Associated with him. Identified with him. Like Lydia. She said, if you counted me faithful,
come into my house. Come into my house. these people
associated themselves, identified themselves with this gospel and
with this gospel preacher. And the devout Greeks, a great
multitude, and of the chief women, not a few. There was a Lydia
in that bunch, and there was a Phondelia in that bunch. And
wherever we go, there's God's servant. I tell you this, there's
an outside This ranch I was talking about this morning, we've told
you about going up on the mountain. It's twelve miles up there. It
takes a good while to get there. It's a bad road. But it's a poor
village. There's no gospel witness there. Nobody will go up there.
In fact, nobody's welcome there. It's a dangerous village. They're
clannish people. They grow coffee and they have
a coffee crop and during the summer they about starve. Well,
Milton has been going up there taking food to them. These churches
at Julian and San Rafael and Tuchla get up food, beans and
rice, and he puts it in his Dodge Ram or else in Roberto's truck,
and they take food to them. And then also he's taken the
dentist up there to work on, to pull their teeth, and they
let him in. They welcome him. And he came
up there one time and preached there four years ago. And then
when I was down there last May, we went back up on the mountain
and took, we took 50 cases of food to that village up on the
mountain. Gosh, there was over 200 people
there that night, wasn't there, in that, that's why it rained
so bad. And we just, that's where the
little lady, the road was going to be bad going back, and this
little lady about this high. She came up to my waist. She
looked about 90 years old. And they thought we weren't going
to be able to go back down that mountain because the roads were
so slick and dangerous. She came up to Doris. She had
one little blanket over her shoulders. That's all she had, that little
blanket. And she told Doris in Spanish, said, you don't need
to go down the mountain. You can spend the night with
me and you can have my blanket. And Doris didn't know what she
was saying. Doris thought she was asking her for something.
And one of the missionaries came to her and said, she just offered
you her blanket. They couldn't believe it. Well
anyway, up there, Milton went back again after we had that
service and had another service. There's a woman in that community,
I don't know her name, but there's a woman there that that Milton
says is the mouth of the South. She's aggressive. She's a powerhouse
in that community. And she likes Milton. And she
got up a petition and signed, got 30 people to sign it, asking
him to come back up there and preach. And so she was down at the ranch
on Thursday night when we had the service and said, now you
all be up there tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon, what was
it, 4 o'clock? So we went up there, and she
had rented a home, a new home that a man had built for his
daughter, newlywed, hadn't moved in yet, built out of mud bricks,
about the size of my office. And they had benches and things
in there. And so we went in, had a table,
had some flowers on the table for us to preach. She wasn't
there. And we waited, and different
people wandered in. Here she came with a bunch of
people, and then she left again. We delayed that service 25 minutes,
didn't we? She was out rounding people up,
bringing them to church. This is the truth. I see that
little blue dress of hers. She'd bring somebody in, and
then she'd run out and go down a hill. Then she'd come back
in two or three, and she'd run out here and go down a hill. Finally, she settled down, and
we started the service and preached. And after the service was over,
like I said, she's outspoken. She doesn't know a woman's not
supposed to speak, but when the service was over, just packed
the place, they were standing in the door in the winter. She
came running up, and she said to Milton, now we want you to
come back as often as you can, because we need a lot of help,
and we want you to tell us about the Lord. And then she said,
would you go to my house and eat? I've got coffee and food
prepared for you." Well, it's dangerous to do that. They've
got a thing called Montezuma's Revenge down there that Tom got
it. Tom Filliant, if you want to
know about that. I said, what are we going to
do? Milton said, well, I've talked
to Carmelita and we've got to go. If she's for you, You get
something done. She's not for you. You got trouble.
He said, we just got to go. I want to go. He said, just eat
what you can. So we went, and she had a little
cloth on the table, didn't she? She had picked some Mexican homemade
tacos. Well, I couldn't eat that. I
knew I couldn't eat that. But she had some bananas fried.
Did you ever eat fried bananas? Well, these are pretty good.
She had some bananas fried. I knew if she cut those bananas
up and fried them, it'd be all right. And she had some coffee.
And she had the little chairs around the table. And we sat
around and she stood over there. First she met us at the door
with a bucket of water to wash our hands in. And held that bucket
out like washing the feet of the saint. She came to the door
and stood there with that bucket while we washed our hands and
went in. She stood, and this is a pagan home now. She's never
heard the gospel 4 or 5 times. This is a woman, 45 or 50 years
old, is raised in paganism, Catholicism, and she's opened her home, and
took what little she had, and put it out there, fried a whole
plate of fried bananas. I ate a bottle of them, you know,
and drank 2 or 3 cups of coffee, and we talked, and they talked.
I had to translate and so forth. We started to leave, and she
brought us a sack of eggs, wasn't it? You know what eggs will work
to them? This is a community where they don't have anything,
where they save up for the summer months when the coffee's not
in. And she brought us a sack of her eggs. I guess she has
a little crippled chicken, and she'd saved them up. And that
just touched me, and Milton said, You just don't know, you don't
understand what this means. But I saw another Lydia. God
opened her heart and opened her home and opened her hands. And we got in the truck and she
stood in the doorway. I tell you that in the Lord gracious,
it's good, so good to let us right here in this town of Ashland,
this 13th Street Baptist Church, just have a part in something
like that. It's touching. Well, by his grace, we're going
to meet some more Lydia's, aren't we? And some more Juan's and
Retilio's and Tennon Jock's. Let's pray for these men. All
right, Mike, come lead us in a song, if you will. It's very important.

This Jesus Is the Christ

What does the Bible say about God opening hearts?

Why is the concept of Christ's suffering important for Christians?

How do we know that Jesus is the Christ?

Why is sharing our homes important in Christian fellowship?

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This Jesus Is the Christ

What does the Bible say about God opening hearts?

Why is the concept of Christ's suffering important for Christians?

How do we know that Jesus is the Christ?

Why is sharing our homes important in Christian fellowship?

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

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