John the 8th chapter. There are two verses of scripture
in this portion that I read a moment ago that I'd like for us to look
at for a little while very diligently and studiously if we can, because
they're so meaningful, particularly Verse 32, and you, that's you
and me, and you shall know the truth. You shall know the truth. And we're certainly not talking
here, we're talking about ourselves, sinners born in sin, conceived
in sin, shaped in iniquity, brought forth speaking lies. us, every
one of us, human beings, sons of Adam, children of the flesh,
shall know the truth. Now Christ is the truth. Christ
is the truth. You shall know the truth and
the truth shall make you free. And there are very few, I know
we Americans like to talk about our freedom, but that's not the
kind of freedom we're talking about here. A man can be There
are lots of different kinds of bondage. There's political bondage,
there's physical bondage, there's spiritual bondage, there's mental
bondage, there's a lot of different kinds of bondage. And a man can
be free as a bird financially, independently, wealthy, he can
be as free as far as his politics are concerned, I'll vote or I
won't vote, this, that, and the other. He can be happy-go-lucky,
free mentally, no strings attached, no marital chains or family to
raise, and yet be in total bondage. Bondage. And we're talking about
here a freedom But if a man has this freedom, any other bondage
is meaningless. If he has a freedom of soul,
a freedom of heart, he can be in a prison like one of the old
writers, I believe it was Latimer or one of them, wrote to his
friend. He was in prison in Aberdeen. He was in a dungeon and he sat
down by the light of a candle on an old box with a little wooden
desk and wrote to his friend, and the salutation went this
way, from the Lord's palace in Aberdeen. Now you think, from
the Lord's palace in Aberdeen, my dear brother. He meant that. While blessed with a sense of
his love, a palace, a toy would appear, and prisons would palaces
prove. if the Lord Jesus would dwell
with me there. So all of this so-called worldly
freedom is not freedom because all of this world, the fashion
thereof, passeth away, religious, political, social, and otherwise.
But he that doeth the will of my Father will live forever.
He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood will live forever. So
I'm talking about a freedom now, a freedom, a freedom. that Christ gives. The other
verse is over here in verse 36, if the Son. You see, it's the
same. The truth and the Son. The truth. And we're not talking about hearing
the truth of the Baptist, the independent Baptist fellowship
being freed from, like somebody said, I was some kind of slave. What was
that? I thought about that the other day. Jehovah. Well, I was
a watchtower slave. Well, you can be a Baptist slave
now. Hooray, you know. Out of one
prison and into the other. But I was a prisoner of Rome,
like Father Chinnick. He was at his name in bondage
to Rome. Well, he might be in bondage
to fundamentalism next. That's no freedom. I'm not talking
about that kind of freedom. I'm talking about you shall know
the truth, and the truth shall set you free. free of freedom,
and the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. So
let's see if I can help us on this a little bit tonight. If
I didn't think I had this, I couldn't preach on it, but I believe I
do. But this thing of knowledge now,
he said, take our verse here, the verse I'm working on is verse
32, and ye shall know the truth. Now a wise man once said, and
you'll profit by this if you have the interest to listen to
it. A wise man once said there are really three parts to truth.
Three parts to truth. One is the search for it. The
search for it is not going to rise up and knock you in the
head. Secondly, is the knowledge of it. And thirdly, is the embracing
or believing of it. I'd better listen. You know,
what is worse than being in bondage is being in bondage and not know
it. That's the worst bondage there is. If the light which
be in you, if that's darkness, how great is that darkness. All right, here's the three things.
Now, what search for truth? What hinders our search for the
truth? Now, you do well to listen to
this. What hinders a man's search for the truth? Some people aren't
even searching for it. And the thing that hinders our
search for the truth, number one, is the ignorance of God's
Word. The generation in which I'm living, the generation to
which I'm preaching, and a generation of people that I'm attempting
to pastor is like those in the days that our Lord ministered
on this earth. He summed them up this way. He
said, you do err not knowing the Scriptures. Not knowing the
Scriptures. You do err not knowing the Scriptures,
nor the power of God. There's only one guide to truth,
and that's God's Word. Believe me, that's the only guide
to truth is the Word of God. You do err not knowing the Scriptures.
He even said to his disciples, when he talked about the resurrection,
he said to them, you know not the Scriptures. That's your whole
problem. You don't know the scriptures.
We don't know the scriptures because we're not reading the
scriptures. We're not studying the scriptures. We're not giving
any time to this precious book. And, of course, the preachers
of our day are not preaching the Word of God. We're ignorant
of the scriptures, and that hinders our search for truth. This is
where truth will be found. Truth is not going to be found
in reading the newspaper. Let God be true and have a man
a liar. Everything you read outside of
the scriptures, if it's not based on the Word of God, is a man-made
lie, a subtle lie, a crafty lie, a deceitful lie, a camouflaged
lie, some kind of lie. But it's a lie hidden under some
kind of cloak to make it acceptable to us. We're going to have to
get into the book. That will hinder our search for
the truth, ignorance of the Word of God. Secondly, that which
hinders our search for truth are the traditions of religion.
Turn with me to Mark chapter 7. Our Lord accused those people
in that day of the same thing, traditions of religion. I tell
you, my friends, denominationalism has utterly devastated us. devastated
us. Tradition is the handed down
beliefs and traditions that have come down to us through the years.
It would shock you. It would shock you to examine
the average person's religious beliefs. I was preaching for Brother Sammy
Vance up, hold that Mark 7 there, up in Dingus. And after the service,
this was after I had been going up there for years. And we went
back in the back one night. We were sitting talking, a group
of us. And he said, now tell me how you all observed the Lord's
table. I told him we have the unleavened bread and the wine.
And he said, well, what do you do with what's left over? I said, oh, we take the box and
put it back in the cabinet and put the wine back in the refrigerator.
He said, you mean you don't take it out under the light of the
moon and bury it?" I said, never have. Well, he said, now that's the
way we were taught to do it, you know. After you serve the
Lord's table, whatever's taken up, what's left over, you have
to go out in the darkness somewhere where it can't be found and bury
it. Because, and I don't know what that's based on unless it's
somebody, unless Christ said, drink ye all of it, or here's
what I think the superstition's based on. That something happens
to that bread and that wine to make it something besides bread
and wine, and that's the reason you have to take it and bury
it, keep anybody from eating it or getting a hold of it. I
could stand up here for the rest of the night telling you of superstitions
and odd and strange behavior that people do in the name of
God Almighty. And all that foolishness has
just been handed down through the years. That's all worth being
handed down. All of these horrible superstitions
that people have, like horseshoes on the door, and breaking mirrors,
and spilling salt, and walking under ladders, and black cats,
that's all voodooism. That's witchcraft. That's superstition. But we put stock in that trash,
and we bring it right into our church. We have things like when
I was growing up, the women sat on one side of the church and
the men sat on the other. We've got all these superstitions and
things of that nature. And our Lord said in Mark 7,
listen to it, Mark 7, verse 6, He answered and said unto them,
Well, hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written,
This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is
far from me. How be it in vain do they worship
me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men? And laying
aside the commandments of God, they hold the traditions of men."
And let me tell you something. These places hold the traditions
of men a lot stronger than they hold this book. You'll make them
a lot more angry if you take their picture of Jesus off the
wall than if you denied some cardinal doctrine of the Scripture. A group of people I preached
for last week had three crosses over here on a table. They had
candles burning. They had this picture of what's
called Jesus on the wall. They have all these subtle traditions
and forms and customs that they go through. And people are bound
by those things, and you can't get through it with the truth.
If you violate those traditions, they close their ears to your
words. If you violate those traditions,
they shut their ears up and close their eyes, and they won't hear
you because you've trampled under your feet those things that are
more precious to them than the Word of God. That's what we're
living in. That's the day we're living in,
trying to preach to folks that are Methodists and Baptists and
Presbyterians and Catholics and Camelites and Nazarenes and Church
of God and Church of Christ, Pentecostal. And if you don't
walk up and down and scream and foam at the mouth, you're not
preaching. And if you don't have a whoop to do it, folks aren't
waving their hands like this, they're not in the spirit. Tradition,
that search for truth, I tell you, if you can get through ignorance,
ignorance of the Word, if you can get through ignorance of
the Word, and some people have a little working knowledge of
the Word, and yet that Word is bound up by their superstitions
and traditions and customs, and you can't get through that. And
then thirdly, pride. Oh, I'll tell you how proud we
are. How proud. I read over there in the ninth
chapter of John this morning where our Lord healed that blind
man. Now here was a man born blind. And all of these religious Pharisees
knew him and heard of him and saw him constantly. And our Lord miraculously, supernaturally,
immediately, instantaneously healed him. And they knew it. And yet they came to him, and
they began to argue with him, and he said, Has it ever been
heard of that a man is made to see who was born blind? And you
know what they said? Why, they said, You are altogether
born in sin. Do you teach us? We are not going
to be taught by you. And they cast him out. They cast
him out. We are selective in our teachers,
you know. You don't teach me. Well, I'm
proud, you know. Do you teach me? You going to
show me something? My pride will not let me be humble
and learn of anyone. And yet the Scripture says a
little child shall lead them. A little child shall lead them.
And yet our Lord said a little child. These disciples were arguing
about who was going to be the greatest who was going to sit
on his right hand and his left hand, he brought a little child,
stood the little child in their midst and said, except you be
converted and become as a child, you shall not enter the kingdom
of God. It can't be taught. Our pride will not let us be
taught. Our pride will not let us come
down. Our pride will not let us sit and listen and learn of
Christ. Well, he said, you'll seek me
and find me when you do what? Search. When you search. When you search, how? Me, with
all your heart. Where are you going to start?
In the Scriptures. In the Scriptures. How are you
going to come to the Scriptures? Casting off all my traditions,
and all my religious customs, and all my hand-me-down beliefs,
and come to Christ like blind Bartimaeus who cast his garment
from him, and ran to the Lord. And also, with a willing, humble
spirit, teach me. All right, now secondly, that's
the first part of truth. That's the first part of truth,
is the search part. Is the search part. We've got
to somehow overcome our ignorance of this book and overcome somehow
these, all these traditions. Who started the tradition that
my eyes had to be closed and my head bowed to pray? Does it say that somewhere in
the Bible? Who started the tradition? Well, just go on, you can name
so many things, you know. All the traditions, if we just
shake ourselves loose from them, they're like leeches that cling
to you, you know, and suck your blood. Suck your blood. And then that
humble spirit, oh, that humble spirit. All right, secondly,
what hinders our knowledge of the truth? That's the second
part of truth, is knowledge, the knowledge of it. Now knowledge,
this is what I'm talking about. You shall know the truth, Christ
said, you shall know it. That's understanding. Now I know
faith is a hard work, repentance is a hard work, laying hold of
Christ is a hard work. but you don't know in your heart
what didn't come through here. He talks about seeing with the
eyes and hearing with the ears. How shall they call on him in
whom they haven't believed, and how are they going to believe
in him in whom they haven't what? Heard. Like I say, you don't wake up
one morning and find out what you're saying. You're going to
hear the gospel. There's going to be a hearing
of the gospel. understanding or comprehension or some kind
of revelation to the thoughts, the mind. Faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God. But millions hear the Word of
God, and yet they do not know the truth. You shall know the
truth. You have to know the truth. And
there are people who say, well, I want to hear the Word of God.
And then you preach it to them, and they get all upset. They
say, you know, they say, well, I'm going to come here and you
preach. You preach in the Bible, and they come, and I get on election,
and they get all tore up. Or I get on some doctor, and
they don't agree with me, and they get all tore up. So what causes this? What hinders our, when we do
begin to search, when we do begin to inquire, when we do begin
to sort of get on the trail of the truth, What is the roadblock
that stops us from comprehending and understanding? The first
one is spiritual blindness. Spiritual blindness. We read
this back in the study in 2 Corinthians. Turn over here. And this is something
we deal with and we cope with, is blindness. Spiritual blindness. Christ said they have eyes, but
they don't see. They have ears, but they don't
hear. hearts, but they do not understand, they do not comprehend.
In 2 Corinthians 4, listen to this, verse 3 and 4, if our gospel
be hid, now something that's hid is something that you haven't
found, that's away from you to such an extent that you are unaware
of where it is, to them that are lost, in whom the God of
this world hath blinded their intellects, blinded their minds,
blinded their understandings. There is a way that seems right
unto men, and the end is death. My thoughts are not your thoughts.
Men are blind. In 1 Corinthians 2, it says,
"... eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered
into the heart of man the things God has prepared for them that
love him. But he hath revealed them unto
us by his Spirit. The natural man receiveth not
the things..." He is blind. He won't receive the things of
God. Spiritual blindness. is spiritual prejudice. The Samaritan
woman, this is such a good illustration. Now here's a woman, here's a
woman altogether dead in sin. Here's a woman whose life is
so, is so bound up with, with confusion. She'd been married five times.
You talk about so much, well this person has hang-ups. You
talk about hang-ups. She must have had some real hang-ups.
Five different husbands. And here she was, she wasn't
happy, she was living in an embarrassing situation with a man who was
not her husband. She wouldn't even come to the
well when the other women came, she came at the hottest part
of the day. Now think about that kind of life, all just hang-ups
and troubles, emotional troubles, embarrassed, shame, gone through
all these divorces, living with a man who wasn't her husband.
Here she was by herself, lonely, troubled, drawing water, and
Christ sent to her. If you ask of me, I'll give you
living water, and you'll never thirst again. Never thirst again. And she said, How is it you have
this living water? You don't even have a bucket,
and the well is deep. He said, The water that I shall give you
is living water. He said, give it to him. He said,
go get your husband, and so forth. So she wound up doing this. She
wound up saying, well, you're a Jew, and I'm a Samaritan. And the Jews say we ought to
worship down there in the synagogue, and my father say you're supposed
to worship in the mount. Here she is. Here's a woman in
utter absolute depression and trouble arguing about where to
worship. Whether to sing the Psalms or
the hymns, or whether to worship on Saturday or Sunday, or whether
to worship in a church or in a mountain, that's not her problem. And yet I tell you, we have so
much spiritual prejudice today, denominationalism, sectarianism,
it's the curse upon sinners and it's the tool of Satan. Men do
not recognize the truth when it comes because they are prejudiced
in religion, spiritual prejudice. And here's the third problem.
It's spiritual indifference. Turn to Luke 8, verse 37. Look at this. Luke 8, verse 37. Alright, the truth comes along.
Why can't we lay hold of it? Why can't we get a grip on it? Why can't we get it in its proper
place? Well, because we're blind. And
a blind man can't put things in their proper place. Because
we're spiritually prejudiced, we've already got those places
filled. And then thirdly, we're spiritually indifferent. In Luke
8, verse 37, listen to this. Then the whole multitude of the
country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart
from them, for they were taken with great fear. So he got back
in the ship and left. The Lord Jesus Christ had come
to the shores of this island, this place, And he healed that
man that was naked in the tombs, insane, while he cast the demons
out of him. Those demons had gone into the
hogs, had gone into the sea, and these people came out and
saw that his brand of religion, if I may put it that way, that
the Lord Jesus' brand of spirituality or knowledge of God would disturb
the status quo. In other words, the knowledge
of Christ and a relationship with Christ is not something
that you can sort of put to the side and go about your regular
business. It disturbs a household. It disturbs a community. It has
an impact and an effect upon everything we do. and say, and
every relationship was bad. It cannot go along with the status
quo. So they said, that's not the
kind of religion we want. Just leave us. Leave us alone. Am I clear what I'm saying? Leave
us alone. So what hinders our knowledge
of the truth? We don't want to know it for
fear of what it will cost us. That's exactly right. I've had
people, let me tell you, illustrations. I've had it happen here a lot
of times. Ed, you and I have talked about this. People you've
brought to this church. And they're in a religious organization. And they know something's wrong,
but they don't know what it is. They know that they're not hearing
something, but they don't know what they're not hearing. And so they come to
this church, and I get up here and start reading the scriptures
and preaching from the Bible, and immediately they say, hey,
he's preaching from the Bible. That's good. That's what I've
been looking for. Looking for somebody preaching
from the Bible. I want to go and listen to somebody preach
the Bible. But they keep coming, and they find out that this salvation
that I'm trying to preach is a total commitment. It's a total
commitment. It's not just coming and sitting
down in your little reserved place on Sunday morning and listening
to somebody tell you some pretty stories from the Bible, that's
the truth, and getting up and walking out without being committed
to it, sold out to it, enamored, obsessed with it, so that it
changes even your companionship and conduct and conversation
and attitude in your social life, in everything. It has a way of
permeating every part of your life. They say, well, we don't
want no more of that. Good night, you know. Isn't that right? Don't
want no more of that. He's preaching the Bible, but
I'm not in the position to get totally absorbed in this thing. Now, you can't have it any other
way. Christ said, you're not farming against me, you're anti-Christ.
He that gathers not with me scattereth abroad. He said, a preacher is
supposed to be sold out for Christ, but not everybody else. Ooh,
hold it now. He said, if you put your hand
to the plow and look back, you can't be my disciple. He said,
if any man loved father, mother, brother, sister, husband, wife,
he has his own life more than me, he can't even be my disciple. And that's what hinders knowledge
of truth. They said to him, when our Lord stood there in the land
of the Gadarenes and all that turmoil took place, that man
sitting there clothed in his right mind, he was probably the
object of ridicule and fun. They say some folks lost some
money on him. I bet they sold tickets to watch
him run through the graveyard naked. He put some folks out
of business. And then these hogs, Jews ain't
supposed to eat hogs anyway. But these demons went into the
hogs, they ran into the sea, and that upset that fella's business,
you know. That tore his business up. And
here this man, Jesus Christ, everybody was getting excited
about him, and the leaders of the town said, Hold it! I don't
mind having a little religion, but let's don't be a fanatic.
It's all right to have a little religion, but let's just don't
let it get out of hand. It's all right to have a little
religion, but let's don't It's all right to have a little religion
on the side, you know, but don't let it affect your business and
your relationship with everybody else. And just live and let live,
and you know, anything you don't talk about is politics and religion.
Keep it in the... Oh, I beg your pardon. Christ
is King, Lord of Lords and King of Kings. And the only way that
knowledge is going to come is for that man to somehow overcome
by the Spirit of God, His blindness, ours to see and His prejudice.
Are you willing to lay down your religious prejudice? And then I'll tell you this,
it's a total commitment. It's like somebody told the story
of a pig and a chicken walking down the road one day, a pig
and a chicken. And they were talking. Of course,
you didn't know pigs and chickens talked, I'll bet. But this pig
and chicken walked along the road and they were talking. And
one of them said, I'm hungry. The other one said, I am too.
And they passed a restaurant and they signed up there. It
says, ham and eggs. And the chicken said, well, let's go in and have
some ham and eggs. The pig said, oh, no. Oh, no. It's all right for you, but not
for me. With you, it's a contribution. With me, it's total commitment.
And that's what I'm talking about. You can be a chicken or a hog,
but with a chicken, it's a contribution. With a pig, it's a total commitment. All right, thirdly, what, humanly
speaking, hinders a belief of the truth? Now, brethren, when
I'm talking about truth, I'm talking about Christ, the truth
about God in His sovereign, infinite, eternal, immaculate, immutable,
unchangeable holiness. righteousness, love, mercy, grace,
power, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence. Who is God? Let
God be God and everybody alike. I'm talking about the truth about
us. We are born in sin, shapen in iniquity, sons of Adam. In
every sense of the word, from our sole of our feet to the top
of our head, not one commendable thing. Helpless, hopeless, without
God in this world, without Christ in need of His mercy. I'm talking
about the truth about Christ. You see, all truth is related
to Christ. All truth related somehow to
His eternality, His creative power, His incarnation, His representative
work, His sacrifice and sin offering, His burial and resurrection,
His enthronement, His exaltation, His intercession. All truth is
Christ. Everything God has done, is doing,
will ever do is in relation to Christ. There's no way you can
know anything about God without knowing Christ. No man knoweth
the Father save the Son, and he to whom shall the Son will
reveal him. There's no way to worship God
apart from adoring Christ. There's no way to love God without
loving Christ. There's no way to approach God
without being in Christ. There's no way to be saved by
God without being in Christ. Christ is truth. And nobody knows truth who doesn't
know Christ. Nobody has truth who doesn't
have Christ. That's so, and that's truth I'm
talking about. Now, what humanly speaking hinders a belief of
the truth? Now, there's a search for it,
and then there's a discovery of it, the knowledge of it. But
when we come eyeball to eyeball with truth in the person of Christ,
embodied in Christ, what keeps me from embracing Him and loving
Him and believing Him. And that's where salvation is.
He that believeth on the Son hath life. He that hath the Son
of God hath life. Then say, the devil has come
face to face with the truth and walked away. Huh? That's true. The demons said, we know who
you are. We know exactly who you are. We know who you are. But it's
not just mentally knowing facts and mentally embracing what we
call facts, but it's loving them, believing them. See what I'm
talking about? What hinders that? I'll give you three or four things.
Number one is fear. Just plain out fear. Turn to
John 12. Fear. Fear. Franklin Roosevelt made a speech
one time, 1941. He talked about freedom of speech
and expression. He talked about freedom of worship,
freedom from war, and freedom from fear. You know, there are
not many of us free from fear. Now, this is a freedom. The Lord
said, know the truth, embrace the truth, and it will set you
free. Free from fear. free from fear. But here in John
12, listen to this. John chapter 12, verse 42. Verse 42, listen to it. Nevertheless,
among the chief rulers also many believed on him. But because
of the Pharisees, they didn't confess him, lest they should
be put out of the synagogue. They were afraid. Have you ever
been afraid? Afraid? Well, these men were
afraid. I know if a man really believes
Christ in his heart, he'll confess Christ and he'll walk in truth.
But fear of man is a great snare. Solomon said the fear of man
worketh or bringeth a snare, a snare. Men fear the loss of
friends, they fear the loss of prestige, they fear the loss
of position, they fear the loss of influence, they come face
to face with this with its demands of the crucified Redeemer. And fear, fear works on them. Oh, it works on them. It's fearful. Look at that next verse. There's
another thing that works on men, humanly speakers, and hinders
an embracing of the truth, a committal to the truth. Verse 43, they
love the praises of men more than the praise of God. Just flat love. How can you?
How can you believe who seek the honor of men and not the
honor that comes from God only? There is an honor that comes
from God only. Oh, there are honors that come
from men. Hi, Bob. Hi, Tom. Glad to see you. Come down sometime.
That's honor that comes from me. Recognition. The hailing
of the friend, the influence, that there he goes, he's somebody.
All this sort of thing is important to us. But there's an honor that
comes from God. Sonship. Sonship. It would be better for you, Ron, to have
that honor that comes from God than to be President of the U.K.
I mean, if you're President of the U.K., you name me in history
books. Everybody, years later, would read about you. But our
Lord said, don't fear them that kill the body, fear them, fear
Him that's able to cast your body and soul into hell. They
said, even the demons are subject to us. He said, don't rejoice
in that. Rejoice that your name is written
in the book of life. Never be erased. Oh, boy. Fear. hear of men, love of praise and
honor. Oh, how we love, how we love
that praise and honor. And it's a stumbling block now.
It's a stumbling block to committle. It's a stumbling block to surrender.
It's a stumbling block to embracing Christ. Yeah, well, what's my
mother and dad going to say? Well, I can predict what they're
going to say, because I've heard it said. Well, what about my
brother and sister? We just get along fine, you know,
and we don't let religion interfere with our relationship. Well,
if you don't know the truth, it won't interfere with your
relationship. The only thing that will interfere with your
relationship with another religious person is Christ, and He sure
will interfere. He sure will interfere. A thousand
eras can walk together, but one truth cannot walk with one era.
Can't be done. And then covetousness. Oh boy,
no man can serve two masters. That's something else. I tell
you, we just, every one of us, given too much to covetousness. Paul talked about this. He said,
I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord. That man, Paul, see him sitting
down there in the house of, who was it? and a house of, I forget,
two friends, and they were tent makers. And there, spraddle-legged,
sits that fifty-year-old man with a needle and some kind of
yarn, and he's sewing tents together to be sold in the marketplace. There he sits sewing tents, because
that's all the employment he could find. And he's trying to
make a little something to buy some soup and bread with for
him and his buddies, his brothers. That man's one of the most educated
men in the world, recognized by kings as an educated man. There sits a man who one time
rode a horse at the head of an army. with papers given to him
alone by the chief religionist of his day to do what he wants
to in Damascus when anybody disagreed with him. Isn't that right? Power! Influence! Education! Everybody knew Saul of Tarsus. Everybody. And there he sits. Boy, I tell you, everybody today
would say, well, boy, that's just a failure. No, there rode
the failure on the horse. There sits the son of the king.
It ain't what you got, it's who you know. Man shall not live
by bread alone. But I tell you, let's don't get
too covetous about the bread. Let's don't get too covetous.
And then I'll tell you another thing that humanly speakers hinders
us. an embracing of the truth. I
tell you, a man can search for it, and he can find it, and turn
away from it. Turn away from it because of
fear. Turn away from it because of the cost. Our Lord said, count
the cost. Turn away from it because of
covetousness, and then turn away from it from a lack of a true
understanding of our need and what real freedom is. Turn back
to the text and I'll try to quit. In John 7. John 7. Listen to this now. This has
grabbed your heart. Listen to it. In John, where
was I reading? Chapter 8. Yeah, John 8. That's
where it is. John chapter 8. Now listen to
it. John 8. It said here in verse 30, now
watch this right here. In verse 30, and he spake these
words, as he spake these words, many believed on him. Then said
Jesus to those Jews which believed on him. They said they believed.
If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed,
truly, actually my disciples, perseverance. And you shall know
the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And they popped
up and said, while we be Abraham's seed, we were never in bondage. Uh-oh, they turned away from
it right there. Why? Our Lord said, whosoever committed
sin is in bondage to sin. That's the truth. Every one of
us. by nature in bondage to sin,
whether we admit it or not. These people said, well, we never
were in bondage, we never were in slavery, we never needed to
be set free. This is the first essential work
of the Spirit of God in redemption, to show us our bondage, to show
us that we needed to be set free, to show us the bondage of our
wills, the bondage of our affections, the bondage of our emotions,
their bondage of our minds, the bondage of our souls. We are
born dead in bondage, in slavery, in the dungeon, in a pit, in
a cesspool, in a dunghill of iniquity. A man who doesn't see
that will not rejoice in an emancipator. He will not rejoice in one who
comes to free him. He doesn't feel his slavery. And that's the problem. If you
ever have revealed to you the bondage, the slavery, the snare,
the trap in which we are born and in which we live, the trap
from within, it's not just a bondage from without, it's a bondage
from within. Oh, to know the truth, the Son. Lord, set me
free. Give me freedom. from fear. Give me freedom from covetousness. Give me freedom from want, that
I lack nothing, that I don't want for the wrong thing. Give
me a freedom from the wants of the world and give me a hunger
and thirst for righteousness. Set me free to worship, freedom
of worship Do we have freedom of worship? The United States
of America gives you the freedom to assemble and act like you're
worshiping. Only Jesus Christ can give you
the freedom to worship. Now, that's exactly right. The
Constitution can give us the freedom to meet here without
fear of somebody knocking those doors down and arresting us And
we can play church all we want to. We can play Pentecostal or
Baptist. We can play Catholic or Seventh Day. We can play anything,
any day we want to. But only the high priest can
open for us a way into the holiest and give us a freedom to worship
God, to come into his presence, and freedom of speech to say,