Let's open our Bibles to John
6. I want to read verse 51. I am the living bread which came
down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The
Jews, therefore, strove among themselves, saying, How can this
man give us his flesh to eat? Our Lord plainly told these hearers
that he was the bread of life. He read that correctly. And he
told them, Except they ate his flesh and drank his blood, there
was no life in them. You heard that and read it correctly,
except ye eat the flesh of the Son of God, and drink his blood,
you have no life in you." Now his hearers understood this in
a sensual manner, and they naturally put forth this question. How
can this man give us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink?
Our Lord never intended to be understood in a carnal way, and
he told them at once that they had misunderstood him. It is
not eating my flesh in a carnal manner that brings benefit to
the soul. Even if you could eat the actual
flesh of the Son of God, which would be cannibalism, even if
you could actually drink his blood, in a carnal way, it would
be absolutely of no value to you at all. That would simply
be feeding the flesh, which profited nothing. Our Lord is talking
here of a spiritual feeding that gives life. Read verse 63 with
me now. This is the way He summed it
up. It is the spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit, and they are life." Now, this verse contains
a great principle which needs desperately to be proclaimed
today, loud and clear. What is meant here by the flesh?
The flesh profiteth nothing. It is the spirit that quickeneth.
What is meant here by the flesh? Well, the flesh here is that
which is outward in religion. It's that which appeals to the
eye. It is all religious rituals and ceremonies and ordinances
that reach the ear. It is all that is outward in
religion which reaches any other part of man's body. It's external ceremonialism,
which if followed and practiced and rested in apart from the
spirit, profiteth absolutely nothing. A man can be baptized,
he can come to the Lord's table, he can fast. This is what I'm
talking about now that is outward in religion. This is what is
meant here by the flesh. It is baptism, the Lord's Supper,
I'm talking about what we practice today, not just what the Jews
practiced back in the days of the Old Testament. It is to fast,
it is to pray, it is to fall on our knees, to kneel, to lie
prostrate, to stand up, to sing hymns, to listen to special music,
to listen to preachers, to read the Bible. The flesh here is
meant everything that is outward in religion, and it profiteth
nothing. That is, if the Spirit is missing. It's the Spirit that quickeneth.
Now, what is meant here by the Spirit? If the Holy Spirit were
meant here, the word would be capitalized, but it's not. Look
at it carefully. It is the Spirit, small s. There's no capital there at all.
It is the Spirit that quickeneth. It is the Spirit that gives life.
It is the Spirit that gives life. The flesh profiteth nothing.
The flesh here is external religion, that part of our religion or
worship which appeals to the eye, which the ear hears, and
in which the body participates. Now stay with me. The spirit here is that inward
part of religion which the soul understands, in which the soul
believes, in which the soul receives, and which the soul feeds upon.
And the flesh apart from the spirit, Christ said, profiteth
nothing. Now these Jews in the days of
our Lord, this is true, these Jews thought that religion and
acceptance with God lay in these ceremonial observances. That's
what they believed. They believed that acceptance
with God was in eating certain meats, or abstaining from certain
meats, in going to certain feast days and celebrations, in rituals,
in laws, in doing certain things on the Sabbath day or abstaining
from certain things, in going to the temple, in circumcision,
in all of these things. They felt that religion consisted
of doing these things. And they really exaggerated them. When the Bible commanded them
to fast twice, they fasted three times. When the Bible commanded
them to wear blue borders on their garments, they wore whiter
borders because that made them more religious. Christ tells
them to their face that these ceremonies, circumcision, laws,
rituals, these things profit nothing, that they are dead. He said, I come not to you with
a taste not, touch not, handle not, or wash, vow, sit, stand,
kneel, lie down, tear your clothing. My words deal with the inner
emotions, the inner life and inner faith, and these words
are life and spirit. This flesh, apart from the spirit,
profits nothing, absolutely nothing. And our religion today And you
know it's true and I know it's true, there's no use to pretend
that it's not. Our religion today is of the
same outward variety. It reaches the eye, it reaches
the ear, it reaches the flesh, it involves the body, it involves
closing the eyes and bowing the head and saying certain words
and kneeling and doing certain things. And it's as dead as the
flesh to which it appeals. And that's what our Lord is saying
right here. The flesh profiteth nothing. It is the spirit that
quickeneth. Now I want us to look at some
of the outward forms. The Lord's table, baptism, preachers,
services, worship, prayer, these things in which we participate,
which we call religion. I don't want to hurt anybody's
feelings, but I don't want to go to hell defending a tradition,
do you? I don't want to go to hell playing
church. I don't want to stand before God someday and say, well,
I had a perfect record in Sunday school and in church services
and preached and did all these things and built buildings and
sang in the choir and played an instrument and took up the
offering, served as a deacon, a Sunday school teacher, and
hear him say, I never knew you. The flesh profiteth nothing.
Outward ceremonialism profits nothing. Outward religion profits
nothing. You've got to eat the flesh and
drink the blood of the Son of God or you don't have any life
in you. Now, I want to know what it's all about. I'm not content
to have a second-hand religion. I'm selfish that way. Now, here's
the first thing, the Lord's Table. Let's look at the Lord's Table.
First of all, the bread is only bread. That's all it is. You can't make it anything else.
And the wine is wine, only wine, nothing more. That's all it is.
There's no saving power in the bread, and there's no saving
power in the wine. When the people of God come together,
and the minister and the deacons or the elders officiate and distribute
the bread and serve the wine to the congregation, the whole
ceremony is exactly what it seems to be, and nothing more. It is
a minister distributing bread that is bread, and wine that
is wine. He is not distributing the body
of Christ or the blood of Christ. He is distributing bread and
wine, nothing more. Well, somebody says, do not men
receive the body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper?
Spiritual men do. Believers do. but not in a carnal
way. When I take that bread at the
Lord's table and put it in my mouth, I'm not putting actually
the body of Jesus Christ into my mouth to crush Him with my
teeth, and to taste Him with my tongue, and with my palate,
and digest Him with gastric juices. It is not my body that receives
Christ, it's my spirit that receives Christ. When I take the bread
and the wine, I'm not feeding this carnal, natural body. I'm taking that bread which is
symbolic of his broken body, and that wine which is symbolic
of his shed blood. And if I do not know something
in my spirit and in my heart of the death of the Lord and
of the sacrifice of the Lord and the shedding of his blood,
eating that bread and drinking that wine will do me no good
at all. For it's nothing but bread, that's
all it is, and it's nothing but wine. But if in my heart I believe
in Christ, if in my spirit I trust the Lord Jesus as my Lord and
Savior, I can feel his presence in my spirit, not in my body,
in my spirit. I can feel his strength. I can
feel his cleansing power within. I can say his body at Calvary
was broken for my sin. By his stripes I'm healed. His
blood was shed for my iniquities, and that blood cleanseth me,
and that blood makes atonement for my soul. In this way I feed
on Christ. But it's my spirit that feeds
upon him, not my body. Why, if we could take the bread
and turn it into the body of Christ, and the wine, turn it
into the blood of Christ, we could save Ashland tomorrow if
we had twenty-four hours to distribute the elements. But the ordinance is a living
memorial, because my Spirit makes it so. And without an inward
spiritual knowledge of Christ, that bread is nothing but bread,
and that wine is nothing but wine. And it means nothing, and
it accomplishes nothing. If my spirit has no living communion
with a crucified Christ, a ton of bread won't help me, and a
barrel of wine won't help me. Now that's so. You say, that's
offensive. Well, it offended these people
too. It offended them. In fact, it
offended them so strongly, they got up and walked out. You are
more polite than they are. They got up and left. Our Lord
told them that their ceremonies and their rituals and all of
their outward religion, their circumcision, their laws, their
feast days, their fasting, it profited nothing! Absolutely
nothing. Well, let's look at baptism.
Turn to Romans 6, verse 4. Romans 6, verse 4. Now, according
to Romans 6, 4, baptism—I'm talking about water baptism now—identifies
us with Christ. It identifies us with Christ
in His death, in His burial, and in His resurrection. Listen
to it, Romans 6, 4. Therefore, we are buried with
Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ, you see identification
here, like as Christ, in the manner in which Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life. Now let me ask some questions.
Is there any saving power in this water? No, none whatsoever. Is there any cleansing power
in this water? For our sins are concerned, none
whatsoever. Does the water convey any spiritual
guilt? None whatsoever. Does the water
convey any spiritual grace? None whatsoever. Constantine
had his whole army baptized. It didn't even help them win
a battle, much less save their souls. Does the water have any
cleansing effect? None whatsoever. Then what makes
baptism significant to anybody? What Christ said here in John
6, the Spirit. The Spirit. Without the Spirit,
without an inward communion with Christ, baptism means nothing. It profiteth nothing. I could
be baptized in every Baptist church in the United States of
America and still be in worse condition than I was when I started
my pilgrimage. But when I am baptized, when
I've been brought to knowledge of Christ, when I've been brought
in my spirit to behold Him on the cross bearing my sins and
my guilt, and behold him taken down from that cross and put
in the tomb as my scapegoat, bearing my iniquities. When I
see him rise from that grave in my spirit and know that he
arose for my justification to die no more, then when I am baptized
and I see that Christ was died, was buried, rose again in my
stead, I see my death in him and with him. And when I understand
his burial and resurrection for me, I see my burial, my death
to the world, my burial to the world, and my resurrection to
walk with Christ in newness of life. The Spirit quickens baptism
and makes it effectual. Now this speaks strongly against
the baptism of infants. If the baptized person in spirit
enters into the spirit and meaning of baptism, then he's truly baptized. If not, if I bring an unconscious
infant up here and baptize that infant, and that infant cannot
see the significance of Christ's death in his place, cannot see
the significance of Christ's burial, cannot appreciate the
significance of Christ's resurrection, I've done nothing for him. The
flesh profiteth nothing. The water accomplishes nothing.
There's no saving efficacy or power in that water. That water
imparts no spiritual gift and no spiritual grace. It's the
spirit that makes it mean anything. And if the child has not the
spirit and the knowledge, then baptism to him is nothing but
a fleshly ordinance that profiteth nothing. That's what Christ said.
It's the spirit that makes it alive. It's the spirit that makes
it meaningful. It's the spirit that makes it
effectual at all to our hearts. So a person who has never come
to a knowledge of Christ and does not know what his death
means, his burial and resurrection, He's never been baptized. He
may have gone through some motions, he may have gone into some water,
but he's never been baptized in his spirit, in his soul. He
has an appreciation for and an understanding of the Lord's death,
burial, and resurrection. That's what Christ said in 1
Corinthians 11. Will you turn over there just a moment? The
Apostle Paul writing here, and he says in verse 28, of 1 Corinthians
11. Now listen to this. In 1 Corinthians
11, verse 28, when a man comes to the Lord's table, let him
examine himself. And so let him eat of that bread
and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh
in an unworthy manner. It doesn't say the man that eats
that's unworthy. We're all unworthy to eat that
bread. It doesn't say the man who drinks who is unworthy, it
says who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner. And you know
what that unworthy manner is? The last line tells you, not
discerning the Lord's body. What does the word discern mean?
Understanding, judging, entering into. In other words, if I come
to the Lord's table, here's the bread, I'm a sinner, the chief
of sinners. I never—somebody says, well,
ought not take the Lord's table till we're all in harmony. Well,
ought not take the Lord's table till everybody's lived a good
life that week. Ought not take the Lord's table
until this day you're worthy to come. You'll never come. That's
why I need the Lord, is because I'm a sinner. But I take the
bread, and I eat the bread, and I take the cup and drink the
cup. And if I can discern, if I can understand, if I can enter
into What he did on that cross for me, and I can appreciate
it, and I can properly evaluate it, and I can with a broken heart
thank God for it, then I'm eating in a worthy manner. But if I
come and I do not understand the significance of his broken
body and his shed blood, I'll eat and drink damnation to my
soul. Now that's exactly what—and baptism's
the same thing. We ought to be—well, not just—I
think preachers are making a mistake dragging folks down the aisle
and dipping them in a baptismal pool. I believe that a man or
woman or young person ought to understand the significance of
these ordinances, because there's nothing to them. They're just
so much wasted effort if we do not discern the Lord's presence
and His power and His sacrifice and His death in our spirit.
The flesh profiteth nothing. It's the Spirit that quickens.
Now let's look at our theological heritage. You and I stand today,
and we look back at our ancestors. We Baptists look back at Charles
Spurgeon. Thank God for him. We Baptists
look back at John Bunyan. Thank God for him. The Presbyterians
look back at John Calvin and Zwingli and Knox. Great, wonderful
men. The Lutherans look back at Martin
Luther. Would God, he would raise up
one today. The Methodists look back at Charles
Wesley, George Whitefield. Powerful, powerful men of God. We look back at our catechisms
and our confessions of faith, and they're sound as a dollar,
and they're sound and scriptural. The Westminster confession of
faith. the larger and shorter catechism,
the Heidelberg Confession of Faith, owned and loved by the
Dutch, the London Confession of Faith, loved and believed
by the Baptists, the 39 Articles of Faith held by the Episcopalians. But you know, my friends, we're
not saying anything more than the Pharisees said when Christ
came along, they said, we got Abraham to our father. That's
about all it amounts to. If I do not love the Christ that
Martin Luther loved, if I do not love the gospel that John
Galvin preached, if I do not from my lips and from my mouth
tell the same story Charles Wesley told, then I'm just like these
old hypocritical, blinded Pharisees who held on to their ancestors,
and Abraham was a godly man. Abraham knew God, but they didn't.
Martin Luther knew God, but his ancestors don't. John Calvin knew God and preached
the gospel, but his followers, most of them, don't. John Bunyan
and Charles Spurgeon knew the Lord and preached the gospel,
but most of his children, their children don't. They deny the
very things these men preached, just like these Pharisees. We
have Abraham. We have Moses! Christ said, if
you'd believe Abraham, you'd believe me. He saw my day. If you'd believe Moses, you'd
believe me. Moses wrote of me. What are we doing? In our church
services today, we're saying words that somebody else wrote.
That's exactly what we're doing. We're singing words somebody
else wrote. We're praying prayers somebody
else already prayed. We're believing doctrines that
somebody else handed down to us. We're going through religious
ceremonies that somebody else dreamed up. We're standing when they told
us to stand, and we're sitting when they tell us to sit, and
we're kneeling when they prescribed for us to kneel. And the choir sings the sevenfold
Amen, just like our great-grandfather's choir sang the sevenfold Amen.
We just don't depart from those rituals. And we just about go
to church and go through the whole ceremony, and not even
wake up on Sunday morning. Been doing the same old six and
seven all our lives, and our fathers before us and our grandfathers
before them. The Spirit's not there. And it's
nothing in the world but fleshly mocking imitations. We are religious
mimics, is what we are. And our Lord said, that will
profit you nothing. Can I go to the house of God
and worship the Lord out of my heart? Can you and I commune
with Him? Can we go and feel His presence? Can we open the hymn books and
enter into the message of the songs? Can we open our Bibles,
and as David writes, we can say, David, you're talking for me.
That's how I feel. That's what I've experienced.
That's what I want to know. As the preacher preaches, can
we so focus our hearts and our attentions upon his words, and
our minds do not wander off and depart, but we enter into what
he's saying, and in our hearts are saying, Amen and Amen. In John chapter 4, verse 42,
this woman of Samaria had found the Lord. She knew Him in her
heart. She'd found Christ. And she went
out to the city and told these men, she said, I've found the
Christ. And so they came out there and heard Him themselves.
And then they said to the woman, John 4, 42, Now we believe, not
because of your saying, Doesn't that sort of convictor—I don't
believe because John Calvin wrote it. I don't believe because Charles
Spurgeon said it. Is that why you believe it? I
don't believe because John Wesley wrote it or Charles Wesley preached
it. They said, we believe not because you said it, but we believe
because I've heard him myself. Can you say that? If you can't,
you've got a second-hand religion. and it's not worth the snap of
your finger. Your pastor can't stand in the judgment for you,
and neither can your mother or your wife. And dear wife, neither
can your husband. Our Lord said, remember Lot's
wife. He was a godly man. She went to hell. We believe, not because you said
it. We've heard Him ourselves. I get so distressed. Charles
Spurgeon met a man one time and said, What do you believe? He
said, I believe what my church believes. He said, What does
your church believe? He said, They believe what I
believe. Well, he said, What do both of you believe? He said,
We believe the same thing. That's about the gist of it.
Honestly, my friends, Christ said this Word will judge you. The name Baptist is on this church,
but brethren, I hope that doesn't confine me to a doctrine or a
catechism and cause me to shut my eyes against the Word of God.
And under God, I'm scared to death for some denominational,
sectarian people of this day, aren't you?
I had a lady say to me not long
ago, well, I invited her to come hear me preach. She said, you
know, I'm a Methodist. Well, I said, Methodists are going
to hell too, you know, as well as Baptists. I wouldn't let that
stand in my way of going to hear the gospel, would you? Well,
you know, I'm this, or I'm that, or I'm the other. These people
said, we believe not because you said it. We believe because
we've heard Him ourselves. I want to hear God speak to me,
and I want God to speak to you. And we know that He's the Christ,
the Savior of the world. What about worship and prayer? Oh, I tremble here. I tremble
here. Can we remember that in worship
and prayer the flesh prophet is nothing? Nothing. That's the reason I don't like
ritualistic praying. I don't like ritualistic reading
of the Bible. I don't like ritualistic church
attendance. You know, some of us would feel
awful unhappy if we had to spend the whole Sunday without going
to a place of worship. But I wonder if we've ever spent
Sunday in a place of worship and never really worshipped,
huh, have we? We don't feel too bad about that.
As long as our bodies were there, that sort of soothes us and saves
our consciences. What about our hearts? Our bodies
can't commune with God. It is only as the Spirit worships,
as the Spirit prays, as the Spirit sings, as the Spirit seeks God,
that we derive any profit from the house of God. Spurgeon said
he was on his knees praying one time, and he heard a chariot
outside. And he said, actually, when he
got through praying, This came to his mind while he was trying
to pray and saying words to God that his mind went out there
and got in that chariot and rode all the way downtown. God is a spirit, and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Giving.
When you write your check for your offering on Saturday or
on Sunday, do you ever do this? Do you ever say, Now, please
enable me by thy Spirit to give my gift as unto the Lord, not
for show, not because I feel like I ought to tithe as commanded
in the Bible to tithe, not because our church needs the money, not
because the other men are giving and I wouldn't want to come up
short, not because the men counting the money would see that my offering
wasn't there, Lord, enable me to give only as unto the Lord
out of a cheerful heart and a willing spirit so I can get a blessing.
But Lord, don't let me give in order to get the blessing." You
ever wrestle around that way? True spiritual religion from the heart is the only thing
that profits. A carnal man can be baptized
and profit nothing. A spiritual man is baptized and
the very ordinance lives for him, identifies him with his
Lord. A carnal man can come to the
Lord's table and eat damnation to his soul, sitting right there
at that table. The spiritual man sits right down beside him
and eats the same bread, drinks the same wine, closes their eyes
in the same manner, and looking at the two of them, you couldn't
tell the difference. But this man over here understands in
his spirit the death of his Lord. He comes softly. He comes humbly. He comes with a contrite heart.
He comes saying, O Lord, my sins, like mountains round me rise.
He comes saying, Lord, let thy blood be propitiation for me
on the mercy seat. The Pharisee comes to the temple
to pray the publican praise. You can't tell the difference.
God can. Well, how can God tell the difference?
God looks on the heart. And that Pharisee stands there
and prays with himself. He's a moral man. He's a religious
man. He's a clean man. And he thanks
God he's not like other men. He thanks God that he attends
church, and he tithes, and he fasts, and he gives alms, and
he's well respected. The Republican over there wouldn't
lift his eyes. He's in the right spirit of prayer.
He's under conviction. His heart's broken. He knows
in his heart his thoughts and his words and his deeds, and
he cries, Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner! And the Lord
Jesus said, that's the prayer. That man goes to his house condemned. This man justified. The prayer
profits nothing. The flesh profits nothing. It's
the Spirit. Some people wouldn't think of
taking a bite of food without saying grace. That's well and
good, as long as you say grace. But if you're just going through
a little old six and seven ceremony, forget it, because it won't profit
you one thing. Some people wouldn't think of
going to church without giving an offering. Wonderful! If the
Spirit's there, if it's not, put it back in your pocket. The spiritual nature makes my
works holy. Apart from that spiritual motive
and attitude, my works are unholy. You know what Christ said? They
stood there at the judgment, and they said, Lord, we preach!
He said, works of iniquity. Preaching is works of iniquity. Lord, we cast out devils, works
of iniquity. Casting the demon of Rome out
of a man, or the demon of lust, or the demon of dishonesty is
works of iniquity. I thought they were good works.
Lord, we did many wonderful works in your name. Works of iniquity
depart from me. Brethren, anything directed toward
God that is not of a proper motive, and only through the merits of
Christ, and sanctified by his death, and sanctified by his
sacrifice, and sanctified by his blood, are works of iniquity. Now that's so. True religion,
true communion with God, has never consisted in outward forms
and rituals and ceremonies, it's always been spiritual. But mere
professors of religion have been content with the outward form
alone. We pay somebody to preach for
us, we pay somebody to pray for us, we pay somebody to study
for us, we pay somebody to get us into heaven. Most men cannot get along with
a religion in which there's nothing to see. They can't get along
with a religion if you don't give them something to do. They
can't get along with a religion that doesn't gratify the senses
or please the ear. They know nothing of repenting,
believing, trusting, communing, meditating, walking with God. That's what I want. God says you're a temple. God
dwells in you. God doesn't dwell in this building.
Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. God dwells in you.
You're a temple, and you are a priest, and you offer spiritual
sacrifices unto God. You are a priest yourself, and
you offer the sacrifice of faith, and the sacrifice of love, and
the sacrifice of worship with which God is pleased. Let me
read one more statement, and this will be my closing comment.
Our Lord said in John 6, verse 63, the flesh profiteth nothing.
We're just going through the motions of playing church, unless
we discern with our spirits. Unless we discern with our spirits,
unless we enter into these things. They are blessed, Lord's Supper,
baptism, giving, praying, worshiping, the special music, these things
are blessed if we can enter into them with the heart. if we can
properly associate them with what they represent. But in themselves,
they're nothing! And it won't help me. And Christ
goes on, he says, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit. I don't want
to be critical, but I wrote down this little note. The disciples,
when that crowd got up and walked off, Their ceremonies were all
they had. Their rituals were all they had.
They couldn't understand this spiritual communion with God,
this life of the heart and the soul. And they left, and the
Lord turned to the disciples and said, well, are you going
with them? And the twelve disciples said, Lord, to whom shall we
go? Thou hast the what? Thou hast the ceremony we like.
We like the way you worship. No. Thou hast the words of life. words. And I stand with a religious
throng, and I look upon our altars, and I look upon our pretty windows,
and I look upon our high steeples, and I look upon our rogue choirs,
and I look upon our uniformed priests, and our ministers, and
I listen to the chanting, and I listen to the cantatas, and
I follow the religious forms of kneeling and standing, and
to me it's like a children's game. It's like a stage play. There's nothing in it for me.
There's no food for my soul, and there's no communion with
my God. But when I hear some faithful
minister of God stand and cry, Come, let us reason together,
though your sins be as scarlet, I'll make them as white as snow.
Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." My heart
begins to beat. That's food for my soul. When
I hear him quote my Lord, when he said, "'Come unto me, all
ye out there that labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest,'
my heart begins to beat. That's food for my soul. When
I hear Him say, if we walk in the light, as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ,
God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin, my soul is fed. I see preachers preaching on
television. They take a Bible and read a
verse and close it, lay it aside, and start talking about the moon,
and the government, and social ills, and there's no food there. Spurgeon said this, I think it's
quite good. If the simple preaching of the
cross will not attract the people of your town, let them stay away. Let our weapons be the words
of Christ, for his words are spirit and life. Let us never
depend upon architecture, beautiful apparel, soothing music, liturgies. There's no life in them, there's
no spirit in them. The great George Whitfield stirred
his age with nothing but the Word of God. And if men will
not come to hear us because we only preach the gospel, then
don't try to draw them any other way. My words, my words, I'll tell you this. My friends,
I've ministered to you, Don said in his prayer, for a number of
years. And you're going to come to die someday, and you're not
going to be here in this building called a church to receive a
feeling of contact with God. And chances are I'm not going
to be there. to give you the presence of a
servant of God. And there's a good possibility
that there won't be a Bible, maybe, on the front seat of that
car that you just rammed into a tree or into another car. You're
just there by yourself, and the blood is flowing out of your
veins and dropping on the seat. Your life is seeping out of your
body. The preacher's not there, you're not in the church, and
there's no water there to put on you. And there's no bread
and wine to eat of or partake of. And there's nobody near you
singing softly, just as I am, without one glee. And the piano,
the organ's not playing softly. About all the noise you hear
is the blowing of horns, and the scream of a siren, and people
hollering, Stand back! Give him air! Give him room! That's when I want you to feel
the presence of the Lord Jesus in your heart by feeling his
word when he says, I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake
you. He that liveth and believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. Boy, you've got
something to hold to now. That's what I mean. That's my
words. They're spirit and life. The
water's not there, and the table's not there, and the preacher's
not there, and he doesn't have his robe, and he doesn't have
that thing around his neck to wiggle around, you know, and
he doesn't have his Bible there to sprinkle some water on you
somewhere. Nothing there. Maybe you're a soldier out there
on the battlefield, and it's dirty and filthy and nasty. And
you're lying there in the mud, and you're dying. But boy, His
Word's there, because it's been planted in your heart by the
Holy Ghost. And the root, old taproot's gone
deep into every part of your being. You've eaten Christ. You had Him in you, not about
you. Pictures of Christ. I wouldn't have one. I don't
want one in my home. And there's not going to be one
in this church. Because we don't worship an idol. We worship a
living Lord. who's been put in our hearts
by the Holy Ghost, and he's living there, and he's a vital, personal
Lord with whom we can commune wherever we are. You see that?
That's what he's talking about here. The flesh, that it profiteth
nothing. Spirit, quickeneth, giveth life. And my word, that's life. My word. Thy word have I hid
in my heart. Thy word is life." Our Father,
take this message, anoint it with the power of the Holy Ghost,
and, O Lord, really speak to us. Plant the word in our hearts,
in our souls. Let it permeate our whole being. May we eat His flesh and drink
His blood in this hour, for if we eat His flesh and drink His
blood spiritually, it can never be taken away from us. But wherever
we are, with whomever we walk, Christ is there. In His name
we pray. Amen.