Come Harlan later on his birthday Did you tell him it was time Hey, Arlie. I'm doing well. How about you? Talked to Julie
this morning. She had a pretty good night's
rest. I do, too. I need to go out and call her.
She's still on her liquid diet. Huh? She's still on her liquid
diet. She was. Thursday, she ate. She shouldn't be on her liquid
diet. I said, ask her. She said, well,
I'll wait till lunch and see what you're bringing. Well, where's Lita? I thought
I saw her. Oh, okay. Happy birthday this
week. How old you gonna be? How old?
How old? How old you gonna be? Oh, you're
still a, you're still a, you're still a sexagenarian. That sounds
a lot, you know, more fun than a septagenarian, because when
you're a septagenarian, it sounds like you've got like a, an infection. And crows and octogenarians. We have some folks out today
because of sickness, Fred and Arlene and Tyler, all three have
the COVID. Loretta shingles has come back
in her eye and she's having some real hard time with that. So
remember her in your prayers. And let's see who else. Jim Poe.
I don't know what's wrong with him. He's just probably being
back slid. But Jim couldn't make it this
morning either. So remember these folks in your
prayers. The Lord will give them back. Julie's operation went
well. She's got a new hip. She's had
been up with PT and also been up and walking for two days.
She had her hip put in Friday. I texted her this morning, she
slept pretty good last night and she's up and at them this
morning. Hopefully, because she was in
such pain prior to this with her hip. that this pain she's
having now is probably refreshing by comparison to the other. But
continue to remember her in your prayers. Also seek the Lord's
help for her. We'll have the Lord's table today
and dinner. I guess we don't have that many,
so what? Remember Troy Crowe's family? I read that, Troy Crowe's family,
okay. How old was he? How old was he, Sylvester? He was a young man. All right, that's the Troiko
family. He passed away this week. Let's begin our worship service
in the little hymn books here with I Will Arise. Is that right,
the first one? I Will Arise and Go to Jesus. We'll sing all five
verses and then sing the chorus. ? Come ye sinners poor and needy
? ? Weak and wounded, sick and sore ? ? Jesus ready stands to
save you ? ? Full of pity, love and power ? Come ye thirsty, come and welcome,
God's free bounty glorify. True belief and true repentance,
every grace that brings, unite. Come ye weary, heavy laden, Lost
and ruined by the fall, If you tarry till you're better, You
will never come at all. Let not conscience make you linger,
nor of fitness fondly dream. All the fitness ye require is
to feel Sons, we are by God's election,
who in Jesus Christ believe, by eternal destination. I will arise and go to Jesus
He will embrace me in His arms In the arms of my dear Savior
Oh, there are ten thousand charms After scripture reading and prayer,
we'll sing hymn number 334, Be Thou My Vision. If you have
your Bibles, turn with me to the gospel according to Luke
chapter 13. read the first five verses, the
title of my message this morning is Suffer or Suppose Ye. There
were present at that season some that told Him, that is Jesus,
of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their
sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto
them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans,
because they suffered such things? I tell you nay, but except ye
repent, ye shall likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom
the tower of Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they
were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you
nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven,
we bless you and thank you for your great grace for ruined and
wretched sinners. We thank you for the gift of
faith and the gift of repentance that you give to those whom you
made aware of their sinnerhood through the preaching of the
gospel and the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. We thank you,
Father, that you have undertaken for us to do for us what we could
not do for ourselves, what we truly, until you awakened us,
had no interest in. You saved us by your grace. Your
mercy we know is everlasting. They're new every morning. And
we thank you. We pray for those of our company
who are sick. Pray for Fred, who's still being
treated for his lymphoma, and him and Arlene and Tyler all
have COVID. We pray for them. Pray for Loretta. She's still suffering with these
shingles in her eyes. Pray for Julie as she's recovering
from this hip surgery. Pray you'd be with her. Pray
for the others who've requested prayer. Lord, we ask your help
for them. Pray for the Crow family at the
loss of this loved one. Help us, Lord, to remember each
other in prayer. Pray for Dee Parks as you continue to bless
him and as he blesses others. We thank you for his calm demeanor
and joy in Christ. We pray for ourselves this hour,
Father, as we endeavor to preach the gospel, that you'd be with
me. Help me to say right things concerning you. Open the scriptures
to our understanding. Give us joy and appreciation
for what you've given us. We pray in Christ's precious
name. Amen. Hymn number 334, Be Thou My Vision. Be Thou my vision, O Lord of
my heart. Naught be all else to me, save
that Thou art. Thou my best thought, by day
or by night. Keeping Thy presence my light. Be Thou my wisdom and Thou my
true word. I ever with Thee and Thou with
me, Lord. Great Father, I Thy true Son,
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one. Riches I heed not, nor man's
empty praise. Thou and always, Thou and the
only first in my heart. High King of heaven, my treasure
Thou art. High King of heaven, my victory
won. George Albright's son. Heart of my own heart, never
before. Still be my vision, oh ruler
of all. And that's Salmon Mounder. See
y'all in the morning, please. Let's pray. Father, again we
approach in the name of Christ, our blessed Lord, the perfect
gift that you have given to your children and with him freely
given us all things. We deserve nothing from you save
wrath. Yet you have chosen in your great
plan of salvation a multitude of sinners to show grace to.
We thank you that you counted us among them. We thank you for
the unmerited favor And we know that everything this side of
eternity, everything this side of an eternal punishment is by
your grace and mercy. Let us give unto you that which
you've given us with joy, we pray in Christ's name, amen. So, I invite your attention back to
Luke chapter 13. This account of the Lord's words
has always intrigued me. And I've heard many sermons employing
the words, repent or you shall likewise perish over the years
I've spent in religion. And generally those messages
were about reformation or turning from bad behavior to a good behavior
and accounted as a necessity that precedes salvation. But
repentance doesn't precede salvation. Repentance is the result of salvation. is the result of new life in
Jesus Christ. It is not the cause of salvation.
Like faith, repentance is a gift from God granted to the elect
by sovereign grace. In Acts chapter 11 and verse
18 it says, When they heard these things, they held their peace
and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles
granted repentance unto life. granted repentance unto life.
Now this time when our Lord was speaking was a time of transition
from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant and the word repent
meant especially to the Jews that the Old Covenant type of
repentance would apply. I'm sure that's what they were
thinking when he was talking about it. That repentance involves
ceasing from an evil behavior and adopting a good behavior,
ceasing from a certain sin and practicing a commendable life
This was usually accompanied with a visible expression of
guilt and sorrow, such as rending a garment or donning sackcloth
and sitting among ashes and applying them to your body. The context
of this passage cannot truly apply to that kind of repentance. At the conclusion of these words,
our Lord adds a parable in verses six through nine, he says, and
he spake also this parable, and the word also connected to what
he just said in verses one through five. A certain man had a fig
tree planted in his vineyard, and he came and sought fruit
thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser
of this vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit
of this tree, and find none, and cut it down. Why cometh it
ground? And he answered and said unto
him, Lord, let it alone this year, also I will dig it, about
it, and dung it. And if it bear fruit, well, and
if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down. And he was
teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. Now that parable
connected to what he said about repent or you should likewise
perish teaches a single lesson. A parable
does not do well with a verse-by-verse exposition because it conveys
a single thought or theme. Since repentance is being addressed,
the one needing repentance cannot accomplish it. He is the barren
fig tree. It must be accomplished through
care and feeding by the husband, who is God Almighty. We know
that bearing fruit, even the fruit of repentance, is entirely
dependent on one thing, and that is being vitally connected to
the vine. That's the words of our Lord
in John chapter 15. John chapter 15, he said, I am
the true vine and my father is the husbandman. So there you
have the same language. Every branch in me that beareth
not fruit, he taketh away. And every branch that beareth
fruit, he purgeth it, and it may bring forth moth fruit. Now
that word taketh away has often been interpreted by some to mean
that some can lose their salvation. But that word taketh is a row
in the original language, and it means to bear up or lift up.
same word is used in first john chapter one when it says he or
chapter three when he said is when he took our sins away he
bore up our sins in his body on a tree and what that's saying
if you don't bear fruit the lord will lift you up and bear you
up until you do until you do bear fruit Now ye are clean through
the word of God, which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and
I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except
it abide in the vine. No more can ye except ye abide
in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I
in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me ye
can do nothing. This is the language that is
being spoken of here. And it applies to what's being
spoken about the fig tree and the husbandman who digs it and
dungs it and brings it to life. This is how repentance occurs.
It will never occur naturally in you. It is not a natural thing. Now you may have reformations
or old types of repentance. You may stop doing one thing.
I have friends I know who were alcoholics and haven't drank
for 30 or 40 years. They've made a reformation. That
doesn't mean they're saved. That means they've got an old
type, type of repentance. They've turned from one activity
to another activity or stopped one thing and started another
thing. But that's not the repentance that our Lord is speaking of
here. The repentance that our Lord refers to has to do with
the mind and the thoughts that proceed from the mind. This is
what He's addressing here. The Greek word for it is a combination
of two words, metanoia, which means a change in mind or a change
of mind. and it actually means a radical
change of mind, a complete reversal in your mind of what you believed
prior to the change a radical change of mind and it applies
to the words of our Lord in verses two and four when he says this
suppose ye so that's something to do with your mind and in verse
four he says think ye that has something to do with your mind
so he's not talking about a visible uh, uh, repentance where you,
uh, have great sorrow and cover yourself in sackcloth and ashes
and give some kind... He's saying something has to
go on in your mind. Suppose ye? think ye this is
what he's dealing with suppose and think of the same word in
the original and come from a word that suggests arriving at a presumed
logical conclusion or opinion through observation you've looked
at something you've seen something go on and you have reached a
logical conclusion in your own mind you suppose something you've
Thought something about that what you've watched or seen now
what they have what they bring to our Lord is about the Galileans
being killed and their blood being mixed with the sacrifices
in Jerusalem or in Galilee and And our Lord uses the Tyre of
Siloam, falling on people and killing people. And He says,
You think some things about this. You suppose some things about
it. You have an opinion. You've reached a conclusion thinking
about these things. And the reason He says it is
because they came to Him. and told him about the Galileans
and Pilate mixing their blood with sacrifice. This conclusion
is reached by comparison. That is to say, if something
bad has happened to someone and not to me, then the logical conclusion
is there is a difference between me and thee. If something bad
has happened to you, some calamity, and it hasn't happened to me,
then a logical, natural conclusion was there's a difference between
you and me. That's a natural, logical, reasonable
conclusion to the natural mind. Because great calamity had fallen
on the Galileans and those upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell,
and others had not suffered such horrible ends, the supposition
that our Lord addresses them about is that those who died
had been worse sinners than the rest of the populace. Those who
suffered these things had been worse. He said, Suppose ye that
the Galileans, whose palate mixed their blood with sacrifices,
were the worst sinners of all in Galilee? Were they worse than
all the other sinners in Galilee? He said, You suppose that. That's
what you're thinking. That's what's in your head. Now
they're telling the Lord of the fate of the Galileans in verse
one probably was due to the natural interpretation of a spiritual
truth that our Lord had addressed in the previous chapter. Our
Lord had spoken in this in their hearing, and He had spoke about
just dealings, just dealings, and recompense according to behavior,
and also interpretation of signs. of natural science and this after
he has said that to them they came up with this statement.
Now what he said to them is found in verse 41 through 48 of chapter
12. He said this, excuse me, 48 he said, but he
that knew not and did commit such things worthy of stripes
shall be beaten with a few stripes. In other words, here's a setting
up a different person does a crime but it's not a uh... maybe he uh... pilfer something
but he doesn't kill somebody the person who killed somebody
should be have a greater punishment is what he's saying be with a
few strides for for unto whomsoever much is given uh... shall be much required unto whom
men have committed much of him shall I ask them more I am come
to send fire on the earth and what will I it already be kindled
But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am to be straightened
till it is accomplished. He's talking about the cross.
Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you
nay, but rather division. For from henceforth there shall
be five in one house, divided three against two, and two against
three. The father shall be divided against the son, the son against
the father, the mother against the daughter, the daughter against
the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law,
and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And he said unto
thee, When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, and here's the
signs, seeing things, looking at things, and making an observation,
and coming to a conclusion. When ye see the cloud rising
out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower. And so it is. And when you see
the south wind blow, you say, there will be heat, and it shall
come to pass. You hypocrites, you can discern
the face of the sky and the earth, but how is it that you cannot
discern this time, the time you live in? Yea, and why even of
yourselves judge ye not what is right? Now remember, he was
talking about judgment. This is why they come up with
the question they come up with. That's why they, he's talking
about strikes according to the crime. He's talking about judging
righteous judges. He's talking about incoming cost
of division. He's talking about, well, you see things that you
know are true. When the clouds come in the west,
you know there's gonna be a shower, and there is one. He said, and
when the wind comes from the south, you know it's gonna be
hot, so you know that. He said, you've reached a conclusion
based on what you've observed. He said, but you don't know what's
going on in the time that you live, and they didn't. The King
of Kings was among them. the Christ of God was in their
presence and they had no idea they had no idea so they asked
so they say to him well he said all this and this they began
to suppose and they began to think well those Galileans that Pilate
mixed their blood do you know about that now they're asking
that question about what he says he says suppose ye that that
they were worse than any other sinners Is that what you think? Is that what your conclusion
is? Is that what you think about those that fell under the Tower
of Siloam and died? This most likely prompted their
supposition and caused them to tell the Lord about the Galileans.
The premise is this. Bad things don't happen to good
people. That's what they're thinking.
That's what they're supposing. or only really bad people deserve
such judgment and punishment. And the root of such supposition
is self-righteousness. That's the heart of it. It's
the heart of it. And it is common to natural man
and his innate religious bent. This is how he's born in this
world. Many years ago, I was at a hospital visiting a sick
woman, and I was reading the scriptures to her, and I overheard
a local preacher accosting the lady's son out in the hallway. And he told the lady's son, he
said, If you'd been living right, your mother wouldn't be sick. He had observed that the woman
was sick, Of course, being a religious preacher, he was going to straighten
this guy's life. I tried to get him to come down front next Sunday
because it was going to get him good and guilty. But he had reached
the supposition that if this man had been better a man, his
mother would not be sick. Bad things don't happen to good
people. They don't happen to good people. He was telling the son that if
he had been living right that his mother wouldn't be sick.
She was sick according to his supposition because her son was
such a bad guy. A bad guy. Now one would think
that such supposition would be foreign to believers but in John
chapter 9 verses 1 and 2 we find the disciples think like this.
This is their way of thinking. They come upon a man who has
been blind from his birth and the disciples said, verse one,
and Jesus passed by and saw a man that was blind from his birth
and the disciples asked him, Master, who did sin? This man
or his parents that was born blind? He was born blind. Somebody
sinned. Something went on. Something
bad happened. Somebody did something bad and
that's why this boy is blind. That's the natural thinking of
humanity. This is the thinking that we're
born with. Julie Andrews in The Sound of
Music, when her lot fell on good times, she sang, I must have
done something good. Pretty song, well sung. Kris
Kristofferson, when considering his good fortune, sang, Why me,
Lord? What have I ever done to deserve
this? This is the way that these were
thinking. Suppose ye this? Do you think
this? This is what is being said here.
These were not unlike the friends of Job. They were forgers of
lies and positions of no value, and all three of them told Job
that the calamities that had happened to him would not happen
to a righteous man. Why did these calamities happen
to Job? He must have done something bad. This was the conclusion,
and this was the conclusion of these men that asked Christ this
question, and so Christ confronts them concerning their thoughts. bad things happen to bad people
is what people think and the repentance that our Lord addresses
is about a radical change of mind concerning what? sin and
the punishment of sin this is what our Lord is talking
about this is what he says when he said repent or you shall likewise
perish these are to repent and change their mind as to sin and
the degrees of sin because they have sin in degrees and I'm not
sure that's the fact. In fact, I know it's not. Their
repentance if granted them by grace will be a change of mind
about themselves in reference to comparing themselves to what
they deem as the foulest of sinners. They believed and thought that
the calamities happened to those people showed in their mind that
there was a difference between them and the people that fell
at Siloam and the people whose blood was mingled with the sacrifices
in Galilee but here's the thing true repentance will bring you
to this place there is no difference at all between us and the absolute
worst human being that lives on the face of this earth now
we might be appalled by what people do I am and I forget sometimes that I'm no different by nature
and before a holy God I'm no different than anybody who does
the things that I think they ought to be shot for I ought
to be shot too I ought to be shot too there's no difference
in sinners as to degree or to just punishment that we all deserve. We all deserve eternity in hell.
We all deserve that. That's what we deserve. My dear
departed friend, old J.D. Butler, used to always say, anything
this side of hell is better than I deserve. It's better than I
deserve. When our Lord says that they
should likewise perish, he's alluding to a horrific end of
the unrepentant. For he says, all men. he said,
all of them. May I tell you, ye shall all
likewise perish. He's talking about sin being
a common thing and always against God. And the end will be of a greater
magnitude and calamity than befell those of Galileans or those whom
the Tyre so long fell. He said, your end, if you are
unrepentant, is going to be worse than their end. You're thinking all wrong. any
sin, all sin and every sin is against the Holy God and therefore
must be punished. Must be. There can be no issue
here. They must be punished. Nobody's
getting away. There are no degrees of this thing because God, there's
no degrees to God. All sin is against Him and He
must be punished with eternal death in a place described where
the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. Now human beings
as they are born in this world, sons of Adam, the Ark themselves,
are themselves sin against God. They are sin against God. They sin against God, but they
are sin against them. The natural man receives not
the things of the Spirit, the foolishness to him. The carnal
mind is at enmity with God. It is not subject to the law.
God neither indeed can be. Enmity, hatred for God. We are sin against God. This
being the case, those born in sin and conceived in iniquity,
proceeding from their womb as soon as they are born, speaking
lies, and unable to receive the things of the Spirit, cannot
but mind the things of the flesh. That's all they can do, mind
the things of the flesh. This being so, having spiritual
knowledge and understanding of sin in nature is impossible,
because men won't see sin as sin, except in somebody else. They'll see sin in horrible activities. They'll call it evil. These are
men who themselves will perish in eternity in hell who call
things evil and call men evil that do evil things. Why? They don't know what sin is.
Nobody knows but by the grace of God what sin is. Because once
you learn what sin is, you're gonna fly to Christ. If you ever
find out what sin really is and where it resides and who it's
against, you're gonna fly to Christ. Nobody better get in
your way. You're gonna need and absolutely
desire a remedy for it if you ever find out. I lived in religion
almost all my life till I was about 30 years old, 28 years
old. I had no idea what sin was. I'd
heard about sin. I thought I knew. Drinking, smoking,
chewing, chasing girls. These things, that was sinful.
They told me that. And I believed them. Gambling. All these things. It had a lot
of list of things that was sin. Adultery, fornication, all that. I knew that was sin, yeah. But
I didn't know what it was. I didn't know that each one of
those things was simply a symptom of what was wrong with me. I'm
a sinner by nature, by choice, and by practice as I'm born in
this world. Not only that, I'm condemned
in the sin of another. I'm condemned in Adam. These carnal supposers are being
informed that since ALL are sinners, ALL deserve eternal punishment. The rub is they cannot begin
to commence to start to understand until their mind is radically
changed by the power of God. Radically changed where they see sin no longer
out there. They see it in here. I'm the sinner. I'm the sinner. until that they would be like
the Pharisee standing in the public and telling the Lord all
the good things that he's done and all those things he don't
do. I'm not like that publican. I'm better than that. No, a radical change of mind,
the first thing you're going to deal with is about sin. This
change of mind is only by God's sovereign work, by His Holy Spirit. No one changes their mind about
sin unless the Holy Spirit convinces them of that fact. No one does. The old poet said that sin is
a sacred thing, the Holy Ghost has made him so. Talk to most
religious, they think it's an awful thing to say. But it's
true. In John 16, our Lord tells His
disciples in the 16th chapter, after 13, 14, 15, and 16, He's
dealing with leaving them, going to the cross, and going to glory,
and He's going to leave them. They won't have Him to see anymore. They won't have a visible presence
of God with them. But He says, I'm going to leave
you another comforter, the Holy Spirit. And when He comes, He's
going to do some things. And do some things. In John chapter
16 and verse 7, it says, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, It is expedient
for you that I go away, for I go not away, the Comforter will
not come to you. But if I depart, I will send
him unto you. And when he is come, he will
reprove or convince the world of what? First thing, sin. You
mean they don't know? No, they don't know of sin. And then he'll convince the world
of righteousness. Now he's talking about the world.
He's talking about the world of the elect. There's no doubt about
that. And he will convince the world of judgment. Now religion
would take those three things and go to town on them. They
say when the Holy Spirit comes, he's going to tell you not to
go to the movie show, because that's sin. He's going to tell
you not to drink, because that's sin. He's going to tell you not
to smoke dope, because that's sin. That's what the Holy Ghost
is going to do. He's going to tell you to go to church. If
you don't go to church, that's sin. That's what the Holy Ghost is
going to tell you right now. Our Lord knew that people would think
like that. So He says, this is what I mean
when He'll convince men of sin. When He'll come, He'll reprove
the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin, why?
Because you believe not on Me. You're an unbeliever, unrepentant,
and have no faith, you don't believe in Jesus Christ. This
is the heart and the mother of all sin is unbelief. God's Word is here. It's been
here for 3500 years. It has been faithfully preached
by many for 3500 years. And you stand an unbeliever?
That's what sin is. Unbelief. you know, convince
men of righteousness. Here again, religion will have
a heyday with this. That's right, so the way you
dress, the way you look, the way you comb your hair, where
you don't go, you won't go shop at Ingalls because they sell
wine. You'll make sure you go to the right places and you'll
go to a church and you'll live a holy and righteous life. You'll
be a separated individual. That's what that means. No, it's
not a righteousness because I'm going to finish the work of salvation
and go to my Father. this is righteousness and you
won't see me anymore this righteousness won't be seen either and it will convince the world
of judgment again religion goes off on a tangent there you go
bad people won't get what they deserve God's gonna judge you
God's gonna judge you he said on judgment because I judged
the prince of this world and I put him down succeeded in salvation
he said I have many things to tell you but you can't understand
them yet you can't bear them can't bear them they're going
to be too hard they're going to find out some things in the
book of Acts that's going to knock them dead when the Holy
Spirit does come in power in the book of Acts at Pentecost
everything's going to be seen clearly everything how be it
when the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all truth,
for He shall not speak of Himself." Now, that's an interesting phrase.
He said He will guide you into all truth because He won't speak
about Himself. Those who glorify the Holy Ghost
as the thing to be worshipped, as the thing to be sought after, The Holy Ghost don't do that.
He won't even speak of Himself. If the Spirit of God has spoken
to your heart, He's spoken to you by Jesus Christ. He said, I'll speak of Himself.
Whatever you shall hear, that shall He speak. And He will show
you things to come. He shall glorify Me. For He shall
receive of Mine and shall show it unto you. All things that
the Father hath are Mine. It says that in John 3. He delivered
all things into the hand of the Father because He loved Him,
or into the hand of the Son because He loved Him. Therefore said
I, that He shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. That's
what the Holy Spirit does. And He teaches men of sin, what
sin is. And you and I don't know it and
can't know it until that happens. Since convincing men of sin is
at the same time setting forth Christ as the only remedy for
sin, the Holy Ghost will glorify Christ as that perfect offering
for sin. The Holy Ghost will glory him
thusly, the only one offering, his perfect and perfecting offering
and death that propitiated God and satisfied the law's requirements
and justice's requirements. That is what the Holy Ghost is
going to teach you. He is going to teach you the Gospel because
that is what it is to preach the Word of God, it is to preach
the Gospel. Knowing this, men will fly when
they find out that what sin is, and that it deserves an eternal
hell, they'll fly to Christ on the wings of mercy. They'll seek
His faith. They will be convinced of the
efficacy of His body and His blood sacrifice and embrace it
as their only hope in this world and nothing else, for they've
been convinced of the Holy Ghost. the things of Christ will become
their things. They'll not be things of the
flesh but things of the Spirit. They'll mind those things. They'll
pay attention. That will be where their heart
and mind is. They will be the things to be
savored for all eternity. They have been granted repentance
and they shall not likewise perish. They shall not perish at all
if they've been granted repentance. Our Lord dealt with the mind.
most people in religion want to see visible palpable things
our Lord said you're supposing stuff, you're thinking stuff
you need to repent and except you repent you should likewise
perish. When I asked Sam and Mal to do
the offering this morning, I mean do these Lord's Table Leader
running The Holy Ghost teaches a man
what he is before God. He knows his only hope is that
Jesus Christ died in his room instead and satisfied God for
that sin. The Holy Ghost will teach you
when it teaches you about sin and unbelief that you can't do
anything to please God naturally. That you need a substitute who
must have an understanding in your room instead. And what we're
doing here today is a memorization, a memorialization of the fact
that Jesus Christ, 2,000 years ago on Calvary Street, actually
and truly satisfied God for our sin. When the Holy Ghost teaches
you that, you take this table, rejoicing in your heart to know
for sure that you have been saved by His body and His blood. And what you're doing now is
sure for His death until it comes again. For when you find out
about sin, you truly understand what death is all about. You
truly understand. His death was accounted as our
death. God's holiness was satisfied
for our sin. He did punish our sin in the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ was made to be sin for
us. He knew no sin. And we'd like to make the righteousness
of God in Him. This is our hope and this is
our plea, that when He died, He died for me. So let's bless
the Lord's blessing on the elements and let's take the Lord's temple.
Our Father, we thank You that we can indeed have this memorial
service, an ordinance, one that You've ordained for Your children
to remember and to call to mind what you have done for me in
the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that
we can even think and suppose and wonder in our minds that
our salvation was actually and truly accomplished by Jesus Christ.
We know what we are. We know our weaknesses and our
failures and our sin. We know that we are bent toward
looking at things the wrong way. But for a moment, Lord, give
us a clear vision to know that our hope is that this body of
love of Jesus Christ, which we think we own, is to be known. Thank you. On the Passover Feast, which
was a commemoration, on the night Our Lord came to
Egypt and killed the firstborn of every household, except for
those that had the blood of the Lamb sprinkled over their personal
lentils, they were told to observe this Passover forever. On the
last Passover, Our Lord took the elements of
that Passover and told them what it meant. He said, that unleavened
bread that didn't have any leaven in it was to show you that Christ's
body was perfect and without leaven. His offering was without
leaven. He said, that bread represented
my body, which was broken for you. Now, this had not taken
place yet, but I was old and had been slain in the foundation
of the world, but it had taken place and God's perfect. He said,
just take these. This is my heart of gold for
you. Do this and bring it to me. And he took the wine of the Passover
feast. And he said, this wine, after he
had rested, he said, this wine is the new covenant from my Lord. And this is one of the things
they didn't know about you when you came. This is one of the
mysteries of the Holy Ghost Church of Baptiste. When it was elaborated
and taught throughout the New Testament, during the days of
Christ, this was more of something. This is a new covenant. We have
the covenant of Shina. That's gone. I'm going to fulfill
that and set it aside. This is a new covenant, a covenant
in blood. A covenant in death that will
satisfy God's justice. There will be no more once-a-year
visits on the Day of Atonement. They will only serve to remind
us that they are sinners. This blood will put away sin,
and you will stand righteous before God, because of it. As often as you take this cup,
you will show forth my debt, which is that accomplishment.
And I come, until I come again, to do this in the name of Jesus. on that night they sang a hymn.
Let's stand together. I'm going to sing Amazing Grace
in one verse in English and sing it again in Cherokee. Amazing
grace, how sweet the sound that saved A wretch like me, I once
was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. Dune, lana, iuwehi. Iga, buja, oehi. Now tell each other you love
each other, let's go eat some food.