Hey Dave. Hey brother. Continue
to remember Theresa's mom, she may be coming home tomorrow.
They never did find out what it was, it was probably old age.
a lot to do with it. The problem with us old folks,
we've got to carefully keep ourselves hydrated because we will get
dehydrated pretty easy. Sometimes I'm feeling lousy and
can't, you know, just feeling weak and frail. Drink me a couple
bottles of water and I feel fine. It's amazing what we really do
need to keep it dehydrated. But remember those others who
requested prayer also. Seek the Lord's help for them. Scheduled The 14th of April,
we're scheduled to have a work to help to feed free labor. They're going to clear this bank
off back here for us on the 14th, that's Saturday the 14th, so
remember that date. And also the 25th of this month,
we'll be having a man, a pastor down in from Nigeria, James Walley,
M-W-A-L-E, will be coming to, I believe he plans on preaching
for us at Wednesday night on the 25th of this month, so remember
those dates if you will. If you have your Bibles, start
with me to Isaiah chapter 58, we're gonna look at verses five
through seven tonight. Isaiah chapter 58. You know in the first four verses,
the Lord has confronted his people and told them that their religion
is transgression and sin. In verse five he says, is it
such a fast that I have chosen, a day for a man to afflict his
soul? Is it to bow his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth
and ashes under him? What thou call this a fast, an
acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have
chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness? to undo the heavy
burdens, to let the oppressed go free, that you break every
yoke. Is it not to deal thy bread to
the hungry? Thou bring the poor that are
cast out into thy house. When thou seest the naked, thou
cover'st him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh. Let us pray. Our Father, it is
with thankful hearts that we can read these words. both as
a warning to take care in the matter of trusting Jesus Christ
alone for salvation, to look away from ourselves and
away from our own flesh and look to Christ alone, to rejoice in
the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and not be entangled
again with the yoke of bondage. We bless you, Lord, for so great
salvation, wrought completely by Jesus Christ on the Calvary's
tree when he died in the room instead of his people. And you
accepted that death as the sacrifice, the perfect sacrifice and offering
unto thee. So much so that you will remember
the sins of your people no more. And because of the success of
that sacrifice, where remission of sin is, there is no more sacrifice. We bless you, Father, for your
kindness and mercy to wretched sinners. We do wish we had a
thousand tongues to sing your praise. Help us, Lord, to remember
you always, to consider the greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ and
his work for us. Remember those who are sick,
those who are going through trials and tribulations of heart and
mind. We pray this message will speak to their hearts tonight.
Father, for Robert and Henry and Wayne and Laverne, for the
others who are away from us for whatever reason, we pray you
would fix their hearts and minds upon Jesus Christ. Cause us also
to look to Him alone, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Now God has declared that to
his people, clearly and plainly through his prophet, that the
practice of their religion was for recognition of self and what
they called fasting, which when you find it in scripture simply
is self-denial, was actually a wicked and sinful scheme. The
reason they did it was to garner the applause of men and also
to obligate God to recognize and reward them for their diligence
in these practices. Now their religion, our Lord
made clear, was sin. And they had shirked what the
Lord had commanded concerning the purpose of faith. In verse
five, he makes it plain that they were actually rebelling
against what he had ordained when he spoke of denying self.
And our Lord speaks a great deal of that, about that in scripture.
Even our Lord as he was upon this earth said to his disciples,
if you will follow me, you must deny yourself. You must deny
yourself and take up your cross and follow me. But they had rebelled
against what he taught about these things. And he challenges
them by saying, wilt thou call this a fast that the Lord has
ordained. Well, I'll call this an acceptable
day or year unto the Lord. And the areas that the Lord set
forth concerning these false notions or their false notions
of denying self are threefold. First, he says that they have
set a day. to afflict the soul or to afflict
the soul for a day. That's what the marginal reading
is. He said that's a false religion. It's set a day. Why is that?
Well, affliction of the soul is a biblical principle. It's
spoken of both in the Old and the New Testament. But it's not
to set a day to do it. It never says that in scripture.
It is the tenor of the life of the child of God. The soul, in
this sense, is the desires of the flesh, and to set one day
as a day of self-denial is sin, because you're setting it for
recognition. That's why you would do that.
It's kind of like Lent with the Roman Catholics. They set aside
a special season for Lent and they put ashes on their head
in the form of a cross or a plus sign and they deny themselves
something they want for forty days I think it is. I'm not sure
that's right but I believe that's right. And most of it's just
foolish silliness. I'm not going to eat ice cream
for 40 days. Somehow that's going to appease
God. One preacher said, one priest said he was going to give up
something he loved. He was going to give up the Bible,
reading the Bible for 40 days because he really loved the Bible.
He's going to give that up for God. Now that sounds stupid,
that can be, but that's what people come up with. But the
idea of setting a day in order which you will exhibit your sacrificial
nature or the denying of self, God says, is sin. And you do
that to recognize the time as a holy day or a holiday, if you
will, that can be recorded so people can take note and you
can keep a record. The true affliction of the soul
is the continual confession that you cannot do and have not done
anything that can ever be worthy of recognition before God. That's
what the affliction of the soul is. And it is an affliction to
our flesh. It is an affliction to our desires.
It is an affliction to our loves. It really is. It hurts us because
we can't take any credit. We can't look to ourselves. We
can't say we've done something that God will recognize and that
afflicts the soul. It's a principle of scripture.
principle of scripture. It is the denial of self as having
anything to do with your standing before God. In short, you know
what it is? In short, it's believing the
gospel. Because if you believe the gospel,
you deny yourself as having any standing before God save in the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's your whole thing. You
deny yourself. And that's what self-denial is.
It's not keeping yourself from something you want to do. Denying
yourself is saying, I have nothing to do with my salvation, which
began in eternity, with the Lord God choosing me in Jesus Christ
before the world began, blessing me with all spiritual blessings
in Christ, predestinating me to be to the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ unto himself, all of that for the good and
pleasure of his own will and for the glory of his grace, and
in that person, Jesus Christ, God has made me accepted before
him, and all that is the work of God before the world began.
And then Christ Jesus came to this world and he died in the
room instead of his people and he redeemed us by his blood and
forgave us of our sins and gave us an inheritance in Jesus Christ.
And the Holy Spirit came and took that and applied it to our
heart by causing us to fall under the gospel and hearing the truth
of the Lord God and giving us life in Jesus Christ and faith
to believe that God had indeed done all the work in our salvation. Faith is not about moving mountains.
Faith is not about those type of things. Faith is not about
overcoming this or overcoming that. Faith is about believing
that your salvation was what God did. And that is an affliction
of the soul. Our flesh rebels against that.
It's an affliction of the soul. It's believing the gospel. which
declares precisely that. Secondly, the Lord declares that
their religion is sin because they exhibit false humility,
described as bowing the head like a bulrush, like a bulrush. The qualities of a bulrush are
that it has a large, empty head, a spindly spine, and can be bowed
by the slightest breeze. That's the qualities of a bulrush. And false humility has to do
with posture rather than the heart. That's why people think
you must bow your head when you pray, and that's why people say,
we can't have prayer in schools because, you know, we can't have,
because, and when people want prayer in schools, they want
people to bow their head. Listen to me, if you're a child
of God, you can pray in school all day long. Because what they
think is prayer is posture. It's putting your hands together
and bowing your head and that makes it prayer. I remember one time a fellow
took me to lunch and we sat down and got my lesson. I just started
eating. He said, aren't you going to pray? Aren't you going to
thank God? I said, how do you know I didn't? What he was looking for was posture.
Our Lord says, you're like a bunch of bulrushes. You're like a bunch
of bulruses. False humility has to do with
posture. Praying hands, stern countenance, slumped shoulders,
cast down eyes, the way you carry your Bible. I remember preachers
used to carry their Bible up here like this and kind of have
a downward look because it looked humble. It looked humble. People won't look at you, cast
down their eyes. It has nothing to do with posture.
Humility is the same thing as the affliction of the soul. Humility
is saying, I didn't have anything to do with my salvation. None
whatsoever. That's an humbling, humiliating
thing to admit unless you're a child of God. You're glad to
admit it, but you do admit it. False humility has to do with
what you can see, what you can see. The large head speaks of
pride, but all human religious pride is supported by a spindly
spine like a reed. The empty head speaks to vanity,
and bowing to the slightest breeze is bending to every strange wind
of doctrine that comes along. And what that means, it's a willing
acceptance of all that is false and against God. That's going
on today. We must accept, no, I don't have
to accept anything, and I have to tolerate it, and should tolerate
it, and not be ugly to people, but to say that I must accept
something, you don't understand the concept of acceptance. The
concept of acceptance is if I want to be accepted or you want me
to accept you, you must assign sovereignty to my acceptance.
And I must assign the sovereignty to yours. If I want you to accept
me, I can't demand it. I must say, will you accept me?
And then wait and see as you sovereignly decide to do so or
not. But you can't make somebody accept
something. This idea of general acceptance
of all things, they don't understand the concept of acceptance. Now
the way our constitution in the United States said that we are
to tolerate and try to get along with everybody. But that don't
mean we need to accept false teaching and false religion.
But the bull rush does. It bends with every sway of the
slightest breeze of strange doctrine. This was expressed in the incorporation
of ideology in the worship of God. It is said that when they
traveled on the road in the wilderness and moved that tent, that tabernacle,
and the high priest wrapped up the Ark of the Covenant and they
put it on their stays and carried it on their shoulders, that they
also carried along little statues of Baal and Ashdod and Baal Peor. They carried them along. They
already started incorporating false worship in the Gospel.
Now they did the worship, but our Lord said it was sin, because
you're like a bulrush. You're like a bulrush. Thirdly,
our Lord says that their religion is sin because they make their
repentance a spectacle for all to see. We know from the preceding
verses that they do this to obligate God and gain the applause of
men. This would line up with the notion of visible penance.
Do something that men can see. That was why the invention of
the altar call was made, and that's why it's so successful
today. I remember I went to hear a preacher
up at Straight Fork one time, and he was a great big hefty
fellow. I can't remember his name. He was real popular in
the area. He didn't get much going on, so he had an altar
call afterwards, a big one, about 15 minutes long, and had people
come down. There was only one person, and that whole church
didn't go down. Now I felt all alone, I really
did. But I knew what he was doing.
He was doing something so he could tell somebody that everybody
in that church come down front. Everybody in that church. When
Billy Graham held his great crusades, and all those people came down
front. Before he came into a town, He would contact all the churches
that were somewhat in agreement with him, and they would say,
we want to have two counselors per 100 people in your church
to come, and we'll train them. What did they train them to do?
The minute the altar call was made, those two counselors from
every 100 people in the church got up and started going down
front. Why? It started a procession, and it got them down front. The
altar call was invented by a man named Charles Finney. who is
held as the greatest evangelist in America. He wasn't even an
evangelist. He didn't know the euognelium,
which is where evangelists come from, which is the doctrine of
the gospel of Jesus Christ. But he invented the altar call.
Why? Because people were leaving his church. So he gave them something
to do. a visible expression of repentance. Now some people carry penance
too far, and some people carry it to a hilarious extent. I remember
many times around Easter time seeing some guy walk down 441
with a cross on his shoulder, but it had training wheels on
it. You know, it just cracked me, I'd just get tickled and
laugh because it's stupid to carry a cross anyway if he's
going to be line with today, he would carry one of those tables
that you get lethal injections on his back or he would carry
a canister from a gas chamber or
carry an electric chair on his back. The cross was an implement
of capital punishment. That's what it was designed to
do. When you see the word cross in
scripture, it's speaking about a specific crucifixion and the
specific man who was crucified, the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. I saw recently down in Puerto
Rico, I think it was, or either it was in the Philippines, that
on Easter Sunday, men actually were nailed to a cross. And they
said this was penance. They were doing penance. Now
today, it pretty much has to do with tears. Pretty much has
to do with tears. Sometimes they do public flogging,
I see people take, whips and whip themselves until they bleed,
and they say that's penance for sin. There is no penance that
you can do for sin. There is repentance, and that's
what the Lord teaches. Generally today, that accounts
as an abundance of tears and wails that garner sympathy and
are accounted as evidence of the Holy Spirit, but it's actually
just the work of the flesh. Our Lord said in the last book
of the Old Testament, before he stopped speaking to them by
prophet or elder for 400 years until the Lord Jesus Christ came
on the scene. He said this about their worship. He said in Malachi 2 and verse
13, and this ye have done again, covering the altar of the Lord
with tears, with weeping and with crying, with crying out
insomuch that he regardeth not the offering anymore. That's what he said, or receive
it with goodwill at your hand. It ain't about tears, but that's
the modern day idea of what penance is or repentance is. is spreading sackcloth, it says
here, and ashes to pretend repentance. You see, true repentance involves
two things. It's turning from your idols
to serve the living God, and denying that anything you do
or do not do recommends you to God. And that's true repentance.
And that goes on every day. It's a never-ending principle
in the life of the child of God. All these things that our Lord
speaks are forms of self-imposed bondage. They are bondage because
they must be done. They must be done to be recorded
and recognized and to make a person feel like he has presented evidence
that he is indeed a child of God. And the only evidence spoken
of in scripture, the only evidence of salvation spoken of in scripture
is Hebrews chapter 11, and that's faith. Faith is the evidence
of things hoped for. Faith is the evidence of the
substance of things not seen. You see, believe in the gospel.
is the denying of self and it's not visible. You can't record
it. You can't record it. The just
shall live by faith and not by sight, sayeth the scripture.
And the just means those who are justified by the blood and
by the grace of God. The Lord confronts this overt
falseness with a divine challenge. He says, wilt thou, in the last
part of verse five, wilt thou call this self-denial? Will thou
call this denying thyself? Will thou call this a fast? Wilt
thou call this an acceptable day unto the Lord? Well, what
is an acceptable day unto the Lord? That's a phrase that's
used in scripture. Our Lord used it in his first
sermon in Luke chapter four back in his hometown. And it was quoted
from Isaiah chapter 61. You wonder what acceptable day
of the Lord is? In Isaiah 61, the spirit of the
Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach
good tidings unto the meek those who have nothing to offer to
God. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, those whose
heart has been broken by God, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord, the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn
in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes. That's quite an exchange,
isn't it? Beauty for ashes, the oil of
joy for their mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness,
that they might be called the trees of righteousness, the planting
of the Lord, that he might be glorified. That's the acceptable
year of the Lord. You're living in it right now.
It's called the gospel age. The age of the gospel. The fast
or denying of self that the Lord has chosen has absolutely nothing,
absolutely nothing to do with bondage. It has absolutely nothing
to do with cleaving to rites and rituals that are done to
be seen of men. It's not about rules and regulations
and ersatz laws or church covenants hanging on the wall and such
that are designed to control men's behavior and keep them
towing some kind of religious line. The gospel is about doing
precisely the opposite. And oh, that we would see it.
No wonder people fear religion. And I can remember old John A.
Lambert, bless his heart, loved the old bugger, tougher than
nails. I remember one time he'd come
out of the woods in that old long truck, a long bed truck
of his. He was 90-some years old. He'd done cut bent up wood
by himself at 96 years old and cut a whole truckload of wood
all by himself, hauled out. I admired him a great deal, but
he was scared to death of me. I'd go see his wife because she
was sick, and if he saw me coming, he would actually run out the
back door, because he was afraid I was going to try to save him.
I was going to try to get him saved. And I told old John A. one time, I said, I can't save
you, and I ain't going to try. And I ain't never going to give
you nothing to do. But if you want to hear it, I'll tell you
the truth about God. And we sat and talked a couple
times, and he listened, and I hope he heard the gospel. I hope he
did. Well, I tried to tell him the
truth. But it ain't no wonder people are afraid of religion.
Because religion makes them feel that they've got to give up something
and lay hold of these things that will bind them into this
religion. That's what it does. You've got
to pray so much. You've got to read your Bible
so much. I remember these things when I was in false religion,
how they pressed upon you this thing. It'd make you feel guilty
if you didn't. That's the thing. It's a guilt trip. if they can
make you feel guilty. But the gospel is about setting
men and women free. Setting them free. I've said
this from the pulpit for 40 some years. Do what you will. Love God and do what you will. And if you love God, I ain't
worried about you at all. I ain't worried. Go ahead, do what you want to.
Because if you love God, He'll be the first consideration in
your decisions of what you want to do. I say that to some people
and they say, that's crazy. That just opens a floodgate to
sin. Not if you love God, it don't. People who have been sick
and cured don't want to be sick again. If God has saved you from
sin, you don't want to get back lost again. You want to stay
saved. You want to stay saved. That's the desire. The gospel's
about freeing men. It's about setting men and women
at liberty to enjoy the freedom of the soul that is only realizing
the wondrous knowledge that salvation from pole to pole, from alpha
to omega, from A to zizard, was finished on the cross of Calvary.
Freedom. Freedom is the knowledge that
there is nothing left to do because all has been done. The gospel
is the only religion that teaches that. every other religion, including
fundamentalist American religion. All other religions don't teach
freedom. They teach bondage. They don't
want people to be free. To be free. To be set at liberty. To understand what God has done. Our Lord says here, here's my
fast. Here's my denial of self. Here's what you can do to deny
yourself. Loose the bands of wickedness.
Loose them, cut them loose. What did the Lord say when Lazarus
was called forth and he was still wound up in his bedclothes, in
his burial shroud? He said, let him loose, turn
him loose. Turn him loose. He said to the woman who came
to him and was accused of adultery. He said, where are your accusers?
She said, I don't see any. He said, well, I don't accuse
you either. Go on home and sin no more. Go on home. It's to
be turned loose, to be turned loose. The chains of false religion
are great. I've told this story many times
about Larry Pearman when he came to live with us the last time
when the Lord saved him Before he did, he went to us to a place,
a little Italian restaurant over in Haywood called Antipasto. Boy, they had the best salad
I ever ate. It's not over there anymore. It's sad. Really good
salad. I was there with Wayne Robinson,
and I think Malcolm might have been with us, and Henry Mahan
was with us, and we're sitting there eating that good salad
and talking. And Larry was just kind of quiet. And I looked at him and said,
you okay? He says, you guys are laughing and happy. He says, you're all so free. Because all Larry had ever experienced
in his life was some preacher telling him, you've got to give
up that alcohol. You've got to quit that drinking. When you
quit that drinking, the Lord will save you. It hurted all
his life. He was a drunk and a cocaine
addict. I never told him to give it up. I said, come and hear
the gospel. Come and sit and listen. I won't
require a first thing of you. One day the Lord opened his eyes
and his heart. Been better than 30 years, I
guess, close to it. Hadn't had a drink since. Ain't
wanted one. Ain't wanted one. Why? Because he's free now. Religion
kept him in bondage by laying that law to him and incited that
rebellion that's nature. That's the response to the law,
that's the flesh. It always responds negatively
to the law. Larry says, y'all are free. Yeah.
With the Lord's free man. That don't mean we can lose our
liberty as a cloak of maliciousness or our liberty as license, because
our liberty and our freedom really doesn't have a great deal to
do about us. Which our Lord teaches here. Here's your liberty. Set
somebody else free. Loose the bands of wickedness.
Tell your friend who's religious, you don't have to do all that.
Just trust Jesus. Trust him alone. Trust him alone
for your salvation. Walk with him. That's all you
gotta do. You ain't gotta do nothing else. Just believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's to tell a sinner who can
do nothing. that there's nothing to do. What
a good news is that? There's nothing to do. It's to
undo the heavy burdens. What are the heavy burdens? That's
what religion and its restrictions have placed on men. It's to let
those who are oppressed go free. Oppressed. Religion is a very
oppressive thing, except for the religion of Christ. It's
oppressive. It drives you down. It keeps
you low. It plays on your guilt. It keeps you guilty. I always
tell you there's more to do. The psychological oppression
of fundamentalist religion has brought about an entirely new
section of psychology. And actually, there are men who
can get bachelor's degrees in this type of psychology. It's
psychological counseling designed to relieve people of religious
guilt. There's a whole new section of
psychology. They're coming out of a fundamentalist religion,
utterly guilty, and they can't find any peace and any hope.
And so psychologists have to work with them on behavior things
and things like that. Well, let me tell you about the
great counselor. Let me tell you about the one
who is the counselor. His name shall be called Wonderful
Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince
of Peace. He's the perfect counselor. He
has the perfect plan. by his substitutionary sacrifice,
he has declared his people not to be guilty. And it's a free life when you
ain't guilty. You're not guilty before God if Christ has paid
your sin debt. And that verdict doesn't come
from men or psychology, it comes from the high court of heaven.
That's where it comes from. This refers to the manner The
next thing he said, he declared his people not to be guilty.
And remember, he's the judge of all the earth and always does
what's right. And he says also, it's to break
every yoke. This is God's best. How you gonna deny yourself?
Well, it really doesn't have a lot to do with you, does it?
It's to break the yoke of other people. Break them yoke down.
This refers to the manner in which religion controls the life
of people. That's what a yoke's designed to do. Throw a yoke
on a horse or a yoke on an ox, that means you're gonna guide
him and lead him in the direction he's supposed to go. That's what
it's for. They used to put goads on them
yokes. If you turned the wrong way,
it'd be kicking against the pricks. That's what our Lord said to
Paul. Isn't it hard for you to kick against the pricks? But
to break every yoke, Religion usually, in putting a yoke on
people, consists of fear of censure or promise of reward. Those two
things are what usually keep people in line and control people.
Fear of being humiliated. I can remember many years ago,
a man came to me and said, my pastor reprobated me. He said,
I'm lost. I said, your pastor don't know
what your heart is. start with, and I said, if he's told you
he's reprobated, he don't know what it is to be a pastor. He
don't know what it is to be a pastor. He said, well, I'm lost. I said,
do you believe you're lost? I said, do you trust Christ?
He says, yes. I said, well, you ain't lost. He said, well, I
can't go back to that church. I said, well, come to this one.
I got some good news for you. It's like the whip of the biscuit. It's like the sword of Damocles
or the crown of merit. This is what they offer you.
If you do right, we'll give you good rewards in heaven. If you
do wrong, we won't have to bring you before the church to straighten
you out. Fear of censure. Promise of reward. That's the yoke that men lay
on men. These things control men rather than cutting them
loose. The fast that the Lord has ordained,
the denial of self is about this. And this is the odd thing. It's
about getting outside yourself and doing something for somebody
else. You want to be free of yourself and the vagaries and
the malicious insinuations of your flesh. Do something for
somebody else. This is all for somebody else.
Break the yoke. Break the chains. This is an
acceptable day of the Lord. Lift those heavy burdens off
of people. Shoulder them yourself. Shoulder them yourself. There
is such freedom in giving and caring for others. Our Lord said
in verse 7, Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, that
thou bring the poor that are cast out into thy house? When
thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide
not thyself from thine own flesh. And note the last phrase of verse
seven, the effect of the gospel, the freedom that it brings is
to see the truth about your own flesh. There's no goodness there,
nothing but rebellion against God. To know this is to have
no confidence in the flesh, but all confidence in Christ, and
that's freedom. Most of the things here are reported. Most of the things here reported
that the Lord's chosen fast are things that are not planned or
even accounted as works. If you see a brother in need,
You give him what he needs. You're not thinking, boy, this
is a work that needs to be recognized. Most of them want to do it in
where nobody knows. I remember many times I'd get
ready to go on a trip back in the days when I first started
here, and there'd be a $20 bill stuck in my steering wheel or
something. I don't know who ever gave it to me. Or a $100 bill.
I had a $100 bill stuck in there one time. I don't know who gave
it to me, but they knew. They wasn't looking to be recognized,
so they did it without recognition. You see, the result of love to
Christ is that you don't think about your works. You really
don't. You know they're ordained of
God and you're going to walk in them. Love for Christ is realized
in love for the brethren. Look it up in Scripture. Every
time our Lord talks about good works, He's talking about doing
something for the brethren or for the household of faith. Doing
something for them. Love for Christ is realized and
love for the brethren and the meaning of love is this, charity. Charity, giving, not letting
your left hand know what your right hand is doing as our Lord
described it. This seems to be the attitude
of those who are the blessed of God to inherit the kingdom
prepared for them from the foundation of the world. The first time
I really saw the beauty of this passage of scripture, I remember
thinking, Man, that teaches a great deal. Matthew chapter 25. Matthew chapter 25 verse 31,
When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy
angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory.
And before Him shall be gathered all nations, and He shall separate
them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on
his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the king
say unto them on his right hand, come ye, blessed of my father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world. Because I was hungry, you gave
me meat. I was thirsty, and you gave me
drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was naked,
and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me.
I was in prison, and you came unto me. Now look at their response. They really didn't remember anything.
They didn't know. What is he talking about? Then
shall the righteous answer him, Lord, when did that happen? When saw we hungry and fed thee,
or thirsty and gave thee to drink? Or when saw we thee a stranger
and took thee in, or naked and clothed thee? Or when saw we
sick and imprisoned and came unto thee, and the king, senator,
And unto them, verily I say unto thee, and as much as you've done
it unto the least of these my brethren, you've done it unto
me. That's life, you see. If you
love somebody, you don't think about, you don't have to measure
what you do for them as to whether or not it's an acceptable work.
My wife and I have been married 47 years. We don't have any laws
on our wall. If I get up first in the morning,
I fix breakfast. She gets up first in the morning,
she fixes breakfast. We trot down the hall and pat one or
the other and say, honey, it's time to eat. Breakfast is ready.
That's her good work. I think I need to take recognition
for that. No, I just love my wife. She
loves me. She loves me. This is how it
works. This is life. You see our liberty,
our liberty. Paul said that all things are
lawful to us, but not all things are expedient. All things are
lawful to us, but not all things profit. All things are lawful
to us, but not all things help others. So what is our freedom about?
What is the realization of our freedom? Get outside of yourself. Understand and know. Understand
and know your flesh. And know what its value is and
what its value is not. Get outside yourself. If you
find somebody in need, take the yoke off of them if you can.
Lift the heavy burden if you can. Because this is how God
says you deny yourself. This is how God says you deny
yourself. This is what it is to deny yourself.
This is an acceptable day of the Lord. This is the fast that
the Lord has chosen. Father bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen.