Michigan Family Camp: 2015
Table of Contents
Will, Way, Work
Gospel—Richard Mackewich
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I'd like to welcome everybody here tonight. Can everybody hear me?
Everybody see me? That's good. As long as you don't smell me, I guess that's a good thing.
Here we we're gonna shift gears a little if that's all right.
Most times this is an address of some sort.
I would like to go back to Christianity 101, if you would, and present the gospel in a manner that perhaps we've never seen it before and yet it's the truth of God.
Boys and girls.
You who are being brought up in Christian home, I want to seek to impress upon you.
The word of God.
You're not being lied to. You're not being told fables. You have in your household this book, the word of God, and it's a living book. It's from God himself.
But the gospel is good news, and it's true.
We're gonna look at the WWW. In God's Word, we're gonna look at.
3 aspects of who this man is.
The true God, The living God.
And the Son of God. And we're going to do that by using the word of God. And so before we get started, let's sing 66 in the back of the book.
Just come hear the gospel sound.
Yes, there's room.
And boys and girls, older ones too. You need to realize time is running out on us. Jesus is coming, perhaps even today. He perhaps may come in September. Everything seems to be right for His coming. Fourth verse says God's house is filling fast. Some guests will be the last.
Will that be you tonight? Somebody in this room? Are you going to be the last guest?
Wouldn't that be a thrill? Confess to the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is Lord and we just all go home.
Are you looking forward to that time, young people, when the Lord comes and takes his own?
He is coming. Let's sing the 1St.
Well, that's taking the whole hymn 66 in the back of the book.
Come.
On.
Drinking. I don't know if you're here, uh, 05. Do you know what I mean by dinner?
Well, it's 12 years of the time. I don't think there's anything there.
Verizon Thousand Tuesday.
All the time.
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No, I don't think it's.
Well, hot blah blah blah.
Nsnoise.
Let me just ask the Lord's help, love and our God. We do thank you this evening. Yes, there is room, the door is open. Boys and girls, men and women can come through the door to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. We thank that the work has all been completed there at the cross.
And God raised him from the dead, so our Father would just ask for help. As we spend a few moments over that word, we realize too, there may be one in this room or two or three lost in their sins. Oh, we just earnestly pray for them. Pray for the little boys and girls as they're getting older. And as we've been reminded about that day of accountability, we asked for blessing and help.
Just thank thee for thy love and grace. Lord Jesus, in thy name, Amen.
Uh, I guess I'll take Bernie's advice. He introduced himself. His name. I'm Bernie. Well, I'm not Bernie. I'm Richard. I'm from Richmond, MI, the other side of the state. But we have a message for you that comes all the way from the heart of God.
And it's my desire, if I possibly can, to bring that heart of God.
To you and to realize that God in heaven loves you.
They say the most wanted 3 words that people want to hear is simply I love you.
Perhaps there's somebody in this room who feels in a kind of state that nobody really loves them. Nobody cares. This evening, my friend, God loves you. Many of you are aware what the WWW is in this world, and if you ever go on it, it's hard to tell what is true and what is false. There's so much out there.
There's no standard of who's right, who's wrong, so I'm going to look at the www.jesuspresents.
First one is in John 14.
John 14 is the 4th book in the New Testament.
Peter and or Philip and Thomas were asking them questions.
Have you ever asked the Lord any questions?
But they're asking them questions and.
Say, where are you going? We don't know where you're going.
And Jesus says.
I am the way. That's the first W We need to have a way and we need to make sure that that way is the right way, the Safeway, and that way is going to take us all the way home.
To glory.
Jesus says I am the way. He doesn't explain the way, He doesn't elaborate on it. He simply says I am the way. And that's important my friend, because Jesus is telling them just prior if you believe not that I am, you should die in your sins.
And we don't want anybody in this room to die in your sins because you believe not.
That I am now. That may not mean much to us as Gentiles in the present moment, but it did to them.
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That he was telling them that he was the very one.
Then Moses talked to.
Memory says I am, that I am, and there are people who laugh at that, that it doesn't change the fact, does it? There are some people sitting over here and there's some people sitting over here and you can't read these signs or verses. Does that change the fact that there are two signs up here? But you just because you can't read them? No, they're still there.
In God's way is still there, Jesus said. I am the way.
The truth and the life. And they came to Jesus again and said.
Well, you're not even 50 years old and you've seen Abraham.
They said before Abraham was I am, and that really took them off.
They they wanted external, they wanted to kill them.
Here was the great I am standing in their very presence and in the sense Jesus is standing here, arms outstretched. I like that yesterday 11 arm marks of Calvary, the other one pleasure to send for a season. What is your choice? The work is done. We were thinking about it work is.
Done, Jesus said. I am the way.
The truth.
TRUTH is the truth.
He's also the life.
Well, that's the first W. Let's turn over to the 6th chapter.
Some people would say, oh, if I only knew what God's will is for me in my life.
If I only knew what His will was for me in my life.
Jesus tells us.
John 6, verse 40.
This is the will of him that sent me.
Everyone.
Which seeth the sun believeth on him may have everlasting life.
Wow, that's the will of God. He wants you to be saved. My friend, you can't work your way to heaven.
Heard a story one time of a a Doctor Who was a a big help to a patient and the patient insisted on paying. No, no, it's free. I I I wanna, I wanna do this because I care about you and your family and I love you. Oh, no. I gotta pay for it. OK, It's $10 million.
You owe me $10 million. He wanted to pay for it, but the price was such that he couldn't. And that's what the gospel message is. We cannot pay because we can't. Scripture says the wages of sin all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But it's a marvelous thing here to think that it's the will of him that said to me, who was that?
Pistol of John the father sent the son.
The savior of the world, Is that your savior?
Is he really your savior, boys and girls?
I trust you have Bible readings at home. The parents open up the scriptures and you read together. You're reading the Word of God, and it's God's will that you embrace the truth of it.
While some people may say, well, I'm kind of confused about the way and I'm not sure about God's will, but I want to work my way. I want to work my way to heaven, and certainly I can do that. Turn over to John 6 again.
First probably haven't left it, so we're still there. John 628 Then said, say unto him, What shall we do? What shall we do?
That we may work the works of God.
Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God.
His will and His work is for you to believe. We have these verses for the VBS in Richmond and Port Huron. First one says, first shot 513. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know, that you have eternal life you may know.
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What do you know? Everybody in this world.
Everybody in this room as a God of some sort.
Do you know you have eternal life? Do you know?
Question, do you know?
How many in this room really want to work their way to heaven?
I have $5.00 bill in my pocket. Who wants $5.00 bill?
Anybody wanna fight all the bill? This is what you have to do to earn to work for this $5.00 bill is to look at that verse and show me how do I work.
To get that.
These things have I written unto you that believe. What were those things? The thing in verse 12?
He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son hath not life. It's not a question of works, not a question of doing, not a question of going. It's a question of having the sun.
So where do I find works in this verse?
Anybody ever see one of these before?
Yeah. You have any in Michigan? Yeah, you have a famous one in Michigan. It's in the Upper Peninsula.
It's a waterfall and I understand that some of these waterfalls.
You're getting into this part of it. The only place you're going is down.
And friend, we don't want you to get to that place in your life. We're the only recourse is down.
Way back in job he could say deliver him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom. What's the name of the falls in the Upper Peninsula?
Yeah, it's a tongue twister, isn't that? They're quammen and falls, you know, next on that next. But say this is the fall. Maybe about 30 miles down, there's a little town called Paradise.
Paradise.
Is that where you're headed, boys and girls? Paradise the way down by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, there's another town called Hell.
There was a little community and they wanted to start off and they said, well, what, what are we gonna call it? And they were mocking and joking among themselves and call it hell for all I care. And that's what they did. They called this town hell. And it's interesting to me. Way up here, the Upper Peninsula, there's a town called Paradise.
Way down here is a town called Hell, and that would separate them, the Straits of Mackinac.
And that which separates paradise and hell, my friend, is the cross of Calvary. Not any work that you can do.
The cross.
I want to turn to Galatians chapter one.
Boys and girls, those of you who are privileged to be brought up in the Christian home in this country, I want you to realize.
That what you are hearing?
Is the truth of God.
Galatians chapter one.
Verse.
6.
I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto the unto another gospel which is not another. But there be some that trouble you that would pervert the gospel of Christ.
Though we are an Angel from heaven, listen very carefully, boys and girls, you are not being taught the perverted gospel.
You are being presented the truth of God. Your parents have embraced it. They realize the truth of who this one is. And Paul says, so we or an Angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you, that which we have preached unto you. Let him be accursed if we say.
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As we said before, so sigh now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you.
Than that which you have received, let him be accursed.
Don't despise the Bible reading.
I know you're young and you're, you're growing up and you look around and the world is so inviting. I was young one time, too hard to believe. We're driving to Sunday school and with a family and fellow in the back seat talking. And I said, well, the Lord Jesus may come any moment. He's not even saying that for years. They've been saying that for years.
He didn't believe.
The message.
Now, how many of you really believe there's a gospel verse on this text up here?
A couple of hands go up. That's what faith is. You don't know if there is or not. I could have been just quoting this, but there's a verse on here and you believe by faith. And over here, this one's even more difficult. You probably can't even see that.
This one has a sunset.
And my friend, the older we get, the sun is setting, some of us, our bags are packed and we're ready to go. The Lord Jesus is coming, the sun is. Our life is almost over, yours is just beginning.
But this is the grandeur of the Scriptures, boys and girls. You need to realize and take it in by faith. We know that's what Christianity is all about. We know it's a subtle thing.
The Son of God is come hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true. We are in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. There's a lot of things in that verse.
The most important one is.
We know and that Jesus Christ is the true God.
It's not simply believing that Jesus Christ is the Savior. God said he is.
The Father sent the Son, the Savior of the world. Be it known therefore unto you men and brethren, that through this man was what preached unto you the forgiveness of sin.
And then his birth unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior. So that was a common knowledge if it were, if I could say in that sense, the Savior is coming, the Messiah is coming. But what the religious people of the world rejected was the fact that this one Jesus Christ was God.
God manifests in flesh, boys and girls, young people, and you grow up and you reject the counsels of God concerning his Son. You're treading very dangerous ground. You're not going to have the strength to make the decisions that you're going to come across that a brother sought to print present to us.
You need stability.
I think I saw someone, a couple of people wearing the shirt. Who is your anchor?
Who is your writer?
Let's be real, who is your anchor?
He made a comment.
He's not here to beat anybody up. I'm not here either to beat anybody up.
But I want to show historically how the enemy of your soul works.
Anybody here have an idea what happened in 1827?
I wasn't here, so I have to read books and I have to people tell me what happened in 1827262728 There was a movement of the Spirit of God taking boys and girls, men and women out of Thyro Tyra, out of Sardis and building Philadelphia. There was a movement of the Spirit of God and the recovery of the truth of God.
It didn't change the truth of God. It didn't add to the truth of God. It simply brought out what was already there. The devil didn't like that.
And he doesn't like it today.
I was stunned this really happened. 1827 Marvelous work.
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1830 Joseph Smith comes on the scene. 1840 William Miller comes on the scene. 1863 Ellen White comes on the scene. 1870 Charles Russell comes on the scene. 1875 Mary Eddie comes on the scene. Those names may not mean much to you.
But they're counterfeits, my friend.
I say this in love. They didn't come to expound the scriptures of 18 J and Darby in the 1827. They altered it. They brought in their own book. They brought in their own translation. They brought in their own feelings, their own thoughts. And we have these very people, their systems, with us today.
These things have I written unto you, that believe on the name of the Son of God.
And almost everyone of these deny the Son of God come manifest in flesh. They'll say he is the Son of God, but they won't say that he is God. And that's true Jesus Christ, the true God.
So boys and girls, when you have your Bible readings, don't, don't despise it. Think of all the masses of people in the world. These groups have millions of souls who bow down to them and they have no life, no joy, no peace because they don't have the sun.
First, John, Pistol of John, you read it very carefully. Young people doesn't pull any punches. It's not that he's beating you up, but he just doesn't pull any punches. Let's turn to one verse.
Talks about liars.
I trust there's no liars in this room tonight.
Jesus said I am the way, the truth.
First John 5.
Verse 10.
Neither believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believed not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record that God has given to us.
Eternal life in this life is in His Son.
I have 3 piles of paper on this platform here and they're they're verses that I'm going to read and did it simply for time's sake because if I took time to.
Read them in the scriptures.
I'd run out of time.
But they're here and I have three sets. One deals with the Son of God, one deals with the living God, and one deals with the true God.
The true God. And that's who I seek to present to you tonight, the true God, boys and girls, the scriptures that you're being taught at home, the truth of God, your parents are seeking to present to you the true God.
Second Chronicles 15 Three says there was a long season. Israel hath been without the true God. I wonder if there's somebody in this room tonight who is without the true God.
Your world is falling apart, nowhere to turn. Turn to the true God.
Farrell had 10 gods that they worshipped in Egypt.
In Jehovah, the true God.
Tested every one of those gods and there was no deliverance.
Why they weren't the true God?
And they weren't a living God. Jeremiah 1010 says the Lord is the true God. He is the living God.
Everlasting King.
Jesus. Doesn't that throw your heart when you stop to think of who this one is? Jesus.
John, 17. He praised his father.
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This is life eternal, that I work my way to heaven.
No, but I pray my way into heaven. No, this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God.
Do you know him?
This verse over here, it's not in the new translation as it is here.
We simply present the King James Version to the children complicate things, but it says here these things have I written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God.
That second phrase, believe on the Son of God isn't there, but I like it because I like to connect it. In this context, John could say, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, and my friend, that the Son of God takes away the sin of the world. How am I supposed to do anything about it? I can't work, I can't pray, I can't do anything.
He takes it away, and then the next day he says, Behold the Lamb of God.
So I like it in this context, the second phrase that you may believe in the name of the Son of God, Paul to say.
Oh, then I might know him and the power of his resurrection. Do you know Jesus tonight?
He knows everything about you. But do you know him? The sad thing about it in the sense is he says my sheep here, my voice. Not Joseph Smith, not William Miller, not Ellen White, not Charles Russell, not Mary Eddie, my sheep hear my voice.
And the older you get and go to school.
College work, you're going to come across people who have embraced these people.
And they're gonna throw ringers at you. And you have to have a solid foundation, young people.
Let me throw this out. How many in this room have you remember a brother named Clarence Lundin?
When I was a young boy, he came to the meeting in Detroit.
And he told us young people, young people, you go to school and you have homework to do. And if you take those homeworks, those books, and you do not get down on your knees before God and ask for preservation.
They're gonna take you away from the truth of God.
Very subtle. They're not gonna take you away from your salvation because once you're saved, you're always saved. But you're gonna embrace things that aren't the truth of God. I had the privilege of being at a wedding this past Valentine's Day. Valentine's is a nice day. You have the heart and I love you and so forth. And this couple thought it'd be cool to get married on Valentine's Day, and they did.
And they asked me to say a 1015 minute gospel.
So I did.
And after the talk, one of the older brothers from the state of Washington came up to me and shook my hand and said brother.
There's a young man here.
Brought up in the Christian home.
Went off at school.
And now he denies everything. He has embraced philosophy. He has embraced psychology.
It's real, boys and girls. Is this living God? Is the Son of God? Is the true God so impregnated in your soul and you see it and it's real?
I don't see him. Maybe he's not here, but there was a brother who was in Richmond for a while going to school.
And he would, after breaking the bread, stand up and minister to us, make some comments.
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Three or four or five weeks back-to-back.
One day he gets up.
And he simply says, brethren.
I finally realized.
That there is a living.
That in the glory.
Boys and girls, Jesus is a living man.
This is just some exercise your parents go through and they're Christian duty. They're seeking to present to you a living man, a Savior. And after that man, that brother just took right off spiritually, just accelerated. Lord gave him a tremendous wife and beautiful family. Why?
Because what he.
Read about It's easy to be a parrot, but.
In his own soul he realized that there's a living man in court and it touched his heart to realize that he is that we're saw like Paul caught up into the 3rd heaven, saw the risen Christ in glory.
First Thessalonians 19 says, For they themselves show of us what manner of energy we had unto you, and how you turn to God from idols to serve the living true God. We present to you tonight, my friend, a true God. God's house is filling fast, is true, and He wants you to realize it that one day.
That last seat is gonna be taken be left behind.
Psalm 42 Says my soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
Well, David long to come into the presence of God. Why? Because of the living. He was a living.
How many in this room have ever seen a real live idol?
One hand seen a live idol.
We have a house somewhere in the neighborhood and there's a Buddha sitting there. He's not alive.
His eyes can't see. He has the ears can't hear. He can't do anything. When the rain comes, he can't get out of the rain. When the snows come, he freezes like everybody else does. And yet people bow down to this thing. Why? Because they've been taught as a child, and they get older and they teach their children.
And dear parents, you have in your hands the Word of God. It's living, it's powerful, it's quick, and you would seek to present to your children the living and true God.
Jeremiah 1010 says the Lord is the true God. He is the living God.
The thrilling aspect to me is when he's referred to as the Son of God.
At his birth, he was announced as such.
His first temptation in the wilderness, the devil challenged him. If thou be the Son of God.
And boys and girls, it may not be a decision that you may be confronted with, but the devil's gonna challenge you. The devil is going to challenge you whether or not you believe, whether or not you believe all through his life. The demons, we know who thou art thou, Holy one of God, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, the Son of God?
There at the cross, the rail line in the thalami, the Son of God come down from the cross.
The disciples on the boat said.
We believe that our the Son of God, thou art the Christ, the Son of God.
The Centurion when the Lord was crucified.
Saw the earthquake, saw the Lord die. He said truly, this man was the Son of God. And so it's the Son of God and the gospel that's being presented tonight. We know, we know.
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Yes.
What do you know tonight?
John 318 says He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten, the Son of God. The hour is coming. John 525. And now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they would hear, shall live. So here's my question to you tonight. John 935.
Jesus heard that he had been cast out, and you may be cast out too.
You take a stand for Christ, you're gonna find a lot of opposition. You may even find yourself kicked out of your own home. I don't know. I'm not a Jew, but there have been Jews who've come to Christ and they've been kicked out of their homes, totally ostracized. Here is a man who found himself in that position. Jesus heard that he had been cast out, and when he had found him, he said, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?
The man says.
Who is he, Lord?
Who is the Lord that I might believe?
Oh, I that speak unto thee. And he, he just opened his eyes and perhaps there's somebody here tonight in your eyes have been open to realize the gospel message. It's not it works.
Lot of works for my grace. Are you saved through faith? That not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, not of works. Less than a man should boast.
Are you trying to work your way? When I was a young person, I always thought that was kind of a strange thing, people trying to work their way to heaven. But I was, uh, worked in a pulmonary lab in Detroit, Henry Ford Hospital, they call it a health system now. One of the pulmonary doctors named Doctor Basha, and he was in a hurry.
The more patients you see, the more money you make. And somebody asked him why are you in a big hurry?
And as he was walking down the hall, he says, I'm working my way to heaven.
And that's the first time in my life that actually heard somebody say he's working his way to heaven.
Short time later he transfers out of Henry Ford Hospital and he goes to Port Huron and who becomes his patient with Howard Bender who gives him the gospel.
They can't run away from God.
You can't run away. He loves you, he he'll draw you to him, but he he won't beat you in the head either.
See how's it work, be it his son.
He that spared not his own son, how shall he not with them all so freely give us all things?
Scripture says I am the man that's saying the the affliction by the rod of his wrath.
Another story.
Happened.
I was working. The Lord was gracious. There was a number of Christians in the lab, but our boss wasn't.
He was running here and there. Busy, busy, busy.
And Christine asked him. Richard, where are you going? You're so busy.
And this is what he said. Young people. He was about 30 years old.
Because I'm, excuse me, I'm going to hell.
He's busy doing things. Where are you going?
Because I'm going to hell.
Two weeks he was gone into eternity.
Where are you headed?
Eternity is real, heaven or hell. Jesus came, shed his blood, died on the cross that you might have life, have it more abundantly.
The issues of life are real.
These things have I written unto you, that belief. Well, what if I don't believe?
What if I don't believe?
What's gonna happen?
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Love turned to revelation.
Revelation 21.
Revelation 21 verse eight says.
Of the fearful.
An unbelieving.
The abominable, the murderers, the sorcerers, idolaters.
And all liars shall have their part in the lake, which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
Is it so incredible, my friend, that there is a lake of fire? There's a lake of salt called Salt Lake.
I don't know if they're salt, why can't there be fire?
Instead of Saint Clair. It's a good lake, but it's not a great lake.
You know.
These are things that you shouldn't laugh about. They're real. The liars aren't simply those who tell a lie. The liars are those who reject the counsels of God concerning His Son. And you are telling God himself that he is a liar.
And God says no.
The other way around.
Some of this young people you may.
Take one way or another, but there is a day coming when you're gonna be married and you're gonna have a family.
And you're gonna have a child.
And then it really hits you. Wow, what am I gonna bring to this child? I have a responsibility of bringing Christ the Savior to my child.
It's real, it's real. You may not see it, but it's hanging on the wall.
You may not see this one hanging on the wall. Both of these.
Versus have water.
This one, I like to think of it as the cross. All the judgment of God poured out on his Son. The waves, the billows, everything just poured right on top of him. This one, you and I.
Waters are calm. Peace has been made through the blood of this cross. You have peace tonight, my friend. Do you have peace through the blood of Jesus? He has made peace. He preaches peace. He is peace. Well, you know, Son of God has come given us an understanding that we may know Him.
I don't know if I can get away with this or not. I heard someone singing it to her daughter. Let's sing that little chorus. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. Is that gonna offend anybody? If you're happy and you know it, This is what this word means. We know. We know.
Let's give it a try. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it, then you're faithful, surely. So if you're happy and you know if you're happy, there's a verse. And John tells us that we have the witness of God.
In our self.
And we know if we don't know.
We know if we're not saved. We know if we have no clue what I'm even talking about.
God has given us.
An understanding that we may know him that is true. How many are interested in another little story?
This actually happened happened in New Guinea on the Pacific River. There were tribes that had never heard the gospel, never even seen quote the white person before, had no written language.
And two ladies, two sisters who were linguistics, were sent by the Wickliffe Bible Society to this village to try to translate a language so they can give them the Bible in their own tongue when they got there.
00:50:23
By the way, they were, they weren't headhunters, things like that. They were just tribes, indigenous people.
And they never saw a white person before, so that was their way in.
But they couldn't communicate. There was no written language. So over a span of time, they had to win their friendship, They had to eat the things they ate. They had to live among them. And eventually they learned enough of the language they were able to present the gospel.
She had 15. Marilyn had 15 boys helping her.
One day she says to them.
What do you do that's bad?
Or what don't you do that's bad?
And little boy says.
Uh, we shouldn't lie.
Uh, we shouldn't kill.
Uh, we shouldn't steal.
And Maryland says, wow, they have no Bible. They have no missionary contact, yet God has written into the hearts of every boy and girl.
His moral law, they knew it.
Over time they got saved, they come to know the Lord Jesus as their Savior, and to me it was just a thrilling story of adventure how these two women would come in by faith and God answered prayer.
Fearful. First one on the list, Liars last one. Are you fearful tonight? Fear is very terrible thing, it's been said. Fear not in one of his derivatives is mentioned 365 times in the Bible, one for each day of the year. God does not want you to live in fear.
Here he wants you to live in the victory that we have in Jesus. One of the other verses we have for VBS was in Galatians. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me. And again, I'm not beating anybody up, but.
Mr. Smith, Mr. Miller, Mrs. White, Mr. Russell and Miss Eddie. They never died for anybody.
They never bore anybody's sins. They were never punished for anybody's sins.
Jesus was for you.
We're saying if you're happy and you know it, your face will surely show it.
Yeah, I love this because it's a living book.
Some people are afraid to smile or think their face is gonna crack.
We're happy people.
And it should be radiant to others that, hey, this is real, I'm a Christian, I'm AC, I'm ACH, I'm a CHRASTIN. They like to sing that.
How many of us know that? Let's think that saying it twice.
Think of it, he says. I am a.
And I'm not gonna pick on names. What are you? What are you? What are you? Are you? ACH? What are you? What are you?
How about you in the back corner?
Or you're like the fellow who's heard it all his life and it comes out, well, they've been saying that for years and he hasn't come yet. That's true. He hasn't come yet.
But he is, so let's believe on the name.
Who is it? Jesus?
Jesus, what were we gonna sing? Oh, I'm ACH.
Hi Mercy, I'm ACH, I'm a CHRISCI AM and I have Christ in my HEART and I will live in VETRNALM fast enough. I am, let's see, I am ACH, I am a CHRACIM and I have CHRIST&HEART and I will LIVERN.
00:55:25
You know what you just did, friends? If you actually said that from the heart, you confess to everybody in this room that you're a Christian.
But I saw some of their lips weren't even moving.
Oh, it's real, my friend. Don't, don't walk out of this room. Still lost in your sense.
Brother Roach came and talked to the young people in Roseville and he presented in such a way that I hadn't heard it before and it really touched my heart.
So when you walk out of this room, my friend.
And you don't know the Lord Jesus.
What you're really doing is turning your back on Him. You're turning your back on Jesus. How can you turn your back on such a wonderful friend who came all the way down from courts of glory, took your cause, interceded on your behalf, was punished for your sins in His own body on the tree?
And yet you would have the nerve to.
Turn you back on.
Friend, you turn your back on.
That last sold get saved. You may be walking down that.
Sidewalk there and the last person gets saved and you've turned your back on and you look around and hey, where'd everybody go? It's too late. You're left behind.
What you've heard is true, boys and girls. What you've heard is true. Very powerful version. Galatians whatsoever man sows.
That shall he also reap.
The recovery of the truth.
Satan rejects that. If you take the stand for him, make sure you're on his hit list.
I tell my brother, my son, Don, the more you seek to serve the Lord on, the higher you are on his hit list. If he doesn't want that and if you seek to serve the Lord, be careful.
The enemy is gonna do whatever he can.
Did You Know?
Time is just about gone.
I can relay this.
Boys and girls, young people.
Good loves you.
Buried lunch.
We love you.
It's your spiritual welfare we're concerned with.
Those of you who are still lost in your sentence, your eternal destiny.
Come then, enjoying this holy band and on to Gloria.
Oh, is there someone in this room tonight?
Would love to confess the Lord Jesus as Savior. I'm sure Tim's heart would be overjoyed. Come and speak with him and Bernie.
They know more about you than I do. I probably couldn't tell you ten of your names.
But they do. They love you, they care about you, they want you to realize far greater there's a God in heaven looking down in tender love. He wants to be your Father.
He wants to be your father.
Let's just pray and.
If there's somebody in this room.
Not sure, doesn't know.
Even fireworks doesn't care. May the Lord.
Do what is needed to.
Wake your heart, Father, to earnestly pray that each boy and girl, older one too, truly come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. He is indeed the Son of God. He is the true God. He is the living God. Let me thank the Lord Jesus that thou is God and thou art God, manifest in the flesh.
Excuse me, let me thank you then. We know from thy precious word, Lord Jesus, that thou whatever was.
Son of God, we bless thee, we praise thee. And if there's one in this room still lost in their sins, may they come to know Jesus and bring joy to the heart of God. And to, uh, Tim and Bernie and others who love these dear young people, bless. This time we pray with Thanksgiving in Jesus name, Amen.
01:00:20
I have $5 here that I.
Offered if somebody could.
Show me where work is.
And this. And if I gave this $5 to that person, he earned it. He worked for it. But if I was simply to say, if anybody wants his $5, all I have to do is get out of that chair, walk up here and say, may I have it, it's yours. That's great. That's just simply giving it away.
And that's all it is, my friend. God is offering you salvation. All you need to do is take it. Accept it by faith.
Seasons
Address—Michael Anderson
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Good evening.
My name is Michael Anderson.
And I hail from the Pella Assembly in Iowa. And tonight I thought we would, uh, spend some time talking about seasons of our life. And, umm, I'd like to start out by uh, suggesting we saying #209 Our times are in thy hand, Father. We wish them there. Our life, our soul are all we live entirely to thy care.
That's thing #209 can someone start that please?
00:05:01
Let's ask for his help.
Our God and our Father, this evening we come before Thee to spend a short period of time in Thy word, considering.
Find plan for us.
We know that Thou art with us every step of the way, and yet, as feeble humans that we are, we forget.
And we start thinking wrongly, we ask without will give the speaker the words this evening to give some encouragement and some *** assistance to those in this room that are in need of that, including Speaker himself. We know that thou has all the strength to take us through everything we ask for that assistance this evening. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
Well, as I was considering.
Umm, having a talk this evening.
Umm, I was thinking about the, uh, beginning to my year, uh, that I've just gone through the first five months of my year.
First five months we're pretty busy, a lot of travel and a lot of work.
Umm, some of you may do enough flying that you recognize what it takes to get status, as some in the room might call it with an airline. And, uh, in the first five months of this year, I did enough flying to get status with United and Delta and almost, I'm almost there with American, umm, 630 flight segments each airline to get there.
Also in that first period of time.
Some of you know that I I do coaching and consulting with business owners and executives and I therefore have kind of my own business and I build out enough during that first five months that equaled the amount that I've done the entire previous year.
And since that relates to how much hours you spent working for clients, it was a pretty harrowing time.
The combination of a lot of things, the projects coming to an end and projects that I've had for six years kind of coming to an end, as I knew that they would. Right now I'm a lot less busy than that and I'm working on some other things, but I feel like I'm not doing anything.
And they just kind of recognized that there was a season that the Lord had me very busy and there must have been a reason. And now there's a season that I'm not as busy and there must have been a reason.
Recently I was up at the visitation for a brother, some of you might know, umm, the last name of Reno, uh, Ed Reno, umm, and umm, at that funeral, I was uh, uh, one of the, one of his sons, Steve is uh, pretty, pretty good friend of mine. And so I was, uh, visiting obviously their family as well, but I was uh, especially wanting to say hi to him. I had him especially in my, in my mind and.
As I walked up to him and kind of in the somber time of.
The fact that his father had passed away and he had been called back from Canada, he was fishing and that sort of thing. And thinking about that effect on him, I, uh, saw his daughter Ashley with her new baby that she just had, umm, just a few days old at that point. And so I thought about the season of your father passing away and.
The coincidence of that with the season of a new grandson coming in.
And how those two things can really create a different perspective in a person's mind. And it just kind of occurred to me that God gives us different seasons in our life and gives us different times where we are allowed to go through circumstances and He's there for us through those seasons, but He gives us those seasons for a reason.
I don't know about you all, maybe you all are beyond this point, but for me I sometimes struggle with those things.
Struggle with the different seasons that he gives me sometimes I struggle and think that I'm you know, I'm too busy and, and I don't know why I'm having to do all these things or maybe I'm frustrated that I don't have enough going on or that things aren't going the way that that that I had hoped and I started with those things maybe some of you do here too. I would say that I've learned as a professor and and as someone who's done some teaching in my life but.
Most of the time that I do teaching.
It, it, it actually ends up being more of a lesson for myself than it was a lesson for anyone else. And so I'll just tell you that I'm going to share a number of different personal experiences with you, umm, as we talk. And, uh, some of these were some of the things that went through my mind as I was putting some of these things together. And, umm, I stand here as somebody who feels very exercised by the things I'm gonna talk with you about.
00:10:21
And uh, really feel that there's others here that would benefit from the same thing as well.
So UMM wanted to talk with you about that. You know, when we talk about seasons, the first thing that comes to our mind is weather. And it's interesting that the Earth is tilted 27° and 27 minutes. If the Earth wasn't tilted that way, we wouldn't experience the changing of the seasons, right? It'd be like the same season all the time. Because that tilt is what puts us closer and further away from the sun and changes our temperatures and gives us those seasons that we have. God did that for a reason.
Because he wanted to give us an example of seasons so that we would have something that we could relate to as we understand the seasons in our life. Averse. Uh, that comes to mind when you think of seasons. Probably one of the first verses that comes to mind is an Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes chapter 3.
And starting and and verse one.
To everything there is a season.
And a time to every purpose under the heaven.
Everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. If we went on and read additional verses after that, we'd see that there's a long list of things that there's, uh, a time for. There's a time for this and a time for that time for things that you wouldn't think there should be a time for, right? And, uh, yes, there is. And I think as, uh, as, as is being pointed out there, God super intends.
Every season.
God superintendents every season.
He overseas them and he is in charge of that season, not only overall in this world, but for you individually in your life.
Please skip down to verse 11. It says He hath made everything beautiful.
In his time, everything is beautiful in his time and seasons are the way that we experience time.
Another verse I would mention, and as I jump around with verses, you're certainly welcome to turn to them, uh, if you want, but you're also welcome to just listen Ephesians chapter one, verses 9 and 10. Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purpose in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one.
All things in Christ.
Both which are in heaven, which are on earth, even in Him. You see, God's purpose is to bring everything under Christ, to bring everything together with Him as the center point.
When you think about your life and you look over whatever length of life that you've had, some here longer than others.
You have to understand that.
There was a purpose to your life, and that purpose was was built in in eternity in in God's mind.
You see, God schedules everything in your life. He just doesn't post the schedule.
And.
You experience that purpose that He set forth, an eternity past you. You experience that.
In seasons.
You know, despite knowing that our purpose is to grow in our likeness to Christ and that God's purpose in total is centered on Christ.
And knowing that all things are made beautiful in his time. And knowing that he has control of the seasons despite all of that.
I found some shortcomings that I've had as it relates to, uh, uh, working with and responding to those seasons in my life.
I've listed out four of them. Let's see if any of those are ones that you might.
Relate to.
One is I think sometimes we try, we desire other people's seasons.
00:15:07
We see other people in a season and we wish we were in that season.
Two, we focus sometimes on the negative in our own season, what's going on that's bad right now, And we make that the focus. We make that the center of what our brain is considering.
3rd, Sometimes we miss his hand in the season. We're in the season and his hand is there to take us and to and to and to give us the strength to do something and we completely miss it.
And 4th, I think we get impatient with our seasons. We think, I think we've been here long enough. Can't we move on?
Shouldn't we be on the next season?
And so I want to take each of those four and I want to open those up a little bit tonight and just talk a little bit about those.
That's all right. Let's start with the one that says we desire other people's season.
You know, umm, recently I've, I've, uh, I've got a, a, a daughter in my house who got a driver's license and in the state of Iowa, when I got my driver's license, we didn't have what we call graduated, uh, licensing. When I got my license, I was free to kill.
Fortunately I didn't, but umm, I had a full license and now I've graduated licenses, right. And so, you know, when you think about it, you, you, you're in the, you're, you're in that season perhaps where you don't have, you don't have a license yet. And you think, oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if I was able to get one? Then you have a graduated license and there's some stipulations about who can be in your car. Oh, won't it be neat when I don't have those stipulations anymore and I don't have to go home at a certain time or go certain ways and then we move on to.
You know, maybe skip over a little here. And we think, uh, won't it be nice when I go to college and I have all that, you know, freedom and be able to, you know, not have to study the stuff that I have to study at the, at the, at the high school level and I can start studying the stuff I want to, and won't that be neat? And then we start saying, well, wouldn't it be neat when I get married and I, I, I'm able to have my own home and, and, and things like that. And then we move on to from there.
Wouldn't it be neat to have kids?
Where I'm right now, where I am right now, I, I really would like to have kids. You see, we keep thinking we want to be in another season. And then once you have the kids, then you kind of wonder when are the kids going to go?
Right. And finally, when am I gonna get to retire? So the point is we're always, at least I and maybe some others here, we're always kind of thinking we wanna be in someone else's season. I've always wanted to get to the next season. I remember thinking when, uh, or my oldest was first born and I had this little baby, I remember thinking how much better it would be when my baby could talk with me.
When we could have a real conversation and like share back and forth with each other or each other's thoughts.
I thought this was gonna be so neat.
Well, and then my kids grew up and started arguing with me.
It always seems so much better.
I thought a number of years ago some of you may have heard or understood that I'm not, uh, the, uh, most, uh, excited camper and umm.
Our assembly had a camp out once a year had been going on for a long time and I knew I wasn't going to get around that. And I thought, well, I, I would like to participate in the camp out and stop going home at night. So I thought, you know, this would be really cool people who have, you know, a camper or something that that's really neat. I had to get a camper. And so my solution to the one day a week, one night a week or one night a month, one night a year. Excuse me, uh.
Camp out, oh there seemed like one day a week and stuff. All that was was to go out and buy a 34 foot Winnebago.
The first time we used it, it was pretty cool. You know, it had air conditioning, it had a shower and all this kind of good stuff.
But then we mothballed it for 30 hundred 364 days, right, because it only comes around once a year. And we go out to the camper and what do you think? You're scurrying around in the camper and what's flying around has a Stinger on the back of it. And so we had to clean it. And now I I say we in a very.
Interesting way.
00:20:00
When you get married, you're one, right? So we had to clean it and all that. But the point is, I thought it was gonna be so great to have, you know, this, this camper. But it didn't turn out like that because we had all this, you know, a day 2 worth of cleaning in order to just use it for the one day. We always think things are gonna be better than they really are when we are looking across the fence. What I discovered.
Was I've been thinking about this is every season has its struggles.
And often you can't see those struggles from the outside looking in.
There's a part of you that looks at other people in the season that they're in and says I want to be there.
But you see, when we look at other people's seasons, we only see the fruit.
We don't see what they went through to get there.
I looked up, I looked up, umm, the average amount of debt that somebody has when they come out of medical school as a doctor in the United States, and I was astounded to find that it's $175,000 of debt. The average amount.
Being a doctor seems on the surface to be a pretty cool thing. You know, it seems like a, a, a respectable and, and very, uh, you know, helping type of profession. And at the same time, look at what had to be gone through in order to get there. I sat next to someone on an airplane who was some sort of a brain surgeon and they've been going to school for 13 or 14 years and we're just getting to the point where they were gonna be able to start their real career.
And I'm talking after high school.
We don't sometimes see what was what was put in, in order to get to that person's season and the fruit of it.
When you think about it, just a summer example.
Living in Saint Thomas, I learned at the dinner table there's, I knew this, but I didn't recognize it at the moment. There's two St. Thomas thinking of the Saint Thomas that's really hot, uh, down in the Caribbean. Umm, you know, it seems really cool. You know, a lot of people go on a cruise or go on a vacation down at Saint Thomas, but how would you like to live in that sweltering humid heat?
All the time. For example, anybody like to like to look at leaves?
You know, out on the east, some of you are from the East Coast, especially the northeast, and there's some beautiful leaves in the fall out there.
MMM, do you wanna rake them?
Winter. I'm from Iowa. We get plenty of snow. When you look first look at snow, it looks pretty, doesn't it?
That's pretty, especially if you're from down South where you don't get snow.
But you know what we We have to shovel it to get to work.
There's all this thing, all these things that we don't see about other people's seasons In Ecclesiastes chapters one through 7, you know, Solomon kind of goes through and he says, you know, I've tried wisdom, tried materialism, busy pursuits, artistic expression, wealth, but it was all vanity.
You know, back to the doctor again. What's interesting is after putting themselves in debt that much.
Uh, according to a survey in 2012, they spent approximately 25% of their time on paperwork.
They work an average of 55 hours a week.
And only one third of them would choose the same career over again if they could.
You can't live in my season and I can't live in yours.
There is some logic to that 10th commandment. There is the 10th commandment. Something about having a life vest.
No, the sense command, the camp commandment is something about a life vest, but the 10th commandment?
Is saying we, we can't be coveting each other's situations. You know, in the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, verses 11 Through 14, I'll read that. And he said, a certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that follows to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after, the younger son gathered altogether and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riots of living.
And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want.
In the story in the beginning here we see the younger son basically demanding his inheritance immediately.
He doesn't want to live in the season he's in. He wants to advance to another season. He wants to get that money and he wants to advance his his season. He wants to go live a ride his life. He wanted to experience life now, not winning. Inheritance was due.
00:25:11
He's kind of like that. I'm tired of waiting for you to die. Give it to me now.
Because he wanted to advance his season and he wanted to go and experience something now.
Instead of living through the season that his father had appointed to him.
This is kind of like us, isn't it?
We see something that we want and we don't see what comes with it and we desire it, we covet it and we want to see how we can get to that next season.
But I'm going to say to you.
Are you praying for something that God does not want you to have in this season?
Choose to enjoy the season that you're in. There's no such thing as a struggle free season.
Where I stand right now.
Is where God intended for me to be.
I don't need your season.
That can be your thought too. Where I stand now is where God intended for me to be. I don't need that other season.
I'm where God wants me to be today.
Let's move on to the second one. We focus on the negative in our season. Most of the time, you can't control how long you're gonna remain in your current season. Most of the time, that's not something that's, uh, a variable that God put in your hands. Now, there are times when we can lengthen the season we're in. Just talk to the, uh, children of Israel in the, uh, in the wilderness for UH-40 years on that one, right? Sometimes we can lengthen our season by what we do, right, But.
We really aren't able to control the length of the season.
That's in God's hands. But you can control how you feel about your season, how you think about it. How are you thinking about your current season? What you think about it changes the way you experience your season. If you choose to view your season as beautiful, it will become beautiful. Why? Because you created it in your mind? No, because you'll see God's handiwork in the activities in your season.
Philippians 48 through nine. I'm sure you're all familiar with it. Brethren, whatsoever things are true, what sort of things are honest, What sort of things are just, what sort of things are pure, What sort of things are lovely, What sort of things are a good report? If there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things, those things which she both, which she have both learned and received and heard and seen in me do. And the God of peace shall be with you.
We're encouraged not to dwell on oh, woe is me, but instead to think on these things.
You know, practically.
Umm, a number Several years ago, my mother went through a couple of years of, uh, very painful cancer at the end of her life, and my father showed A level of patience that is beyond anything I have ever seen.
She necessitated being given medicine every two hours, 24 hours a day, and she would about 1/3 of the time argue about whether that medicine was the right medicine, and so he'd have to wake up and start it all over an hour and a half later.
Yeah, when I went over there one time, went to his apartment after about a year and a half of him living like that.
I didn't realize quite exactly how things were. I knocked on the door and he came to the door and he had a big smile on his face. He says, oh, Michael, I'm so glad you're here.
Not really, just yes, I wanted to go take a shower.
I said, what do you mean? Well, your mother woke up one time when I was in the shower and she panicked and called 911. And so I really don't have the ability to take a shower unless somebody's here to sit with her.
You see, he wasn't dwelling on the negative. He was happy. He had a happy response. When I was there. He was like, oh, this is wonderful. If he was sitting around, oh, woe is me. Look at what I have to put up with. Look at God, you know, through me for two years of my life in my first two years of retirement.
I think it would have had a different outcome.
Start speaking opportunistically about your season. This will open your eyes to experience it. Will you look at the season for what it can be for you or by what struggles it might be?
00:30:02
There are times in our life where we're going through something, maybe we're going through a tough time, where we're going through a tough class. Are we going to look at it for the struggles that it is or the opportunity that it is? You can't always control your season, but you can control the attitude you have instead of saying how stressful your day was, Sam. So, uh, say I can I instead? I can recognize his strength that pulled me through the day.
Instead of saying how frustrating my brethren are.
I can say I'm blessed to have been given the fellowship.
You know, it's really inspiring when you run into people who have really taken this in and think this way. I must admit that this is something I'm working on, but you run into people who think this way. I was at meeting.
Year or two ago and for whatever reason something happened and the power went out and it was in the middle of the winter and it was cold. It was chatting your teeth cold. And we decided to have meeting anyway. So we all bundle up on our coats and everything and we got done and I turned around and spoke to somebody that sat behind me and I said, man, that was really cold today, wasn't it?
And the person's comment to me was, oh, but it was so warming to the heart.
Have to admit.
I was very happy that we had remembered the Lord, but I still realized how cold it was and this person that was behind me, this older person.
Was just focused on the warming of their heart where they focused on what was.
Lovely, good report. Pure. A virtue of praise, yes. Was I not to the same extent?
You know, there's a talk show host some of you might have heard of named Dave Ramsey. He talks a lot about financial things. He's a nice Christian man, and umm, when people ask him how he is, his answer is better than I deserve.
He always answers that way. I think that's a interesting, uh, thought for us to, uh, to have people that have brought this in and have made this the focus. They don't wait for the season to become beautiful. They say it's beautiful because they recognize God in the season.
The next one is, uh, that I mentioned was that we missed his hand in the season.
First Psalm, uh, the first Psalm of the book. First three verses read like this. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.
That bringeth forth his fruit in his season His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
God's strength.
Is available for you in this season.
It's available for you to help you bear fruit for him if you will accept it.
If you will be open to it.
If you're so busy trying to figure out what other season you wanna be in. If you're so busy thinking about all woe is me for this season that I'm in.
You may miss it.
Some of us have been to a restaurant where you go in and there's a big long line.
And they have buzzers.
Little blinky buzzer things that they give you and umm.
They give it to you and they say this will go off and some of them blink and some of them say stuff to you and things like that when your table is ready, right?
Has anybody ever had the experience of taking that buzzer and maybe thinking, well, you know, if they said it's going to be 45 minutes to an hour, maybe I could go over to the mall or, you know, maybe we could go for a big long walk around several blocks, uh, and come back. And then you get back and you, and you say, huh, it's been like an hour and they said 45 minutes and I still haven't been called yet. So you go up front and you say.
00:35:02
What's what's up with this and they say we've been calling for you, we called for you about 2025 minutes ago. We buzzed your phone several times. We or buzzed the the device several times and you didn't come, we moved faster. Why was that?
Because you got out of range of their little radio system, right? It's kind of like, uh, pretty easy to get out of range of the Wi-Fi on this camp, right? OK, you get out of range and what happens? Nothing comes through, right? I was, uh, at home. I was trying to get with my wife and I wasn't able to get to get to her because she didn't have any signal.
What happens when we get too far away from the Lord for our buzzer to go off?
You need to stay close to him so you're ready to accept that next step that He has for you. You need to stay close to him. You need to stay focused on Lord, what do you have for me in this season? Because if you go to wandering too far away when He says here it is, you may miss it.
You know, my travels, I was, uh, in the Miami airport.
At one time, and I think I had one of the more interesting, uh, uh, fall aparts of, of a flight ended up being delayed like six hours or more. But in the process it was just, it was like one thing after another. And they kept telling us, oh, we're going to get you on the plane and then the next thing would happen. So it was there were they, they got us all ready to get on the plane and then, and then they decided that there was, uh, you know, some small mechanical issue.
They had to fix and umm, I usually assume it's the toilet won't flush, but umm, so they had some small mechanical issue they had to, they had to fix. And so they sat us all back down again. So then they had to wait to have that handled and umm, by the time they got that done, they said, OK, we're about done with that. So we're, we're going to get you on. And then they, and then I, I don't know what was going on, but they, they, they then figured out that the plane was too warm.
Because it was Miami and they needed to put air conditioning on it and cool it back down again.
And so then after they got that done, they said, well, we're going to be putting you on here. It's getting cooled down. We're going to put you on here in just a few minutes. And I don't know, 15 minutes, 20 minutes goes by and I watch us in uniformed people, a whole bunch of uniformed people with bags behind them like this come walking off the airplane. I said that's going to be a can't be a good, a good sign. It was our pilot and everybody else getting off the airplane because they'd run out of time. They couldn't fly anymore.
So then they had to go find new crew and everything else. And so this this thing really kind of fell apart on.
American Airlines.
Now I've watched, I've watched many, many travelers in the airports and I've seen them and usually what you can tell is the ones that travel a lot from the ones that don't travel. Because the ones that travel a lot, they tend to make fists and they tend to pound them and they tend to get loud and they tend to huff and puff and, and things.
I just kinda gotten used to it.
I, I'm not gonna tell you that I'm not antsy about stuff because I am. I, I, I have that feeling. But when it comes to airplane mode, I just, you know, it's just like my phone. I go into airplane mode.
Oh, I'm supposed to sit here. I it's just, that's how I go into because if you do anything other than that, you're just going to get yourself frustrated. But here's the thing. Here's the thing.
I was sitting next to somebody in that airport.
And I got to have an interesting conversation.
It started with a little bit of political discussion because they were, umm, wanting to. There was a news article on the TV and they were mentioning something to me about that. And so I engaged them a little bit about it, but I ended, come to find out they're an atheist.
And so we were able to have a very interesting conversation that lasted almost two hours about why it is that they don't believe that there's a God when so much around them is so clear that there is.
And had a really, really interesting conversation with that gentleman about what was going on. Now, I will tell you that God doesn't always give us the opportunity to see the outcomes of the things that we do.
Sometimes he does, and that's a wonderful thing. I have no idea what happened there, but I know that there's an atheist who was going to get on that plane who's had the gospel presented to him. And it's because I had to sit for six hours in the Miami airport and watch people walk off the plane and fiddle diddle with heat.
And that's why.
And so we have to be ready to see the strength of the season, the thing that God has put in our place, something that's available to us that we are.
00:40:09
Are required. We're bound if we want to follow him to do.
In that season.
Some people.
Umm, say they wanna be older.
But when you're older, you don't have as much energy as you have right now. You can't live in the season of what was or wish for the season of what might be. You can instead recognize and use the strength that God has given you in this season.
What is it that he's given you now?
Some want, some want to be older, like I said, but you won't have as much energy as you have now. Some of you might think, well, I wanna be with somebody, but then you won't have as much time as you do now.
Some wanna be younger.
But then you wouldn't have the wisdom that you do now.
There's strength that God has given you in every season, regardless of where you're, where you're put. And the the question is when he calls, when he buzzes, when he says here's how to use that strength, here's the strength I've given you and here's how to use it, will you be there? You know, God makes all things beautiful in its time. If you look around you, there's probably an opportunity to serve him now with whatever strengths he's provided you with in your season.
You know, let's pick up again with that parable of the prodigal son. Let's pick up with the other son.
We'll skip over a few verses and skip down to verse 25 through 31, and I'll read those.
Now it's in Luke 15. Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is calm, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.
And he was angry and would not go in therefore came his father out and entreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee. Neither transgressed I at any time by commandment. And yet thou never gave us me a kid that I make make make merry with my friends. But as soon as I as this, thy son was come, which has devoured thy living with harlots.
That was killed a fatted calf.
Father said. And he said unto him, Son.
Thou art ever with me, and all that I have is dying.
See, the older son comes back and he's displeased by this celebration.
You know, he saw what was going on. He's like, this isn't fair. I put all this in, I've worked all this and I'm not. Why is he getting something that's not fair?
The father went out to plead and the older son says, hey, I've served you for all these years and I never got a celebration. He compares his struggles that he had of serving his father and working hard. Probably there's enough work for two sons, but there was only one son there and he did all this stuff. And he compares that to this riotous living in celebration that the other son had.
And he says, But I never got my celebration.
He wants to be in the other Sun season. He wants to have this celebration. You know what? Comparison kills contentment.
When we compare our situation to other people's situations, that kills contentment.
But the father pointed out what's interesting to my point here.
You are always with me and everything I have is yours.
One son didn't have the patience to trust his father's timing.
The other son doesn't even recognize that his father's provisions for him are in his current season and available to him now.
Everything his father has is his.
He wakes up every day, this older son thinking maybe my father will throw me a party today.
Maybe he'll recognize all this work, and maybe he'll see me for who I am and he'll throw me a party. He'll kill the cat. He'll kill the kid.
But when he's waking up that way, thinking that way, in fact.
00:45:05
The the the the father says any time is your time.
Just decide to recognize what I've provided you.
Be here when I called. Recognize the strength that I'm giving you. Recognize the capabilities and the power and the strength that you have right now. You didn't have to wait for something. You just needed to recognize that I'm here for you and everything I have is here for you. And God our Father is that way too.
In the season you're in right now, he is there for you and the strength that you need.
Is there? But are you listening for it? Are you looking for it? Are you earnest?
I think it might even be worse to sleep under your father's roof, waiting to get something that's already yours.
Don't get so far from God's house that when your pager goes off, you miss the call. Be earnestly looking and praying for His guidance, Jeremiah 33, three says.
Call into me, and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things.
Which thou knowest not.
Now is the season to rejoice in the Lord.
This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice.
All you gotta do is speak to him. He's available to answer your phone call 24/7.
The last one that I wanted to talk about was that we get impatient with the season.
If you remember back in the verse we talked about at the beginning, Ecclesiastes 311 Said God makes everything beautiful in its time.
You know, we don't tend to like the time part of that formula, do we?
We wanna see the results of our work immediately. If we do something, we wanna see how it turned out now. We don't wanna wait for some later date when something else might go on. You know, when I was in 3rd grade.
I guess I'm no exception. I not, I guess I know I'm not. When I was in 3rd grade I started my first company. In case you were wondering, it's a light bulb insurance company. When I was in 9th grade I started teaching teacher in service classes at my school and several other school districts.
I started, uh, and then I graduated college before I was 21. I'm not up here trying to say, oh, wonderful me. I'm saying look at what I did. I always was trying to Fast forward to being patient with where I was at and move on to the next thing. Patience, honestly.
Is a lesson that I have a lot to learn about.
But it doesn't mean that we can't talk about it today. You know, patience is a fruit of the Spirit.
But we have to experience it in order to grow in it. It's not something really that I can stand up here and teach you. Patience equals this out of the dictionary you got. It doesn't work right. Patience is something we have to learn through experience. Umm, a number of years ago, in fact, the last time that I did golf as a professional thing, umm, I was asked by a executive of a major dairy that I was doing some consulting for to, oh, you do have to do golf. And I had been out.
The balls around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't realize I wasn't thinking, you know, I, I mean, yes, I would go, you know, I wasn't lying or anything, but I wasn't thinking. I, I probably should have said not much. And he said, oh, why don't you throw your golf clubs in and bring them up? Well, they flew me up on their air for their private airplane up to their place. And I threw in my golf clubs. Well, but but they said, why don't you throw them in? Because why don't we go out golfing? So I, I like made several trips to the driving range and got blisters all over my hands and all that kind of stuff, thinking, oh, goodness, this is, this is gonna really be something else.
Anyway, uh, bottom line is I, umm, I, I knew I was in trouble when I went with the the executive to the golf course and they hit a button in their car and a garage door started going up on the golf course and it was their golf carts.
The next morning I was doing a a keynote speech for all the.
Executives and there was a lot of laughter going on at the breakfast table. I was actually up on a, on a umm, sage kinda like this and they were down sitting down there eating breakfast. All this laughter going on and finally I just stopped and said, hey, would you fill me? What's what's so funny? And I don't remember the guy's name. What's going Doug? Doug was just explained to us how he almost ran out of his golf car out of gas going after your ball last night.
Well.
You see, golf is not something you can go read about, It's something you have to experience in order to learn it. And patience is the same way. Galatians 522 But the fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith.
00:50:07
The fruit of the Spirit.
James, 14, says But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect an entire wanting nothing. What's the output of having developed good patience? What's the output of building up this fruit of the spirit wanting nothing?
You see when you're patient.
The thing that's happening in your brain is that you're patient.
You're not sitting there wanting the next thing.
Some people from a financial perspective need to think the same way. If you stop dreaming about what you would get if you had more money.
Then you've established contentment, right? I sometimes ask people when I'm helping with interviewing for executive positions, I say, if you were to be given $50,000 right now, I handed it over to you. What would you have that spent on before you even arrived home?
You'd be surprised the answer's like that.
There are people who thought it through. When you do those things, when you think those things through and you have those in your mind, that's a lack of contentment, and patience is about being content with the time that you're in.
As we develop patients, we finally feel completely satisfied because we don't see anything that we're lacking.
My wife and I went on our honeymoon to Maui and, umm, when we were there, we uh, went into a, uh, an art gallery, uh, by a man by the name of Peter Lick LIK. And, uh, Peter Lick is an extremely accomplished, uh, photographer. In fact, I, uh, was uh, looking some things up about him and, uh, and found that, uh, the last year he sold.
For a world record, uh, for the most money, a single photo, uh, original photo, it was, uh, it was in, uh, an A Canyon that looks absolutely amazing called the Antelope Canyon.
In Arizona, it's like this really narrow thing that's like, you know, about the size of a person, but is go straight up, you know, UH50, whatever, 100 feet. OK, so you're walking, you know, imagine yourself down in this little ravine of, of, uh, you know, with, with straight up walls and kind of curvy and stuff. Anyway, he'd taken a picture where there was a little dust storm and, and a ray, a single ray of light that was coming down. It was called Phantom because the dust storm and the.
Ray of Light makes it look like some sort of a ghostly figure. Anyway, he sold this for six and a half $1,000,000 and it was a world record. Here's the thing about Peter Lick. Everyone of his pictures, if you look at them, he's waited for exactly the right second when the sun came through a little hole in something in Arizona, or the sun came up peeking over the top of one of the mountains over in, uh, in, uh, in Asia or whatever it is. He's gotten exactly the right set up or, or, or.
Uh, you know, waiting for a bear to have a have a fish jump up out of, out of a waterfall and be right there out of his teeth. It's about patience. You have to learn patience by experiencing it.
When I, uh, was on vacation in California, we went on, uh, we went to some uh, uh.
Uh, different, uh, amusement parks and I, I thought of uh, uh, Disney, uh, World, this is over in Florida, but I think about the long lines that sometimes form.
And that can really test your patience, especially because they do stuff like they build these different things where you can't even see where the end of the line is. So, you know, you're like here and you think, oh, that's the end of the line. And then you get there and you turn and there's like a, a whole sea of people and, you know, turnstiles and stuff. And, and so it can be really frustrating even for the most patient person until you can actually see the end of line when you can see where you're getting to.
Then all of a sudden things feel better, right?
We can be patient even though we can't see the end, even though we don't know exactly where God is taking this. We can be patient because we know that God is ordering life and He will bring about the change for us to the next season in life at the right time. We don't need to worry.
You know, when you don't know how long the line is and you think, oh, it might be two or three hours, you're like, huh, I don't know if I want that. But we don't have to worry about that because if two or three hours in a line is what we're supposed to have God, the, the God that can see everything and knows everything and has our best interest at heart, He's ordering that for us. He's determining how much of A length of time it should be. So we don't need to worry about where that end is because we know it's in his hands.
00:55:13
Hebrews UH23 uh, I'm sorry. Habakkuk 2/3.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie, though it tarry. Wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Think of Joseph, think of how many times would have been reasonably thought by him that he was on the wrong path, and certainly the end of his unpleasant season should have come.
But we have the ability of stepping back and looking and seeing the entire history of it and seeing God's hand in everything that He was doing to Him, don't we? We can see how those seasons were bringing about preparation for not only Him, but for an entire people.
God has a master plan.
That can that that could hardly have been known or anticipated by anyone in that circumstance.
Proverbs 2024 says man's goings are of the Lord.
How can a man then understand his own way?
Our patience is a virtue that we only develop by exercising it. How do we know to be able to do that? How can we look past, oh, how long is this going to be? By seeing that the order of it is all in the hand of the of the of of the the most wonderful God who loves us and who knows all and has everything in his control.
By knowing that we can.
Release that, if we will, to him and be patient and let him bring us to the end of the season when he will.
You see, it's not about seeing the end or understanding the past, but having the faith in God, the.
Patiently follow him.
So as we discussed this evening.
We started out with the verse to everything there is a season and a time, to every purpose under the heaven.
And he hath made everything beautiful in his time. His purpose is to is to is to bring us to a point of being more like Christ. And that purpose has twists and turns and seasons that we may not understand or appreciate. At this point. We may feel like we wanna be in someone else's season.
But we need to recognize his hand in our current season.
We need not to focus on the negative in our current season so that we can be patient for his direction and his proper end to our season.
Let's close in prayer.
Our God and our Father, we thank Thee for this message. We thank Thee that Thou art all knowing, all powerful, and most of all, all loving.
That has our best interest in mind. Thou knowest what is right. Thou knowest better for us than we know for ourselves, and we can trust thee.
But our feeble minds put us in a position where we question it.
And we ask that for each of us, we thou knowest what struggle each of us are going through and what season.
And what part?
In what request thou hast of us, thou wouldest help us to see thy mind, see thy hand move past our vision of what is here and now.
And to appreciate by hand in our seasons, and to be brought and conformed more to thy son.
We thank Thee for this time and ask for thy blessing for the rest of the evening. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Days are Long, Years are Short
Where the Heart Is
Address—Craig Hayhoe
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Well, whenever I'm near a scene with water, it makes me think of a think of a particular hymn I enjoy that speaks a little bit about the events of life and how it sometimes there are storms in our life and sometimes there are pleasant shores in our life. And that hymn is #290.
Why those fears? Behold is Jesus holds the helm and guides the ship. Hymn #290.
What?
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OK, let's look at the Lord for his help for the meeting.
Our God and our Father, we turn to thee at the start of this meeting tonight.
And we seek Thy help and Thy blessing and Thy undertaking for us.
Where God, thou knowest the state of each one here in this room tonight.
I know the difficulties of life. I know it's the trials that we each face. I know us who in this room is saved, and I know us, if any here has not put their trust in thee too.
Oh Lord, but I spirit, tonight we ask thee our God, that thou hast give us words that would encourage us along in our Christian life.
We think of the storms that we each face throughout our daily life and the things that come in and rob us of our joy and happiness in Thee, O Lord, and how we need to be encouraged and built up in these times together that are apart from the world.
Lord, we seek thy blessing and thy help. Tonight we thank thee. We can turn to thee for all things in life, O Lord, and thou dost have a path for us throughout this world. O Lord, bless us tonight with thy word undertaken. Guide we pray we do give thee thanks and commit our time to thee and Thy precious name. Amen.
You know what? I don't know a lot of people here. I probably know about 25% of you, or one third maybe at best.
And I don't know how many in this room are saved and how many are unsaved, but I suspect that many many in this room.
00:10:04
Are saved and know the Lord as their savior. But there's a lot of young children here tonight. And before I begin on the subject that I have before me, I would just like to read a Gospel verse. Romans 10, verse 9.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.
And shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead.
Thou shalt be saved.
You know, as I said, I can't tell by looking on the outside of you if you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
There's lots of young children here. Some are five years old, some six years old, some 78910. I'm sure many of you have been to sunny school often or to a gospel meeting. You've heard of God's love and how he gave his Son the Lord Jesus to die for you. How the Lord Jesus was hung up on the cross of Calvary and they're punished for the sins of all those who trust in him.
And you know, I just want to tell you about God's love at the beginning of this meeting. Because he has a plan for you and your life, young boy, young girl. And he wants you to accept him as your savior. He wants you to confess His name.
He wants you to not believe on the Lord Jesus that he died for you in your head, but he wants you to accept it in your heart. Lord Jesus loves little children and he wants He has a bright home in heaven where he wants you to spend eternity with him. And I trust every boy and girl tonight knows how to be saved. You know it's so simple how to accept the Lord Jesus into your heart.
All you need to do is confess who he is, that he is the Lord, and believe in Him in your heart.
Paul said to the Philippian jailer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thou shalt be saved. It's just as simple as that. Just believing, you know, a gospel message that I really like is found in Luke chapter 18, and I'm not going to turn to it. But there it has a story of a man who went up to the temple to pray two men, 1A Pharisee, a self-righteous man. And that self-righteous man, when he prayed, he talked all about himself. He said, I'm really good. I do this, I do that. I don't do these bad things. I'm really good.
And then the publican man, he bowed his head and would not look up to heaven.
But he said these 7 words.
God be merciful to me, a Sinner.
Seven in scripture speaks of completeness or perfection perhaps. What wonderful 7 words for a young boy or girl to say tonight. How simple it is to say and believe. God be merciful to me a Sinner.
Those words recognize who God is.
They recognize our need of mercy and they recognize that we're sinners and that is all you need to do to be saved tonight is to believe on the Lord Jesus, to confess who He is.
And to maybe pray those 7 words. God be merciful to me a Sinner. You know what it says here in this verse? It's interesting. It says and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead.
You know, I had a really nice privilege this past year of taking my family on a trip this past spring break and March. My wife and five kids and I, we took a once in a lifetime I'll call a trip to Israel.
And we flew to Israel and we rented a van.
And I was quite annoyed because it was a standard van. I can't understand why anyone would get a van that is standard. But nevertheless, I had a standard van. And we drove all around Israel, up, down, all around the Sea of Galilee, Caesarea, all over the place. And we saw lots of wonderful places in Israel, and we went on to see a Galilee there we went to Capernaum, and we saw lots of wonderful places in the Bible.
00:15:15
And it was uplifting and it was encouraging.
But you know, the most encouraging day for me was the very last day we were there.
We were in Jerusalem at the right by the Old City, and the Old City still has walls up there. The walls aren't the same that we're rebuilt. The walls that are there right now were built in the 1500s and instead of 12 gates, now there are 8 gates. And people stream in and out all day long of those gates. And within that Old city there's all kinds of markets and people buying and selling. And we went outside those gates and we went over to.
What is known as or what many believe to be?
The Garden Tomb.
Where the body of the Lord Jesus was put in when it was taken down from the cross.
And we went to that place and it's run by British Christians, I believe.
And it was a beautiful garden area. Perhaps some here have been there before.
And we listen to a Christian man give a tour of Oregon, give a talk about the, uh, the Lord's death.
And as we were sitting there talking, he pointed over and he said, you see that area over there?
That is what many believe to be a Golgotha, the place of a skull.
And we looked over and sure enough, when you look at those rocks right there, over a little way from the Garden Tomb, there were rocks in the shape of a skull. And it was very interesting to see it. Now, I do not want to say that this was the exact place. I don't know.
But then after the tour, the man really loved the Lord and it's always happy when we meet a Christian.
Who loves the Lord, isn't it?
And we went, we went over to the tomb where the tomb was.
There are many, many people there and they took our family near the beginning.
And in order to get into that tomb, we had to stoop down and go in that tomb.
And there is perhaps the spot, can't say for sure, where they lay the body of the Lord Jesus.
After he came down from the cross.
And put him down there in that tomb.
But you know, when we were in there, our family just fit inside it. We looked over into that tomb where the body of the Lord would have been.
And there was nobody there.
There was nobody there.
Why was there no body there?
Because God hath raised him from the dead. What a wonderful thought. You know, there was a verse on the side, just on the other side of it. And I have a wonderful picture of my five children there under the verse.
I'm not reverse says.
Now it escapes me. Uh, what does it say?
He is not here for he is risen. He is not here for he is risen. Have a wonderful picture of my children under that verse. Well, that's the blessing and the hope of every Christian God have raised him from the dead. And one day he is coming back to take everyone who believes in him to be with him. Well, I wanted to just give a short gospel at the beginning of the message tonight, but now I have on my heart to particularly speak to the young people, I hope.
Young people, you don't mind me addressing you in this meeting tonight? I feel a real kinship with you.
I feel in many ways that I am still a young person. Even though I'm 46 now, in my heart I'm still very young.
I'd like to look. I'd like to look at the life a little bit Short snapshot of the life of Solomon tonight.
And I'd like to talk about the heart.
And I'd like to talk about where our hearts are in connection with living for Christ. Let's turn over and begin in First Kings Chapter 3.
00:20:07
First Kings Chapter 3 verse. We'll begin at verse 7.
And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father.
And I am but a little child. I know not how to go out or how to come in.
And thy servant is in the midst of thy people, which thou hast chosen a great people, that cannot be numbered, nor nor counted for multitude.
Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart.
The sermon between good and bad. For who is able to judge this? Thy so great a people in a speech, please the Lord.
That Solomon had asked this thing, and God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing.
And has not asked for thyself long life, neither hast riches for thyself or us. Ask the life of thine enemies, but hast for thyself understanding to discern judgment. Behold, I have done according to thy words. Lo, I have given thee a wise and understanding heart. So there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.
And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked both riches and honour, so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days.
I want to talk about King Solomon a little bit tonight.
Because King Solomon was at a decision point in his life.
King Solomon, I believe, was a young man. Some have thought him to be 18, some have thought him to be older. I don't really know what age he was exactly.
But I want us all, I want us tonight to consider tonight that we are at a decision point in our life.
When we look in the throughout the books of the Kings and the Chronicles, we often see different kings who began to reign at different points in their life.
Some were very young, some were six or seven, some were 16.
Some were 40, some were different ages. I have a son who just turned 16.
And I read to him about King Isaiah because King Isaiah began to reign when he was 16.
And you know, young people, I believe that.
When you begin to reign in your life.
You begin to take responsibility.
And you have become, as it were, an individual.
And I would liken these kings who reigned at this young age to you and I.
When we are young, when we set out and have further responsibility.
And we are.
We are more accountable perhaps in our life to the Lord.
And so from a young age, or rather young age, Solomon now was going to be king.
David, his father, had moved on.
And now with Solomon's time to reign.
And that is like you and I tonight. I want to consider that that we're starting to reign in our life. We're starting to make decisions that affect us, and we're starting to make decisions that affect others of the other other of the people of God, other young people around us, other Christians, others in our assembly.
The decisions we make and the heart that we have.
Effects ourselves and it affects others.
And I want to look at Solomon here to see what it was that he had in his mind when it came to this point in his life.
You know, it says here in verse seven it says, And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king, instead of David my father.
And I am but a little child. I know not how to go out or how to come in.
You know, when I was young.
I got to tell you that I knew.
Five or six times as much as I do today. I was a really smart guy.
00:25:03
When I got older, I figured out that I'm not so smart.
You know Solomon here I like.
His state of soul before the Lord he was humble.
Are you and I tonight humble before the Lord?
We want to make decisions in our life. We set out.
To make a decision, are we humble before the Lord?
Do we consider ourselves to be but a child?
There's lots of young children here.
We consider ourselves to be in a state of dependence on the Lord and on others. Spiritual guides perhaps, as well.
Solomon here calls himself a servant. He wasn't a servant, he was a king.
The Lord wasn't.
A servant. He was a king, but he became a servant. He humbled himself.
And I believe that the state of soul that you and I need to have as we go about our Christian walk and our life.
A humble spirit before the Lord and before one another.
How we need a humble spirit.
Solomon considered himself but a child. He didn't know how to come in or go out.
You and I think we know how to come in and go out. I make lots of decisions in life and some really backfire big time on me.
And it's annoying. I'll tell you a funny, stupid decision I just made a little while ago.
I have a son named Eddie and I took him with me to a convention in Florida.
And in Florida, there's lots of theme parks, and I went to the convention by day and Eddie.
He's hung out with a cousin and when I was at this convention they had a.
Sign up sheet, sheet to go to SeaWorld one night. Go to SeaWorld. Go see all the whales and dolphins at Sea World.
So I said to myself, well, I think Eddie would really like going to SeaWorld. I'll sign him up to go to SeaWorld and he and I at night will go to SeaWorld. So I signed him up.
And that evening we went to SeaWorld and we ride to SeaWorld. And the thing that was kind of unique about it was whenever you go to theme park, it's usually light out. But you know, we were there at about 7:00 at night and it was dark out and we were there and a whole bunch of people were lined up there and ready to go into the theme park. And Eddie and I talked about a little bit.
And more than just seeing the whales, he wanted to go on a roller coaster.
Well, my stomach doesn't agree with roller coasters.
But I said, you know, Eddie, I will take you to a roller coaster and we'll go or I'll watch you go on a roller coaster.
So they opened the park and off we went. We went pretty quick right to this roller coaster.
And there was of course no line up and we had to go through all kinds of tunnels and whatever to get up to the front of the of the roller coaster.
And again, it was dark out and I couldn't see the roller coaster. I couldn't see where it went or what it did or whatever.
So we got up to the front.
And I took a look look at that roller coaster.
And I said, you know, Craig, you could probably go on that roller coaster.
And so I said, all right, Eddie, I'll go on the roller coaster with you.
Well, you know, there is one unique thing about that roller coaster that really.
I didn't really notice at first, but the roller coaster wasn't attached at the bottom, it was attached at the top.
And so I got in that roller coaster and they had us standing up.
And they strapped us in and of course said he wanted to be right at the front. So we were right at the front and I lucked out and it was pitch dark and I didn't know what I was doing, but I thought, you know, I can handle this.
And as we waited for other people to come, we.
Kind of encouraged one another and then, the man said.
All right, Are you ready to go? And everyone yelled, Yep, we're ready.
And he said OK, and with that he pushed a button. Instead of me standing up straight, he turned over and I was looking straight at the ground.
And right away, the roller coaster started going.
Well, I was not very happy.
I was very dismayed and that roller coaster immediately left that building and it started to go up and up and up and up until I thought it would never stop. And I looked down and I could make out the ground, but it didn't look pleasant. And we climbed over that hill and that roller coaster started rolling towards the ground. And I got to tell you right then and there I thought my life is over.
00:30:25
And it went straight down to that ground. And justice about as it touched that ground, it jerked us right back up and started another climb, slow climb, up, up, up.
Oh my goodness. As soon as it hit the top again, the same thing. Whammo. Right down to the ground and right there again, I thought, my life is over and, you know, is it? Just before I hit the ground again, it started twisting and turning and going this way and that way and all over the place. And I was holding on for dear life. One moment I was looking at the earth, the next moment I was looking at the sky. And I got a tire right at the time that my stomach and my heart switched places, the thing began to stop.
And slow down.
And I'll tell you, I was some sick after that ride.
You know all throughout that park.
Because we were a special convention group, they were giving out free food.
And I gotta tell you, if there's one thing I like, it's food.
And there's one thing I like better than food. It's free food.
But you know what?
Sadly, I couldn't partake very much that night.
You know, that was an example of a foolish decision. I thought I could handle something and I couldn't handle it.
And you know, sometimes in our life we think to strike out on our own.
And make decisions on our own.
I not go to the Lord for those decisions.
And we fumble around.
And nothing good comes out of what we do.
I've done it more than once, let me tell you.
You know, the Lord wants us to take our decisions and life to Him.
Here he comes and appears to Solomon, and he says to Solomon.
Ask what you'll have.
Ask me what you want in life.
Dear young people, what is it tonight?
That you want out of life.
Is it to be rich?
Is to have a nice sports car.
Is it to have the latest technological device?
And have lots of money.
Is it things for self?
Are they or are they things for Christ?
That challenges me.
It really challenges me.
What did Solomon ask for?
Verse 9 Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart.
To judge the people that I may discern between good and bad, For who is able to judge this thy so great a people?
You know, I forgot to read verse eight. Let me just read that.
And thy servant is in the midst of thy people, which thou hast chosen.
You know, I believe that each one of you here dwell among the people of God in your own home assemblies.
It says here thy servant is in the midst of the people which thou hast chosen.
Here tonight, you're amongst a number of the people of God as well.
Solomon's desire was to be a blessing to the people of God.
It wasn't for great riches.
It wasn't for the death of his enemies.
Was to have an understanding heart.
So we could discern.
And help the people of God.
What a wonderful thought that is.
You and I have.
A desire tonight to be a blessing to God's people.
If the Lord could look down tonight and ask you a question tonight when you go to bed, what is it that you want? Well, the first thing that comes to mind, or first thing to me. I'm gonna point the finger at me be Lord. I wanna be a blessing to the people of God.
00:35:14
I want to give my heart.
To you, Lord, and I want to be a blessing to God's people.
I don't think that would necessarily be the first thing out of my mouth.
I think I would be selfish and that I would want desires that would fulfill perhaps the lusts of the old nature.
But Solomon wanted.
A heart.
That the Lord could use for the blessing of his people.
Dear young people, their heart in Scripture speaks of where the affections are.
Where are your affections tonight?
Are they on things of the world?
Were they upon the things of Christ?
Are they? Do they go along to the fulfilling the next dream that you have?
Were they?
For living for the Lord and walking in such a way that you can be a help.
To your brothers and sisters in Christ, in the midst of the people of God, that he has chosen to put you among.
Perhaps I'm not always keen on the brothers and sisters in Christ that I have been chosen to be among.
And I'm sure they're not always keen on being among me.
Solomon wanted to be a blessing to God's people.
He wanted to use his wisdom.
For God's people.
He had a heart for the things of Christ.
Do we have a heart for the things of Christ? Do we have a heart for the world?
You know, there was a man in Scripture that had a heart for the things of the world.
His name was Lot.
And when he and Abram had to decide which way to go, you know how large you chose which way he was going to go.
He lifted up his eyes.
He looked with his eyes and he saw what looked to be appealing. A plain and easy dwelling place.
That looked pleasant to him and he said I want to live there.
I want to do that.
And what was the result of that?
He pitched his tent towards Sodom and within a very short time I imagine he was sitting in the gate of Sodom in a place of respectability in a city.
That was given to sin. You know, there are lots of cities in this world that are given to sin.
When you make a decision, don't lift up your eyes and make a decision based on what everything looks like around you.
Lift up your eyes to the Lord and seek his direction.
What was the result of Lot's decision?
He lost his wife. He had to be dragged out of the city.
And his daughters committed incest with him.
And of that came the Moabites and the Ammonites, the enemies of God's people.
That was the result of lot moving.
For choosing to dwell where he thought it was good and pleasant.
Don't make your decisions.
Without direction from the Lord.
He will guide you.
He can direct you.
Don't leave him out of your decisions.
I want to turn now.
To a little bit later in Solomon's life.
Let's turn over to 1St Kings Chapter 11.
But King Solomon loved many strange women.
Together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites and Ammonites, Edomites, Cydonians, and Hittites of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, You shall not go into them, neither shall they come in unto you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods. Solomon clave unto these in love.
00:40:08
And he had 700 wives princesses and 300 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart.
Came to pass when Solomon was old. His wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtaroth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father.
Then did Solomon build a high place for Chimosh, the abomination of Moab and the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Moloch, the abomination of the children of Ammon?
And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.
Noticing here that there's the Moabites and the Ammonites.
They were the children of Lot's daughters.
They were the ones that they were, some of the ones that the children of Israel were not to go in amongst.
And they are listed in here.
Of there's a list of them here included, or their names are included in the list of strange women.
Solomon or the people of Israel were not to go after.
What a solemn thing.
Well, here we find later on in Solomon's life.
He had a great start to his life. In fact, he built the temple. If we were to read, we don't have time to read it, obviously to the Lord. A wonderful temple. Thousands and thousands of sacrifices of the dedication of the temple.
The Lord loves Solomon.
He had a good start in his life. The Lord gave him everything he could have wanted.
Riches honor gold horses. Actually, I shouldn't say that he multiplied horses in gold to himself, but the Lord gave him great riches.
What does Solomon do with it?
The lust of the flesh is a dangerous thing.
He starts going after.
Something that he was not to, he was.
The Lord brought Eve to Autumn, gave him one wife.
Solomon wasn't satisfied with one wife.
Quite frankly, his father wasn't either.
The Solomon's sin not much greater. He didn't stop at 5 wives he didn't stop.
100 wives You went all the way to 700 wives and 300 concubines.
Solomon had everything.
But he still wanted.
For he still let his heart go away after the lust of the flesh.
And he married women.
They shouldn't have married and they took his heart away.
They turned his heart towards strange gods, that man who built the temple of God.
He went after other gods.
The richest man, whoever lived. The man God blessed more than any other man, I believe.
He couldn't control his old nature.
Dear young people, do we control the desires of our old nature?
Do we control the desires of our heart? Our affections go upward.
Or do they go outward?
They should go outward to the people of God, but they should not go outward to the world.
Holloman found himself.
For we find Solomon in a sad place at this time of his life.
Gaw him so much.
And yet he wanted more.
Reminds me of Adam and Eve. God placed him in the garden of Eden, gave him everything.
Told him just don't eat of this one tree and what do they do? They eat of it.
God has given you and I so much.
What are our hearts going after? What are our affections going after?
00:45:04
Are they going after those things that God has provided for us?
Were they going after?
The lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes.
Are we looking around in the world amongst us and saying all my friends at school have that, so I want that all my friends at school play that video game, so I want to play that video game.
All my friends are allowed to go on the Internet alone, so I can go on the Internet alone.
Is that what we say? Are we no different?
You accept Christ as your Savior. The Spirit of God comes and lives inside you, and your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost and ye are not your own. Scripture says you're bought with a price.
What a price was paid for my sin.
If you knew more about me, I would be ashamed to be standing around in front of you.
Thankfully, the Lord paid the debt for my sin.
With dear young people, our hearts can take us places where we don't know.
It can take us dangerous places.
They can take us down a path.
That destroys ourselves.
And then we're of not a lot of use, shall we say, to the Lord.
I want to stop there for a moment.
You know, if you and your life, as I have in my life, find ourselves in a position, we have gone down a path where we have deeply dishonored the Lord.
I'm going to tell you what you need to do, and we're going to do it right now. We're going to go to Psalm 51.
I'm sure many are familiar with this passage.
This is what David wrote after his great sin with Bathsheba.
He saw a woman he wanted, who he shouldn't have had, took her, went and murdered her husband and took her for his wife, and then it was brought to his conscience.
And he recognized his great sin.
When you and I sin.
Or get ourselves in a state where we desire to the Lord. This is a chapter to go to. I'm just going to read a few verses.
Verse 7. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, but the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
I thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.
This is a place to go to when we fail.
I've had to go here in my life.
It's a place to go to.
But you know.
If you give your heart to the Lord.
And you let Christ live through you.
When you go to make decisions in life.
Your eyes and your thoughts will go upward rather than outward.
And I trust the Lord can guide you to make a decision that honors him.
And not to get carried away with our heart's affections.
On things that are all around us.
Now I just want to read just a couple more verses before we close. Let's just turn over to Proverbs chapter 4.
Proverbs 4 verse 23.
Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life.
Put away from the forward mouth and perverse lips, put far from the.
00:50:01
Luxine Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyes look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet. Let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left.
Remove thy foot from evil.
Keep thy heart with all diligence.
What is diligence?
It's work. It's effort.
Keep thy heart with all diligence.
You won't be able to keep your heart for the Lord.
If you're an apathetic Christian.
I think that's one of the greatest.
Things that cause us to fall in our Christian life is apathy towards the things of Christ.
I know it's in my life. It's not that necessarily the great evil Temptation that Satan perhaps puts in front of me.
It's just general apathy in my own life.
Letting things begin to slide and then all of a sudden I was sliding a little further, a little further and a little further.
Keeping your life for the Lord requires diligence.
Requires you to read your Bible. Requires you to have fellowship with the people of God.
It's a blessing for you to be able to attend the assembly meetings.
They're tough to get to some evenings, aren't they? I face it too.
But it has a keeping effect on our heart when we go, when the word of God is open.
When we have a time of prayer, it has a keeping effect.
Ponder your path.
From the eyes of God.
How would he think of you taking a step down that path?
Ponder.
Just a couple more verses in the same chapter a little earlier. I brought up these verses with the young people at the cottage a week or two ago.
Verse 14.
Enter not into the path of the wicked.
And going out in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.
When everyone came into this room tonight.
You came through that door.
Or that door, actually, I'm not sure if there's a basement door, but.
I will tell you this, that you came in through a doorway.
What does it say here?
Enter not into the path of the wicked.
You know, there are doorways in our life.
That leads to pathways of the wicked.
And when we enter those doorways, we enter a path.
That only goes downwards.
Don't enter those doorways.
It may be a literal doorway, or maybe a doorway on the Internet. Maybe a doorway of a theater. Maybe a doorway.
Of a club or whatever.
Enter not into the path of the wicked.
Going on in the way of evil men, avoid it.
Pass not by it. Turn from it and pass away. You know it's a happy occasion for us to be here together, apart from this world.
What a happy thing it is to meet other Christians who I haven't met before, and for my children to meet other Christians.
And have fellowship one with another.
It's a small taste of the glory that awaits us, where there will be fullness of joy.
It's a place apart.
Young people of the Lord would desire you to keep your life apart.
In this world.
Who desired you to have fellowship with the people of God?
Not the people of this world.
Desire you to have a heart for the things of Christ, that you could be a blessing to other young people and encouragement for them to have an understanding heart.
For the people of God, for the Lord's word.
For the Lord's ways.
He wants your heart.
00:55:00
He gave for you his life.
He wants you to give him your heart.
Your affection, your love, your walk.
Verse 18.
But the path of the justice is the shining light.
And shineeth more and more. Another perfect day.
What a day that will be.
When my Jesus, I shall see.
What a happy path to be on.
Oh, I encourage each of you dear young people.
Give your heart to the one who gave his life for you.
Don't set it on the things of this world.
This world is reserved unto fire against the Day of Judgment. Everything you now see is going to be burnt out.
Only the things that you do for Christ will be the things that last you can take into eternity with you.
Let your walk be.
A walk that pleases the Lord.
Give him your heart.
Spawn per.
Our God and our loving Father.
How we thank thee for thy precious word.
You thank Thee, O Lord, that there is so much in it that we can learn from.
Oh Lord, we think of how Solomon at the beginning of his life wanted to be a blessing for thy people.
Oh Lord, we pray that each one here.
Who has had a decision point in their life?
But have a desire to live for thee, and to be a blessing to thy people, and to grow for thee.
We think, O Lord, how often in life and later on and throughout days that the devil.
Attempts to draw our hearts away and tempt us.
With things that we should not be involved in. Things we should not look at.
Things we should not participate in.
O Lord, we ask Thee that we would diligently keep our hearts for Thee, and we would read Thy word that we would seek out the fellowship of other believers who know the.
They would have victory in her life over things.
That are sinful.
Help us, O Lord, when we.
Fail to go to thee on her knees and to confess her sin.
He pray that the joy of our salvation will be restored to us and we will be a blessing to one another in our lives. We thank Thee, O Lord, for this time that we are able to have here. We thank Thee for each one here.
Think of the young children Lord, and we pray for salvation for each we ask Thee, O Lord, we be encouraged and built up in our most holy faith.
I would bless her time and the few remaining days here.
We look forward all over to being with thee and like thee one day what a joy that will be. So we thank you for this time together. Commit our time to thy into thy hands. And I alone, worthy and precious name. Amen.
Yes.
Where Art Thou?
Address—Bruce Imbeau
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
277 And if someone can start the hymn please.
Correct.
All right.
While we were saying you might have noticed, this is a review of Psalm 23.
00:05:03
Let's pray our God and our Father, and we just do look to Thee.
For guidance and encouragement as we open up the Word of God, we just do pray for a blessing here this evening.
That we might realize that Christ desires to be our shepherd and our guide. We do pray too, that we might seek after the Lord Jesus and it might be our heart's desire to have company and fellowship with Thee.
So we pray for encouragement and a blessing. In Jesus name we give thanks, Amen.
We're gonna do something a little bit different this evening.
Which will give me about 10 minutes of time that I don't need to speak.
But uh, want to start by reading a verse in Genesis chapter 3?
This is about Adam and Eve.
Chapter 3 and verse 8.
And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him.
Where art thou?
Where art thou?
So we have a little piece that.
Had a little help with putting together and I think it's about 10 minutes and it's a little word from uh.
Uh.
Sorry, it's a little word from John Whitaker.
How be it? It's John Avery Whitaker who, uh, in Fantasyland built a certain machine. So if you go ahead and play that for us, please.
Meanwhile, our lunch is waiting. And you lost count. What? Oh, that's right. You stopped at 1616. Are you sure? As certain as I am about anything. OK, thanks.
Well, let's go eat. Is the sign up closed for maintenance? OK, good. Well maybe this will finish downloading by the time we've had our lunch.
They're gone. Come on. Come on. Where to? The Imagination station. Didn't you hear? It's closed. I don't want to use it. I just want to hide in it. That's the last place Connie will think to look for. I don't think we should, Sarah, the sign says it's closed. Fine, you can go and hide somewhere else then. But Kevin, it's the best hiding place in the whole building.
And hide there if you want, I'm going to find somewhere else.
OK.
This is perfect.
Now let's see. close the door.
Welcome to the Imagination station. The auto start has been engaged. Please select your adventure. Select an adventure. But I don't want an adventure. I'm just playing hide and seek. Thank you.
No need to apologize, boy, Come get warm by the fire. Thank you, but I'm lost. The desert at night. Who can find their way? Desert.
Helpful old man. And throw that log on the fire, Sure.
Let's see. Look, Sir, I'm kind of confused. About what?
I don't know where I am. Oh, where are you supposed to be?
Well, we were playing hide and seek and then hide and seek. An interesting expression. It's a game. You never heard of it? Tell me. Well, you hide and someone else tries to find you.
I've played that game then good for you. Anyway, so I played it with God.
Terrific. But see, I wasn't What God you played hide and seek with God, where are you?
00:10:19
In the guide.
We had complete fellowship with God. Then he gave us everything. Everything looked a tree. Stay away from the tree, he said.
And we did at first.
My wife, she, she went to look at it, just to look, she said later.
But it was there, that cunning deceiver, it said that God lied to us, that God was afraid we would be like him if we ate the fruit from that tree.
We were so weak, so she reached up and beat into the fruit. I ate as well. Sweet lips.
But I remember this story.
I know you can't hide from God. Yeah, well, we were the first to find out.
Where are you? Where are you?
He knew he was God, of course he knew, but he called anyway to give us a chance to present ourselves.
What's your name, Sir?
I am Adam.
Where can I escape from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I climb up to heaven, You are there if.
I make my bed and the pit of the earth. You are there.
I travel to the limits of the east or dwell at the bounds of the West. Even there your hand will be guiding me.
David, where are you, Nathan?
Please don't stand on ceremony by knocking first. A word if you please. For you anything. I see you brought a boy and a lamb. What's all this? I have come to tell you a story. A story? It's a story of two men in a city. One man was rich with large flocks and herds.
The other was poor, with nothing of his own except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He had reared it and it grew up in his home together with his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and nestled in his arms.
It was like a child to him. Well, that's a very nice story, Nathan. However, one day a traveler came to the rich man's house, and he, being too greedy to take something from his own flock or herd to serve his guests, took the poor man's lamb and served it for the meal. Is this a true story, Prophet? As the Lord lives, the man who did this deserved to die. He shall pay for the lamb four times over because he has done this.
00:15:04
No pity. Show me this man.
You are the man. What thus says the Lord God? It is I who anointed you king over Israel. I rescued you from the hands of your enemies. I have added to your family and would have done even more. Why then have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah and taken his wife Bathsheba to be your own.
Surely the Lord God will deal with him now.
Sinned against the Lord, I have sinned. Have mercy upon thee, O God, according to your loving kindness.
In the fullness of your tender mercies.
Plot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquities and cleanse me from my sins.
For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Created me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Where are you?
Something's wrong. This is like a nightmare.
Huh. What? Go ahead to that street. Did you see? Let me know if there are any Roman guards. Would you do that? Wait a minute. I know you. No, that's not possible. I saw you on the beach. You were fishing and Jesus called you to follow. What? Who are you? Who sent you here? No one. I was just listening to me. I didn't understand.
He said he would be handed over, but not like this. No, not like this. Like what? They're going to kill him. Don't you see? He told us over and over. But you, you don't believe it until it's right there in front of you. He said he called us to pick up our crosses and follow him. But but.
Nobody said it would be so hard.
So hard.
Oh God, forgive me, get out of my way. Hey, watch out.
Got to be a way out of it. I don't understand what's happening. Where are you, Mr. Whitaker?
I'm not here, Mr. Whitaker. Get Me Out of here, Mr. Whitaker. Mr. Whitaker.
Mr. Whitaker.
Oh, careful. Oh, I'm so sorry, child. What's wrong? It has happened. The most glorious thing. What? He's risen. Jesus has risen from the dead. We must find the disciples. Where are they?
Too much.
Whoa, watch out.
I figured out what was going on. All those scenes were about God looking for people, calling them. That's right.
Do you think God's looking for me too? Oh, I'm sure he is, Kevin.
So how do I answer?
Well, why don't we go to my office where I can explain it properly, OK?
Eugene, I'll be in the office with Kevin for a while. All right, Mr. Whitaker.
You see, Kevin, God loves us more than we can imagine. Because of that love. He wants us to love Him, man.
So I guess God is still looking for us.
I believe so, Connie. Where would we be if he didn't, exactly?
00:20:12
Anybody recognize those stories?
Who's actually listening to the play before?
Yeah.
The ones I've heard, I consider that one to be the best out of the.
Whatever, there are 70 of them or something.
Adam.
Where art thou?
God is indeed searching for us.
But there's this question this evening. What are we searching for?
What have we lost?
And by searching, what perhaps can we gain?
Starting to install 42.
Psalm 42.
As the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
This person was searching.
Searching for God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night.
While they continually say to me, Where is thy God?
Have you ever had that question?
Perhaps you're pretty sure that God can see you.
But you're wondering if you'll ever see God.
Where is thy God?
Does he seem hidden? Does he seem aloof even sometimes?
Is he just not there so much so that he's not there that you did not pray last night before you went to bed and you did not crack open the Bible either last night or this morning?
That God just isn't there. Where is thy God?
It doesn't seem like Adam is the only one who has lost.
In your opinion, is God lost?
Think about it. We've come to a Bible camp for seven days now. Eight. Well, OK, we're up there.
For yourself at a Bible camp, how many times did you open up the word of God? Where is your God?
Do you dare to answer that question?
To yourself even.
First four. When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me. For I'd gone with the multitude, I went with them to the House of God.
The voice of joy and praise with a multitude that kept holy days.
Did you?
The end, excuse me? The end of verse 10 again.
Where is thy God?
Why art thou cast down my soul, and why art thou disquieted with me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God.
Is God your God?
Is there something else in your life that's your God?
Who do you go to for help?
What other books do you read?
Do you read the Bible?
You know and and.
Another Psalm, Psalm 14, if I turn back to that.
The very first phrase here.
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Says the fool has said in his heart there is no God.
There's another Psalm that says almost almost identical to this Psalm. Not quite.
It has the same words all over.
The fool has said in his heart.
There's no gods.
Where are you going to find God?
And and when it turned to Psalm 139.
The Lord hath searched me.
And known me.
Thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising. Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compasseth my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my way.
Verse eight. If I send up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and my right hand shall hold me.
And versus the last two verses, search me.
Search me. Oh God.
And know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Do you talk to God?
Do you read his word? Do you want him in your life? You know, it's a very, very remarkable thing. There's folks out there that.
Whole Christian opinions and Christian thoughts.
And if I unders if I understood the comments right that in this very time.
This very year.
Is the least that Christians have read their Bible?
The younger group of people that call them this is this is all statistics about people who say they are Christians.
There's a younger group, I think the world calls them millennials or something. I have no clue what the actual parameters of that are.
I understand that if you are millennial, you don't like the term I've read. That beats me.
Highest rate of immorality ever.
Among Christians.
It's not a trivial thing.
You know, I pondered and actually was talking to someone at dinner about that.
The Lord is so close to coming.
The Lord, you can almost feel his breath on your neck, that he's that close to coming to take us home to heaven. And it is right now when the Lord is so close to his coming that Christians are giving up, giving up and giving up prayer and reading.
Do you read a chapter a day?
A chapter of the Bible. You know how long it takes to read a chapter of the Bible? 2 minutes.
That's even if you're a slow leader leader, a slow reader.
Two minutes.
I don't have any time. I'm rushed. You don't understand my schedule.
Two minutes. How long did you spend on your cell phone yesterday?
More than two minutes. Think about it. No time for God. The time for the cell phone.
Where is thy God?
Search me, O God.
And know my heart.
Try me.
And know my thoughts.
You know, the Lord knows everything about us, and sometimes we use that as an excuse. We say, well, he already knows all about it. You know, I really don't need to talk to him.
00:30:11
He got me all figured out anyway.
And you know he does. Have you figured out?
But I want you to think about this.
God in an eternity past was complete in Himself.
He had as we would think of once he would. He had no one.
And yet he created a universe.
And this is another astonishing thing that Christians in a much larger number than like ever before do not believe in creation anymore. Christians, these are church going folks like you.
There's different names, but it's like.
Directed evolution or something? Theist evolution. Someone may have a better term. But anyway, it's out there. They say, Oh yeah, yeah, maybe God's like behind the scenes, like a puppeteer. You know, it's kind of seeing how things go, but otherwise it's all just evolving.
Christians are teaching that.
Where is thy God?
You know we need God.
In a continuous.
Communication.
It isn't a matter of simply kneeling down and praying in the morning, which I trust you do.
Kneel down and pray.
But there's an interaction with God all day long.
It just is because you're a Christian, it's because you belong to the one who runs the universe that you will stop and say hi.
I need you.
Or high.
I've been thinking about you.
And I'm glad that you saved me.
Hi, I love you.
Do we have time for that?
You better believe we have time for that.
Do we use our time for that?
I trust though, indeed.
You know, communication with the Lord is a very practical thing.
It's necessary for your life, for your schooling, for your job, for your family.
You know, let's say you're married.
You're a lady.
And you gotta talk some things out.
And sometimes there's kind of a way things go.
That number one, you might feel that your spouse doesn't hear.
I mean, actually doesn't hear.
And even if they do here.
You wonder if they listen.
And if they happen to be listening?
You wonder if they even understand.
And even if they seem to give some nod to the fact that they understand.
You wonder if they can even relate to what you just said.
Aren't you glad there's a God?
God understands, He hears, He listens, He understands, and He relates.
And he cares, casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you.
He's even asked us to call upon him in the day of trouble.
00:35:05
And I'm just gonna read some verses here.
In Matthew he says, I am with you even unto the end of the age.
It's at the end of Matthew.
I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Wouldn't this be somebody you'd like to? Yeah. Have a little communication with occasion.
Don't you think that might be a little bit better than a call?
It just might be.
You might wanna keep your cell phone in your purse or your pocket.
And make a call in a different direction.
He's there.
And he would loves us.
And he wants us to have this communication with him. Sometimes we use another word that we can sometimes get a little lost on. We call it communion sometimes. Some people communion means taking the bread and the wine on Sunday morning. But you know what communion means? You just kind of chat together that you get along.
That you make sense to each other.
That's really what Communion is.
You want that with your Creator, with your God. Well, let me tell you, He wants it with you too.
He wants it with each one of us.
This is kind of young people's camp.
But you know, all of this is very much for us that are older as well. Life can get absolutely harried.
You go in early and you get home late.
And if you're out in the field, like some in this room are a lot or related to farm industry, you know, up with the sun.
And sweaty and dusty, you come home a dirty mess and you jump right in the shower. And shortly you go to bed and your husband and wife goes.
Oh well, that was the end of another day.
The God, the Lord Jesus says I am with you.
Even to the end.
At the age, Lord Jesus Christ is a friend that sticks closer.
Than a brother.
We started with.
Adam, where art thou? We then moved on to Where is God? Where is thy God?
So I had a few verses I wanted to read about where.
And we'll turn back to.
Genesis 22.
Genesis 22 and verse 6.
Abraham took the wood.
Of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son. And I know this was, I was told this was kind of reenacted recently.
And.
And he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went, both of them together.
Both of them together, Father and Son, think of God and Jesus.
Isaac speaking to Abraham his father, and said, My father.
And you said, here am I my son, He said, Behold the fire in the wood.
But where is the lamb?
For the burnt offering.
Where is the lamp?
00:40:03
Do you realize that every blessing, every positive thing that is in your life comes to you because of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ?
They say Oh well. I.
Every blessing comes to you because of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And allow me to back up very simply, that if there had not been the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, there would not have been a creation and we wouldn't be here to think about it anyway.
But God has a plan. His plan is communion, communication.
He wanted you to be a friend.
And so the Lamb, the universe, was created and the Lamb was sent.
Where is the lamb?
For a burnt offering and Abraham said my son, God will provide himself a lamb.
Or a burnt offering. So they went, both of them together.
Where is the lamb?
Might get a little closer to the situation in Matthew chapter 2.
Matthew chapter 2 and verse one.
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea.
In the days of Herod the King, behold, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem.
And there's a little saying that goes this way. Wise men still seek him.
And that's a good little thing.
Where is he that is born King of the Jews, For we have seen his star in the Easter come.
To worship him.
Where is he?
Where is he?
You know God, as we heard in the play, seeks after us.
But do you seek after God?
Is I'm a Christian?
As a Christian, do you seek after God?
Someone came from a long way away.
We're not sure where they came from.
In the Eastern, middle or eastern part of the Middle East.
And they came traipsing across.
Presumably on Camel.
And they came to Jerusalem.
Why didn't they go to Damascus?
That was an older city and it's been around a long time. It was pretty important in history, especially by the time Christ came along, Damascus was had been very important in history.
Come to Jerusalem.
Where is he? They asked.
That is born king of the Jews.
How many people in this world have been born king?
I don't know. It's possible that there's someone, but usually you're born a Prince or Princess and then when your dad or mom knocks off, you become a king or queen.
Well, that's how it works.
But here's someone that disturbed the whole city of Jerusalem because they asked a simple question. They said where is he?
That is born king of the Jews.
Hey.
We're Jewish people.
Uh, we don't know about anything. What are you asking about?
They had no clue.
00:45:01
The Lord of glory, the Creator of the universe, the one who had spoken to Moses in the burning Bush.
The one who had given the words to the prophets of Isaiah.
Who prophesied where Christ, and that Christ was coming?
There's other prophecies that speak of Bethlehem in particular.
He was the one who was directing all of that and he personally came into this world and was born as a baby.
Adam was not born.
He was made out of dirt.
Just as an aside, ladies, guys are made out of dirt.
Women weren't made out of dirt.
Keep that in mind.
Where is he?
Do you care?
Oh, really?
Do you care? You say you're a Christian?
But you forgot to pray, forgot to read your Bible.
And So what difference does it make? Where is he?
He'll take care of me. I believed on Jesus Christ. I confess my sins. I'm just fine.
At the same time that the immorality rate among people under 35 is skyrocketing who call themselves Christians.
Should you be a seeker? Should you be like this, wise men?
Who sought Christ out purposely? They made a trip of the deal. It wasn't just a casual thing. They were in the neighborhood. Oh well, we'll just check it out while we're here.
No, that's why they went.
Where is.
Let's turn to John, chapter 14.
A little closer to home he's been several years later. Jesus Christ is quite an adult. He's about 30, three years old.
John 14 verse one. Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me.
Do I? I mean, do I really believe?
I've heard the expression. You've probably heard it too.
As a Christian, we're brave enough to put our eternal welfare in the hands of Jesus Christ, but can't trust them for tonight or tomorrow.
Or next week.
Is that something?
You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions.
But we're not. So I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. And where did Jesus Christ go to prepare a place for you? He went to the cross.
I go to prepare a place for you, and that's how the place was prepared. There would be no heaven for us if there was no death of Christ.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again.
Kind of started with that. Lord's coming again. Then how should we live?
Famous verse somewhere back in the Old Testament. Isaiah, I think. How then shall we live?
How then, should we live?
I will come again receive you unto myself, that where I am.
There ye may be also Adam, where art thou?
Christ has promised that we will be with him where he is.
You descendants of Adam and Eve.
Do you, are you assured of a heavenly home with Christ, personally with Him?
Luke Chapter.
00:50:12
Luke 22 and verse 19.
No.
It is verse 8.
He sent Peter and John saying, Go and prepare us to Passover, that we may eat. And they said unto him.
Where wilt thou that we prepare?
And then he gave instructions.
Hey, you know.
There's different ideas.
About what the will of God is for your life. And I'm sure this question probably came up in the week. Usually does.
What's the will of God in your life? There's different theories about that. God has like a general will, so say some Yeah, he'll just like get you through this life and get you to heaven, OK.
That's like a general will of God takes one minute to say and it takes actually 0 minutes to even think about it because basically it says yo dude, you can do what you want.
He'll get you there.
OK.
Is that good enough for you?
It's good enough for a lot of people that call themselves Christians.
Where wilt thou that we prepare?
How about Matthew 18?
And I suppose you can guess what verse I'll read there.
Matthew 18, verse 20.
Ware two or three are gathered together in my name.
Dermai.
In the midst of them.
You know, the Lord Jesus did not purchase us to be robots or a word that I kind of like an automaton.
He didn't. He didn't do what he did.
So that we'd be like that.
If you wanna kinda put it in the vernacular, you can understand why he won't because what fun would that be for God? Just have a little wind up toys in heaven.
And you just set them going and they.
Would that, would that honor, would that please the heart of God?
No, of course not.
He built this as more than that.
Where two or three of you?
Are gathered together in my name. There am I in the midst of them. There's purposefulness. It can be purposefulness on your part. I believe that the majority of the thought and purpose, purposefulness is the Spirit of God's direction.
But where?
Where?
The Lord Jesus Christ loves us.
He wants us to think, quote, UN quote independently. He wants us to quote, UN, quote, think for ourselves. He does. That's why he wants you to personally read the scriptures, so they get it for yourself, so you can think about it yourself.
Don't waste your life listening to people like me standing in front of an audience.
That is a total waste of your Christian time.
Read it for yourself, get it for yourself.
And follow it in obedience to what you read in the Bible for yourself.
00:55:01
This is the will of God for you, even your sanctification.
He wants you to be set apart for him.
He has purchased you, He has sought you. Adam, where art thou? He has taken the effort to find you. He has given you a brand new life, brand new existence, something that rises above the affairs of this world and attaches you to heaven.
Now make use of it.
Put a smile on your face.
Put the Bible in your hands.
And put your knees on the floor to pray.
And live for Christ.
Because he deserves it.
Not that you're following a formula.
But you're following your heart, you're following your emotions because you care about the one who has cared for you.
Where are South?
Where are you tonight?
Where do you care to be?
Do you care?
I know you do.
Our God and our Father.
We thank thee that we can reflect on thy heart.
And that simple question.
Adam, where art thou?
Oh Lord Jesus.
It's always teachers to feel that love, that motivation.
From thy point of view, to seek after us.
It would be but a simple thing to seek after thee, Lord Jesus.
May we truly seek.
And we know that we will find.
We know that we will find thy will, we will find thy delights in US.
Which are in the sons of men.
We do thank thee that we will find that there's one who cares for us at every step.
We pray that we might bow our hearts, bow our knees to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, in simplicity and humility, to honor Thee in this world that is so dishonouring to Thee and getting worse.
We pray that we might stand out as lights.
To be a blessing to those that are around us also.
In Jesus name we pray and give thanks. Amen.
Armor
Children—Luke Mackewich
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good morning. Welcome to the Sunday School.
Today we have the privilege to share with you the good news about Jesus. But first we're going to start off with some singing. Does anyone have a favorite that they would like to sing?
Little donkey alright.
There once was a.
I am leaving last year alarms where I began to.
At $20 million to take off.
I'm clear, you know. I'm sorry.
Oh, I replied. And I'll see you and then go.
That was a good one. Anybody else?
The books of the Bible. All right, Genesis.
Three if I am first time I guess I'm new love them kings and first time suck it chronicles.
I lie near my asterisk. You'll die. Now what I've got.
Probably the eyes is on the one man I take care of my land and patience to be killed in your day.
Is going on my God may I'm out of time than I am yet after I am.
I was good. How about someone from this side of the room?
Yesterday, today forever, Yesterday I someone else can start that yesterday.
Today.
Good morning to his name.
The other day, Andrew and his name.
00778 Five 3786.
Anybody else?
Little ship on the sea.
A little ****.
00:05:01
10-4, 10-4 10-4 OH 10-4 8. 10-4 OH 10-4 30. 10-4 OH 10-4 30. 10-4 OH 10-4 OH 10-4 010 10-4 10-4 01. Griffiths are on the end of the thyroid width of the Sun.
And it's like what? Dark dark Ross. Dark darkness.
That's all I want.
So are afraid of taking it and not being.
In that one, I am still on the way in 1991.
937 eight 537,439 Reaching for help and create new and come when I'm planning I'm still not with our world.
That was a good one. One or two more.
IOSIVEDRUSAVED.
Are you too?
One more.
123-4567 Good song.
1.
5678, 5, 8, 975.
846-5462.
30, 00039.
989-780-0915.
4567, 8-9 10.
00:10:20
OK, now I know I said that was going to be the last song I was going to have you pick out, but I didn't tell you that I had one more song that we were going to sing and we're going to sing the verse and the chorus and it's read your Bible, pray every day and you'll grow, grow, grow. You guys know that one.
Yeah, I just love Wow. Hello.
Alright, now before we get going, we're just going to ask the Lord for some help and some direction, all right, So you close your head, close your eyes and bow your head.
Our blessed God and Father, we thank Thee for the opportunity that we have to come together.
And learn more of your beloved Son and his love for us. Who is asked for that? All the words that would come forth would be from thee and not from me. We ask this in thy name, Amen.
I'm going to start with a few words.
In Ephesians 6 starting in the 1St 10. Now, I heard that some of the kids may have learned a little bit about this this week. Does anybody know what that is off the top of their head?
The armor of God. Pretty smart, Wonderful. Ephesians 6.
Starting Yeah, we'll start with verse 11.
Put ye on.
The whole armor of God.
That you may be able to stand against the Wiles of the devil.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness and high places.
We read elsewhere in First Peter, it says.
We're warned of our adversary, the devil who walks about with a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
That's kind of scary if you have an adversary, the devil, and he's trying to bring us down, trying to destroy us.
But then you read something about the armor.
What is important about the armor?
Is #1.
Do you have the armor?
You know, we can read about putting it on, but if you don't have any armor to put on.
It doesn't do you any good now does it?
Now when the devil goes about seeking whom he may devour.
Do you think he cares whether you have armor on or don't have armor on? You're a tasty meal either way, and so it's important #1.
That we have the armor on now how do we translate that into our lives is number one. We need to be saved.
How do we How can we be saved? Who here knows how we can be saved, David?
Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ? Excellent. It's that simple. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Ask God for his forgiveness. Say, Lord, I know who you are. I believe that you are God, that you came to die for me.
I believe that you are raised from the dead for my sins. Please forgive me, it's that easy. But.
You know, if you don't have that armor, if you're not a Christian.
00:15:02
You have no protection. You're walking through life, whether at school or with your friends, and you are defenseless. Who here likes to be defenseless?
I don't. It's a scary thing. We like to feel safe. We like to feel protected. Now, I don't know a whole lot about armor. I wasn't in the military. I don't use it.
I work as an engineer and I work on construction sites and so I have a different type of armor that keeps me safe. You guys interested?
I have a hard hat.
Protects my head. I got to.
Snazzy.
High visibility safety goes fast.
What else do I have?
Safety glasses. Safety first.
I even have some really big boots to keep my feet nice and safe.
So I might not have armor as in helmet, Shields, whatever.
But I have different things that are required to help keep me safe at work.
No.
Let me try something else.
Can you?
Use somebody else's armor.
No. You sure?
Let's read a story about that.
First Samuel 17.
And verse 38, we've all heard the story of David and Goliath, but some part that some of us forget about is after David volunteered to go fight the giant, the king said unto him, You're not prepared here, take my armor, it says in verse 38. And Saul armed David with his armor, and he put on him a helmet of brass upon his head, and he armed him with a coat of mail.
And David girded his sword upon his armor.
And he has said to go, for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these, for I have not proved them. And David took them off.
We can't use other people's armor in our lives just because your mommy or your daddy is a Christian or your brother or your friend. We can't use their faith to save us. It has to be real. It has to be individual.
Now let me ask a question. Who wants to try on my armor?
We got to volunteer all right.
Come up over here.
Alright.
All right, come over here and turn around.
Oh no, your boots are a little too small, you know.
I think you're going to be able to go out and stay safe and fight your battles and that.
I think that might be a little hard. See, in our lives, sometimes we try to pretend or we try to use our friends faith or our parents faith, and we never make it real. But in reality, what happens is we go out and we look like that. We can't fight in somebody else's armor. We need to have our own armor that is suited for us. Thank you, You're a good volunteer.
But there's another part of that verse.
And it says I cannot go.
For I have not proved it. What does that mean? I have not proved it.
Anybody know?
That means I haven't tried it out. I don't know if it really even works. How do I know if it works?
00:20:00
Now I have another piece of safety gear in here.
See if anybody knows what this is. I know I'm gonna guess most people are gonna come up with no.
This year is an air monitor that I wear when I'm out on a dangerous site and it lets me know if there's enough oxygen in the air or if there's a lot of carbon monoxide or if the air is so explosive. If I make a smart well, I go boom.
You don't want that. And so I have this air monitor that I wear when I go out on a construction site or a refinery or oil pipeline. Now let me ask you, do you think it would be smart if I tested this to make sure it works before I go?
Yeah, you know, if I go out on site and it doesn't work, it doesn't do me any good.
So before I go, I need to try it, to make sure it works. And in our lives, in our armor, we need to put it on and we need to try it. We need to read our Bibles, we need to pray, we need to ask questions.
Now, I like to prove things out. So step number one is I'm going to prove out that these boots work. So which of you would like to prove that these boots work? Cameron All right, come up and stomp on my toes as hard as you can.
Let's give a flat surface. All right, there you go. Now, that didn't hurt at all, but I think it's just because you're really small, you know, these boots, No offense, but that was a good effort. I think. Should we try somebody bigger, see if they can stop really hard, make sure these boots really work?
Sam, we get an adult, a big person to come stop on my shoes. Is that going to hurt?
I didn't feel a thing. I proved my armor. I made sure it worked.
Have you proved God?
He will never fail you.
He will never leave you. All the defenses that you have in him will work.
Now I've been talking about the devil.
And these attacks that we get.
I just got stomped on my toes.
But often when we're attacked by the devil, those aren't the type of attacks that we get attacked by. You know, we may get some physical attacks, but often it's spiritual or inner minds or temptations or thoughts. Let's turn to 2nd Corinthians chapter 10.
2nd Corinthians, chapter 10.
Starting in first three.
Says For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.
You know, oftentimes when we're attacked or attempted.
It's a little whisper. It's, you can do that. That'd be fun. You know what happened? You should go punch your brother. He's being mean to you. You should go hit your sister. It's OK to take that, uh, extra cookie from the cookie jar. You know, often times those temptations that we get, they aren't necessarily physical fights or defenses, but in our lives, their thoughts, their intent, their desires that we have.
That really cause us to question God and who he is.
And so when we need to put on the armor of God, when we need to protect ourselves, often it's we need to protect our mind and our heart. And we do that through reading and praying as we was brought forth yesterday and how important it is to put it on daily.
But let me ask you a question.
00:25:01
How much of the armor, how much of my safety gear should I put on every day that I go to work all of it? You mean I can't just go to work with just my boots and forget the safety vest and the hard hat and the glasses and the gloves and all the other safety gear?
No, why not?
I won't be safe and I can get hurt very good.
In our lives, our.
We putting on the whole armor of God.
Are we reading and praying every day, or is our reading and praying well?
They're gonna read and pray at meetings, so that's good enough for me and that'll get me through the rest of the week. Is that what we need to do?
No, we need to do it every day.
But you know, I work out on construction sites and you know, you put on this safety gear.
It adds up. You know, I put this on, you know, I didn't even put on all my safety gear. You know what happens if I go on a site, I have to wear something like this?
It might smell really bad. You know, my wife might be changing a dirty diaper.
That might be fun for half hour hour. Can you imagine working outside all day long in the hot sun?
Starts to get really tired. You're like man.
I don't wanna wear that anymore. Nothing bad is gonna happen. I can just take off this piece of safety equipment.
You know, in our lives, sometimes we do that too, we could say.
I've had a really long day. I had all this fun at school playing with my friends, and then I came home and played on the computer and the video games played on the phone, and now I'm really tired and I need to go to bed.
I don't have time to read or pray.
Have we ever done that?
So often we can get caught up and the things that we're doing and say, oh, it's no big deal if I take off this piece of armor, it's no big deal.
If I don't use that today.
Do you know what happens when you take off your armor?
You're gonna get hurt and.
Sometimes it's not very pretty.
Now, oftentimes when we get hurt, we get enticed into sin. We get the devil says to us, you know, it's OK if you do this or that.
And you might steal that cookie from the cookie jar. You might lie to your parents. Maybe you're a older young person. And you might do a whole lot worse. You know, you might not get caught that one time.
Or the next.
Or the next.
But sooner or later it catches up to you and you get caught. And then not only do you suffer from.
Getting punished for what you did, then you also have the guilt and the shame and the fear and knowing that everybody else knows what you did. It's not just you who got caught, but everybody knows it was you. That's still the key from the cookie jar. It was you that lied to your parents. It was you.
That did drugs, it was you. That looked at *********** it was you.
And that eats away at us. And it might not get us the first time and it might not get us the second time. You know, the Bible says there is pleasure in sin for a season.
But the ends thereof are the ways of death.
And often we can get tempted into thinking that, you know, this situation, it's OK to put down our armor.
It's OK not to read our Bible. It's OK not to pray.
So that's when we get attacked. And if we don't have our armor, how do you defend yourself when you don't have your armor?
You can't. You can't get out of the way, and that's when we get hurt.
Now.
00:30:01
Part of being a Christian and part of having the armor.
Is training and growth.
We need to be able to know how to respond to different situations. I need to know if I'm going out on the construction site, do I need my air monitor? Do I need my respirator? What else do I have in here?
Am I going to be working at night and need a headlight?
Am I gonna be?
Wait, what's this? Am I going to be working on the ice? I need some foot traction so I don't flip and get hurt. And as Christians, we need to be able to discern different attacks from the enemy. Let's turn to Second Timothy 2:15.
It says study.
To show thyself approved unto God, a Workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Here's the key point rightly dividing the word of truth.
So not only do we need to read and pray for our protection.
But it helps us grow and to be able to recognize other attacks.
Who here remembers?
The first sin mentioned in the Bible.
What was it?
Adam and Eve.
Now let me ask you.
What did the serpent say? What did the snake say?
How did he attack them?
He told him to go to the tree with the wrong food on it.
He said that God has said that was afraid that you were going to be just like him when he ate the fruit.
Exactly. The devil said that God really say that. You know, I think what he really said was this and that.
Now.
When Satan tempts us or tests us.
He's very, very often.
We'll test us with miss loaded scripture.
Did you know that when he tempted the Lord Jesus in the wilderness?
He tested him with myths, quoted scripture.
Something that would, you know, mostly true and a little bit of a lie right in there.
And that's often how though, how we are attacked, how we are tripped up.
A little bit of a lie and the rest of truth.
Let me ask you if you haven't read your Bible and someone gives you a little bit of a lie and a whole lot of truth.
Well, you know whether it's right or whether it's wrong.
Does anyone know?
Often times people say and this verse says XYZ and you're like, sounds kind of right. I don't really know what it was. I never learned that in Sunday school as a kid.
And often times, if we don't learn the Word of God, if we don't read the Word of God, if we aren't in prayer before him, we will get tripped up when we're attacked by those deceptive little thoughts.
You know, I was told once it says that all sin no matter what we do wrong.
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As when we have a doubt of the goodness of God towards us, and we question and we act and we do something because we're truly doubting about God.
Now let me ask you.
When the Lord was tempted in the wilderness.
How did he respond?
Does anyone know?
He responded with Bible verses.
Let me ask you, when you've been tempted, have you ever responded with a Bible verse when your brother or your sister ever said, hey, let's go take that from mommy, let's go take that extra cookie? Have you ever said thou shalt not steal?
When you looked and said that person has a really nice pair of shoes. I really like a pair of shoes like that. I wish I could go to the mall and buy a pair of shoes like that.
Have you ever responded? Thou shalt not covet?
So often.
Those little things that start off simple and lead us astray, we can nip those right in the bud by responding to what God has said, how He would have us. And so we need to train. We need to grow. As the song says, read your Bible, pray every day and go grow, grow, grow. You need to be able to spot, you need to be able to recognize those situations. You need to be able to recognize.
The danger?
But you know.
You don't need to learn or to study.
All the bad things out there, to know that they're bad, If you know what is good, you can tell if it's bad. You know when they go to a bank and they teach them how to spot, spot a counterfeit bill or a fake dollar bill. Do you know how they do it?
They make them study the real one very well, very in depth.
They don't need to know all the different tips and tricks of all the counterfeit if they know exactly what the real thing is.
They can spot the fake and the same thing in our lives. If we read, if we pray, if we're feeding on God, we can spot those fakes, those attacks.
Now I have one other thing that I want to talk about.
You know, oftentimes I'll go out on a construction site.
And I'll see somebody.
Doing something unsafe.
Have you ever seen somebody do something that was not safe?
Yeah.
I've seen people ride their bikes without helmets.
Well, I can't. I've seen plenty of things that aren't safe. And you know what we're taught at work? If you see something unsafe, tell them. You know, sometimes they might get distracted, they might not be paying attention. If you see one of your friends doing something that's wrong, it's OK to say that's you shouldn't be doing that.
When I'm out in the field and I'm not paying attention and I walk into a situation that's very dangerous and I'm not aware of it, I appreciate when someone says, hey, you shouldn't be standing there. They're lifting something above your head that could come down and squash you. Hey, you shouldn't be standing there. That guy is in a really big jump truck and he can't see you.
Do you think I get mad when someone says you're doing something very unsafe?
No, I'm thankful. And in the same way in our lives, if our friends come to us and say, hey, I see this in your life.
It's not safe, it's destructive, it's leading you down a wrong path.
Realize that they are doing that for your good. They want what's best for you. I know that my coworkers want me to come home safe. At the end of the day, your friends want you to be safe as well.
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So I just ask you and kind of go to summarize.
One, we have an enemy that seeks to trip us up.
And he will seek to destroy us as a roaring lion.
Would you rather be protected by armor?
Or by nothing.
If you aren't protected by the armor.
If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
Did you know that you can do it right now? You don't have to leave right now.
You can make sure before you walk out this door that you have the armor.
To say, Lord, I have sinned, please wash my sins away.
It's that easy.
Now if you do have the armor.
Make sure that you prove it. Make sure that you're in the word every day.
You're reading. You're praying.
That you're trying it out, You're proving, just as I got my boots stomped on.
You want to make sure that it works.
You know, it's something that you need to do daily and it's something that you need to have refreshers on.
Now, how many people here noticed?
When I put on my hard hat.
Do you know what these stickers mean?
These stickers mean every single sticker.
Was I went to a different construction site or even the same one and I needed to be reminded about the dangers and how to be safe?
It is something that we need to do daily. We need to be reminded of the dangers. We need to be constantly in God's Word. We need to constantly be aware of the troubles that we can face, you know, and construction and engineering.
There's two groups of people that get hurt the most. Do you know what they are?
The people who are really new and don't know anything.
And the people who have been there for a while and think they know everything and they just don't pay attention anymore.
So I ask you, each and everyone of you.
If you happen to fall in either of those categories, whether you are a young Christian or an older Christian who thinks you're doing all right and oh, I know how it works and I don't have to deal with that. I can, you know, not use my safety gear. I can skip my reading and pray and do it just when I come to meeting.
You're bound to be disappointed and you're bound to be hurt.
That we have a God who loves us and wants what's best for us. And so He's provided His word. And so I ask you to please just read it.
I'll be honest, I grew up in a Christian home.
My mom tried to get me to read the Bible.
Every day.
I pretended.
I went off to college.
I never read my Bible. I never prayed.
And I fell off the deep end.
It's not pleasant.
It's not pretty.
But God is able to restore and a lot of the issues and trials that I faced.
Would have been avoided.
If I had been in God's Word and I had read it. And so I urge you, whether you're little or a teenager or older.
Do not give up.
Your source of defense?
Don't let your guard down. Protect yourself. Disclose in prayer.
Our blessing God and Father, we thank Thee that we have the opportunity to open Thy word and learn of Thee, our source of strength and protection. Please ask if there's any here who is not put on the armor that they would accept you as their Lord and Savior. We ask that if there's any here who have thrown off pieces here or there because they were distracted by the things of the world.
They would realize their danger and put it back on that we'd be able to fight fully protected. We ask these things in thy name, Amen.