Gospel—Dean Rule
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This week we've had the opportunity to hear a lot about.
Sin in connection with the leper.
Had a lot of opportunity to hear about heaven.
Had an opportunity to hear about some things that are going to happen in the future of this world.
But this afternoon, setting out actually watching a ball game on the.
Next to the softball diamonds, some of the things that we haven't heard much about this week are having fun. We've heard some about that because we have had fun. Haven't heard much about studying, kind of been away from that a little bit.
Haven't heard much about success.
Heard very little about investment programs. You know some of you are getting to the age where I'm sure there there's stuff coming to you that you need to start thinking about those things early. Haven't heard very much about getting rich.
Umm, haven't heard very much about being successful in business.
And when you go back and you go back to your normal circumstances of life, you need to be able to do those things. That's what all the advertisements I see around tell me. And so I'd like to talk about some of those things, which may sound like they're a little bit distinct from what we've talked about this week, like to also talk about some adventure travel.
You know, there's a lot of advertisements of places you can go to now and get on an airplane and go to and have some adventure travel and some of the things you want to do.
If I ask you right now if someone would pay the cost, give you the training, the time off work, pay all the costs for your flights, for your guides and everything else here, how many people here would be interested in going on a climbing trip to go to the peak of Mount Everest? So we'd like to talk about a few of those things tonight.
Like to start out with a verse in the book of Joel?
Who are the people that make the money in this world?
And they want to answer that question for me.
The people that really make the money in this world are the decision makers.
You know what I mean by a decision maker? There's someone in the business who evaluates the facts, evaluates the information and they make the decisions that carry the business on. They actually make more than most of the doctors and and professionals like that, the decision makers.
And so.
If you want to be successful.
You better be a good decision maker.
Joel Chapter 3.
Verse 14.
Multitudes, Multitudes in the valley of decision.
For the day of the Lord is near.
In the Valley.
Of decision.
You can search from Genesis to Revelation in the Bible and you'll only find one verse. You'll only find one verse in all the Bible that uses the word decision.
If you're going to be a successful decision maker in this world.
You need to be prepared. You need to have the right preparation, the right experiences and everything else to make the decisions that are going to allow you to make money for the company where you work.
They're decision makers in the United States.
That, by their decisions, can actually make hundreds of millions, and in some cases billions of dollars worth of difference in the bottom line of the company they work for.
Can you name a couple of them?
Bill Gates Bill Gates, most the richest man in the world made decisions a long time ago to buy an operating system from another company for computers and that started the world of DOS and then Windows. Richest man in the world. He made great decisions when he was back in in college.
How much education does he have?
One year of college.
But he made some great decisions and he's a rich man.
Bill Gates is the richest man in the world. When he got married, he got married on an island and before he got married on that island, he actually did things such as pay to.
Lease every helicopter that could be within flying range of that island.
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Because he didn't want anyone flying over and taking pictures if they weren't invited to the wedding.
His wealth is measured in billions of dollars.
No one else in the world, even the richest of the Arabs, have wealth like that.
Great decision maker as far as this world goes, but I have a question for you.
A very simple question.
He from where he sits in his office in the state of Washington nearby to where many of you live if he were to be killed in an automobile accident this weekend. My question is this.
That decision maker who's accumulated a tremendous amount of wealth.
His name is known.
Very well known in this world. How much of it is he going to take with him?
How many of you have ever seen a baby that's just been born? I think that's going to be basically, you know, a baby when it's born. Maybe sets of parents that are here. I've watched 3 little girls come into this world and I'll tell you how they came in. Two of them were in hospitals in the Chicago area. One was in a hospital in Quito, Ecuador. And when I saw each one of those little babies born.
The first one was born.
11:45 in the morning. The second one was born early in the evening hours. The third one was born during the night, maybe 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. Every one of those babies came out and I'll tell you how much they had with them when they came.
How much?
Nothing.
The person who's accumulated the most things in this world, made great decisions as far as business, as far as accumulating wealth, perhaps been able to enjoy many of the fruits of that during their life. They may *** **** in a casket, which may be very ornate, may be very well done, but I'm going to tell you that that's just housing.
An empty shell.
Because what is inside is already gone. I'm not talking about the stomach or intestines or heart or anything like that, or the bones. But what's inside, what is invisible, their soul and their spirit at the moment of death have now gone.
Either to be with the Lord Jesus Christ or to help.
Says multitudes. Multitudes in the valley of decision.
You and I are up part way up a mountain. We are going to descend in a sense tomorrow. Some will be going this way tonight. Most of us will be heading down to I5 and heading north or South tomorrow. And when we head down the hill, when we get to where we're going, we're going to be making a number of decisions. But the most important decision, and it's one that you cannot wait to make, is where are you going to spend eternity?
If you neglect it, you've heard it night after night.
After night, you heard it on Saturday night, you heard it on large day night, you heard it on Monday night. You heard it on Tuesday night, you heard it on Wednesday night. This is now the sixth time. Some of these evenings you've heard a count of how many times you've heard the message. The thing is, you are in a position of having to make a decision. One of the decisions you can make is neglect.
You can put it off.
God now commands all men everywhere to repent. You just obey God's command. What's going to happen? You're going to pay the price for it.
An Acts that talks about repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You're a Sinner. I'm a Sinner. But you must believe in the only one, the only one who can take your sins away, the Lord Jesus Christ. You must realize that you've sinned against the God of the universe.
You have sinned. Something has to be done about it.
And so multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision.
For the day of the Lord is near in the Valley of Decision. There are some charts back there. We spent a several hours listening about those charts and one of the things that sat on those we heard is when we realized how things are lined up. For after those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior are gone, we realize that. We realize that the time is very near. The Day of the Lord may be as we heard, just seven years.
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And a bit from now.
When you put that in the light of eternity, how much time is it? Not very long, not very long at all. And so you need to be a decision maker, but you better make the right decisions. Now I'd like to talk a little bit about studying, so if you could turn with me to the book of Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verse 12.
And further by these my son.
Be admonished.
Of making many books, there is no end.
In much study, there's a weariness of the flesh. I'm going to ask another question. How many of you have quoted this verse to your parents when they said it's time to get your homework done?
I've got a little bit of company in the room. Much study is a weariness of the flesh and of making books. There is no end. You and I are living in a world in which the explosion of information is almost.
Almost.
Impossible to measure.
The people that are studying things in this world have to become and they want to deal with it. If it's a doctor or a physicist or whatever it might be, they have to deal with a smaller and smaller range of things. Why Sometimes I get on the Internet.
And I want to check something out about a disease that I have to deal with in some of the farms that I visit in my work, a disease that affects some of the plants that I come into contact with. And if I go in and type in a name like Fusarium on the, if I type it in on a search engine on the Internet, I may easily get back several 100 references.
Five years ago.
I had three or four books I could pull off the shelf, but now I have access to hundreds of references on any single disease.
You're in a world that's going to say to you, you better study and study and study and study because it's the only way you're going to be successful in this world. Let me read this verse again.
It says, and further by these my son, be admonished of making many books. There is no end.
The first people that had copies of this book, how did they get their copies? Handwritten copies?
Handwritten copies. And if everything they would get could only come as a handwritten copy, do you think people would have shelves full of books?
How many Have you ever seen a handwritten copy of the Bible?
I've seen 3 handwritten copies of the Bible. They were all copied by the same person.
Brother Robert and Gresham Morgan is now with the Lord. Took time, copied it out word by word three times.
If that was the only way you could get the book, that was the only source of information, the only way you could get a copy of a book, what do you think? What value would you put on the book?
What's a book for now? How much can you buy a book for? You go to the stores that have used books, where people have read the books and they turn them back In $0.50. You can take your pick of many books.
We're living in a world that there is so much information, so many books that are being printed, so many magazines. The racks are filled and they don't begin to cover. There's a specialty magazine for almost everything. The most unusual magazine I think I ever had a chance to to look at every month.
Was car wash news.
Because the company I worked for.
Had to use certain kinds of pumps to pump certain chemicals, and they were the same kind of chemicals that were pumps that were used for car washes. And so every month there was a magazine that came to the office where I worked and it was car wash news. I can't say that it was the most interesting magazine that I've ever read, but every month there to look through to see if there were new kinds of pumps or mixers or valves that might be of interest.
The problem is, there's so much that you can get on, and those things can occupy you so much.
That you do not have time to stop and think about eternity. And for those of us who do know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, there's so much that comes in one way or another of books or information every day that we do not have time to do something else.
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Second Timothy, chapter 2.
Verse 15.
Study to show thyself approved unto God.
A Workman that needeth not to be ashamed.
Rightly dividing the word of truth.
If someone said to you.
You've got 24 hours. You're going to be in a room that's the size of this platform that starts here, goes to the wall and comes all the way over to here. The only things you can have in that room.
Or a Bible.
A table, A chair.
A sleeping bag to put on the floor for when you're tired and you need to get some rest during the 24 hours.
And a window that is just a piece of wood, not something you can see out of. And the three times a day during those 24 hours someone is going to pass a tray of food through to you sound like torture.
No telephone.
No computer, no friends.
To be in there with you, no family, nothing else.
24 hours.
With basically nothing to.
Stimulate your senses. One light switch. Simple light bulb.
Don't answer me. Don't answer in your own heart.
Sound like torture?
Sound like 24 hours of boredom? Sound like 24 hours that you would be desperate to get to the end of. Or I would be anxious and be counting the moments to get to the end of.
If you took a young couple that was recently married or a couple that's been married for many years, loves each other, and you said, OK, you got to be in a room together for 24 hours to visit, have time together.
Do you think they would consider it torture?
Now I have a question. I have several for you tonight. In a world that says you've got to have multimedia. Nothing wrong with having multimedia, having ACD, ROM for certain things on your computer and whatever. But if you're in a world that says that you got to have these things coming at you from every direction, and if you have that, then you can have what will satisfy you.
You can have multimedia for 70 years.
And spend an eternity.
Without Christ, because you never stopped to think about the one who wants to spend. Have you spend eternity with him, the Lord Jesus Christ?
If it sounds like torture to you.
And I suggest that you think.
A little bit.
Do you know the only person who would be there with you?
The only person who could possibly be there with you during that time is the Lord Jesus Christ. If you do not know Him as your Savior, you will be alone for 24 hours and I think you're 24 hours could be very boring.
Because there's nothing to satisfy.
You if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, but here.
And Second Timothy chapter 3, chapter 2 and verse 15, study to show thyself approved unto God, a Workman that needeth not to, not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. So we go through some of these verses this evening. We're kind of hopping and skipping and jumping. There's something if I can turn now for a minute and talk to those who know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Don't read the Bible.
Just to look for fire extinguishers to solve problems at this moment.
I was with a brother. Some here may know Tom Collins many years ago.
And my job, I had to travel across the provinces of Canada once a year. I was going across the western provinces of Canada and.
One night.
Staying at his place and I believe was in Winnipeg at that point in time. And he he said I started talking about schedules and I was going on to Regina and then to Calgary and then to Vancouver talking about schedules. He said, well, when are you going from Regina to Calgary? And I named the time certain day leaving in the afternoon. And he said, well, he said I'm flying.
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From Regina to Calgary the the morning after that, can you change your appointments to?
If you want to, you can write in the cabin. Well, that was pretty easy to make a call and to say, yeah, I'd much rather write in the cabin and see a flight from that way than in any other way then to see it from the back and things. And so the morning comes, get on, get on basically the passenger and go and sit in the sort of jump seat that's behind the pilot seat. The plane takes off.
And he hit and I don't know, buttons or lever, whatever it was necessary to make the landing gear.
Retract into the body the fuselage of the airplane so you wouldn't have the same wind drag. And it tried it one time and you could hear the motors going and nothing happened.
Tried it another time, you could hear the motors going and nothing happened. Tried it a third time and it didn't work. By this time the people in the back were kind of wondering what's happening and so he just pulled a book out and looked and knew exactly where to go in the manual that he carried in the little flight case he had. But while he was doing it, he was already giving instructions as to what to do to use a manual system that would cover when the hydraulic.
System was not working. I asked him a question on that. That time when things kind of were quiet again, I said how often have you had this happen in your years of flying? I said it was clear you knew exactly what to do. You also got the manual out to confirm it, but you knew exactly what to do. He said what's never happened to me before? Said, well, how do you know? I mean, it's if it hadn't happened to you before, where did you have the experience? He said I've read the manual many times.
And he said, I've been in a simulator enough times that in the simulator this is one of the things that comes up in the simulator.
The hydraulic system doesn't work and you have to cover for it with manual systems.
For those of you who know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, don't look at the Word of God as simply a fire extinguisher that you get out to put out whatever problem you have, whatever fire is burning at that moment. If you're going to be the pilot on an airplane, you better know what to do in circumstances that you've never faced before, because when the time comes, you may not have opportunity to get the manual out.
And so one of the decisions you need to make when you go back down the hill, you need to make the decision as to whether you're going to get to know the manual. We heard about that on Lord's Day afternoon. You better get to know the Word of God. You better get to know the manual because you're going to faith circumstances in life. And it's wonderful. It's wonderful to have the manual, familiarity with the manual, the experiences that are necessary to deal with it in life.
But one of the things that this world tells us is.
You've got to be successful. You've got to be successful. Back many years ago when I started to work at a horticultural chemical company in Chicago, one of the magazines that was routed to me said that at that time they were trying to decide what, what income it took to be comfortable to basically be able to purchase within reason, the things you wanted. The answer at that time, I believe if I can remember, was about $70,000. And so if you were making at least that you were successful.
20 years.
Later, the number has increased significantly. Well, the Word of God says you can be successful.
Only talks about success in one verse in the first chapter of Joshua and so when you leave this week, we want to make sure if someone says well, what did you talk about what you can be able to go to them and perhaps say, well, we talked about being successful. Joshua chapter one, verse eight. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth.
But thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do all that is written therein for them. Thou shalt make thy way prosperous.
And then thou shalt have good success.
Want to be successful? Here's the formula. A little different formula than you can get in most books that are written in this world.
There's a magazine I don't know that I've ever even looked inside the cover, but I've seen it on news stands and the title is very simply success.
If you ask people what do you want to be, one of the things I put on the list is successful. I have a question tonight again for you. Are you successful?
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Word of God defines it as someone who has this book, who studied it, who has it guarded and they do what it says day after day after day after day. You want to know what is the saddest day?
For a lot of guys in the United States.
I've met a few of them. I've heard about some more of them. So the guy who goes out?
The.
Allstate halfback on the football team.
What does he have following him around?
Well people that will show him the press clippings from the newspaper on Saturday morning after the game plus yard game.
School that he goes to.
Basically, for girlfriends, the pick of the girls is that I like to be associated with this guy who's good looking, strong.
Successful. So he has this pick of that.
He comes to the day graduation day. Never bothered to hit the books very much so he didn't get high enough grade point that he got offered a college scholarship. Shakes hands with his friends at graduation. Maybe there's a party or two after.
And they go out and they disperse to one university, one place or another.
There's no one there to applaud anymore.
The game's over now, it's real life, never bothered to study and so perhaps he has to get a job that doesn't pay that much above minimum wage. When the girls see that, not very interested because this guy isn't going to be able to provide much of a place to live.
You may say, well, I, you know, I've got some other stuff, I'm going to make it beyond that, but the only way you're going to be successful is to know.
The Lord Jesus Christ is your Savior, and walk in what he says in His Word. You're in a world that's going to tell you time after time after time what the formulas for success are. If you want to get good grades, you study. If you want to make money, you pick a profession that has good wages in it.
Good opportunities for earning. If you want to be successful in who you marry, then you're careful and you learn how to say certain things and act in certain ways.
But The thing is, all of that ends up in absolute emptiness.
If I can speak just a minute, we've heard some this week. One of the things that people say is part of success is having the right person to accompany it through life.
For those of you who know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, give me a couple of minutes to try to have an image in your mind when you think about making that decision.
If you ask young men in general, what are you looking for, What attracts you to a female, he's going to describe certain characteristics of beauty that he might see in her. If you ask a young woman what is it that would attract you? In looking to a man, and I'm speaking just purely on the natural level, what is it that would attract you? If she might say, well, he would have a certain build and he would have certain facial characteristics.
And so he might be described as the hunk or whatever it might be.
If you looked at it in the terms that are used.
I want you to imagine for a minute that we're we're in a place where something has happened and the number of people have died.
And that we go and we take a little tour to the morgue.
And you go, as you walk through the morgue, you see casket after casket after casket lined up there. Or maybe there's people just put out on tables there.
And you go up to you look through the different people and young man says, Oh my, she's very attractive. She's beautiful. I think that's the one I'd like to marry.
And so he he takes her this cadaver, and he signs the papers and he goes hauling her out of there.
And well, she's beautiful. You should see her hair or her facial characteristics, all of these things. She's so attractive, he says. That's the one. And he goes hauling her out of the room and, and.
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And and and takes her long and and you say, well, does this sound sort of funny?
World says The world says you better have the right people around you if you're going to be successful.
And one of the characteristics that they say makes the right people is how attractive they are. What is it that attracts you? Can you imagine someone if we looked at that back door and we saw someone coming in here through the door? And they were perhaps because it would get pretty tired hauling a person that way. They came through the door Wheeling a wheelbarrow.
And they said, look at how beautiful this person is. And they propped them up in the chair that was sitting right here, and they propped their eyelids open a little bit.
And they put a Bible on their lap and opened it up. And you said, well, what's going on? And you said, well, this is the person I plan to marry. And, and look, they've got a Bible on their lap. They're showing interest. I have high hopes that something's going to happen.
Sounds kind of funny, doesn't it?
But if you're going to make the right decisions in life, what is the word of God say? It says that if someone is not saves it save that they're dead. They're dead in trespasses and sins.
Can you imagine spending your life going around and, as it were, with a cadaver?
No, you can't. Just the thought of it, you say, well, that that that doesn't make any sense at all. But there's a lot of young people that have sat here at Lassen and the time like you've sat here.
They've heard things. They've made the decision themselves to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
They've made the decision though, when they left.
That they were going to marry a dead person.
When you have thoughts of it, I ask you to at least think about what life would be.
If everywhere you went in life accompanied by your spouse, you were accompanied by a cadaver.
Because that's the decision you're making. No, it's not physically, not physically dead yet, but spiritually dead. And in the end you'll have just about as much companionship and fellowship with the person who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior as you would living with a corpse.
Might have the best treatment, might be able to have the best treatment of formaldehyde or whatever liquid they might be using now. So they, they were preserved sort of a long-term mummy or whatever. But you wouldn't think of marrying a mummy. You wouldn't think of going to the Morrigan, picking out a wife, a wife, a husband.
But if you're thinking that success in life is going to be marrying someone who may attract you in many ways, but who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, that's what you're choosing. It's just about the same. So we've talked about success. Let's go over and talk a little bit about investment programs.
In Matthew chapter 6.
About 25 years ago.
I was a freshman in college, got a piece of paper that said you go in, you fill out this piece of paper, you can have a Visa card. Visa card has a credit limit of $300.00. That'll help you if you have certain expenses that are unanticipated. It'll help you establish a line of credit.
And so got the card if you handle the responsibility, I'm not saying anything's wrong with that. Have the card today, the credit limits been increased because the bill was paid and those sort of things year after year.
And then those same things say, well, now you can have this kind of investment program and that kind of investment program. And I was sitting just about a week ago with a group of Christians and they began to sit down and talk about their investment programs. And I'm not saying that there's something wrong with having a, a proper savings for certain things. If someone's a farmer, they may have a crop failure one year.
Others of us, we might lose our jobs or whatever.
But this world says now one of the things you need to do is you need to concentrate on your investment program. You got to get it together and get it started while you're young.
There are people who get so busy concentrating on that that they never stop and think about the place where they need to be making the majority of their investments.
00:35:07
If you've got an investment program.
Our thinking and in the process of building 1, they'll give you 6 figures or seven figures or whatever. They're going to tell you that you need to start with a certain amount at a certain age to have a certain amount by the time you get to a certain age.
There'll be plenty of instructions for that.
But the question is, do you have life?
Give life insurance.
Swirl can sell you death insurance.
The Thrill has plenty of death insurance programs. You can have a whole death program or a term death program, but if they sell it as death insurance, they won't sell very much. So what do they sell it as?
Life insurance, and I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't. That's not the question tonight.
That's your decision, my decision. We'd have to make each before the Lord. As to whether you have the program. The world can sell you death insurance.
Because if it's a program like that, unless there's some special provision, you never get the benefits of it. The benefits of it go to someone else.
And so if you have that kind of program, I have a question tonight. Do you have life insurance? Do you have absolute assurance that if you die tonight that you've got life already?
Are you making investments in that life insurance program? Are you making deposits, payments, monthly payments? Weekly payments? Day daily payments? Let's read a few verses in Matthew chapter 6, verse 19.
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth.
Where moth.
And Rust thus corrupt and were thieves breakthrough and steal.
Five weeks ago, a man who works for our next door neighbor was the where we live. The little meeting room was on the other side of the lot where we live. And I was out on the lawn, came up on the line between the two and someone said, well, there's a man who works with your next door neighbor who's here.
Like to speak to you for a few minutes. And so I go up and say hello, I've never met the man before, but I say can I help you with something? And he said yeah, he said.
In the last half hour or so.
The House of the Bustos Rene Bustos family was robbed.
Oh well, what happened? So we went up and and saw and, and this house has a high wall around all of it. On top of the wall and all the front are sharpened pieces of metal spikes so that it's very hard for someone to get over the wall.
Every window that's accessible in the house has metal bars over the window at a spacing in which a person cannot pass between the bars. Every door in the house is protected by either a a swinging or an accordion style metal gate.
So what happened? So he said, well, let's I'll show you what happened. The owner was not at home. We go walking through the house and you see that everything was just drawers were dumped, the TV's were gone, the VCR was gone, sound system was gone.
He could identify some of the things that were gone, but until the owners got back, he couldn't say everything that was gone. He said, Well, will you please stay here in the house?
In case they come back.
And so or stay until, you know, they come back for more or whatever. OK. And so this was between Sunday school and breaking a bread. So actually into the beginning of breaking a bread, I wasn't there because it was time for them to go ahead and begin.
The man came home. Ironic thing is that the man who owned the house until two years ago was the number three ranking police officer in the country.
And so we briefly talked and meanwhile, out in front of the house, we were talking to some of the people. Two of the sisters had come from fairly far distances at the end of Sunday school, and they had seen some men who.
00:40:02
Loading a pickup truck, you're putting the things in the pickup truck and putting some clothes over them and didn't think much of it.
Identified the pickup truck and whatever.
The man's house was ransacked.
Didn't get as far as they could have gotten because in the afternoon when it went back to talk to him, he showed me that under his bed he had 12 submachine guns.
Under his police cap, he had a loaded pistol. He was, he owns a security company now that he's a retired general from the police and he had just had an importation of weapons for security guards and they were there.
In this conversation, he said.
Yeah, I realize that the next time I put metal doors, I need to put them on the inside because the one that they got through, they took a metal bar, knew what they were doing, got in where the lock was. And with pressure and using the leverage of a long rigid bar, they popped the the metal, popped the door open and got in.
But he came down and he said to me, well, I'm thankful in some ways that no one was here.
Because, he said, at least no one was killed. Nothing happened to anyone in that way.
A lot more stuff than we have in the house next door.
But being away for a month and 1/2.
I don't know whether there's a possibility and there's someone there almost every day next to it, but we might go back to a house that's also emptied out.
Have a question? Can they take treasures?
They can take things.
They grabbed some things. They went into a jewelry box of Mrs. Bustos and they grabbed a bunch of things. The only thing they didn't realize is that they were the costume jewelry, the things that looked like something and really didn't have any value.
Thieves can take anything you've got.
How many of you have a computer at your home?
You sure it's going to be there when you get back?
No.
How many of you have ever been in a dwelling that was condemned because maz and larvae started to get into the wood and ate it? Place just basically collapsed. Been in some of those?
What happens to a car in a coastal city?
That's constantly exposed to salt spray.
Our city in the northern part of the country that's exposed to the salt along the roads.
They rushed out the city I grew up in. They would bring truckloads of cars from places like Atlanta, GA Why?
Because in Atlanta, they don't have enough snow to use salt. They're not by the ocean, so the cars don't rust out. You get a few more years without rust, but eventually those are going to rust out too.
If you've got your life built and your treasures and things, they're going to be eaten from the inside by Mars that a thief can come and steal, that can rust out.
You've got a pretty lousy investment program.
What does it say here? Verse 20? But lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, where thieves do not breakthrough nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
The light of the body is the eye. Therefore then I be single.
My whole body.
Shall be full of light.
Was your treasure? Is your treasure the Lord Jesus Christ, or is your treasure something that someone can take away from you? These are the elements, a person, an insect, Whatever it is, if that's where your treasure is, you've made bad decisions. The day of the Lord is near. The Lord's coming is before that, and then the day of the Lord is coming.
Where are your treasures?
Another thing that people say is.
You want to have fun.
I'm going to read the verse without turning to it because I don't want you to read the end of the verse yet. Some of you will recognize the verse.
May have mentioned this before but one of my classmates in high school said this is my favorite verse I'm going to read it.
Rejoice, O young man in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart.
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And in the sight of thine eyes.
He said the Bible says that. He said if you want to, you see something you want to do, you do it.
That's what it says here. It says it rejoice, walk in the ways of lining heart, in the sight of thine eyes. If something is inside, says I want to do it, says do it.
And if you see something that you want, go after it. That's what it says. He stopped there on the verse. The verse is Ecclesiastes Chapter 11 and verse 9. I'd like you to read to yourself, just a moment, the last part of the verse.
The first part of that verse is that the message that you're going to get when you go home back to where you live, you're going to see it. It's going to be on the billboards, it's going to be on the advertisements you see, it's going to be on the lips of the people you have contact with.
If that's what your life consists of, you're headed for a lost eternity.
That's where your eternity is.
There's a lot of people that are going to spend an eternity in the Lake of Fire because they lived following the instructions of a man who was testing things out, Solomon, and writing down the results of his experiments in the book of Ecclesiastes. What's the last half of the verse say?
But know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. We've heard about judgment this week. The first half of the verse says have fun. Do whatever you want to do, do it. The last half of the verse says you rape what you sow You reap what you sow if that's what you choose.
Then be sure that you're going to harvest.
What you've chosen.
Are you washed in the blood of Christ? Are you safe from the judgment that's coming on this world?
Are you headed down a course that's going to take you to a lost eternity? What does it say in chapter 12 and verse one? Let's read the verse 10. Therefore, remove sorrow from my heart, and put away evil from thy flesh. The only thing that can do that is to rest in the fact that Christ died so that you can have life. He shed His blood so that your sins could be washed away.
And what does it say here that'll put away evil?
For childhood and youth, our vanity.
When the funds done and I'm not saying there's anything wrong and it's been said many times this week, nothing wrong with enjoying sports or nothing wrong with doing many things that it's in the context, if I can put it, of youth.
But if it's doing it to satisfy your own pleasures, what does it say? Childhood and youth are vanity. They're empty.
You're not going to be young forever.
Do you know the Savior? If you do know the Savior, are you using your youth for Him? Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.
Another thing that people often want offer in this world.
It's becoming perhaps the fastest growing segment of travel. It's what's called adventure travel.
Before you go to a place where you might be able to go rafting or mountain climbing.
To see different things and do different things. There was someone who over 1900 years ago was an expert, could have been a tremendous guide for adventure travel in the book of Second Corinthians, you know the guide.
God's offering you.
If I can put it this way, adventure travel too, there's a lot of destinations that he can pick for you to go to. It might be very close to where you live, it might be halfway around the globe, but I'd like to read the brochure from Paul's Adventure Travel Company.
Describing some of the things that took place on some of his journeys. Second Corinthians.
Chapter 11.
Verse 23.
Are they ministers of Christ?
I speak as a fool. I am more in labor's, more abundant in stripes above measure, and prisons more frequent in death. Soft of the Jews. Five times received by 40 stripes, save 1. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck.
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A night and a day if I've been in the deep.
And journeyings often.
In Perils of Water.
In Perils of Robbers.
In Perils by my known countrymen.
In perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren.
In weariness and painfulness and watchings often, and hunger and thirst and fastings often. In cold and nakedness beside those things that are without. That which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.
You've received a brochure.
And in the brochure, it says if you travel with the apostle Paul, these are some of the adventures that await you. You know, you you got a good chance of being killed. Whatever you take along is probably going to be robbed.
Some of the people you're going to come into contact with, some of the natives, and some of the countries you're going to visit are probably going to do what they can to beat you. And since there's not going to be a very good system of justice, you're having a good chance of landing in jail. The boats are traveling along to make this an economical journey.
Are such boats not very good navigation systems, somewhat waterlogged and somewhat leaky with not very good bilge pumps? So you're having a pretty good chance of getting to use the life rafts, and the life rafts have probably been chewed through by something. And so you're going to have to swim to shore. We're going to see some beautiful countryside. The only problem is in the countryside there's a lot of robbers along the way, so.
You might want to have money wired ahead to some of the destinations we're going to.
As far as the gourmet food on the trip, well, we offer you hunger and thirst.
But that's OK, you wanted to lose weight on the trip anyway.
God offers adventure travel.
How many countries are available for this? He says in the end of Matthew go ye into all the world talks about all the nations. So this isn't a travel company that just specializes in a few corners of the world. It it goes everywhere.
If I put this brochure up, it made-up a brochure and put it on the rack at the travel agency nearby where you live, and people were thumbing through the brochures, they might see one that was Club Med, and they might see another that was some certain company that specializes in Italy. And they might see another that was Adventures Unlimited. And they specialized in rafting and bicycling and canoeing trips in different parts of the world or climbing trips. Which do you think would get the most?
This for the travel agent.
I don't think that the Apostle Paul Travel agency would have a lot of takers.
What about you?
When we talk about the gospel, we're not talking about something that guarantees that you're going to have a life.