SPEAKER_02: I tried the best I knew how to impress upon the moderator that there were better selections than myself, but to no avail.
SPEAKER_02: I began with a place that I have started using oftentimes when I get up in front of the Lord's people.
SPEAKER_02: Not that we want to talk about it particularly, but that we would want to set it before you and request a prayer.
SPEAKER_02: It's in the fourth chapter of Colossians and it's the second through the fourth verse.
SPEAKER_02: It says, continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving, with all, or together with, praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.
SPEAKER_02: If the Lord would answer that prayer, then we'll have church this afternoon.
SPEAKER_02: If he doesn't, then perhaps Brother James will be able to lift you up.
SPEAKER_02: I have a subject matter on my mind, and it's not a deep subject.
SPEAKER_02: It's not something that's mysterious.
SPEAKER_02: It's something that we have heard over and over again in our lives, but it's what's on my mind.
SPEAKER_02: I have learned that the Lord can take the simplest of subjects and open them up in a rich way that it could feed the young and old alike.
SPEAKER_02: Our belief is not hard to understand.
SPEAKER_02: At the bottom line, everything, everyone who's supposed to be in heaven will be in heaven without the loss of one.
SPEAKER_02: That's what we believe.
SPEAKER_02: So here's the verse, and I'll just jump into just one verse in the middle of a subject.
SPEAKER_02: It's in the third chapter of John and the sixth verse.
SPEAKER_02: That which is born of the flesh is the flesh.
SPEAKER_02: And that which is born of the Spirit is the Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: But it says so much.
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, there's two births being talked about.
SPEAKER_02: That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
SPEAKER_02: And that which is born of the spirit is spirit.
SPEAKER_02: That that is born of the flesh is not spirit.
SPEAKER_02: And that which is born of the spirit is not flesh.
SPEAKER_02: Simple thing to understand.
SPEAKER_02: Not only are they not one of the other, not only are they two separate births, they don't agree with each other.
SPEAKER_02: I'll find it here in a second.
SPEAKER_02: Trust.
SPEAKER_02: Galatians.
SPEAKER_02: At least it was in Galatians last time I looked.
SPEAKER_02: The fifth chapter of Galatians, 17th verse, says, For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.
SPEAKER_02: These are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things you would.
SPEAKER_02: So not only not only are they two separate things, but they're contrary one to the other.
SPEAKER_02: They don't get along.
SPEAKER_02: They're not at peace one with the other.
SPEAKER_02: They war one with the other.
SPEAKER_02: That explains a lot within our lives.
SPEAKER_02: As we're pulled one way or as we are pulled another way.
SPEAKER_02: Well, why is that so?
SPEAKER_02: Has it always been that way?
SPEAKER_02: Be careful how you answer now.
SPEAKER_02: Has it always been that way?
SPEAKER_02: Well, the truth is, no, it hadn't always been that way.
SPEAKER_02: Let's go back to Genesis.
SPEAKER_02: Let's go back to the book of beginnings.
SPEAKER_02: Let's understand that when God finished his creation on the sixth day, first of all, he created man on that sixth day, and of all the things that God created, man was the pinnacle of his creation.
SPEAKER_02: How do you know that?
SPEAKER_02: Well, let me read the scripture to you.
SPEAKER_02: And God created man in his own image.
SPEAKER_02: In the image of God created he him, man, male and female created he them.
SPEAKER_02: And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and repentish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowls of the air and other and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't say that to any of the other parts of his creation, only to man, that he has had dominion over everything else that he has made.
SPEAKER_02: And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which the fruit of the tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat, and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I hath given every green herb for meat, and it was so, and God saw everything that he made, and behold, it was very good, and the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
SPEAKER_02: Sin wasn't there.
SPEAKER_02: So there in the flesh of the spirit and the soul and the body, the natural man, my friends, there was no variance with God.
SPEAKER_02: There was no intimate with God.
SPEAKER_02: There was no conflict with God.
SPEAKER_02: They were all yielding peace and harmony, and man has never been in that same state since, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: One way that you can quickly tell how sound a man is, is to take them to the first chapter of Genesis and just see what he has to say.
SPEAKER_02: As long as you say that Adam had to sin, you're in heresy.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't have to.
SPEAKER_02: He chose to.
SPEAKER_02: Do you know Adam was not deceived in the transgression?
SPEAKER_02: Eve was, but Adam knew exactly what he was doing.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, Adam rebelled against God, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: He willfully did that.
SPEAKER_02: Now we might say, well, I would have done that.
SPEAKER_02: You don't have any idea what you would have done, or me either.
SPEAKER_02: Because we were without sin.
SPEAKER_02: Adam was without sin at that point.
SPEAKER_02: But Eve gave to him, and he did eat, and in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.
SPEAKER_02: That's what being born of the flesh is about.
SPEAKER_02: Let's go prove that to us again and set it forth.
SPEAKER_02: We trust in clear method and clear form.
SPEAKER_02: Fifth chapter of Romans says this.
SPEAKER_02: Twelfth verse, five and twelve.
SPEAKER_02: Wherefore as by one man, who's that one man?
SPEAKER_02: Adam.
SPEAKER_02: Not only is it one man, it's one act of one man.
SPEAKER_02: It's one action of one man.
SPEAKER_02: And look at what happens.
SPEAKER_02: Whereas by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin.
SPEAKER_02: Did you hear that?
SPEAKER_02: Not only did sin enter into the world, death by sin entered into the world.
SPEAKER_02: Well, how about before then?
SPEAKER_02: Death had not entered into the world, because one man hadn't trespassed anything.
SPEAKER_02: But when that happened, when but not uh wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all man, for all had sinned.
SPEAKER_02: That's true on every human being that has ever been upon this earth, save one.
SPEAKER_02: And that's the second man, Adam.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord Jesus Christ didn't have that.
SPEAKER_02: Because his Father was the Holy Father.
SPEAKER_02: And the he existed before time, and here in time he was made flesh, my friends, but he was as man with one huge exception, my friends, no sin upon him whatsoever.
SPEAKER_02: For the law, for until or before the law, sin was in the world, talking about the law of Moses, but sin is not imputed where there is no law.
SPEAKER_02: Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses.
SPEAKER_02: Now, what happened between Adam and Moses?
SPEAKER_02: Where can you see death reigning so clearly?
SPEAKER_02: Where is it that there was more death than has ever happened into this world naturally that we've ever seen?
SPEAKER_02: It was between Adam and Moses.
SPEAKER_02: It's called the flood.
SPEAKER_02: It's called Noah and the flood, my friends, and I want you to know all except those eight souls that were in that ship, they drowned, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: You talk about death reigning.
SPEAKER_02: We have a thousand killed and it's awful, and we have a 9-11 and it's awful, and we have this many wars.
SPEAKER_02: I tell you, there's never been an instant, my friends, where there's been more natural death than in the flood.
SPEAKER_02: If ever there was a point that would prove what this has just said, nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that have not sinned, after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come?
SPEAKER_02: You know, you can get in trouble when you try to make figures out of things that are not figures, but when the Bible says it's a figure, you can say it's a figure.
SPEAKER_02: And the Bible just said that Jesus and Adam, they had a relationship.
SPEAKER_02: And that relationship is one was a figure of the other.
SPEAKER_02: So much that you could call one the first Adam, man Adam, and second the second man Adam, and then in that same verse afterwards, he's also called the last man Adam.
SPEAKER_02: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: There's no third Adam.
SPEAKER_02: It's just number one Adam and number two Adam, and that's it.
SPEAKER_02: And by God's grace, my friends, there are those that were chosen in Christ before the world began, that was represented in both those births.
SPEAKER_02: You see, all mankind was represented by Adam, but all those who were in Christ, who were those?
SPEAKER_02: Those who were placed in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: When did that happen before the foundation of the world?
SPEAKER_02: And that is what how things come to us, my friends, is how Adam's transgression comes to us.
SPEAKER_02: I don't choose for it to happen.
SPEAKER_02: I don't make a decision for that to happen.
SPEAKER_02: I can't keep it from happening, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: The fact is that my mom and dad were sinners, and their mom and dad were sinners, and their mom and dad were sinners, and etc.
SPEAKER_02: etc.
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, my me and my wife are sinners, and our children are sinners, and my grandchildren are sinners, and it's the same with you, my friend.
SPEAKER_02: It passes, but with Jesus it didn't pass.
SPEAKER_02: Now, that which is flesh is flesh.
SPEAKER_02: That's what you get on the flesh side of it, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: You get death, you get, you get, you get uh woe.
SPEAKER_02: It hadn't always been that way, but I tell you, from the day that it started, which is in the day that thou eatest thereof, and the very instant, my friend, the very moment that Adam broke the only law that God gave him.
SPEAKER_02: You see that?
SPEAKER_02: Don't eat it.
SPEAKER_02: Not hard to understand, not difficult to explain.
SPEAKER_02: I don't care how it looks, I don't care who touched thee differently, the fact is, don't touch that tree.
SPEAKER_02: I think I could have understood that.
SPEAKER_02: How about you?
SPEAKER_02: So what did he do?
SPEAKER_02: Well, the serpent beguiled Eve.
SPEAKER_02: Eve took of the tree.
SPEAKER_02: You know, she looked on it, she saw that it was good, for a beautiful to look upon, one to make one wise, and so forth and so on.
SPEAKER_02: And she took of that tree, and she gave to Adam, and he did eat.
SPEAKER_02: The big difference is Adam was not deceived.
SPEAKER_02: So that's what you get with flesh.
SPEAKER_02: That's what we have with flesh.
SPEAKER_02: And so we would remain there if it were not for another birth.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I have as much to do with one of those births as I do the other, which means I have nothing.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't choose mom and dad to be my mom and dad.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't choose the last name Huckabee.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't choose my name as it is.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, they call me my name that they don't even give me.
SPEAKER_02: Sonny's not on my birth certificate.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but my point is, I had no choice in it.
SPEAKER_02: You know, I've received a lot of things I hadn't chose to receive.
SPEAKER_02: I received the measles, I didn't choose to.
SPEAKER_02: I received uh uh all that stuff.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't choose to.
SPEAKER_02: It just came.
SPEAKER_02: It's like the earth receiving the rain.
SPEAKER_02: I just have it.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't choose to have it, I just have it, my friend, and so do you.
SPEAKER_02: So do you.
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm starting to receive now?
SPEAKER_02: Old age.
SPEAKER_02: I gotta have hearing aids, I gotta have glasses, mind starting to fail, all that type of stuff.
SPEAKER_02: I don't choose for any of that to happen.
SPEAKER_02: But Brother Bruce, that doesn't matter, does it?
SPEAKER_02: No, it's gonna come or does come whether you choose for it to come or not.
SPEAKER_02: What about my will?
SPEAKER_02: My will has not a thing to do with that, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: My will's impacted by that, but I don't have a thing.
SPEAKER_02: I don't choose for those things to happen.
SPEAKER_02: I hope that's clear to you.
SPEAKER_02: But neither do you choose for the second to happen, which is spiritual.
SPEAKER_02: What happens in spiritual birth?
SPEAKER_02: Well, that which is born of the flesh is flesh.
SPEAKER_02: But that which is born of the spirit is spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Oh my friends, what an understatement there is in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: What goes with that?
SPEAKER_02: All things spiritual come with that.
SPEAKER_02: A whole world opens up.
SPEAKER_02: That's a spiritual world.
SPEAKER_02: A whole understanding opens up, which is a spiritual understanding.
SPEAKER_02: Now we might take it for granted because it might have happened, I guess, with John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_02: It happened before he was born.
SPEAKER_02: It might happen before, we might not have it knew when it happened, so to speak.
SPEAKER_02: But I know some people in the Bible knew exactly when it happened.
SPEAKER_02: I would say Saul of Tarsus, my friend, could take you right to the point in which it happened.
SPEAKER_02: He could take you right to that point of the road, my friends, and he could say, right here, right here.
SPEAKER_02: I was walking in the power of my own strength, thinking I had everything to do.
SPEAKER_02: I knew what I was going to do today, tomorrow, and the next day.
SPEAKER_02: I'm a Pharisee, a son of a Pharisee, concerning the law, perfect, concerning zeal, my friends, without a sin.
SPEAKER_02: He knew exactly what he wanted.
SPEAKER_02: And I mean in an instant.
SPEAKER_02: No one was praying for Saul of Tarsus to be a born again, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: No one had even thought about that happening.
SPEAKER_02: Why would you?
SPEAKER_02: Here's public.
SPEAKER_02: He is the chief of sinners.
SPEAKER_02: My friends, that word chief is not an adjective, it's a noun.
SPEAKER_02: He is the chief of sinners.
SPEAKER_02: He is the top sinner, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: In that time, he was the chief.
SPEAKER_02: The church scared to death of them.
SPEAKER_02: They heard about him.
SPEAKER_02: What happened when the Lord appeared unto Ananias and said, You go to a man named Saul?
SPEAKER_02: No, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_02: I've heard of that guy.
SPEAKER_02: He throws folks like me in prison.
SPEAKER_02: And you want me to go, you want me to do what?
SPEAKER_02: I want you to go and talk to that man.
SPEAKER_02: You know what the Lord told him?
SPEAKER_02: That I think kind of settled that for Saul for Ananias.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, he prayed.
SPEAKER_02: What's the first word out of Ananias' mouth when he got to brother?
SPEAKER_02: Saul.
SPEAKER_02: And then what was right after that?
SPEAKER_02: The Lord that hath appeared unto thee in the way hath appeared unto me also.
SPEAKER_02: And sent me to tell you.
SPEAKER_02: You know what he just did?
SPEAKER_02: My friends, what happens, I trust, and every sermon that's inspired by the Spirit of God, it attaches to your own spiritual experiences.
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to communicate to you on a mental level.
SPEAKER_02: I've heard a man, one minister tell another minister, and they were extremely prominent ministers.
SPEAKER_02: And this isn't hearsay.
SPEAKER_02: I heard it.
SPEAKER_02: I heard one tell the other, man has two natures, and I'm not ashamed to preach to either one of them.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I am.
SPEAKER_02: I never want to preach to the natural man.
SPEAKER_02: I have no desire to preach to the natural.
SPEAKER_02: I have not, I don't, I don't have anything to offer you from a natural standpoint.
SPEAKER_02: But if God be my helper, my friends, I have something, if he gives me grace, I have something to offer to you, to try to present to you, to try to have you come out with an understanding better than what you did when you entered the service concerning spiritual things.
SPEAKER_02: What happens in this spiritual birth?
SPEAKER_02: Well, just like I said, you don't have anything to do with it.
SPEAKER_02: You're the recipient of it.
SPEAKER_02: You don't choose when it happens, you can't prevent it from happening.
SPEAKER_02: It's going to happen.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, if you're a child of God, if you were chosen before the foundation of the world, my friends, before you pass this world, you will be born again.
SPEAKER_02: Period.
SPEAKER_02: No ifs, ands, or buts.
SPEAKER_02: It might be like John the Baptist while you were still in your mother's womb.
SPEAKER_02: Or it might be like one of the thieves on the cross in the last hours of your life, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: But somewhere it's going to happen.
SPEAKER_02: And let me tell you something else.
SPEAKER_02: The way that God had begun to do this work with, I believe, Adam and Eve, the when he first began, is the same identical way he does it now.
SPEAKER_02: He hadn't changed one iota.
SPEAKER_02: He hadn't.
SPEAKER_02: Now let me tell you that's mysterious when you think about it.
SPEAKER_02: Because Titus tells us there's a washing in regeneration.
SPEAKER_02: Hebrew tells us without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.
SPEAKER_02: Well, how could God use the blood in regeneration and washing before there was the blood?
SPEAKER_02: Because God is God and He doesn't have to wait for something to be before he can use it, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: He can speak to it as though it's already happened.
SPEAKER_02: That's why all those EDs are on the uh the the end of those things, whether we're uh justified or glorified, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: He can speak to it as if it's stolen because it's sure and it's steadfast.
SPEAKER_02: But he could use the blood before there was the blood.
SPEAKER_02: Watch this, by having faith in the blood.
SPEAKER_02: And that's not mine or your faith at all.
SPEAKER_02: It's God's faith, it's God's knowledge, it's God's ability to be able to use something before there was that something.
SPEAKER_02: And it's a washing, it's a cleansing.
SPEAKER_02: What's washed?
SPEAKER_02: Something's washed, what is it?
SPEAKER_02: It's the inward part, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: It's the soul, it's the inward man that is cleansed by the washing of regeneration.
SPEAKER_02: And when it's in that cleansed state, something miraculous happens.
SPEAKER_02: And it Happens the same identical way, my friends, for every single one of his children.
SPEAKER_02: Let me read it to you.
SPEAKER_02: I could quote at it, but let me just read it.
SPEAKER_02: Second Peter, first chapter, fourth verse.
SPEAKER_02: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these, listen, ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in this world through lust.
SPEAKER_02: What did he just say?
SPEAKER_02: He says, My friends, in the work of regeneration, you inherit a divine nature.
SPEAKER_02: It's Christ in you, the hope of glory.
SPEAKER_02: Listen how 1 John says it.
SPEAKER_02: Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.
SPEAKER_02: Whoa, that needs some explaining, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: I've sinned since I've been up here in front of you, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_02: But I just read to you.
SPEAKER_02: Does that mean I'm not born of God?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Then don't rightly divide that.
SPEAKER_02: You know, that's the problem with so many folks.
SPEAKER_02: They look at the scriptures and they try to make natural interpretations when Jesus Christ said, the words that I speak, they're spirit and they're life.
SPEAKER_02: You've got to have spiritual understanding.
SPEAKER_02: You've got to be able to use that divine nature that's been planted within you, my friends, that has, I can get to it in a second, that has the fruit.
SPEAKER_02: And you need to be able to use that to have spiritual discernment.
SPEAKER_02: I believe in the church having spiritual.
SPEAKER_02: I do not believe that that is limited to ministers, nor do I believe that that is limited to brethren.
SPEAKER_02: I've had some wonderful spiritual discussion that really exceeded my understanding.
SPEAKER_02: I've had sisters teach me things, my friends, as recently as like a couple of weeks ago.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm not going to say that.
SPEAKER_02: Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.
SPEAKER_02: Now please remember this last part, because it's very important.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Why is that true?
SPEAKER_02: What's he talking about?
SPEAKER_02: The body sins, my friend.
SPEAKER_02: But I'll tell you something in you that does not sin, and it's the Spirit of God that's in you.
SPEAKER_02: And you know why it doesn't?
SPEAKER_02: Listen.
SPEAKER_02: Does not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him.
SPEAKER_02: Seed.
SPEAKER_02: Hold on to that.
SPEAKER_02: I want to get back to that in just a second.
SPEAKER_02: Seed remaineth in him.
SPEAKER_02: Let me finish reading that.
SPEAKER_02: Whosoever is born, whom, yeah, whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
SPEAKER_02: Now you look what you get from that which is spirit is spirit.
SPEAKER_02: You know what you get?
SPEAKER_02: You get a whole spiritual entity in you that's divine, it's godly, it cannot sin, for its seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin.
SPEAKER_02: It's impossible for that within you to sin.
SPEAKER_02: Now, this sins, this body sins, our mind is still carnal to some degree.
SPEAKER_02: Our flesh, and and and we can we can we can act, my friends, like we haven't been born of God.
SPEAKER_02: But the fact is, God has done that work.
SPEAKER_02: I don't do it, the gospel doesn't do it, God does it.
SPEAKER_02: How?
SPEAKER_02: The hour is coming, and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.
SPEAKER_02: Now, let's see some interesting things about seed.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what you think about when I when you think about seed.
SPEAKER_02: I know uh people are in the uh congregation today that's made a whole earning, a whole life in their work life about seeds and and working with seeds and so forth and so on.
SPEAKER_02: But when I think about seeds, my friend, I think about uh natural seeds.
SPEAKER_02: Let me say it another way.
SPEAKER_02: I think about plants.
SPEAKER_02: I think about things bearing fruit.
SPEAKER_02: That's what I think about.
SPEAKER_02: It's things, well let me let's watch this.
SPEAKER_02: Watch what it says over here.
SPEAKER_02: Back in the fifth chapter of Galatians, listen to what it said.
SPEAKER_02: In the 19th verse, it says, Now the works of the flesh are, and then start to listen to them, we'll go back to it, but in the 22nd verse it says, but the fruit of the spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't say the works of the spirit, it says the fruit of the spirit.
SPEAKER_02: It sounds like seed to me.
SPEAKER_02: God plants it within you, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: Let me first deal with the works of the flesh.
SPEAKER_02: The works, 19th, uh 5th chapter of Galatians 19th, verse.
SPEAKER_02: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these.
SPEAKER_02: Don't have to warn about it.
SPEAKER_02: Don't, you know, I like it when the Bible says just what it is.
SPEAKER_02: It would do you and I good when it says it, just to accept what it says.
SPEAKER_02: If it says that's what it is, that's what it is.
SPEAKER_02: If it says, well, these things work together for good, and then it says, What shall you say to these things?
SPEAKER_02: Guess what?
SPEAKER_02: He's talked about them right in between those two places.
SPEAKER_02: Don't have to go anywhere else.
SPEAKER_02: There they are.
SPEAKER_02: Just accept it.
SPEAKER_02: Don't make it hard.
SPEAKER_02: They're there.
SPEAKER_02: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lascifishness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelies, and such like.
SPEAKER_02: That's not a complete list of them.
SPEAKER_02: There's others that are just like those things.
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
SPEAKER_02: That's a pretty fruitful thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: To our shame it is.
SPEAKER_02: It's very fruitful.
SPEAKER_02: And it comes, my friends, from the flesh.
SPEAKER_02: That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
SPEAKER_02: But in contrast to that, but the fruit of the Spirit is, listen, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance against their such there is no law.
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you an experience I had one time.
SPEAKER_02: If you've heard me before, you've probably heard the experience, but at least there's one person that's never heard me before that's in the congregation.
SPEAKER_02: My daughter, Elisa, my middle daughter, uh, Hannah's.
SPEAKER_02: What are you looking me for?
SPEAKER_02: Hannah Hannah's mother.
SPEAKER_02: Daniel's mother.
SPEAKER_02: Elisa, my second daughter.
SPEAKER_02: I was, I had, I had moved from Arkansas to Texas, gone back for an association, and while we were there, I heard that a distant cousin of mine, her husband, had committed suicide.
SPEAKER_02: And they wanted me to do the funeral in around Fayette.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_02: I flew in, we rearranged that schedule.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't have a rent car or anything like that.
SPEAKER_02: Lisa says, Daddy, I'll take you.
SPEAKER_02: So Lisa took me.
SPEAKER_02: Lisa and I were the only two primitive Baptists in that congregation.
SPEAKER_02: And he was a very well-known.
SPEAKER_02: I can't remember what it was.
SPEAKER_02: I think it was a chiropractor.
SPEAKER_02: Well known.
SPEAKER_02: And the place was crowded.
SPEAKER_02: There wasn't a place for anybody to sit.
SPEAKER_02: It was and and I knew what those people.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I visited with the family ahead of time, and I'm glad this isn't being recorded anywhere, so I don't want to ever know about this, tongue in cheek.
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, I I you can't believe what the kids of that family told me.
SPEAKER_02: They actually were cussy when they told it to me.
SPEAKER_02: And I thought, Lord, what am I gonna do?
SPEAKER_02: What am I gonna do?
SPEAKER_02: I never met the man.
SPEAKER_02: First time I seen him was in that that that coffin.
SPEAKER_02: I I'd never seen him before in my life.
SPEAKER_02: If no other time in my life the Lord gave me something to say, it was at that funeral.
SPEAKER_02: And I told them.
SPEAKER_02: I knew what they were thinking.
SPEAKER_02: Everybody there, I'm sure, well, most people there, I can get away with that.
SPEAKER_02: Most people there thought he was going to hell because he committed suicide.
SPEAKER_02: Isn't it funny when it says nothing shall separate you from the love of God?
SPEAKER_02: What's the first thing that's listed?
SPEAKER_02: It's not life, it's death.
SPEAKER_02: Death can't separate you from the love of God, even if you take your own.
SPEAKER_02: Now, in no way do you understand that I'm suggesting that's the most selfish act a person can commit, my friend.
SPEAKER_02: I remember elder Larry Webb, a close friend of mine.
SPEAKER_02: Stories after stories.
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02: If if if everybody was like Hannah over there, I gotta say this is story number three, and I wouldn't have to say anything else.
SPEAKER_02: She'd know it.
SPEAKER_02: When Sharon and I got married, there was a couple there, and the woman was very pregnant with a child.
SPEAKER_02: And in fact, they left our wedding and went to the hospital and had that child.
SPEAKER_02: So the child was born the night Sharon and I got married.
SPEAKER_02: So we'd see him at Sociations or something.
SPEAKER_02: And when he was three-year-old, I would look at Sharon.
SPEAKER_02: I said, We've been married that long.
SPEAKER_02: I got 15 years old, I look at him, I said, We've been we've been married a long time.
SPEAKER_02: Look at that, look at he's a young man.
SPEAKER_02: Well, guess what he did when he was about 20?
SPEAKER_02: He took his life.
SPEAKER_02: And Larry Webb had that service.
SPEAKER_02: I wasn't there, I wished I would have been.
SPEAKER_02: But this is what I understand him to say.
SPEAKER_02: And I can believe he said it just like this.
SPEAKER_02: He got up and he says, I'm as livid as I've ever been in my life.
SPEAKER_02: I am raging with hate as I stand before you.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not mad at calling him by name.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not mad at this boy.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm certainly not mad with his parents.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm certainly not mad at God.
SPEAKER_02: But what I'm mad at is Satan.
SPEAKER_02: And he would convince this boy that that was the only choice he had in life, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: It's always a good time to hate Satan.
SPEAKER_02: Always.
SPEAKER_02: Don't think you can make a pack with him, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: It's always God hates Satan.
SPEAKER_02: Now, back to my situation.
SPEAKER_02: What was I gonna say at this funeral?
SPEAKER_02: So I asked these people who know what, I mean, there's like my daughter was the only primitive Baptist, and my family, which is a distant cousin.
SPEAKER_02: They hadn't I hadn't seen him in 15 years or longer, 20 years.
SPEAKER_02: Never heard me try to preach.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, I need your help.
SPEAKER_02: They all looked at me and I said, I don't know this man.
SPEAKER_02: I I've never met him before in my life.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know him.
SPEAKER_02: You're all here because you knew him or knew the family.
SPEAKER_02: Is that not right?
SPEAKER_02: And they just stared at me.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Now listen, folks, for this to work, you gotta communicate with me.
SPEAKER_02: Is it right that you knew?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02: All right.
SPEAKER_02: Now let's just listen.
SPEAKER_02: And I started going through these fruits of the Spirit one by one.
SPEAKER_02: And I'd ask him.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Well, did this man have love in him?
SPEAKER_02: Did he show compassion to any of you?
SPEAKER_02: Answer me, yes or no?
SPEAKER_02: Yes, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_02: How about joy?
SPEAKER_02: Did he ever show?
SPEAKER_02: And I went through all of them.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, okay, based a hundred percent on what you told me, I'm gonna tell you with a hundred percent that he's in heaven right now.
SPEAKER_02: You know what happened afterwards?
SPEAKER_02: I had a group of people come up, maybe about 10 of them in this group, and asked me if I would come down there and have services with you.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't.
SPEAKER_02: I just moved to Texas.
SPEAKER_02: But by the way, it's in the same vicinity where Brother Tom Griffin is right now.
SPEAKER_02: My point is, my friends, that if you have these fruits manifested, it is positive fruit, positive evidence that you have a spirit of God abiding in you.
SPEAKER_02: Is it the fruit that bears the tree, or is it the tree that bears the fruit?
SPEAKER_02: You know what comes first, the chicken or the egg?
SPEAKER_02: I got that one figured out.
SPEAKER_02: It's gotta be the chicken.
SPEAKER_02: I believe.
SPEAKER_02: That one, Brother Hewlin used to, you know, he'd say this.
SPEAKER_02: He'd say, How long do you think it takes for the Lord to make an eight-year-old mule?
SPEAKER_02: And the point was, it wouldn't take him eight years.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't create Adam as a baby, he created him as a man.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't form Eve as a 10-year-old girl, she was a full woman.
SPEAKER_02: Even the earth.
SPEAKER_02: I believe, my friends, he created the trees and the fruit on the trees.
SPEAKER_02: It was a mature earth when it was all done, said and done.
SPEAKER_02: So, where was I?
SPEAKER_02: Well, talking about trees.
SPEAKER_02: I think the Lord Himself sets a beautiful example about what I'm trying to talk about, and I'm getting ready to close down, Brother James, so you get ready.
SPEAKER_02: He used trees to talk about what I'm trying to talk about.
SPEAKER_02: What are you trying to talk about, Brother Sonny?
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to talk about a fleshly birth, and I'm trying to talk about a spiritual birth.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm trying to show you that those things don't overlap in the fruit that they produce.
SPEAKER_02: One is flesh and only flesh, and one is spirit and only spirit.
SPEAKER_02: All of mankind have the first.
SPEAKER_02: And there's a whole world of people, my friends, that has the second.
SPEAKER_02: And it's the world that he so loved.
SPEAKER_02: But there's another world talked about in 1 John, the world that lieth in wickedness, my friends, and God has had nothing to do with that world.
SPEAKER_02: That's not a world he loves, it's not a world that he died for.
SPEAKER_02: When the angel told uh Joseph that he shall save his people from their sins, he wasn't talking about that wicked world.
SPEAKER_02: He's talking about the world that he so loved.
SPEAKER_02: What world was it so loved?
SPEAKER_02: The one he chose to love.
SPEAKER_02: And when did he choose to love it?
SPEAKER_02: Before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_02: And he still loves it.
SPEAKER_02: It's a particular people that he paid for, died for, and it's particular sin that he died for.
SPEAKER_02: It's not people in general, and it's not sin in general.
SPEAKER_02: Shall save his, pronoun there, his people from their sins.
SPEAKER_02: We call that not general atonement, but particular, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: Now listen.
SPEAKER_02: Sixth chapter of Luke, 43rd verse.
SPEAKER_02: For a good tree, for a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit.
SPEAKER_02: Neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
SPEAKER_02: Now, he uses an illustration.
SPEAKER_02: Find this in the 7th chapter of Matthew and also 12th chapter of Matthew.
SPEAKER_02: He uses this as an example.
SPEAKER_02: He says, you wouldn't expect to go to a thorn bush and gather figs.
SPEAKER_02: Neither would you expect to go to a fig bush and find thorns on it.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because it's not the nature of those trees to bear those things.
SPEAKER_02: Do you know how true that is?
SPEAKER_02: You can take a limb, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: You can take a plum tree limb and put it into a peach tree and graft it in there.
SPEAKER_02: And do you know what that limb will bear?
SPEAKER_02: Do you?
SPEAKER_02: What?
SPEAKER_02: Plums, right?
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because the seed remaineth in it.
SPEAKER_02: God didn't make that tree and the maker of that tree to bear anything but plums.
SPEAKER_02: If it's a plum tree.
SPEAKER_02: Or if it's a peach tree, then Frederick were peaches.
SPEAKER_02: If it's a peach tree, my friends, it's in the nature of those branches to bear peaches.
SPEAKER_02: And if you take one and graft it into the other, all the rest of them might bear what?
SPEAKER_02: Peaches, that say, but that one limb that's a plum, it's gonna bear plums.
SPEAKER_02: Now listen to what that proves.
SPEAKER_02: This is very important.
SPEAKER_02: Brother Hewland would say, this is my clincher.
SPEAKER_02: This is very important.
SPEAKER_02: Going back to Genesis, first chapter of Genesis, 11th verse.
SPEAKER_02: And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, and the herb yieldeth seed, and the fruit tree yieldeth fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was sowed.
SPEAKER_02: And the earth brought forth grass, and the herbs yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind, and God saw that it was good.
SPEAKER_02: Now I'm not going to get into the details of it, because I'll get in, uh I'll talk more than what I know about it.
SPEAKER_02: But I have a book at home, my friends, and it proves it scientifically about after its kind.
SPEAKER_02: And this man was uh was in the same uh time period as somebody named Charles Darwin, and we we know what he thought.
SPEAKER_02: What he thought is you can just evolve into something else.
SPEAKER_02: But this man, this man, his name was Gregor Mendel.
SPEAKER_02: This man, my friends, uh, he proved.
SPEAKER_02: And I'll just give you one example of what he did.
SPEAKER_02: He had guinea pigs.
SPEAKER_02: He had two white guinea pigs and brought them together, and guess what it yielded?
SPEAKER_02: A white uh guinea pig.
SPEAKER_02: So then he took the female and he took a black guinea pig and he took the ovaries out of the black guinea pig, I can't say that, guinea pig, and put them into the white one, and then it yielded.
SPEAKER_02: What color do you think it was?
SPEAKER_02: Gonna guess?
SPEAKER_02: After its coming now.
SPEAKER_02: The ovaries came from a black guinea pig.
SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be black, and it was.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because it produces after its kind.
SPEAKER_02: My friends, this is the whole foundation of genetics.
SPEAKER_02: It's the whole foundation of what people use when they're when they're trying to when they're trying to make a little bitty dog or they're trying to make a great big dog.
SPEAKER_02: But you know, one thing you'll never get out of a dog is a cat.
SPEAKER_02: You own it.
SPEAKER_02: You won't, you can print, you can make all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_02: You can't add anything new to a species, my friend, to make another species.
SPEAKER_02: It produces after its kind.
SPEAKER_02: You got that?
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Now, here's here here's the main point of all that.
SPEAKER_02: People.
SPEAKER_02: That's godly people, wonderful people.
SPEAKER_02: Some of them are my family, some of them are your family.
SPEAKER_02: They believe that if you have faith, and if you believe, and if you accept God, Christ, as your personal Savior, you'll become a child of God.
SPEAKER_02: That is a doctrine of evolution, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: Think about it.
SPEAKER_02: That's exactly what it is.
SPEAKER_02: That which is born of the spirit is spirit.
SPEAKER_02: That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
SPEAKER_02: You can't can an Ethiopian change his skin?
SPEAKER_02: Or a leopard his spot?
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's silly, Brother Sonny.
SPEAKER_02: That's exactly what those folks are saying.
SPEAKER_02: They're saying an Ethiopian can change a skin, and a leopard can change a spot.
SPEAKER_02: But he said, if you could do that, then they that are accustomed to do evil can cease and do good.
SPEAKER_02: You can't do it.
SPEAKER_02: It's an impossibility from a science standpoint, and it's an impossibility from a Bible standpoint.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because it produces after its kind.
SPEAKER_02: You show me someone that fears God, I'll show you a child of God.
SPEAKER_02: You show me someone that believes in God, I'll show you a child of God.
SPEAKER_02: If you show me someone that prays to God, how about Cornelius?
SPEAKER_02: Did Cornelius pray to God before Peter got there or after Peter got there?
SPEAKER_02: Before.
SPEAKER_02: That man never heard the gospel in his life.
SPEAKER_02: And not only did he pray, God heard his prayers and answered his prayers.
SPEAKER_02: How are you gonna make that man a child of the devil, my friend?
SPEAKER_02: You're not.
SPEAKER_02: He's a child of God.
SPEAKER_02: How do you know?
SPEAKER_02: Because he's bearing fruit after his seed.
SPEAKER_02: Remember?
SPEAKER_02: Does not commit sin.
SPEAKER_02: You see what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02: If that seed of God is placed in you, my friends, you will forever be a child of God.
SPEAKER_02: Now you might live a life, and sin might be in that life, and it might be a horrible, it will be a horrible existence, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: But bless your heart.
SPEAKER_02: God is not gonna deny himself.
SPEAKER_02: May God bless you as our prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Brother Sonia, I very much appreciated that good preaching.
SPEAKER_00: Think about the nature that we inherited from that first man Adam and our representation in him.
SPEAKER_00: And then to think about our representation in that second man Adam, Jesus Christ our Lord, and the nature that stems from that.
SPEAKER_00: We don't like to dwell very long on the nature that we got from Adam or that first man.
SPEAKER_00: It gives us great heaviness and all but to follow it up with the new creature that Christ Himself puts within us.
SPEAKER_00: I think about Romans 8, too, which is such a beautiful verse in the way it's laid out, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which is like the fruit that comes from that nature that we get from him, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, has set us free or made us free from the law of sin and death.
SPEAKER_00: See, there's a liberation there.
SPEAKER_00: There's a liberation from that place, which I'm not so happy about dwelling on, to this new place, to standing in the very spirit of life in Christ Jesus, by what he has done.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds like a change that happens within the child of God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so thankful to know and to hear the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me, and to believe.
SPEAKER_00: To believe that that's true.
SPEAKER_00: I don't just know it intellectually, because, but by what the Lord has worked in me, and I know he's worked in you, that he has given you faith, the ability, it's part of that fruit of the Spirit, the ability to see those things, to hear those things, and to believe them.
SPEAKER_00: You know it's an impossibility to believe those things without God having made a change in you first.
SPEAKER_00: I would like to just for a little while this afternoon, please pray.
SPEAKER_00: I would like to talk about actually I'll start this way.
SPEAKER_00: You want to send the new brother Philip?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna actually publish the open doors of the church at the beginning of the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: But the doors of the church are open right now.
SPEAKER_00: They actually never close.
SPEAKER_00: If there's ever an opportunity where you feel impressed by God to join his church, to take up your cross and to follow him and to join him in baptism, there is there's no time where it's off limits.
SPEAKER_00: Like, well, we have to wait until the end of the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: No, you don't.
SPEAKER_00: It's always okay to let somebody know.
SPEAKER_00: And as Brother David has said before, uh maybe that'll just be the end of the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: But or maybe we'll just keep preaching.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: My my thought on my mind is about baptism.
SPEAKER_00: About that very meaningful act that the child of God has the blessed opportunity to do.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, it's a commandment of Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's not really a suggestion, it's a commandment.
SPEAKER_00: That if you believe these things, to take up your cross and to follow Him.
SPEAKER_00: It's a commandment.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, but it's a blessed, wonderful gift that we possess.
SPEAKER_00: I really want to talk to those in the congregation who have been baptized.
SPEAKER_00: I'm also talking to the ones that have not been baptized, but I want to draw your minds just for a little while this afternoon to the day where you took up your cross and answered that good conscience within you, submitted yourself to the church, and you were baptized.
SPEAKER_00: Now, whether that was the same day or not, most in my case, it wasn't the same day.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe many people that I know in their story, it really wasn't the same day, but nonetheless, that time, in your mind, you most likely can go back to that day or those days.
SPEAKER_00: We'll do both.
SPEAKER_00: Specifically, the baptism part.
SPEAKER_00: The day that you were actually taken under the water.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to just for a little bit, and I am going to ask you to participate, and I have grounds to ask you to do that.
SPEAKER_00: This should always be a participation in both directions.
SPEAKER_00: Every sermon you've ever you ever sit in, it is not one man standing and the rest of people sitting and not really.
SPEAKER_00: It's a participation activity, both preaching and listening.
SPEAKER_00: It is a preaching that goes from faith to faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's uh the word going forth and the hearing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna ask you to participate, but I'm not gonna ask you to do so like outwardly or raise your hand or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00: That'll make people uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Me too, very much so.
SPEAKER_00: But I do want you to think.
SPEAKER_00: I do want you just for a moment, I want you to go in your mind, and I want you to think.
SPEAKER_00: And what you think about is gonna be different than what I think about because our experience is different.
SPEAKER_00: Where was it?
SPEAKER_00: Was it at a church meeting?
SPEAKER_00: Was it at your home church?
SPEAKER_00: Was it a night service, a morning service?
SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Can you remember the people that were around you?
SPEAKER_00: Can you remember the sermon maybe that led up to it?
SPEAKER_00: What about the day that you actually were taken under the water?
SPEAKER_00: Was it outside?
SPEAKER_00: Mine was outside.
SPEAKER_00: I remember it.
SPEAKER_00: It's a long time ago.
SPEAKER_00: But I remember it.
SPEAKER_00: The Buffalo bayou down in South Texas.
SPEAKER_00: I was very little.
SPEAKER_00: I think about, um, I was warned, uh, not about this subject, but just in general, don't bring up people's names.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm just gonna leave them out, their names out of it.
SPEAKER_00: But I do remember a particular person that I love very dearly of that person's baptism and the church that we were members of were working to get the baptistry kind of redone, and that was the first person that was actually when they did the renovations on that.
SPEAKER_00: I remember that one.
SPEAKER_00: I remember watching that one and some others.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, pray for me that I can get through this.
SPEAKER_00: Um, there was also somebody that I very much love, and I remember that person's baptism that was sitting on the pew on the front right there at our home church, and um under the profession of faith, that that individual loves the same Lord that I love, and claims him as our Lord and Savior, and that he is the one and only reason why heaven will be our home.
SPEAKER_00: That simplicity that we heard about, how this message is a, there's a lot of pages in the Bible, but it's a simple message is that we were not able to redeem ourselves from a fallen state, and we had an answer, and he came and he answered that need.
SPEAKER_00: It's a simple message.
SPEAKER_00: And that individual believed it too.
SPEAKER_00: And as I sat there on the pew and watched this sweet, wonderful experience in the baptistry from that from that vantage point, I'm telling you, it was like the Lord Himself was showing me something that was so otherworldly.
SPEAKER_00: When I saw that individual go down underneath the water, his body go down under the water, and then come out.
SPEAKER_00: And it was just in a moment I could not help but think about the resurrection of his body out of the grave.
SPEAKER_00: It was a sermon that was one of the best sermons I've ever heard in my life, and it'll stick with me.
SPEAKER_00: I truly believe that.
SPEAKER_00: That sermon will stick with me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't ever want to take my hand off of having witnessed it and what it showed forth.
SPEAKER_00: What a wonderful gift to be able to witness that.
SPEAKER_00: How much more a wonderful gift to have your own experience on that day that you're thinking about when you went under the wave and then you came out again.
SPEAKER_00: It's not an empty act, it's a beautiful, wonderful testimony of what you believe to be the case.
SPEAKER_00: It's that you're represented in Christ Jesus, and because you're in him and because he went to the grave, he didn't stay there, but he came out again.
SPEAKER_00: He came out again.
SPEAKER_00: That's a gift.
SPEAKER_00: What you have right now, what you're thinking about, wherever your mind is, thank the Lord for that.
SPEAKER_00: Hold on to that.
SPEAKER_00: Turn with me, if you would, to the second chapter of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: Apostle Peter, fifty days after the resurrection of the man, Jesus Christ, where Jesus, by his own power, took up his life again, and then showed himself openly at multiple occasions unto many.
SPEAKER_00: It was it was not a small evidence.
SPEAKER_00: It was out in the open for those to see to where they, it was, it's undeniable that this man had conquered death, that he had by his own power, and the Lord was satisfied with the offering of redemption there on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: What a wonderful thing.
SPEAKER_00: Fifty days later, many people were gathered there in Jerusalem, and the Spirit of the Lord fell upon that multitude of people who were gathered together.
SPEAKER_00: Side note, you know that same spirit that fell upon Pentecost at Pentecost is the same exact spirit that falls upon us each and every time we meet and the Lord visits us?
SPEAKER_00: It's the same spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It seems so wonderful when we read about Pentecost in chapter 2 of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same spirit, brothers and sisters, that falls upon us as we lift up our songs in the sanctuary and we feel as though we're together just going to take flight.
SPEAKER_00: When we hear the gospel and it just feeds and charms our souls, and we feel as though every whatever troubles and trials in our life fall away from us.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same spirit that falls upon us as it does upon these people.
SPEAKER_00: It came in a very mighty way, like a rushing wind.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter would preach not a different message.
SPEAKER_00: What he brought forward to them to hear is the same message that we've been listening to.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing we've been listening to all of our days growing up and the wonderful sermons, and the things that are presented in a new way, but it's the same old sweet gospel message.
SPEAKER_00: That's the message that came forward to these people.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to sum up kind of what he preached that day as those people on their day, where something wonderful happened in their life.
SPEAKER_00: Acts 2, I'll just read verse 23, 24.
SPEAKER_00: This kind of sums up his sermon in my view.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Him, and that's pointing to Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the very Son of God made manifest in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: It says him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.
SPEAKER_00: That is equally true each time we hear the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He, Jesus Christ, having been delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, we've heard those things that he covenanted with himself before the foundation of the world that he would have a people and place those people in Christ Jesus and predestinate them unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto himself.
SPEAKER_00: We've heard those things, but I mean he went to the cross for us, and it was our very sins that nailed him to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Did we uh nail the nails through the hands of Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: No, not physically, but it was my sins that nailed my Savior to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And then when we see that we feel the same reaction that these individuals go through, we are pricked in the heart.
SPEAKER_00: We are touched in a way to where I don't just think that that's true.
SPEAKER_00: I know that's true.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that's true.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that it was my sins that nailed my Savior to that cross some 2,000 years ago there in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that.
SPEAKER_00: Ye have by wicked hands crucified and slain.
SPEAKER_00: Whom God hath raised up.
SPEAKER_00: It was God, and by God's power, it was his own power that raised him again out of that grave after three full days and three full nights, as it was prophesied.
SPEAKER_00: He raised up and having loosened the pains of death.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you thankful to know that Scripture supports what God has already told us within our hearts?
SPEAKER_00: And then harming them as it so perfectly validates and vindicates what we know, what God has told us within ourselves is that God has loosed the very pains of death, the very grasps of the pain of death.
SPEAKER_00: He has loosed that.
SPEAKER_00: He has let that go, and you are set at liberty in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that.
SPEAKER_00: Now for a second, go back to your baptism, to that day that you're thinking of, and when you went under the water, it was an outward declaration, a profession, that you believe that.
SPEAKER_00: That that's exactly where you stand on things.
SPEAKER_00: What a wonderful, simple, beautiful, uh, profound place to stand is knowing that and believing that.
SPEAKER_00: I like that place.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good place to stand and be and think about.
SPEAKER_00: Because it was not possible that he should be holding of it.
SPEAKER_00: It was impossible.
SPEAKER_00: It was impossible that the grave could hold your Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's impossible that the grave could hold you.
SPEAKER_00: Because it was impossible to hold him.
SPEAKER_00: Because of where you are positionally, where you didn't put yourself, but God puts you before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Because of where you are positionally, it was impossible to hold him.
SPEAKER_00: It's impossible to hold you, it's impossible to hold any individual of those of the objects of his grace.
SPEAKER_00: It's impossible.
SPEAKER_00: It's an impossibility.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that.
SPEAKER_00: It's a simple message, it's a simple truth.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, but it's so big and it's so wonderful to behold.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe you believe that too.
SPEAKER_00: I know so many in this room.
SPEAKER_00: I love so many in this room, and I know you believe that.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard many of you ministers preach that with great liberty and great boldness, that you believe those things.
SPEAKER_00: I've I've been with people rejoicing in the very truth.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so we can skip down here to kind of this reaction as these individuals on this day, there in Jerusalem, as they heard this gospel message hit their ears.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 37, it says, Now when they heard this, not something different.
SPEAKER_00: They heard, these were the words that they heard.
SPEAKER_00: When they heard this, they were pricked in the heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and just by the way, the preaching of the gospel and it touching your heart does elicit a response.
SPEAKER_00: And that response is, Lord, what shall I do?
SPEAKER_00: There's action and there's movement, and there should be movement when we're stirred by the very uh liberty of preaching of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It should stir us to want to uh serve God better, love um, love his people, uh pour ourselves into the service.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it should move us to do.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_00: For the promise is unto you and to your children, and all of those that are afar that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
SPEAKER_00: And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourself from this untoward generation.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at what verse 41 says.
SPEAKER_00: Then they gladly received his word, or they that were that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
SPEAKER_00: It was after they heard these words of um the deliverance that the children of God has because of the finished work of Jesus Christ, because of his death on the cross, his burial there in Jerusalem in that borrowed tomb, and by his own power, after three days and three nights, he rose again, victorious over death, hell, and the grave, having conquered the very sin, uh curse that cursed his people, he showed victory outwardly and openly for all to see.
SPEAKER_00: When they heard this, they were moved with gladness, and they were baptized.
SPEAKER_00: See what happens to order there is hearing those things, believing those things, and submitting yourself to gospel baptism.
SPEAKER_00: That's the order, and it's a wonderful uh thing to behold.
SPEAKER_00: It's a even better and wonderful thing to experience.
SPEAKER_00: It might be maybe, I don't, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: It might be nerve-wracking, it might uh worry you, it might bring forth thoughts of like, well, what would life be like if I did submit myself to baptism?
SPEAKER_00: I I don't I don't know what kind of thoughts would or or hesitations might accompany that place, but I will tell you with all confidence that it would be something you would not regret.
SPEAKER_00: It would be something that would bring forward a peace and a joy that I can't explain.
SPEAKER_00: A life living in the kingdom of Jesus Christ our Lord has been the joy of my entire life.
SPEAKER_00: To witness my family's life in the church, the riches that have come with having submitting myself to gospel baptism, what a wonderful blessing that has been in my life.
SPEAKER_00: But it comes from belief in these things.
SPEAKER_00: Believing that these things that Peter talked about are true and they apply to me.
SPEAKER_00: That these things were effective to me in my life.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't just Jesus' story.
SPEAKER_00: They are my story in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That what he did on the cross was effective for me.
SPEAKER_00: I have no fear that when this life is over, that I won't be with him in heaven or mortal glory.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know how much time I've used.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to concern myself with that.
SPEAKER_00: Where I like to try to draw this to is the blessing, the wonderful gift that is your baptism, that day that you're, I asked you to think about, the one that I'm thinking about.
SPEAKER_00: I think of it almost like, I don't know why my mind went here, but I'm just going to share it.
SPEAKER_00: The children of Israel, when they were delivered over Jordan into the promised land, they were at an area, I believe Joshua chapter 4 talks about Gilgal.
SPEAKER_00: There was an area there.
SPEAKER_00: And they took stones out of the river and then they set them up to make like a monument.
SPEAKER_00: And there was some, it was meant to a purpose for them to draw their attention and their minds back to a particular place, to a particular day, that they might remember what happened.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That memorial that was set up.
SPEAKER_00: And I love the statement that they have there.
SPEAKER_00: Um, when when your children come by and ask what mean you by these stones, that the stones weren't just set up to be like, hey, look what we can do.
SPEAKER_00: We can set up.
SPEAKER_00: It was meant to be a memorial to draw their minds back to a thing for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Your baptism just it's probably not say this in the right way.
SPEAKER_00: Your baptism, whatever that day that was, whatever age that was, whatever location that was, whether it was in an outside water, a swimming pool, I'm thinking of one in particular, um buffalo bayou, whatever it might be, right?
SPEAKER_00: Whatever that scene was, it wasn't just to check a box, to move on to the next thing.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that I hope that doesn't offend.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like I need to be baptized so I can get on to the other stuff.
SPEAKER_00: That baptism that you submitted yourself to is such a wonderful gift because you can go back there in your memory.
SPEAKER_00: You can think back upon that day where you that you um surrendered and turned yourself over and said, I want to live in the Lord's church, I want to serve his church, I want to profess to everybody that would hear me that I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And you can do all of that very quietly as you come through the handshaking line, as whatever it might tell a brother in the in the or sister in the lunchroom.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be out openly, but when you're saying uh that by being baptized, you're professing as loud and as boldly as you possibly can that I believe those things.
SPEAKER_00: And then your mind goes back to that as you go through your life.
SPEAKER_00: My baptism was a long time ago, but I should, I don't think I do, I should go back in my mind and think about that day when I submitted myself to baptism, because it should bring forth comfort.
SPEAKER_00: It should tell me, it should, it should inform me in whatever situation I'm going through in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you, brothers and sisters, we go through hard times.
SPEAKER_00: We go through things that challenge us, things that worry us, bring anxiety that overwhelm us when things come at us like waves on over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: We need we need places to go to grab onto and say like things of comfort, things that will strengthen us.
SPEAKER_00: There's no better place to go for and go to and look to than Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We heard about that, about that ark, about looking upward, right?
SPEAKER_00: Looking towards Jesus Christ our Lord, victorious, um reigning king on his throne.
SPEAKER_00: Look there.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, you have that day that you can think back on.
SPEAKER_00: And what mean ye by, they said these stones, I said, what mean ye by this baptism that you submitted yourself to?
SPEAKER_00: This act of profession of your faith, of that good conscience that that is within you because of Jesus Christ our Lord?
SPEAKER_00: What did you mean that day?
SPEAKER_00: What did you mean that day when you did that?
SPEAKER_00: That sweet memory, what did you mean?
SPEAKER_00: What did you believe?
SPEAKER_00: What were you confident in on that day?
SPEAKER_00: Let me keep mine simple.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that Jesus Christ is conquer over all.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a lot wrapped up in that.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that he is victorious.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that he is sovereign.
SPEAKER_00: I believe he had me then.
SPEAKER_00: I believe he has me right now.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that he will never leave me.
SPEAKER_00: I believe he'll never forsake me.
SPEAKER_00: He'll never take his eyes off me.
SPEAKER_00: He um troubles will come in our lives, afflictions that don't always feel so light will hit us in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: But I believe that Jesus Christ has conquered death for me.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that.
SPEAKER_00: Those afflictions that hit us in our lives, and they just keep hitting.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is victorious.
SPEAKER_00: I need that.
SPEAKER_00: I want that place to look back to.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be remotivated.
SPEAKER_00: Is that a word?
SPEAKER_00: Remotivated by that.
SPEAKER_00: You have that.
SPEAKER_00: You have that sweet memorial to look back to.
SPEAKER_00: In addition to that, the zeal that came on that day where you went out there, and it's that entrance into the church to be able to live and to work and um to vote and conference, to take communion, to fellowship with their brothers and sisters, to work in the vineyard, all the wonderful blessings that go with being a member of the church, there's responsibility that goes with being a member of the church, and it is not grievous.
SPEAKER_00: It is wonderful to live and to work in the church.
SPEAKER_00: The life in the church is blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed.
SPEAKER_00: When we do think back upon that day, when our mind does go back to that memorial of that day, we were zealous about it then.
SPEAKER_00: We should be equally zealous in the service of God on this very day.
SPEAKER_00: Like where we are, where we're reminded about that happening.
SPEAKER_00: I love the Lord's church so much, so much, and I want to live and I want to work in it, I want to dwell in it.
SPEAKER_00: You are my people.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that I'm your people.
SPEAKER_00: Live and work and dwell in this sweet land that the Lord Himself has brought us to.
SPEAKER_00: That the baptism that you submitted yourself to is a gift.
SPEAKER_00: And your mind continue to go back to that place.
SPEAKER_00: Now, um, for those of you who have not had, um don't share this memory of having submitted yourself to baptism.
SPEAKER_00: You have that opportunity right now, you have that opportunity when you go back to your home church, you have that opportunity because the doors of the church are always open.
SPEAKER_00: The church is always ready to receive a believer, someone who shares this very common, um, wonderful belief in Jesus Christ our Lord, that shares that same belief, you have the opportunity to do so.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're holding on to the pew, as we hear sometimes, if you're holding on white knuckle to the pew, let go.
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, it's the sweetest ride ever.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'll leave it there.
SPEAKER_00: I love you very dearly.