Elder Jeff Moseley & Elder Luke Addison | 2026 Camp Meeting | Friday PM | 7.17.26

Elder Jeff Moseley, Merryville PBC, Merryville, LA

Elder Luke Addison, Mt. Gilead PBC, Smithdale, MS

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today's been a good day. It's a day of rejoicing. I was surprised to see it shows my faith. I think the Lord can look at me and say, oh, yeah, a little faith. When I pulled up to the parking lot and it was nearly full. And I am really happy to see your encouragement of coming to church and being here with the Lord's people. I have something on my mind tonight, and that is a good thing. First off, I want to tell you I love you. You're I took two personal days and a vacation day to come here. People said, where are you going? I said, I'm going to church. On your vacation? If they just knew. If they just knew. And that word's used pretty loosely in the world of uncertainty. It's just a byword. Well, we hope to. But looking at the scriptures, for me, I've found out that hope is such a more broader thing. It's something that we believe in. Whenever Adam and Eve fell in the garden, they tried to clothe themselves with fig leaves. And this week I was thinking that the Lord gave them mercy by giving them coats of skin to clothe their nakedness. I got in just my little way of thinking. They were tailored by the Christ. They fit them. I can imagine they were warm. They felt the work that the Lord did in those clothes. And that was something that hope gave them. It gave them. Because they messed up. Sin fell upon all men. And we're happy to be in the sights of the Lord. I want you to look at this real quick. This is my text. I'll get it real quick. 1 Timothy. The Lord's telling Timothy, there's someone you can depend on. Paul's not always going to be there. He's not always going to be there. He's going to die. He's going to go the way of all men. But he's telling him that there's someone you can depend on. And his name is Jesus. That's why we come here. That's why we come to worship Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Billy got one of the texts I was going to do, for I determined to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's all we should be worried about. Our knowledge in the scriptures are great, but the main thing that we should worship is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Listen to what he tells Timothy. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God. That's pretty stiff right there. That's coming from the Lord. He says, Our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope. I've been thinking about that text, and when people talk about hope, they never quote this text. But Brother David, he's our hope. A man came to my house one day and he said, he said, Brother Jeff, he said, Brother Jeff, he said, Mr. Mosley, he said, if you died today, would you go to heaven? And I said, I hoped I would. He said, that's all you have is hope. I said, brother, I said, my hope is in Jesus. My hope's not whether I live good enough or I do everything politically correct, but it's in Jesus. Because Romans chapter 5 says, while we were yet in sin, Christ died for the ungodly. While we were sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. We was, uh listen to what Ephesians says real quick right here. You're going to find out real fast. This this sermon is not written down. The God and I think it's let me say, hold up for a second. The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the kingdom of Him. That's what we worship, my friends. We worship a Savior that gives us hope of His kingdom. I like to think about heaven. Not ready to go yet, but I'm happy. I draw great comfort in thinking about what heaven must be like. He says in Ephesians chapter 2. He says, and to make all men the fellowship of the mystery for the beginning of the world hath hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ. That's something that that that we it's all in him. It's all in him. He says, then said, Lo, I come in the volume of the book, and it is written of me to do thy will, O God. Jesus was born to do his will. Jesus Christ came and died for our sins. That's something that we should always remember that Jesus paid the price. He came when there was no one else. When there was no one else to die for our sins. There wasn't anybody that was spotless. We were all sinners, my friends. But this man, but this man came and died for our sins. John says, Behold the Lamb of God. He's the one that's going to die for our sins. Oh, I want you to know, my friends, that we're we're so, I'm so thankful to have this love in our lives, my friends. He says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, he says, then they also which are falling asleep in Christ are perished. But he says, if this life only we have hope in Christ, we're of men most miserable. No hope. That's no hope, my friends. If all we have, if you look at a grave and you see them, and I can see my father and I can see my mother in their grave right now, if I had no hope that I'd see them again, I would be of men most miserable. But I'll tell you what, when I go to their grave, Brother David, I look at their grave and I say, someday, someday I'm gonna see you again. And you're gonna be incorruptible and undefiled. No sin whatsoever. We're gonna have that in our lives. I'm thankful for that, that God has given us the love. But He says, but now, but now is Christ risen. They say that there's no resurrection. Some say there's no resurrection. But I want you to know, my friends, when someone asks you if you die today, would you go to heaven? You tell them you hope so. Because your hope is in Christ Jesus. That's what we worship, my friends. When we come to these meetings, and you you you know, my the church I'm pastor of is called little flock. And and but you know what, there's a lot of little flocks in this building right now. If we segregate, if we separated to all the little churches, Brother David, it would all be little flocks. But I want you to know, my friends, Jesus, he's in every one of them, giving us hope every Sunday. He says, but now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that sleep. You know, Jesus in Acts chapter 1, I believe it was, he ascended into heaven in a body, brother Sonny, in his body. Someday we're gonna raise from the grave in our bodies, Brother Eric. These bodies right here. I don't know if it's gonna go to heaven or not. But I know one thing, I'm gonna go to heaven and I'm gonna be incorruptible and undefiled. I don't know what these old bodies are gonna look like, but they're gonna be glorified. I don't know, but I know Jesus is in heaven right now, at the right hand of God, making intercession for us. If you need him to sit at the finished work of Jesus Christ, he's sitting. If you need him to be the intercessor of you right now, he's standing. Brother Philip, whatever you need Jesus to be, he's gonna be there for us. Well, you know why? Because he rose from the grave. If we went to that grave today, you know what it is? It's empty. It's empty. And when they went to the grave over there and they looked in, it was empty, my friends. That's the best thing they found when they got there. If they would have looked in there, then Jesus would not be risen from the dead, and we would yet be in our sins. Oh, I want you to know, my friends, I'm thankful they looked in there and that was empty. And that was empty. And he, you know, he took a little bit of time before he went back to heaven. Those guys on the road to Mayus took a little time with them. Took a little time with old Peter, set him down, and said, Peter, do you love me? Well, he gave him some hope that day. He said, Feed my lambs. Feed my lambs. And then he said, feed my sheep. And then one day Peter was praying, Brother David. Cornelius was praying.

unknown 11:34

That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

There were some sheep and some lambs to be fed. And he, the Lord, told Peter, you're going to feed Cornelius. And he preached Jesus Christ to Cornelius. And I imagine Cornelius' hope just expelled out of his body, my friends, because I'll tell you what, he enjoyed what he heard. You know what, my friends, I've never gone somewhere there wasn't somewhere, some people to listen to my preaching. As common as it may be, I love Jesus. I love him with all my heart. And whenever the Lord says go, go. The Lord says stay home, stay home. Whatever the Lord tells you to do, my friends, you do it. You do what he says. And I'll tell you, I've never gone somewhere that there wasn't somebody. I flew to Nebraska, to Hardington, Nebraska, about 10 years. Third weekend in May. I went there every year. Flew all the way to Minneapolis, St. Paul, Minnesota, jumped on a little plane, flew back down to Sioux City, Iowa, drove in a car with Brother Ivan Abbott, about 70 miles. Went into a basement, eight people. But you know what, my friends, it dawned on me one day that those eight people needed to hear Jesus. Because they had a hope. They had a hope to hear some preaching. Went there one year, they all had the virus. There was like three people there. But you know what? I tried my best to preach to those three people. There's more than three in here. But I'll tell you what, my friends, those little churches need preaching too just as much as the big churches. And you know what, my friends? Hope is a great thing. Let me get over here real quick. I hope the Lord's in the matter. It's in Peter. And I know it's in here. Hope is like love. The Bible talks about hope being charity. So charity is love in action. It's one thing for me to tell you I love you, but Brother Sonny, it's another thing to hug your neck and tell you I love you. That's love in action. Well, hope is the same way. It's good, brother David. But old Peter, he's writing this first chapter of 1 Peter, and he's talking about something that he found out through all his ministry of all the things that Peter did, cut the ear off a soldier, said, Lord, no, forbid you go to death. And Jesus said, Satan, get behind me. And right above that, he said, Thou art the Son of the living God. The same Peter. Now he's writing the scriptures, feeding the sheep and feeding the lamb. I want you to know he's fixing to give us something that hope is not something that you stick in your pocket and you get it out whenever you need it, my friends. But it's something we should apply to our lives to give Jesus all the glory that we can give him, my friends. And I'll tell you what, you've done that this weekend. Listen to what he says. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ unto you. Peace be multiplied. That's humbling to me to think that a man loved me so much that he gave his life for me, Brother Philip. He gave his life for us. He sprinkled his blood on the cross. On the cross. That's where it happened. There wasn't anything other than that. It was on the cross that Jesus shed his blood for us. He was the mercy seat. He was the ark. My friends, he was that one that came from heaven. He just, he would, he would mess those people up. Every time he would talk about being from heaven and his father from heaven, and then he said, before Abraham, I was, they just they wanted to put him to death. They didn't have any hope. They didn't have any hope. But oh my friends, you've got hope. Because when you hear Jesus came from heaven before Abraham was, he was. He existed before Abraham. You know, it says that John says that he existed before he did. And he was born before Jesus was. He existed way before John did. He existed before Adam did. He existed before Genesis 1 and 1. And that's when it all started. Because of peace and be multiplied. Blessed be the God of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope. A lively hope. Not something that sets still. But Brother David, it moves and it has been. It functions like faith. Faith is the substance of things hope for the evidence of the things not seen. Hope is the same way, my friends. You've never seen Jesus with your natural eyes. But Brother Philip, you believe in him. You believe in him. You've never heard his voice, but you love him. You love him. Why? Because he's given you a lively hope. Something that dwells up within you. I'll give you some lively hope. A Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon after church, we go into a thing called communion. I've had all different effects in communion. As a little boy, I watched older men take care of the table and take care of the bread and the wine and take care of the pails and the and the towel. I just they just took care of that stuff. Now I'm 62 and we take care of it. We take care of it. And the first time I took the bread and I I broke that bread. Fly flew off of it. And it dawned on me that it takes violence for that bread to be broken. And Jesus says his body was broken for us. Then I took that wine and I poured it in the bottles, and they've made it harder for ministers now. We used to use snuff glasses at Carsakana, Brother Greg. They just poured in there, and it wasn't that hard, but now you got the little bitty bottles, it takes a little skill. But you know what, my friends, I wouldn't take a if you offered me a million dollars to not ever do communion again, you could keep it. It's the most solemn time that a member of the church, and if you're not a member of the church, you should join. If you love Jesus Christ, and you've got that lively hope dwelling up in your heart, and the lively hope tells you that Jesus is the Christ, and he died for you. And Peter said with his precious blood, he died for us. Peter grew, didn't he? He grew from whenever he said, Jesus, thou art the Son of the living God, to right now he's writing these scriptures. The lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. That's lively hope. Someone tells you, well, all you have to do is give your heart to the Lord, you know what that does? That nearly makes me mad. Because I know what my Lord did for me. While I was yet a sinner, Christ died for my sins. And when people tell me that, that you have to give your heart to the Lord. You know what, my friends? I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I was without God in the world. I was without God in the world. But you know what Jesus did? He brought us in. Ephesians says we both have access. The Jew and the Gentile. We're all together, my friends. What a day that's gonna be whenever we get to go to heaven. I'll get back to communion. You take that wine and you drink that wine. You remember that he shed his blood for you. And here's for me lately in communion this is a time that's as I grow older, it's become more precious to me, Brother Tom. In the foot washing. Getting down at the brethren's feet and little boys' feet. Little little ones that have joined the church and and they're sitting there and Their legs are going forward back, they just can't sit still. And they're just ready to do it. They get down and they wash each other's feet. Or whenever we had an older minister, Brother Sonny, and and and they couldn't get down on the ground. So we we couldn't let them not do footwashes. So we put a chair there by their chair, brother David, and we we let them stand up and put their feet in that chair. That way they could do communion. We make provisions for you, my friends. Wherever you're at, we'll make provisions for you because we want you to enjoy this lively hope, this hope that's reserved in heaven for you. You're gonna have a reservation there. You've got one, you're not gonna get there, and they'll say, Well, we already give that to Brother David. You know what? David already had his own. But I'll tell you what, my friends, I grew up with David. We grew up together at Carson. His dad baptized was my pastor, and he was a giant when I was a little bitty boy. And I'll tell you what, my friends, hope. Hope is a great, wonderful thing in our lives. It's something that we understand is with us. It's something that's not dead. It's something that God has given us in our spirit that when we get down and we worship and we serve each other in the church, my friends, I want you to know this lively hope, it's the greatest thing you can ever feel when you come into the house of God and you hear the singing of the saints, and you hear the minister get up as a man doing the very best that he possibly can to preach Jesus and Him crucified. And you hear a brother get down and you hear someone pray about asking God to remember us in our lives. Oh, this lively hope, it's a wonderful thing. And it's something that we can live for, my friends, all the days of our life. And don't ever think that you're too small or too insignificant to make a difference in the church. If you believe in Jesus Christ and you have this lively hope in you, you know what happens in the scriptures most of the time if you're reading it? Whenever they get born again? You know what Paul did after he was born again? He was baptized, my friends, in the name of Jesus Christ. When Philip went over to the eunuch, he said, Understandest thou what thou readest? He said, How can I let some man guide me? He said, He preached to him Jesus. No other man. But he preached to him Jesus. And he must have gone a little bit further about Jesus. He just didn't preach about Jesus, the man. But he preached about Jesus Christ, the resurrected Jesus Christ. Because he says, What hindereth me to be baptized? He preached the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And I'll tell you what, my friends, he said, I believe. So he was baptized in some certain water. He was baptized. Enjoy your lively hope. And you are of all the people that could have turned around and went back home. You know the Lord told Paul he was going to Rome? He didn't say he was going to get there, but he said he was going to Rome. The Lord told you you were coming to the camp meeting. He didn't say how you were going to get here, but you made it. You know what you can tell the men? Don't worry. We're all safe. You're all safe in Jesus Christ. Thank you for your kind attention.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

We love you very much in the Lord, and always held this place as a very dear place to me. And my memories of this place and worshiping with you have been some of the best memories in my life, and I'm thankful to the Lord for that, and thankful for each of you that have come to worship with us. And we ask that you would pray for us as we stand before you. I just ask that you pray. I don't know just how to start all this, but um Lord being our helper, we'd like to talk to you tonight about the power of God. To talk about the power of God. That's like, so we're just gonna talk about how good God is or how great God is. We're just gonna talk about God's love. It's such a large subject that there's no way that you can. I mean, I I don't think you could quote every where it talks about the power of God. Um I haven't looked it up, don't know how many times it's mentioned, but my mind is on one particular thing. And um I I can tell you it's more for me than it is for you. The power of his anger, and the power of his forgiveness, and the power of his favor. He's holy, and the cherubims and the angels sit around his throne crying, holy, holy, holy. The Lord God Almighty. Psalms chapter 90 or 90, Psalm. I want to get verse 10. I want to read down through 12. The days of our years are three score and ten, and if by reason of strength they be four score years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away. Who knoweth the power of thine anger, even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. My thoughts about the power of his anger are so that we can teach, or that he may teach us, and that we may teach ourselves to number our days, to apply our hearts unto wisdom. The scriptures teach us that God is angry. Who hath who knoweth the power of thine anger? Before we get to that, I want to notice that it matters what we think. And it matters what we say. It matters how we say it, when we say it, where we say it. And it matters what we do. Everything we think, say, or do, we ought to have the mindset, is this pleasing in God's sight? We want to please him with what we do. And he has done for us great things, marvelous things, wonderful things. And not only has he saved us from our sins, but he's let us know about it. He's given us the gospel of our salvation, the ministry of reconciliation, that we might know these things and be assured of them. That it would change the way that we walk, the way that we talk, the way that we love, have love one to another, and love one for another. It changes our lives. It ought to change our lives. Who knoweth the power of his anger? He says, even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. To what degree should the Lord be feared? To what degree should he be reverenced? I don't think this has reference to a terrorizing fear that we come before the Lord's people and we come. I mean, ministers that stand in this place, there's a terror that's here. But it doesn't come from God, it becomes from our own weakness, our own. I don't want to fail. That's, I guess, pride. God is a terrible God in the sense of his power. But to what degree do we owe him reverence? You see folks in the scriptures that just fell down at his feet and grabbed him. Folks that fell down at his feet and wiped his feet with a with tears and wiped him with her hair. He says, We're not going to forget this woman. We're going to have a memorial in the scriptures everywhere that this is, that this gospel is preached. To what should we, to what, what worth worth does our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ have that we ascribe unto him greatness? Meaning that everything that's great comes from him. There's no greatness outside of him. You hear folks talk about who's the greatest in all the different areas of life, business, and sports, and there is no greatness outside of God. None. He is the source of all greatness. And if you hold something up else as a standard of greatness, you are devaluing the Lord God. He's worthy to be ascribed honor and glory and power and greatness. Even according to thy fear, even according to the amount that he deserves and is worthy, so is his wrath. So is his wrath. It matters where you live. Can you live in Texas or Mississippi? Yes. It's not about where you live in the state or nation or community. David said there's one thing he desired above all things that he might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life, and it matters that we dwell there. It matters. It pleases God, just as Brother Jeff says, if you have it, if you've heard this gospel and you know what Jesus did, you know where he came from, you know what he suffered for you, you should be baptized. It matters where we live. And it matters when we live there. Do you think the Lord Jesus Christ wasted a moment of time? When you read things like Jesus went down into the ship to sleep, you think, well, he just didn't have anything else to do. If I'm traveling over here, I may sleep when I'm not driving. Just, well, I'm not doing anything else. I'll go to sleep. I waste a lot of time. I'm sure you don't waste much time, but I waste time. I I just I'll do it later. I'm a procrastinator when it comes to certain things. Do you think the Lord did that? Do you think the Lord Jesus Christ had a moment of time that he wasted?

unknown 35:32

No.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

He never wasted any time. He applied his heart unto doing the Father's will. And he got angry about some things. He saw some folks making merchandise of the Lord's people and in the Lord's house. At least on two occasions. He overturns the money exchange. One time he sits and makes a scourge. He wasn't angry out of his mind. He was angry at what he saw with the Lord's people and the Lord's house being desecrated. And he took time to make a scourge and he ran them out. I don't want you to think he's only angry at the wicked. He is angry at the wicked. There's proof of that. I believe Psalm 7 says he's angry at the wicked every day. The Lord judgeth the righteous, but he's angry at the wicked every day. But if the Lord of glory has a people out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation, that's a large number. More than the stars, more than the sand of the seashore. Some of you may agree with me that there's more that are in the Lord's house and kingdom than that aren't going to be there. I believe there'll be more in heaven than there'll be in hell, so that in all things he'll have the preeminence. I don't think it'll be like plus one. I think it's going to be a host that we're just going to rejoice with this joy unspeakable and full of glory, and he's going to have all the honor and praise and glory in all eternity for all of his work. And I believe it's going to be a lot of us there, and we're not going to be crowded. We're not going to be uncomfortable. Too much air, not enough air. We're going to be perfectly content and satisfied in the presence of Jesus Christ. I tend to think hell's going to be crowded, but I think it's a lonely place. I don't think they can commiserate in each other's sins. I think they suffer for their own sins. I don't know that I can prove that. But I want you to understand the power of his anger is to the wicked. It absolutely is. I don't want to take that away. I believe that there is a geographical location called hell, and that the wicked go there. That death and hell will be delivered up and be cast into the lake of fire, a place that's prepared for the devil and his angels, and they will suffer for all eternity, and he's going to be angry with them every day, and his glory and his righteousness will be exalted in the punishment of the wicked. So I'm not, I don't really want to talk about them. I want you to know where I stand, that I believe there is a hell, it's a literal place, and people are going to be there. They're going to be there because they deserve to be there. There won't be any there that just had the unfortunate that just didn't get elected. I wanted to serve God. I love the Lord Jesus Christ, but I just wasn't elect, so I have to go there. No, there won't be anybody there. That's an impossibility. If you love God, then God loves you first. There won't be any of those. Everyone in hell will be there of his own merits and be judged according to their works. And but by the grace of God, all of Adam's race would be there. And I want you to understand when we talk about the wrath and the power of his wrath, and I want to talk about it upon his people. I want to talk about what I believe maybe that I have felt in my own disappointment of the Lord that he's chastened me and judged me, and I have felt the anger and the heat of his wrath. It doesn't change that heaven's going to be my home. The Lord of glory, the Lord Jesus Christ, has been judged for our sins and our iniquities. He'll remember them against us no more. There won't be a final last day judgment for the Lord's people. There will be a final last day justification. Come, you blessed of my Father. It will be a righteous judgment. That you're righteous, you're holy, you're blessed. Come and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. But there is a judgment seat that we stand before. He says it's the judgment seat of Christ. God Almighty has delivered judgment into the hands of Jesus Christ. You can go read in Isaiah where he talks about coming and the fierceness of his anger and vengeance, and that's the Lord's work. We will not be with him when he's exacting judgment on the wicked. We won't be there judging them in that sense. He did the work of redemption alone, he did it by himself, and this work of vengeance is his alone to have. And God the Father's given that into his hand. But what has he done for us? He's died for my sins. He knows every sin I've ever committed. And I would love to say that once I knew what he did for me, that I ceased from sin. And that I'm not going to do it anymore. I don't know what your experience is, but my experience is I not only do it, I do the same things over again. When I know to do, I know I've got to refrain, and I don't refrain. I'm right there doing, saying, acting in a way that I ought not to act. Why do you think the Lord sent sinners to preach to you? Because that's your experience too. The angels don't have that experience, but man does. Don't put us up in any pedestals and think of us more highly than you ought to think, because all you're doing is setting us up for failure, and I'm going to tell you wherever that you have stumbled, I've stumbled twice. I want you to know something about the anger of the Lord upon his people. And his favor is like weeping may endure for a night. His anger endures but a moment. Why is that? Other than the fact that he's gracious and full of mercy. And he has tender mercies and compassion upon us for the great love that he has for us. But God does not overlook sin. God does not say, Well, they're mine, I'll just give them a pass. No, he judged the Lord Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, and Jesus Christ drank the bitter dregs of that cup. If he was going to give anybody a pass, he would have given his son a pass. He would have mediated it and lessened it and mitigated the cup and said, just drink a sip out of this cup. But Jesus Christ looked into the cup. Jesus Christ dreaded the cup. Drink Jesus Christ in the garden, whether you like to talk about the garden or not. Sweat, as it were, great drops of blood in his prayer to God. He was in agony and sorrow. And he knew what was in the cup. And he says, Let me drink the cup.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

But his anger for us endures but for a moment. He knows all my sins. All those that are past. And I'm getting the cart ahead of the horse, but he knows my sin now, and he knows what it's going to be later. And his anger is but for a moment, and weeping may endure for a night. And what that means to me is that weeping lasts a little longer than the anger. His anger is but for a moment. But when we know we've disappointed, when we know we've sinned, and that we have caused him anguish and pain, we weep. We should weep. We shouldn't, once we've heard the news of salvation by grace, just skip on the mountaintops and never again look back to our sin. As a matter of fact, I think communion is about his death, burial, and resurrection. I think baptism is about his death, burial, and resurrection. When we eat the bread and Brother Jeff talked to us about the violence, it's my violence to him. I'm chewing and gnashing upon it with my teeth. I'm drinking the blood of Christ that was shed for me. It's to remind me. I'm to do so with discernment, considering my sins and my errors. The anger is but for a moment, and I'm going to tell you, brethren, we couldn't endure. No one can endure more than a moment of his anger. As a matter of fact, the wicked are going to endure an eternity of anger, and they're not going to be consumed in it. But the Lord's people, in time, standing before the judgment seat of Christ, we endure his anger for a moment, and weeping may endure for the night. But joy comes in the morning. Lord, by thy favor, thou hast made my mountain to stand strong. Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled. I want you to understand one thing about the power of his anger is he doesn't have to lift a finger. He doesn't have to move from his position. He said, just hide his face, and I'm in trouble. But if just for a moment he causes his face not to shine upon me because of my errors, my contempt, my sins, my pride. If he does that because of my works, he says, I'm in trouble. I'm perplexed. I'm in anguish. I'm in pain. I'm in despair just because he hid his face from me for a little while. Yet we have the promise that he's with us. But sometimes we pray and it's like, are you, do you hear me? We come to the house of God and everybody's crying and everybody's worshiping, and we don't feel like our worship is worship. We just we feel out of place. I want to preach every time, but sometimes I don't feel like I preach. I want to be sincere. He says, they that worship him must worship him in sincerity and in truth. But sometimes it doesn't seem sincere. Sometimes it seems rote. I'm just going through the motions. And it could be that he's hid his face from me. You know what we do in moments like that? I'm going to tell you what you do is you pray, number one. You pray for forgiveness. When should we pray for forgiveness? Is there a time that that prayer doesn't need to be on our lips? We pray for forgiveness. We pray, Lord, help us and give us wisdom to repent. Confess your sins to Him. Do you know any of your sins? I would love to tell you that all of my sins are in ignorance, and I just can say I didn't know any better. I was doing it in ignorance. It's not enough. I'm going to tell you, we can't say I'm just dust of the earth. I'm a sinner. I can't help it. I can't do anything better. What you're doing is you're devaluing the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ gave us his righteousness. He imputed it into us. He says, now be ye holy as I am holy. Would he give us that charge if we couldn't do it? We can do it. Proof of that is when you've taken communion for a moment, you've done exactly what the Lord told you to do. When you've been baptized in his name and you come out of the water, praise be unto God, we have an obedient child of God that's done exactly what his masters require. For little bits of our time, we have done those things. Tonight, God bless you, you have sung the best song service I have ever heard in my life. Bar none. Tonight's song service was the best I've ever heard. The next one might be like that, and you know how that works, but for 30 minutes, some of you please the Lord. And he wasn't angry at your devotion and your praise. Isaiah chapter 5. There's a song that says, Now I will sing unto my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. I would love to hear the words of I would love to hear this song, what it sounds like. The minor tunes have always been my favorite tunes. I just I love the sound of the minor tune. Brother from Georgia, I just lost his name. Roundtree. Brother Roundtree. God bless him. Doesn't like the minor tunes. I'd call out a minor tune. Oh, that's one of those old minor tunes. Read the words of Isaiah 5 and tell me this isn't a minor tune. This is going to be a song of my well-beloved, a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My beloved hath a vineyard and a very fruitful hill. He fenced it and gathered out the stones thereof and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine press therein, and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard, what could I have done more to my vineyard? What could the Lord of glory have done more for his people than he did for his people? We heard a sermon in Romans chapter 8 that says that he freely gave us his son, Jesus Christ. What shall we say to these things? He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not freely with them give us all things? What else could he have done for his people? Not only did he save us from our sins, he established his church. He fashioned it according to his own self. He put within her everything she needed, and everything she needs. So he says, Now I will tell you what I'll do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge, and it shall be eaten up, and I will break down the wall, and it shall be trodden down, and I will lay it waste, and it shall not be pruned nor digging. But there shall come up briars and thorns, and I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. Which one would you rather have? Too much rain or not enough rain? I suspect the folks out here are thankful for the rain. A little too much at the timing that they're trying to have a meeting, but I think they're probably thankful for the rain. How about no rain? How about clouds that never give you a rain? This is a mournful song. This deserves a minor tune. The vineyard is the Lord of hosts, is the house of Israel. And the men of Judah, his pleasant plant. And he looked for judgment. But oppression, behold, oppression. For righteousness, but behold a cry. And then he begins to pronounce woe unto these folks. Woe, because this is what they've turned to. I don't want to get to all the things they turned to, but I want to look at the root cause of their woe and their misery and their wild grapes. You may have to read a little of it, but understand it's not the woes that we're after. Because when you have turned away from God, you've turned away from his commandments, you've turned away from his truth, away from his judgment, you are heaping unto yourself a world of misery. He says in verse 11, Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink. They quit following the Lord. They got to have something to follow. A lot of folks follow strong drink. Then they continue until night. They get up early, they drink early, they drink till night. Till the wine inflamed them. You want heartburn? We don't want this kind of heartburn. We want the kind of heartburn where their heart did burn because they were in the presence of their Lord and their Savior Jesus Christ. These folks have turned away from God and have given themselves heartburn from the world. Now listen to this. They give the harp and the veol and the tambrit and the pipe and wine and are in all that's in their feast. You know, I believe the harp and the veol and the tambrit and the pipe and the wine are in our feast. Not like theirs. I believe it's in our feast. I believe I heard it in the singing. I heard the voice of many instruments being sung unto the Lord. And I'm going to tell you, it was entertaining. Entertain means to hold your attention and affection. All of a sudden we're over here, we're over there, we're thinking about all sorts of things, but something attracts your attention. You hear the songs of Zion being sung, and whatever's on your mind, you stop, and you begin to hum the song or sing the song. You folks that can't sing because you're overwhelmed, but you're still singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord, but your voice will work. We're entertained and captivated by his spirit. This is an amusement. Amusement's not the same thing as entertainment. Amusement is to be entertained without any thought or thinking. In other words, silly, vain entertainment. But it's alright to be entertained in the house of God. It's alright to hear the preaching of the gospel with pleasure and to rejoice and to smile. Uncle Alfred elbowed. Oh, oh, oh, this is a good one. You see folks whispering to each other, oh, he's oh, he's going to get to this verse, and they can't wait. They're hanging on and they're trying to get ahead of you. They're entertained in the Lord in his spirit. These folks have not regarded the works of the Lord. These folks, this is verse 12. They added these things to their feast that they might be entertained and, I will say, amused. But they have not regarded the work of the Lord. We have come to exalt the work of the Lord. We've caught, and we can't make it greater than it is, but we want to give credit where credit's due, and we want to say, this is the work of the Lord. He's elected us before the foundation of the world. He's given us things and preserved things for us. And reserve them, and they're ours, and they can't be taken away. He loved us and he sent his son to die for us, and Jesus Christ came down from heaven. He was in heaven and he came down for us. He fulfilled the law to a jot into a tittle. And we are here to regard his works. These folks that are in woe and misery, that are going to taste of the fierceness of the power of the wrath of God, do not regard his works.

unknown 58:51

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

Unless we get lifted up in pride, you're regarding them today. What about Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and all the other days? Yes, we come for the big meetings. We love the big meetings. We love to see folks that we don't get to see all the time and love them and embrace them and we rejoice in fellowship of what we experience together at these meetings, but then we all go home. Is there something that we regard higher than the work of the Lord? You ever been, you preachers ever preach in power and demonstration of the Spirit of Almighty God? And before you leave the churchyard, you're checking the scores to see which team is winning. I know none of y'all would check your scores during church. That's never happened in an old Baptist church house. All of a sudden you're caught up in foolishness and jesting in the middle of the camp meeting between services. We forget about the work. How can we go from regarding with affection and approval the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and then go into foolishness? How do we do that? Well, we're dust. But it's shame on us. I want you to be fearful, to lose your regard for the work of the Lord. They've not considered the operation of his hands. Which means that we see it with approval and discern it. It's not enough to hear what the preachers say. You have to understand it. Understand the connection. If we do our job as preachers, we give book, chapter, and verse, and we connect verses to verses, but you have to understand them. We have to teach them in a way that's understandable. But this isn't about the preaching. This is about us individually and how we reverence the word of God. How we consider and discern the operation of his hands. I see it this way in election. God the Father took us with his hand and placed us in the hand of his son. It may not have been that way. He's bigger than we are. It could work. He puts us in the hand of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ says, I will not let go. They're mine. And Jesus says, I'm going to put my hand in the hand of the Father. And no man can pluck them out of my Father's. He created the world. It says the heavens are the work of what? His fingers. They've not considered and discerned the works of his hands. Just the works of his hands. I'm telling you that the anger that we feel whenever we disappoint our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is not by the power of his arms and his hands. I don't think he lifts a finger upon us. Because we couldn't endure it. I think he just hides his face for just a little while and we're troubled. The next verse says, Because of this, they've regarded not the work of the Lord and the operation of his hands. Therefore, my people are gone into captivity. I want you to see the woe and misery unto those that do not regard the work of the Lord. Do not consider the work of his hands. And what I'm telling you is, if you consider other things above that, you are not regarding and considering these things. It has to be a priority in your life. And the Lord knows He's the judge. You might can fool me. I might can fool you, but you can't fool the Lord. Here's the woe. They're going to be led into captivity. Their honorable men are famished. They're starving to death. And a multitude is dried up with thirst. Therefore, hell hath enlarged herself and opened her mouth without measure, their glory, their multitude, their pomp, and he that rejoiceth shall descend into it. We're not talking about eternal hell. We're talking about a hell on earth in judgment because I have not discerned the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Or I am putting something above it. Now he says, My people are gone into captivity because they have no knowledge. Now, the no knowledge is because they've not regarded and they've not considered the operation of his hands. So this is not doing what you should do. So we can stir up his anger by not doing things we ought to do. When we ought to do them, how we ought to do them, and the manner that we ought to do them. Now skip down to verse 24. Fire is going to devour the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust. Because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. I know the wicked do this. And I know that if you say you can make the argument, Isaiah chapter 5 is talking about his people Israel, and we can jump to Romans chapter 9 and say, Well, they're not all Israel that are of Israel. I understand we can do that. I want you to understand that we as God's children that love him, that have been baptized in his name and been faithful members of the Lord's church, can cast away the law of the Lord. We can cast it away. We can approach it in a sense that I've heard that preacher before. I've heard him enough times that I know everything that he knows. I preach to the same people for 34 years. Do you think they ever hear anything new out of me? I hope they do, but they've heard everything I know. I've been here enough times, you're like, I've already heard those examples. You've used those before. You can count. Away the law of the Lord because you say the man delivering it can't get it done. What you're doing is limiting the Holy One of Israel. It's the law of the Lord. These are his words. They're precious. They're tried in the silver of earth and purified. They're preserved from this generation forever. Could be that the preacher that you love quotes a text that you don't like. Oh, he's going to preach about grace again. All he ever preaches about is a resurrection. Preach it. To preach these things over and over and over to the ministry, it's not harmful to us. It's not troublesome to us. We just soon preach about the resurrection, preach about the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is that he died for our sins according to the scripture, that he was buried, rose again the third day according to the scripture. We're going to keep preaching that. That's what we're supposed to do. What you're supposed to do is hide it in your heart. David says in Psalms 119, I worry about hidden my heart that I might not sin against thee. If you hide these things in your heart, instead of casting them away, they'll help you to live a better life. A life that's pleasing in his sight. They cast it away. They refuse it. Some refuse by not showing up. Some refuse by showing up for the wrong reasons. They either show up to family reunion time or they show up to make sure that another check mark is on them. They've attended 52 services a year, whatever the case may be. You gotta show up for the right reason, be sincere and love the Lord and hang on to every word that falls from the master's table. And then it says they've despised the word of God. It means they it sickens them. Heard it so much that it sickens me. I've eaten so much that it sickens me. And I've eaten some things so much that I once liked, I don't like them anymore. And I won't tell you in case y'all cooked that and don't want you to. But we should not ever sicken the word of the Holy One of Israel. Here are two things that they did. The first two are things that they didn't do, they didn't regard, they didn't consider. Here they cast away or they refused. You know, the Jews as a nation were judged because they refused the chief cornerstone, the head of the corner, they refused him. And the the leaders of that nation said, Let this sin be on us and our children. And the Lord of glory says, until your heart turns to the Lord, you'll not see me anymore. We need to be very careful. Now I used up all my time, but I told you this sermon was for me. Now I want you to think of what did the Lord of glory do? He regarded the work of the Lord. He regarded the work of his father. He says, My meat is to do the will of the Father and to finish the work. He regarded it. He considered the operation of his hands, which means he was discerning what the will of his father was, and that was his chief joy. When he was going about healing the sick, you know, if you heal me of a sickness, I'm probably just going to get sick again. Lazarus was resurrected from the dead. Do you think he lived forever? He probably died again. In John chapter 12, they sought to put him to death because many believed on the Lord because he was alive again. He didn't certainly resurrect forever ahead of the Lord Jesus Christ because Jesus is the firstborn of every creature. So we know he died again. But I'm going to tell you what he did as he did those things throughout the ministry that he had, he says, Thy sins be forgiven thee. And when someone would question, well, how can Jesus forgive sins? This man is going above himself and he's making himself God. He says that you may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins. I'm going to say to the man, stretch forth your hand. All of the things that he did naturally that were real occurrences, like giving the blinds tight and stretching forth the lame and causing them to walk, and all of those things are also typical of what he's done for us. I would rather have sight of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and have no sight in my eyes. But he's blessed us. He has considered and discerned the work, and he's finished the work. And he didn't despise the Holy One of Israel and the Word of the Holy One of Israel. He loved it. He lived it so much that he is called the Word of God. And because He fulfilled it and did all of these things, you and I can feel the forgiveness of sins. The power of forgiveness is for us to sit here and know that we're sinners. We know what we've done, and we can be convinced that I've done things that I don't know that I know are sins. You preach the gospel to me, and I know that certain things are sins, other things probably are sins, and there's so many more that I've offended for lack of doing. But yet I can hear that message and believe on the name of the Lord of glory and know that he loves me despite of my sin. He's forgiven me. 1 John says he's faithful. Confess your sins unto the Lord. He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. How can Jesus forgive us? He knows we're sinners. If he's righteous, how can he see us as sinners and forgive us? Because he paid for it. He died for it. And that's called justification by faith. And we can know that we stand in grace. And we can know that we and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the power of forgiveness. And it extends beyond that to not only feel the presence of his forgiveness and his love in spite of our sins, we can extend that mercy unto others that have forgot that have wronged us. We can be forgiving to others. Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as Christ for God, as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us. And then we have the power of his favor. I get joy in the morning. I get joy all during the day. Why? Because in his favor is life. How do I know that I'm in his favor by maintaining good works, by being faithful in good works? You want to know that you're in his favor? Go to Psalms 119. There's 176 verses. That's all we got left. 176 verses. We want to talk about the blessedness of his favor. I'm going to leave 168 of them for you to do. The first eight, he uses this language. These are things that folks that regard his works, folks that consider the work of his hands, folks that do not cast away his law, folks that do not despise his law. These are the language of what they do. They walk, walk in the law. They keep his testimony. They seek him with a whole heart. They also do no iniquity. And then he says, Thou hast commanded us to keep the precepts diligently. It's a constant hard work. Our minds have to be focused upon it all the time. He says, They have respect unto the commandments, and we praise him when we have learned thy righteous judgments. There are a hundred and sixty-eight more verses like this that use language like quicken and meditate. The blessings that are poured out upon the Lord's people that have regard for this law. Blessed are the undefiled in the way. You want to be undefiled? You have to regard the words of the Lord. And I want to conclude with verse 16 of Isaiah 5. He gives us the woes, the judgment, but the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment. And God that is holy shall be sanctified in his righteousness. When we meet together and when we're in our private devotions, what we ought to be doing is exalting him in judgment. We pray unto him as our righteous Father. We pray if it be thy will, not our will. Everything in our private devotion is to exalt him in judgment. Everything we do, our prayers, our singing, our preaching is to exalt him in judgment. And God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness. That's what we're doing. We're sanctifying the Lord God in our hearts. We're setting him apart by saying, He is holy and righteous. He is our God and we are his people. And if we won't do it, he still will be sanctified in righteousness, and he still will be exalted in judgment. But it'll be by the chastisement and the stirring up of his anger. I said that was the last one, it's not. Verse 25 says, For all his anger is not turned away, but his wrath is stretched out still. I want him to withdraw. I want him to withdraw his anger. I want to do what I'm supposed to do by exalting his name in righteousness. May God bless you and keep you, is my prayer.