Hello, this is Brother Denny.
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Amen.
Beloved brethren, I just love the fellowship.
It is sweet to every two years and
many times in between for myself also and
traveling to other places and meetings and church
planning work.
It is so wonderful to see the body
of Christ on a bigger scale than just
our local congregation and that is what we
have here today represented.
It seems like sometimes we find our hearts
growing cold toward each other when we just
don't fellowship or don't see each other, you
know, but when we have that acquaintance, then
that all warms up.
Praise God for that.
All right, shall we bow our heads for
prayer?
Oh, God, thank you for the centrality of
Christ.
Thank you for the entrance into the kingdom
through Christ.
Thank you, dear God, for sanctification through Christ.
Oh, thank you, dear God, for being our
head and guiding us through this dark world
and helping us attain unto eternal life.
Oh, Father, we have that blessed hope and
glorious appearing of our God and Savior Jesus
Christ that we look forward to when the
fight will be over.
We can lay down the battle lines and
enjoy the glories of heaven for all eternity.
Thank you, dear God, for all the things
that happened last night as men heard the
gospel preached and then responded in their own
hearts.
And we pray that much more work, God,
would be done in all of our hearts
together to make us what you want us
to be.
We pray again, break the bread of life
today and watch over the things we say
that we may say those things which are
truth and right.
We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Yeah, just a couple of things here that
I would like to mention.
I have enjoyed some very interesting conversations and
questions that have come my way since yesterday.
One of them is a brother came to
me and I just thought I would clarify
that.
When I preached that out of Daniel 2
on the stone cut out of the mountain,
smiting the image at the feet, I want
you to notice that Jesus Christ came in
the Roman Empire.
Christ was cut out of the mountain and
hit the image during the Roman Empire.
That was the beginning of the crumbling of
the four world kingdoms, although his ultimate end
is down at the toes when the Antichrist
kingdom will be destroyed.
But I just wanted to make sure you
have that picture correct, that the stone hits
the image in the Roman Empire first at
the feet and the image begins to fall
apart and a new kingdom and a new
dominion, which is that of Jesus Christ and
him crucified in his church, begins and continues
until it reigns triumphantly.
Another thing that has been interesting to me
is the subject of the hybrid, a hybrid
church.
And I would very much encourage your study
of that, very deep study, that you determine
basically while you're here as to whether you're
a part of a true church of Jesus
Christ or part of a hybrid.
I believe that is important.
Someone even asked whether I would list or
give a list of the hybrid churches, which
is impossible.
I'm sure you know, but I did want
to give you a few more examples.
I myself come from the Old Oral Amish,
was born and raised among the Old Oral
Horsenbuggy Amish, and that is the epitome of
a hybrid church.
They believe in baptism and communion and church
membership and they believe in Christ, they believe
that Christ came 2,000 years ago and
all that, but they are a hybrid church
because they even have come so far in
the last generation, especially that they consider converted
people to have a strange belief and will
excommunicate them out of the church, not all
of them nationwide, but here locally they will
excommunicate you out of the church for this
strange belief or for being converted or for
having Bible studies and prayer meetings or for
having assurance of salvation.
And so they are so much a hybrid
church that they are over on the work
side.
Basically what they say is we need the
grace of God, we need to do the
best we can and God's grace will cover
the rest.
So the emphasis is on human attempt to
live a godly life and not through the
power of the Holy Spirit.
Well, those kind of things and many others,
I could mention the Hutterites likewise, where they
have taken the gospel and brought it into
the ark of God is the church, which
is the living communally.
So if you don't live communally, you're not
in the ark and therefore not in the
church.
And it's just amazing the ignorance of those
people.
We were talking to an old grandma in
southern Alberta one time and it was just
the epitome again of the Hutterite history there.
And like I say, there again you have
many variations of people who wouldn't take it
that far.
But we got in the conversation, well, if
the colony is the ark, what are the
people supposed to do in California?
And she in a curt word just let
us know there is absolutely no hope for
anybody down there if they don't live communally,
you know.
And that's the way these poor people believe
and are deceived.
And there are many hybrids and you know
them.
But what Leonard Verdine does in his book
on the anatomy of a hybrid is to
show how men actually have attempted to come
back out of the Catholic church and to
redo and revive the church.
But they have done that without centering on
Christ and His Word.
And so they have made a lot of
corrections and there was some fresh breath of
air that a lot of these hybrids brought.
But they are a hybrid because they would
not submit themselves fully and completely to the
obedience of the Word of God.
And that basically produces a hybrid.
And I've had numerous people come to me
here and testify that they were part of
a hybrid church and why they were and
just sharing with me those things.
And that was very interesting.
I wish you could all hear some of
those testimonies.
But this morning I'd like to go into
a message on the distinctive of the kingdom,
of Christ's church or Christ's kingdom.
I think the title for the CD will
be Distinctives of Christ's Kingdom.
I return our Bibles to Matthew chapter 5.
And I would just like to emphasize that
here again we have the anatomy of a
hybrid popping up very, very quickly.
To those who may believe that the Sermon
on the Mount is relegated to another age.
If you believe that and do not begin
to see the paradigm shift that is made
between the Testaments here and the Old Testament
is based on the old law.
The law came by Moses but grace and
truth by Jesus Christ.
And that division takes place basically in Matthew
chapter 5 as we have the unfolding of
all at once a brand new teaching and
philosophy of life.
Or reality of life is a better word.
And that's what we want to look at.
And if you belong to a theology or
theological persuasion that does not embrace the Sermon
on the Mount, then you're in trouble with
your church or with your theology.
Because I actually believe that the warnings given
of bewaring of false prophets in the book
of Matthew is a warning of men who
will not teach this doctrine and this truth
that Jesus brought.
This shift, this change.
It has been said, but I say unto
you, ye have heard of old, but now
this is the way.
And Jesus Christ brought that change about when
He came to earth and began to sit
down and teach the people this new teaching.
And the Sermon on the Mount is a
broad compilation of those teachings and very, very
important to those who are the hybrids that
we identified yesterday.
They go back and they take the Old
Testament.
And what burdens me the worst there is
not that there are not many good and
right principles of God and teaching that are
compatible with the teachings of Christ in the
Old Testament, such as the Psalms and Proverbs
and even the law is brought over and
fulfilled in two commandments.
You know, and we have all of that.
However, men who go back and pick and
choose out of the old Mosaic law and
bring it over and have it brought to
bear upon your conscience that you can't even
live right or free because of Old Testament
law being brought over into the new covenant,
that's a hybrid.
It produces a hybrid and will not come
out right.
And what they always do is pick and
choose.
Nobody will not light a fire on the
Sabbath day, on Saturday, as was commanded under
the old law.
Hardly anyone will take it to that extent,
but yet they pick and choose.
But the Bible says, if you do not
keep everything, you're guilty of it all.
And so it's very important that you understand
what Jesus was doing in Matthew chapter 5.
Let us begin to read here in some
of the distinctives of the kingdom.
And I'm going to abbreviate this a lot
because I do need to be moving on.
Again, we are talking of the kingdom of
God, the kingdom of Christ, or the church
of Jesus Christ interchangeably here.
Because we believe here's where the shift took
place and Christ started to build His church
and build His kingdom.
And that is what we are in yet
today.
In 2008, we are in the kingdom of
Christ.
The kingdom of God is excellent and alive
and well among the remnant of God's people
across the face of the earth.
And they are those which believe the practical
issues of the teachings of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
First of all, you bring His centrality, as
Brother Denny preached here this morning, and you
have a living experience with the Lord Jesus
in a conversion.
And then you follow the word of God
and allow it to instruct you in the
ways of God into sanctification and true holiness.
It is truly a holy nation, a peculiar
people that are zealous of good works.
All right, Matthew chapter 5.
Here we have the change taking place where
we have the word in verse 1.
We have in seeing the multitudes He went
up into a mountain.
And when He was set, His disciples came
unto Him, and He opened His mouth and
taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Now, humility is taught in the Old Testament
to a degree, but this is a drastic
change.
To see that the poor in spirit are
addressed in a specific way this way, and
theirs is the kingdom of heaven, that the
way in or the entrance into the kingdom
of God is always closer and quicker to
the poor in spirit than to anybody else
on earth.
When we see ourselves as a sinner, and
we see our need of a Savior, and
our proud and arrogant and boastful spirit begins
to collapse, and we come before the Lord
and recognize that I am a needy man,
we are close to the kingdom of God.
And that's the way this whole thing is
laid out this way.
The poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom
of heaven.
Yes, the kingdom of heaven.
And then in verse 4 it says, Blessed
are they that mourn, for they shall be
comforted.
And you just get the picture, wow, this
is strange.
We're now looking for men who mourn.
Mourn over what?
Mourn over their need, mourn over their sin,
mourn in repentance before God.
And are beginning to say, whoa, wait a
minute, how am I living, what am I
doing, I'm not going the right direction, I
need help, I need somebody.
A supernatural help and power and grace like
the man who tried and tried to stop
drinking, stop smoking, stop adultery and all that.
And he finally just comes to the end
and said, I can't quit, help, I need
help.
And that's what he did, and he begins
to be poor in spirit, and he begins
to mourn.
And that is the great paradigm shift that
the Sermon on the Mount brings to humanity.
When Jesus started his earthly ministry, he lived
obediently under the law and worked in the
carpenter's shop up to 30 years of age.
But when he sat down and began to
teach the people, you have a major shift
in theology that is brought to the people.
Back in the Old Testament, it seemed like
many times it was the rich and the
famous and, you know, the Abrahams and men
like that, the Isaacs and Jacob, the patriarchs
that were the men of God and all
that.
But here you reach down to the slave,
you reach down to the lowly, you reach
down to the hungry and the thirsty, and
that is brought here.
Also, we have in verse 5, blessed are
the meek.
Look at that.
Blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the
earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst
after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain
mercy.
And it just brings everything as a lowly,
simple life of reality at the foot of
the cross.
And there we become poor in spirit, and
we become meek and mild and needy, and
we hunger and thirst after God, and there
is the new kingdom opening up to humanity.
And the church of Jesus Christ is based
on that doctrine and on that experience.
Peacemakers we have mentioned there too.
And then we go on into verse 10,
and we have, blessed are they which are
persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.
And there again we have, you know, in
the Old Testament, and this is why we
just cannot accept the theology of a flat
Bible, is because in the Old Testament, if
an army come against you, and somebody destroyed
your city by night and gave you a
problem, you know, you rallied your men together
and went and fought back the next day.
And that's the theme throughout the Old Testament,
by and large through the Chronicles and Kings
and Judges and many of the Old Testament
books that are given like that.
But here it's very different.
Now we accept persecution, we accept a misunderstanding,
we accept the cross upon our lives, we
accept the fact which Jesus was a perfect
example of.
And we do that all without fighting back
and to be non-resistant and love our
enemies.
And we have all those things here which
we want to just mention.
I received a very interesting phone call the
other night.
A man living out in central Pennsylvania somewhere
went out on a cold winter night to
his phone channel and called me up, and
we talked for quite a while.
And one of the things he said, My,
you fellas in there, you have quite a
bad reputation.
And I forget what he said.
Do you realize what people are saying?
You know what, you really have some reputation.
But yet the man had come to the
light and gotten born again, and he wanted
to talk for quite a while because it
seemed like he also was coming to this
point where he saw that perhaps those are
the people that might be able to help
me or might have the light that I
would like to be a part of.
And that is the way we should accept
that.
Woe is us when all men speak well
of us.
And we should be able to accept that
like the Scripture says here, Blessed are they
which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you
and persecute you and say all manner of
evil against you falsely for my sake.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, and this is
really the beauty of this whole thing, for
great is your reward in heaven for so
persecuted they the prophets that were before you.
If you want to identify a hybrid today
versus the true church of Jesus Christ, this
is a very important point to see whether
they will accept the sufferings of humanity upon
their life, upon their church, and be ridiculed
and talked about and their name cast out
as evil, and they can take it patiently
and they can even smile and rejoice and
be excited that they have the opportunity to
suffer with the Lord in that way without
always retaliating and trying to get back and
figuring out how we can give them the
next punch or something like that.
And that is often the identification, again, of
a hybrid to those who will not believe
this.
And like one man said, I can't put
up with this, so I don't have to
put up with this, being talked to like
that or being treated like that.
And that's the attitude of the hybrid many
times, and they will want to fight back.
All right, furthermore, so we have that.
And if you go back, it's very easy
for you if you study church history to
go back over the last 2,000 years.
And, brethren, it is not hard to identify
that line of people who were opposed and
persecuted and hunted down and their material goods
confiscated and their houses burned down and they're
put in the prison and they were beheaded
and they were at the stake and all
of that.
And today you are persecuted and opposed for
even visiting or joining that group, a group
of people like that.
That is the line of history.
And not only that, but in the future,
according to the book of Revelation, we will
have great difficulty coming upon us, yet in
the future, I believe, as the church of
Jesus Christ, for the faith, when it becomes
more and more intolerable by the world, and
we see that happening before our very eyes,
that there is less and less toleration for
the Christian.
Today you can get up and read the
Koran in school and you can read Harry
Potter and you can read the Sons of
Wicca and anything you want to read, but
don't bring that Bible into the church, into
the school and read it in front of
the students.
You can't even quote a scripture hardly in
commencement exercises of graduation in our nation anymore.
And that shows you what's happening in that
way.
All right, then he further says in verse
13, You are the salt of the earth
and you are the light of the world.
And this is again a great difference, a
great shift from the Old Testament saints.
They used to live in a city and
they'd build walls around themselves to defend themselves.
But all at once you have a city
set on a hill and there's no walls
and there's no fence.
You simply have an open heaven and an
open door and you try to beam the
lights of truth and the lights of the
gospel out across the known world.
That is ahead of you.
And I just love the illustration, somebody mentioned
it maybe on Sunday or yesterday already, how
that, I think the communists, how that they
built walls to keep their people in.
And it's been interesting in the analogy of
the United States versus Russia.
You know, they build a wall to keep
the people in and we're putting walls in
Mexico to keep the people out.
They all want to come in.
And that's because if you have what you
need, then the people want to come in
because they love the life and they love
what you have.
And that's the way the light of the
gospel should be.
We should have sinners that want to come
in because they can get rid of their
sin and they can have victory over it
and they can stop their sinning business and
their adultery and their fornications and their stealings
and their smoking and drinking and all that.
And that's what the church should represent.
Hey, power over the human nature and over
the messes we get ourselves into in our
youth, in our young years.
A city that is set on a hill
and the light of the world, a city
that is set on a hill cannot be
hid.
And also there the salt of the earth.
Salt, by the way, is a preservative.
And I do believe that the matter of
the true church and the Christians that are
left in this world have been the preserving
element of not having fallen under the major
outpouring of the wrath of God already.
And it's because of you and I here
in the United States and many more like
us yet, that God has held back His
wrath as much as He had because salt
preserves in that way.
But if the salt is lost its flavor,
then I believe the wrath of God is
going to come.
Also very interesting, in that same subject, I'm
hoping I have time to address a little
bit the conflict due to many in us,
many who have heard the accusations here over
the years against us because we don't have
these written laws or written standards.
We have over our last 25 years here
tried to maintain that Christianity is that of
the heart.
You know, and that if we don't have
the people's hearts, it's just hard to fence
them in and to make them stay there
and to make them behave in certain ways
with rules and regulations.
And maybe I'll get to talk about that,
but Brother Emanuel Lapp when he had the
opening meditation brought out this wonderful scripture in
Isaiah, salvation now has to be determined for
walls and for bulwarks.
And that's still the unique part of the
true church or the unique doctrine or practice
of the true church is that salvation should
be thorough enough and an experience in our
lives that we want to live godly.
We don't have to be fenced in and
hemmed in and baked and bartered and all
to live a certain way and not go
here and not go there and not do
this and not do that.
Salvation is for walls and for bulwarks.
And that brings the salvation itself, brings the
separation from the world and our desires change
and we don't want to be in the
middle of the world and go to the
places they do and do the things they
do.
Examine yourself whether you have had that kind
of a sin-killing experience in your life,
whether salvation that you have is good enough
and great enough to be a wall and
a bulwark for your life.
Of course, in the New Testament theology, we
know that's accomplished through the Spirit of the
God living in the midst of the believer.
Salvation for walls and bulwarks.
But here throughout this sermon and various times
here in the New Testament, I just love
it that we have this major shift in
it has been said, but I say unto
you.
And so we notice that that negates or
puts to fulfillment and finality a form of
commandment and raises up a new one.
And we must see that change as we
read the Bible, lest we will be confused
with Old Testament law that formerly was a
practice, but now there is a new practice
brought upon us through the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Here in this sermon, we have the fact
that you cannot be angry with your brother
anymore.
In the Old Testament, I believe that was
allowable.
You could get angry with your brother.
And there were times I realized that in
the case with Joab, when he smote two
of his fellow countrymen there under the fifth
rib and so on.
You know, we have that finally dealt with
at the end of his life.
But there was a lot of anger back
and forth even amongst godly men against their
enemies.
They taught the hating of their enemies.
And there is a major shift and a
major change in the Sermon on the Mount
where he tells us that we cannot be
angry with our brother anymore.
And Brother Aaron mentioned it last night.
I won't spend a lot of time on
it, that you cannot.
It used to be said that you can't
commit adultery.
And as far as you need to restrain
yourself from the very act, but now if
you look on a woman, the lust after
her, you have committed adultery already in your
heart.
We see that the commandment is actually strengthening
and increasing in some of these areas.
And that is very important that we see
that change taking place.
We can see a radical change.
That word was used last night and I'd
like to underscore it again today.
The New Testament lifestyle, the New Testament experience
is a radical change in human life, and
in church life, and in personal life.
And we need to see that.
You used to be able to give a
writing of divorce, but you had a hardness
in your heart and you didn't like the
woman you were living with.
You could find an excuse if she burned
your food in a New Testament time, you
could put her away.
But all at once the Lord Jesus sits
on the hill and says, No more.
You can't divorce your wife and go marry
another.
Other than that, you will be living in
adultery.
You'll cause her to commit adultery and you
will be living in adultery if you do
that.
Don't listen to the hybrids.
Don't listen to the hybrids that are setting
aside the Sermon on the Mount and trying
to find a way out around it.
You can't even swear an oath anymore.
Oaths were very prevalent in the Old Testament
times.
But now it's yea, yea, nay, nay, and
whatsoever is more than that cometh of evil.
You may affirm things and you may say,
I'm speaking the truth, I tell you the
truth, and perhaps some of those things are
acceptable, but basically we should be known for
our honesty that we say it is so,
it is believed to be so.
And there is no question or no emphasis
needed further than that.
You cannot resist evil anymore.
You are commanded now to love your enemies.
And that is often, somebody goes down into
the details of that and tries to take
it apart and give you hypothetical situations of
men attacking your wife and all of that
and try to make it sound absurd and
it doesn't mean what it says, but the
Bible says, resist not evil, and it says,
if your enemy hunger, feed him, and if
he thirsts, give him drink.
Some time ago, a farmer out in, I
think it was in the Franklin County area,
some years ago, had trouble with things being
stolen and finally his gas tank started emptying
out.
He just noticed that he believes somebody is
stealing gas.
And so on Sunday morning he decided, I'm
going to stay home and see if I
can catch this fellow.
Sure enough, sometime, it happened while he normally
went to church on Sunday morning and the
neighbor knew it, and so he came in
there and he backs up to the gas
pump and he didn't, apparently didn't have it
padlocked or whatever, and he starts pumping gas
into his tank.
The farmer got up, went out to walks,
said, here, let me help you.
Got a hold of the crank and crank
continued to crank.
My man was so ashamed, he didn't know
what to do, and he said, please, don't
report me.
And the man said, I'll do that on
one occasion if you come to my house
for lunch.
He went home, got his family, the farmer
demanded the whole family comes, and he came
that next week in the evening for supper,
I believe it was.
And that's all that was done.
He just gave him a meal and sent
him on his way.
But a few nights later, a whole pile
of goods showed up back on the farm.
It even works.
But whether it works or not, you're still
called to do it.
And anything else than that is a hybrid.
That is what Jesus taught.
Once again, you can take your church history
books for the last 2,000 years, and
it's even called uniquely so, the defenseless Christians.
The story of the martyrs, Mira.
The defenseless Christians.
Those who will suffer all kinds of things.
I was just reading about Diocletian, I think
it was there the other day, pouring hot
lead down people's throats, you know.
And I just tried for a moment to
imagine that.
I cannot.
I cannot imagine those kind of things.
But this is what men patiently endured, patiently
took as their role in life, saying, my
master has suffered for me on a cruel
cross, and endured all those things in rejection,
and he was a righteous and perfect man.
Here at least I am not a righteous
and a perfect man, and yet he followed
in his footsteps and wrote the books, the
defenseless Christians.
Jesus further said in the book of Matthew,
wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
He did not allow a man to rally
his buddies around him and get a machine
gun and blow somebody's head off on the
other side.
You know, it's very interesting, if you study
the history of the Civil War, that there
were pauses in fighting, that the Northern Army
went to the Confederates, and the Confederates came
over to the Northern, and brothers sat in
the tent and visited and chatted together, even
it is known that fathers lived in Pennsylvania,
and their sons may have lived in Maryland,
so the sons were with the Confederates, and
the father was in Pennsylvania with the Northern
Army, and they took a pause for a
Sunday, and the people sat there and visited,
maybe read their Bibles and all that, and
on Monday mornings slaughtered each other by the
thousands.
Doesn't make sense.
Not in my kingdom, the Lord says.
Things don't operate that way.
Not anymore.
Used to be that way, an eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth,
but not anymore.
That's all over.
The same is true for laying up treasures
in heaven rather than on earth.
Brother Aaron mentioned that last night, and I
won't say a lot about that.
You cannot serve God in mammon, and you
can't even take anxious thought about tomorrow.
You can't just sit at home and worry
about what I'm going to do next year
or next winter or something like that, and
I do not believe in his teaching that
a person can't cut wood for the summer,
for the winter heating season.
But his anxious thought, that thing of fretting
and worrying, you know, what am I going
to do, and how is it going to
work out, and oh my, and oh me,
and we sit down and bring calamity upon
our whole nervous system and body because we
worry and fret and do not trust the
God of heaven for the future.
But especially we have an attack upon laying
up treasures where moth and rust is corrupt
and thieves break through and steal, and yet
our whole society is looking for early retirement
and substantial retirement and all those things to
try to have their nest egg well padded,
and they even try to equate the rate
of inflation that is going on so they
are sure it's going to reach when they're
old.
And they kill the security that old men
used to have, and that was children.
Isn't that something?
How the world can get twisted so drastically
out of order.
Matthew 12, 46.
We have another strange thing going on here.
The distinctives of the kingdom.
Verse 44, Again, the kingdom of heaven is
like unto a treasure hidden afield, that which
the man hath found he hideth, and for
joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he
hath and buyeth that field.
What is he saying?
A man has found eternal life.
A man has found the reality of the
Christianity to be so precious that he lets
hold of that thing, and his father says,
Now, son, if you're going to do that,
you're going to lose the family farm.
And he doesn't care anymore whether he loses
the family farm or whatever he loses.
He has found that great treasure, and he's
willing to part with everything.
Radical, radical Christianity.
Oh, what a shift that is from what
we knew had been said.
But now I say unto you, Look at
the next one.
Basically saying the same, or very similar.
Again, the kingdom of heaven, the church of
Jesus Christ, this new belief, this new way
of looking at things.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto
a merchant seeking goodly pearls, who when he
has found one pearl of great price, went
and sold all that he had and bought
it.
Christianity is so high, so beautiful, so wonderful,
that it's right for you to leave everything
in order to get it.
That's the teachings of the kingdom.
Nothing should stop us from embracing the kingdom
of God, the kingdom of heaven, the church
of Jesus Christ, the new life in Christ.
And so it goes on.
I mentioned verse 47 yesterday about the kingdom
of heaven there.
And that indeed is some of the radical
Christianity.
Matthew chapter 10 talks about trouble in the
family, and clearly lays out that the family
of God, brothers, is higher than earthly family.
Jesus was preaching one time, and I think
one of his disciples came in and said,
Hey, thy mother and thy brothers are out
there and they seek you.
They wanted him to stop the meeting and
go out and talk to them.
And he looked across the crowd and he
said, Behold, my mother and my brethren, this
is my family.
And it's more important than this family.
You know, we have other records that his
brothers didn't believe him, they were offended at
him and all that.
And he had a right reason to say
what he wanted to say there, because it
was real to him.
They were embarrassed by brother Jesus, the way
he's talking and the way he's acting.
Ah, we're embarrassed.
He makes himself sound like he's somebody special,
and he's bringing a special message, and he's
going around healing and preaching people and putting
all this focus, and the people wonder who
we are and what kind of a family
this is.
You know how the scribes and the Pharisees
looked down on him, and they had to
suffer some shame for that.
And they didn't like it.
But the secret that he's given out, and
this is something many of us still can
hardly come to grips with, that the family
of God is higher and more important and
more precious than our earthly family.
And it is not right when the earthly
family and the earthly brothers and sisters, especially
when they are not converted, are pulling you
away from all kinds of godliness and church
meetings and things that you should be attending
to and the things of God, and saying,
well, my family, they don't like it when
I do that.
Let me first go and bury my dad,
then I'll come and follow you.
He that put his hand on a plow
and looked back is not fit for the
kingdom of heaven.
My kingdom is exclusive.
The distinctives of my kingdom will demand a
loyalty you will not see anywhere else.
And I've seen some pretty high loyalties of
what family members will do to family members
in the world for each other.
But God is calling for a higher one
on the church of Jesus Christ.
In fact, in 1 John, he goes so
radically far that he asks us to lay
our lives down for the brethren.
That's what the scripture teaches.
Oh, radical Christianity.
Those who trespass or who have been trespassed
against must actually forgive those trespasses before they
can be forgiven.
Wow!
How is that possible?
And it has led many of our soul
winners in this building, I believe, that have
been active in that, and wrestling through with
a soul that's trying to come to Christ,
and they get up against a block, and
nothing is happening, and they can't break through
unto God, to ask the question, what are
the people in your life you cannot forgive?
They have wounded you and harmed you, and
you're holding a grudge against them.
And all at once, here they come.
Here they come.
Oh, yes.
I did that once to a 70-year
-old lady sitting across the table from me
at a fellowship meal in the state of
Wisconsin.
Old and gray haired.
There she sat.
And she was struggling to believe and struggling
to have assurance of salvation.
And I happened just to ask her that
question, and immediately she identified it and said,
oh, something had happened to me in my
life, and I have never been able to
forgive.
And that day, as far as I know,
she found peace and forgiveness by being able
to forgive that individual on her knees before
God, there or in prayer.
And you know, you just have to let
it go.
You can't fix it.
You can't solve it.
You don't need to.
You can't say, well, what about them?
You just kind of let it go and
release it from your heart and say, okay,
okay.
I forgive them.
They may not have realized how they hurt
me or what they did to me.
We ought to let it go.
The church of Jesus Christ is not a
building of brick and stone.
He dwelt not in temples made with hands.
It hath been that he dwelt between the
serapims in the holy place with a veil.
And only the high priest went in once
a year, and then he had a going
sprinkling with blood.
But now he dwelleth not in temples made
with hands.
And it's not wise to make a lot
about a building to say that's the church.
The church of Jesus Christ is we, His
children, that have been born again and changed
by God's power and life.
It's not just a set of rules and
regulations, do's and don'ts.
It is a living reality with a living
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's a holy nation.
And back in Hebrews 8, it again makes
that great distinction of the two covenants when
it says in verse 8, for finding fault
with them, he says, speaking about the old,
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when
I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and with the house of
Judah, not according to the covenant that I
made with their fathers in the day when
I took them by the hand to lead
them out of the land of Egypt.
Because they continued not in my covenant and
I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
For this is the covenant that I will
make with the house of Israel after those
days, saith the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts
or in their mind.
And I will put my laws into their
mind and write them in their hearts.
And I have to say, as a minister,
church life is depressing many times or discouraging
and worrisome when you're trying to get people
to walk the ways of God and they
don't have this thing written in their heart.
That is burdensome work.
Trying to get people to love the Lord
when they just nonchalantly sit back in the
back bench, kick up their heels, slouch down
in their seat and wait for the service
to get over.
But they still want to get baptized because
they still like to, you know, well, they
like to get a wife, you know, and
come get one of our young girls and
sometimes one that's pretty dedicated and consecrated.
And I'll tell you, that's hard work.
To try to get them to see the
condition that they're in.
And why?
That we're not very excited about a beginning
of courtship in that condition.
But oh, when you see people that are
excited about the gospel and excited about their
salvation.
And salvation is walls and bulwarks.
And they say, because I'm born again and
God is living in me, I can't go
there.
I can't have that.
I can't do this.
And they have these laws written in their
heart and in their mind and they're full
of it.
That's the kind of standard in Christianity we
must contend for.
I think some pretty radical thoughts sometimes, you
know, when I get into places where it's
so much of the other side that you
just feel like shutting everything down and going
home until somebody's ready to get serious for
God.
That's how you feel.
It's like counseling, trying to counsel a married
couple when love is gone.
Have you ever tried to do that?
Oh, my.
The hours and hours you can burn up
when love is gone.
And it's not there and it's tit for
tat and he said and she said and
he did and she did and back and
forth you go.
And love is not there.
And that's the way it is with our
people.
If the love of the Lord Jesus is
not there and the love for His Word,
we just spin our wheels and consume our
time and we're not getting anywhere.
Much time could be spent perhaps on how
to bring a change about there.
It would be very good to hear many
messages on that.
Matthew chapter, excuse me here, John
chapter 3.
How do we get into the kingdom?
Just want to spend a little bit of
time on that because it is so important
of what Jesus warns us of in His
teaching.
And again, it is radical teaching and let's
just hear what He says.
John 3, 3, Jesus answered and said unto
them after Nicodemus had asked the question, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, Except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom
of God.
And there you have it.
So clearly, you have the individual seeing God's
kingdom.
He can't even see it.
Have you ever tried to figure out what's
going on in a newborn Christian, a baby
Christian, a new convert that has just been
converted out of deep traditionalism and pharisaical religion
and nobody can figure out what in the
world is going on.
They are accusing us that we are brainwashing
the people and they don't understand that they
have been in touch with God and they
have been born again.
And all at once they see the kingdom
of God.
They see a whole dimension, a whole life,
a whole reality they never saw before.
Except you be born again, you cannot see
the kingdom of God.
And then I like the other word.
In verse 5, Jesus answered, Verily I say
unto you, except a man be born of
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter
the kingdom of God.
It's so hard to work with some of
these religious people who are actually enlightened.
And many of you sitting in this room,
I know, can identify with this subject.
And you know that's the way it is.
We are trying to figure out what to
do with people, many times that are enlightened
and they are kind of growing into the
kingdom, but they haven't been born into it.
And it makes it difficult and complicated.
Make sure, my beloved brethren and sisters, or
brethren here today, that you are contending for
a birth into the kingdom and not a
gradual learning of the kingdom, or growing into
the kingdom.
We must be born into it.
And a person growing into the kingdom can
learn a lot of things about the kingdom
and can actually accomplish a lot of doings
of the kingdom in his life.
But if he's growing into it rather than
being born into it, there's always something missing,
it seems.
So I wanted to emphasize the fact of
the new birth and how one enters into
the kingdom.
And some of you come from far and
wide, and I'm sure a crowd of this
size, that there would be those who are
not born again.
You are still shackled by sin, or have
been, at least prior to last night.
But the question is, have you been born
into the kingdom?
And that was that you need to see
yourself as a sinner before God and be
poor in spirit and be meek and be
humble and lowly enough.
And see your need of a savior.
And then simply ask the Lord to come
in and change you and to make you
a new creature and to give you that
born-again experience and a peace and assurance
and salvation that comes from Him, not worked
up here in life.
Jesus said in John 10, if I can
flip over there and just use His precious
words, verse 7, Jesus then said, Jesus, unto
them, verily, verily, I say unto you, I
am the door of the sheep.
Christ the Lord is the door into the
kingdom.
He is the door into the church.
He is the door into the family of
God.
And any others that come there, as He
says over in verse 9, I am the
door, by me if any man enter in,
he shall be saved and go in and
out and find green pastures.
I missed verse 8.
All that ever came before me or all
that ever come any other way besides Jesus
being the door are thieves and robbers.
And there you have your hybrids.
Again, trying to get into the kingdom without
coming in through Jesus the door.
And that's a hybrid.
You may have ever so good of a
moral life.
You may have even laid some of your
major sins aside.
You're a pretty good boy.
But good boys are lost unless they come
in through the door.
And may I just reiterate, I think what
has already been given before, you cannot go
into all the world and teach the heathen
that they must believe only in the Creator
God.
If they don't come in through His Son,
they can't come in.
Now they need to learn about the Creator
God.
And some of them don't know the first
thing about Him.
And to start there and teach them that
God created heaven and earth, but you're not
going to bring people into the kingdom until
you come to the Son who made the
sacrifice for their sins and by believing on
Him, whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.
We cannot.
And that's the way the whole, seems almost
like most of the evangelical world is going
to be satisfied with anybody who believes in
a Creator God.
That that's good enough.
He's in.
He's alright.
And they're even going beyond that as long
as they believe in a supreme being and
they're not even requiring the Creator God anymore.
In the case of Allah, Allah's not a
Creator God.
One of the first things that should happen
after we have entered into the kingdom and
we want to just break the ice here
a little bit for our message tomorrow because
it is time tomorrow to get down to
the practical issues of church life, the church
and church life that we do not want
to miss.
We know that's the practical side that many
of you will need or benefit from and
have benefited from and are waiting also to
hear and think about.
But when I was converted as a young
man, at fifteen and a half years of
age, I was in a setting where I
had zero fellowship.
I did not know of another born again
Christian in my church.
Not one.
My father was open to the truth at
that time and was searching, but he testified
later on that he believes that I got
born again before he did.
Even though he invited me to the revival
meeting where I was born again.
That was wonderful.
That we were out working on a cold
winter night, working in the tobacco shed and
he said, would you go along to the
meeting?
The first week of revival meetings held by
a local church in the area.
They had not had any before that, protracted
meetings like that.
And at that first week, I went on
a Friday night and gave my heart to
the Lord that night.
But the strangest thing began to happen to
me after that night.
There was two more nights and I would
have walked for miles to get to that
meeting.
The desire for fellowship immediately surfaced into my
heart.
Anything else, I have to say, is probably
a part of a hybrid again.
There must be a desire to meet with
God's people, not forsaking the assembly of yourselves
together even so much the more as you
see the day approaching which I'm going to
interpret that is more important in this deceptive
day than what it might have been 500
years ago.
But I remembered I so longed to go
and I did.
I finally got over again on Sunday night.
And the strangest thing happened to me.
I was 15 and a half years of
age.
I was in a strange place.
On Friday night when I got born again,
I was so scared of everything.
Everything was so strange.
I didn't hardly know anybody in the building.
I was ashamed to walk the aisle and
go up.
I mean, I was a fish out of
water as far as my culture.
And society was concerned at that time because
I was in another setting here with another
group of people.
And so I went home and I cried
out to God alone.
But on Sunday night when I went back
and some concerned men and boys gathered around
me and talked to me about what God
is doing in my heart and all that.
And I felt their love and concern for
me.
I melted to pieces.
And I experienced for the first time the
reality of love in my life.
In the former setting where I was, there
was cutting statements made, nicknames given, and you
were harassed and pushed around perhaps and made
a fool of and all that kind of
stuff.
And that's the life I knew.
When we got together at a ball game
in the community in our local church, you
know, they would call me a nickname if
I missed the ball or didn't hit the
ball right or something like that, you know.
And I never knew love and acceptance and
warmth and concern for my soul by any
of them.
But when I experienced the fellowship of believers
for the first time, and this was a
great distinctive of the faith and a distinctive
of the church of Jesus Christ, that love
should emanate and reach the seeker and reach
the hungry and reach the thirsty for God.
And I've heard these statements being made over
and over again in the Christian church that
we felt loved, we felt accepted, we felt
warmth there.
And that is a very important part of
the experience of the body of Christ.
First of all, that we enter in through
the door into the sheepfold.
And remember, if you try to climb out
some other way by some other doctrine, some
other method and some other belief or work
salvation or whatever, you are a thief and
a robber.
I love the explanation I read years ago
about the man who tried to get in.
He heard the music upstairs and he went
down into the basement and got into the
coal bin and dirty and black and he
heard the music up there, but he tried
to go in through the basement.
And then another fellow went up and he
crawled into an upstairs window and he was
up in the attic or up in the
upstairs, and he heard the music downstairs and
he heard all the beautiful things going on,
but he was in the upstairs and he
couldn't find his way down because he hadn't
entered in by the door.
And brethren, today the door is wide open
and Jesus is standing at the door and
inviting us all to come in through the
door, but we try to enter in some
other way and save ourselves.
That is not going to work.
We should have a loving relationship first of
all with God and His Word in our
new birth experience, and right on the heels
of that there ought to be a love
to be together with others.
And that's what makes church life and that's
my introduction to my subject tomorrow.
A strong desire to have some concern shown
our ways for like-mindedness, to be discipled,
to be taught in the ways of God.
A desire for baptism.
One of the first things as a young
boy, I longed to be baptized.
Have you been baptized upon your confession of
faith?
Don't put it off any longer if you're
sitting here unbaptized.
The Bible says, Believe and be baptized and
thou shalt be saved.
If you're not willing, there again in obedience
to walk with God and obey the commandments,
you're producing a hybrid.
And it's not the true church of Jesus
Christ and not the true faith.
If you have been born again, you want
to be baptized openly on your confession of
faith in Christ.
Amen.
May God bless us as we continue to
walk with Him and to seek His will
this week.
Thank you for your attention and your desire
for God.
Amen.