How many of you were at the Bristol
Conference in 1961, I believe it was?
Raise your hand.
Way up.
Good.
Now you know then why we have really
prayed and worked so hard to get our
speaker for tonight and one of the speakers
for the rest of the week back to
Bristol.
There will be a return engagement for Dr.
Karl Armading, now of Dallas, Texas.
God really used him that year to bless
our hearts and to meet our needs through
the minister of the Word of God.
We would have liked to have had him
back even the next year, but as so
many of the servants of the Lord now,
they are pressed for time and for so
many places to go, and there's so little
time to do so much in, we couldn't
get him back.
But we were thrilled when many, many months
ago we wrote and asked if he could
return to Bristol as one of our two
featured speakers.
We were really pleased when we heard that
he could.
So it's my pleasure to introduce to you
the man used mightily of God throughout the
United States and many parts of the world,
one of a family, a very wonderful servant
of the Lord, our brother Dr. Karl Armading.
Dr. Armading, good to have you with us.
When I arrived here yesterday afternoon, I got
quite a shock because I was told that
all three of my sermons were already on
tape.
I just couldn't believe that.
The thing that concerns me most is that
those who hear the tapes will probably say,
well he didn't say it just the same
way.
But if I can stir up your pure
minds by way of remembrance, that'll be something.
For our meditation tonight, I'm asking you to
turn to the book of the Psalms, and
I'd like to consider the first psalm.
I wonder how many people in this audience
tonight have actually had to, or rather have
sometime or other, memorized this first psalm.
I wonder if I could ask for a
show of hands as to that.
Good.
All right, now all three of us will
get together and show us how it's done.
The rest of you can read it with
us, but we're going to have this audience
participation tonight in repeating the six verses of
Psalm one.
Blessed is the man that walketh not in
the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in
the way of sinners, nor standeth in the
way of the wrong.
For if he by night is in the
law of the Lord, and if he walketh,
he meditates day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted
by the river for water, and bringeth forth
its fruit in seasons.
His leaves also shall not wither, and whatsoever
he doeth shall prosper.
The ungodly are not a servant, but a
life of charity to the reasoned bride of
the way.
Therefore the ungodly shall not be banged in
the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of
the righteous.
For the more I know of the way
of the righteous, but the way of the
ungodly shall not be cursed.
You know, of course, that this book of
the Psalms is known as the old prayer
and praise book of the Hebrews.
And it's rather remarkable that the first hymn
in this collection of 150 psalms or hymns
should be concerning a happy man.
Well, that's the way the first words of
this psalm have been translated by other translators.
Happy is the man.
But the fact remains that the word translated
blessed or happy happens to be in the
plural in the original language.
So that literally it would say the happinesses
or the blessednesses of the man.
But when you say happiness, we are reminded
that happiness depends on things that happen.
But in the case of a child of
God, this is not so.
A child of God can be in all
kinds of happenings, all kinds of circumstances, and
yet be happy.
Because his happiness doesn't depend upon his surroundings.
But it does depend somewhat on the decisions
which he has made.
And I think of all the gifts which
an almighty creator has given to us as
his creatures and his children, there is probably
no gift more important than the gift of
being able to make a decision.
There are certain things that we share with
the lower order of creatures.
For example, the gift of sight.
Many animals have better sight than human beings.
There comes the gift of hearing.
And again, many animals have the gift of
hearing much better than we do.
And so I could go on and speak
of the other gifts which we have.
But there's something which an animal does not
have, and that is the power to make
decisions, the power to make a choice.
And I wonder sometimes in these days whether
we've overlooked this fact, that you and I
have committed to us a wonderful power, the
gift to be able to make a decision
and to act according to it.
It's evident from the first verse of this
psalm that this man of whom we are
reading here actually made some decisions.
For we read here, blessed is the man
that walketh not in the counsel of the
ungodly.
He's not simply standing by and admiring somebody
else who perhaps doesn't walk in the way
of the ungodly.
But he's asking himself, why do I walk
there or why don't I walk there?
There is sometimes, you know, when we make
decisions, we yes, we say it's so, I
wouldn't like to walk like some people I
know.
I wouldn't like to walk in the way
of the ungodly, nor stand in the way
of sinners, nor sit in the seat of
the scornful.
But they say to me, you know, much
as I admire all these things, I just
simply haven't got the power to do it.
And this, of course, is a very honest
confession.
And one can understand why, now that we
are Christians, we understand why men cannot, as
it were, implement their decisions.
They agree with us that this is wonderful.
They agree with us that this is right.
And yet they say, I don't know how
I can do it.
And then they look at some of us
and say, how do you do it?
And we have to confess that we don't
do it in our own strength.
We do it in the strength of another.
And to every child of God is not
only given this wonderful gift of being able
to make a decision, but also to implement
it.
That is, to go according to the decision
which you have made.
Now why does the Christian go in the
way of the ungodly?
Why doesn't he stand in the way of
sinners?
Why doesn't he sit in the seat of
the scornful?
Not because he has the power to do
or not to do these things, but because
God has given to him his blessed Holy
Spirit.
And this is something which, praise God, is
true of every child of God.
The Word of God teaches us that if
any man have not the Spirit of Christ,
he's none of this.
But it follows that if we are born
of the Spirit, and if you're not born
of the Spirit, you're simply not a Christian.
When the Lord Jesus was talking to Nicodemus,
or Nicodemus talking with him, the Lord Jesus
said to him, except a man be born
again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God.
He can't even see the kingdom of God,
said the Lord Jesus.
This is a great mystery to this man
Nicodemus.
And yet the Lord Jesus had to say
to him, art thou a master of Israel,
and knowest not these things?
Nicodemus thought it was just simply a repetition
of the natural process.
Something like a fellow student of mine at
university, of which I'm an alumnus, we were
standing together one day in the chem lab
doing some experiments, and I was preaching the
gospel to her while I was waiting for
certain things to take place on the desk.
I spoke to her about new birth.
She said, new birth?
She said, I've never heard of it.
I said, you mean to say you've never
heard of being born again?
She said, no sir, I've never heard of
such a thing.
So I just took out my pocket testament
and showed her that the Lord Jesus had
been talking about this to Nicodemus, and that
Saint Peter had told us how it was
done.
Because he says in his epistle, the first
chapter, we are born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of the incorruptible seed by the
word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.
She said, I've never heard of such a
thing.
Well I said, now why don't you think
it over.
I'd like for you to think this over.
I'd like for you to come back with
some decision with regard to it.
We had to go on with our work
because the professor was watching, and we're not
supposed to have conversations while we were doing
our work in the chem lab.
But you know this is one of those
things that you feel is more important than
any experiments you could perform in the chemistry
lab.
Well a week later she came back.
She said, you know I think I know
what you're talking about.
I said, I'm so happy to hear it
Lawrence.
She said, you know I was listening to
a Swami from India the other night, and
he told us how we pass from one
existence into another.
And she said, there's no telling how often
I've been here before.
Well I said, you simply, you don't remember
anything about it?
No, she said, I don't remember a thing
about it.
Well I said, evidently it hasn't done you
any good to be here before this.
I said, do you remember what sort of
an existence you had when you were here
before?
No, she said, I really don't.
She said, I might have even been in
some animal for all I know.
I said, now what for example would you
think you might have been?
I might say she was not hard to
look at.
Well she said, you know, judging from this
man that I've heard talking this week, she
said, I might have been a bullfrog on
the banks of the Ganges in India.
Well I said, at any rate you seem
to have transformed your sex, because I said
the bullfrogs are the gentlemen of the species.
How silly can you get?
So we just pressed home this question.
I said, now you just forget what that
man told you and listen to what God
has to say.
And then if you need an answer for
the question, why do I have to be
born again?
I believe our son answers the question.
If for no other reason it's to give
us the power to walk in the path
that is pleasing to God.
Well you say, but preacher, this is all
negative in this first verse.
So it is.
But it doesn't stop there.
You notice in the second verse of our
psalm, and so many have repeated this so
well, you know exactly what it says.
But, but his delight, notice not merely his
beauty.
Oh I can remember the time in my
home where I was brought up in a
Christian home, and I thank God for that.
What a wonderful heritage to have Christian parents.
To hear the word of God in the
very earliest days of your infancy, of course
my memory doesn't go back that far.
But being the oldest of ten children, and
having seen what the rest of them were
getting, I had some idea of what I
got when I was just a baby in
my mother's arms, 78 years ago.
Yes?
And I can just imagine her singing to
me, Jesus loves me this I know, for
the Bible tells me so.
But, for all that I didn't love the
word of God.
I didn't love it when my father was
reading it I would very often sigh even
out loud, because he was rather long-winded
sometimes.
It always stopped when I thought it was
a good stopping place.
But, I thank God for that early training.
And then one night when I was 15
years of age, just a teenager, heard a
man preaching the gospel.
I didn't want to go to meetings that
night.
We lived five miles away from the gospel
hall, and my folks being poor, we walked
the five miles to meetings.
And I listened to a man I didn't
like the looks of him.
I didn't like the length of his sermon.
I pulled my watch on him during his
closing prayer, and it was one of those
old watches that went ka-plink, ka-plink,
ka-plink, you'd hear it all over the
room.
And my dad said to me after we
came out, he said, you pulled your watch
on the preacher tonight, didn't you?
I said, yes sir.
He said, don't you do that again.
And I didn't.
But before that night was over, before that
night was over, the man I'd heard preaching
that night became to me the most wonderful
person I had ever seen.
And the word he preached was to me
the most wonderful message that I'd ever heard.
He was none other than our dear brother,
George McKenzie.
Now that his Lord, God used him to
speak to me that night, I'm wondering if
I'm addressing some teenager here tonight, who perhaps
like me, you have found it rather worrisome
to have to be along in family worship,
to hear dad read the scriptures, and to
pray and perhaps sing a hymn.
But ah, the day is going to come
when you're going to be very thankful for
that.
This is the way God sowed seed in
my heart.
And from that night on to which I've
referred, the second verse of this psalm of
to me.
His delight.
No longer a duty, but a pleasure now.
But somebody said to me, yes, but how
could you delight in the law of the
Lord?
And of course, strictly speaking, this law of
the Lord would be rather terrifying, wouldn't it?
Especially if you limited it to the Ten
Commandments, which I had to learn as a
boy.
We lived next to a Presbyterian church and
we went to the Sabbath school, as they
called it, in the afternoon.
And I as a boy of ten years
of age, I learned the Westminster Shore Catechism,
which has 40 questions concerning the Ten Commandments.
I thank God for that foundation too.
But I learned something about those commandments.
Nine of the Ten Commandments are negative.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven
image of anything in heaven above or the
earth beneath, and so on, to bow down
to it.
Thou shalt not take the name of the
Lord thy God in vain.
Six days shalt thou labor and do all
thy work, but in the seventh thou shalt
not.
The only positive commandment in the Ten is
the one which Saint Paul has taken over
bodily into the Ephesians when he says, Honor
thy father and thy mother, that it may
be well with thee, that thou mayest live
long upon the land which the Lord thy
God giveth thee.
But you know, generally where you have a
negative, you have a positive.
And the law of Jesus is the positive.
And so when this scripture here speaks about
the law of the Lord, it speaks of
something that regulates my conduct.
And that goes beyond the Ten Commandments.
This leads me on to a person whom
God has set before me in his holy
word as the example I'm to follow.
In other words, I have before me a
living standard in the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
And so he becomes to me the rule
of my life.
This is what Saint Paul meant when he
said, For to me to live is in
Christ, and to die is gain.
This is it.
So your delight is in the law of
the Lord.
As I said, you may ask me why
I delight in the law of the Lord.
Well, in the first place, I delight in
the law of the Lord because of the
authority with which it speaks.
You know, this is something which I believe
even our generation, and when I say our
generation, I'm including my teenager friends here tonight.
This is something which even our generation is
longing for, is someone who can speak with
authority.
We don't want any guesswork here.
We want something positive, something sure, and it
is said of our Lord Jesus Christ that
the common people heard him gladly.
And in another place it says, he spake
with authority and not as described.
Secondly, I delight in the word of God
because of its faithfulness.
Oh, how glad I am that I don't
find flattery on its pages.
It tells me exactly what's wrong with me.
You know, sometimes doctors, in order to avoid
telling the truth, will put their statements on
negative form.
They don't want to be telling lies, but
they don't give you all the truth.
My dear mother, who was called home to
the Lord's presence at the early age of
six to seven, she died of cancer.
When we suspected cancer, we took her to
a clinic in the city in which I
was living at the time.
Several doctors looked her over for several days.
Then they came up with this diagnosis, no
malignancy demonstrate.
No malignancy demonstrate.
Well, at the first when we heard this,
we took comfort out of it.
But you know, it was a negative diagnosis.
And in a little while, our mother began
to feel these same pains again.
This time she went to a doctor living
in the city of Winslow, Arizona, where she
was staying with my sister.
My father and mother went to stay with
my sister who was there in the Indian
work.
This old doctor was himself a cancer victim,
dying of it.
And she went to him.
After they'd had a visit, the doctor took
my sister Minnie off to one side.
He said, Miss Amardeen, your mother has cancer
and she will be dead in August.
This was in January.
And she died in August.
He was a faithful man.
And as sad as it was to hear
this verdict, your mother has cancer and she'll
be dead in August.
We appreciated his frankness.
Friends, the word of God is frank.
It tells you and me that we're not
only sinners, but we're all sinners.
And without Christ, we're doomed to a Christ's
eternity, as that's in the book.
But I thank God also for the good
words and comfortable words as we were hearing
this morning, as our beloved brother was taking
up that first chapter again of Zechariah.
He spake to me in good words and
comfortable words.
Oh, where have you ever heard such words
of comfort to a poor, lost, ruined sinner
as you'll find in the word of God?
Friends, if I had no other reason for
delighting in the word of God, it would
be for the sweet message of the gospel
which I find here.
Where have you ever heard words like these
when our blessed Lord stood up before a
ruined group of people and said, Come unto
me, all ye that labor on a heavy
laden, and I will give you rest?
Friends, those words are simply matchless.
They're incomparable.
These are good words.
These are comfortable words.
The word which says to me that if
I confess my sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive me of my sins and
to cleanse me from all unrighteousness.
For the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son,
cleanses from all sin.
Thank God for these good words.
Yes, I delight in the word of God.
I delight in the word of God also
for its precious promises.
Oh, where could you turn anywhere in other
books and find such promises as you find
in this book?
Oh, as we read through it from Genesis
to Revelation, it's amazing how time after time
and time after time, God says something to
us that I don't know any other book
that has this effect on me.
If I had no other reason for delighting
in the word of God, it would be
the effect which it has upon me as
I read it from day to day.
These last two and a half years have
been lonely years in my life.
The Lord took home to himself my beloved
companion after nearly half a century together.
This is not easy as anyone knows who's
gone through it.
But oh, how wonderful is the companionship of
our blessed Lord as he makes it real
to us as we read his holy words.
Yes, it's just as if he was standing
by our sides talking to us and speaking
to us these good words and these comfortable
words.
And I delight in the word of God
because of its beauty.
Where have you ever found more beautiful language
than you find in this book?
And this applies not only to those statements
to which I've already referred, but even the
most tragic things in Scripture, that is, the
sufferings of our blessed Lord, how wonderfully they
are described.
Think of that incomparable 53rd chapter of Isaiah.
Do you know this chapter is referred to
by an ancient commentator as the golden passion
of the Old Testament?
That's exactly what it is.
Where have you ever found a passage of
Scripture more loved than the 23rd Psalm?
Again and again in my work as honorary
chaplain of a TV sanitarium, a place which
I filled for some ten years in the
city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, I don't know
how many times I've had dying men and
dying women ask me if I wouldn't please
read Psalm 23.
If I wouldn't please read Psalm 14, let
not your heart be troubled, you believe in
God, believe also in me.
Where will you ever find a passage of
Scripture, for example, like the 13th chapter of
1 Corinthians, in any other book but the
Bible?
I could add to that the 17th of
John, the 21st chapter of the book of
Revelation.
These are our classics as Bible lovers.
Oh, the beauty of it.
And this has made its impress upon me,
so that as a young man seeking to
enter the university of which I'm now an
alumnus, I had never had the privilege of
going to high school a day in my
life.
The only reason I was allowed to study
at all in the university was because I
was over 21.
But the regulations said that I could only
do that for two years, and then I
would either have to become a candidate for
a degree or drop out.
Well, I just don't belong to the dropouts.
I just don't.
And that's before the days of the beatniks
and the hippies.
I don't.
I don't belong to the dropout class, class.
So I thought I'd ask some questions as
to how I could go on.
And the dean of the college, a man
by the name of Mitchell, a very dear
friend of mine, a lay reader in the
Episcopal Church in that city, and I believe
a humble believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I said, Dr. Mitchell, I guess I'll have
to say goodbye.
And it was then that he said to
me, why you ought to pass the entrance
examination.
You know, this gave me a start.
How was I going to do this?
But in the course of time, one subject
after another was covered, until I was up
to within 11 units of the 15 units
that I needed to enter.
Those last four units had to do with
the English language, which of course I speak
with a slight accent in Texas, but you
understand.
I just didn't know how I was going
to get around this.
But I prayed much about it, took the
examination, sat all of one afternoon writing on
this English examination.
All I got the next morning was that
I had passed, and I was admitted to
the university of the candidate for the degree
of Bachelor of Arts.
I was anxious to see this paper, to
see what the professor had really done with
it.
So one day I plucked up enough courage
to go up into his office and said,
Dr. Hessler, is there any way in which
I could see that examination paper of mine,
which I worked so hard the other afternoon?
Oh yes, she said, my secretary will let
you see it.
So he called her in, he said, let
Miss Armitage see his paper.
So she dug it out of the piles
and let me see it.
And the top of it, red ink says,
this paper smacks of Shakespeare or the Bible.
You know that gave me an idea.
Do you know why, at least my generation,
I don't know about the present generation, but
my generation could read Shakespeare with appreciation without
having to consult a dictionary very often.
Why?
Because the King James Version of the Bible
kept alive the English of Shakespeare.
And I don't know anything more beautiful.
I've read a lot of these other translations.
I've all due respect for the men who
make them.
But I still believe with the old lady
who said that this King James Version was
good enough for David and good enough for
the Prophet Noah, and it was good enough
for her.
Now there's something else besides delighting in it.
It says here, not only his delight in
the law of the Lord, but in his
law that he meditates day and night.
My dear friends, this is the thing that
really counts.
It's meditation in the word of God.
Oh, but they say to us that meditation
is a lost art these days.
People don't have time to meditate.
Don't you make any mistake, they still meditate.
Oh yes.
We get a good illustration of that in
one of Robert Burns' poems.
You ever read Robert Burns?
If you've never read Tam O'Shanter or the
Totter Saturday Night, you've missed something.
In Tam O'Shanter, Burns talks about a woman
who was waiting for her drunken husband to
come home.
And the way he puts it in the
She said she was sitting at home, nursing
a rock to keep it warm.
That's meditation.
Turn it over and over and over in
your mind, and remember dear friends, this is
exactly what every great artist had to do.
Aren't you surprised sometimes when you go to
a piano recital, or violin recital, or even
to a voice recital, and you hear the
artist playing and playing away number after number,
beautiful compositions, whole concertos without a sheet of
music before him.
How in the world does he do it?
He meditated, he memorized it.
And beloved, if you and I are going
to really profit from the word of God,
this is what we're going to have to
do.
And how we thank God for the many
precious passages which are stirred up in the
mind so that we can call them back
again to memory.
Perhaps when you're not able to sleep at
night, how wonderful, instead of counting imaginary sheets,
you just go through some scripture that you
know, psalm after psalm, the first one, the
second one, the third one, the fourth one,
you go on, and perhaps before you conclude
that fourth one, you're already laying down your
head in peace and sleep, and you're off.
That's it.
And we read that this is going to
have certain effects because of the location in
which this tree is put.
It says he shall be like a tree
planted.
And the word in the original language really
means transplanted.
Every one of us here tonight as a
Christian is a transplant.
God took us out of our natural environment
and he put us into this spiritual environment.
And notice where he puts this tree.
He puts it by the rivers of water
which speak to us of the ministries of
the Holy Spirit.
And we've got scripture for that in the
seventh chapter of John's Gospel, where the Lord
Jesus said, If any man thirst, let him
come unto me and drink, and out of
his innermost being shall flow rivers of living
water.
This spake he of the Spirit, the Holy
Spirit.
And here God is putting this tree in
this wonderful location where it'll have this source
of supply.
But you know a tree has two parts.
There's the part everybody can see, the part
which we very often admire.
But there's another part of that tree that
you don't see.
That's down in the ground.
And we have learned from the horticulturists that
that which you see must balance that which
you don't see.
And herein lies the parable of the spiritual
life.
Unless your spiritual life balances your public life,
my friend, there's something out of balance in
your life.
If we pretend to be something in public
which we're not in private with our blessed
Lord, there's something wrong.
Rooted and grounded in love as we have
it in the epistles of the Ephesians, in
order that that which men see may bring
glory to our blessed Lord.
This is true.
And it brings forth fruit in his seed.
And this fruit, as you know from the
fifth chapter of Galatians, is in nine different
varieties.
Love, joy, peace, gentleness, and so on.
Nine varieties of precious fruit in Galatians 5.
His leaf also shall not wither.
And the leaf, as we know from imagery
as used in the Word of God, is
a type or a picture of our testimony.
Why is it that some have to behave
if they don't say it like the poet
Byron, who in the early 30s of his
life had to say, my days are in
the seared yellow leaf.
Well friends, I refuse to say that even
now at 78.
I remember how one lady came to me
after I preached the sermon on the second
coming of Christ.
She said to me, I see you're one
of those cut and dry premillennialists.
I said, no lady, not cut and dry,
green and growing.
I defy anybody to draw a comparison between
a person that's waiting for God's Son in
heaven and a tree that's dying from the
roots down.
No, dear friends, one whose testimony is based
on the Word of God is going to
have a verdant testimony, a living testimony, a
green testimony, whatsoever he does shall prosper.
But I must hasten on to a close.
I see the hour is gone.
I'd just like to dwell for just a
few minutes on the contrast.
Not because I derive any pleasure out of
this, but because I want to be faithful
to each and every one in this audience
this evening.
You notice the contrast?
The ungodly are not so, but are like
the chaff.
How different from a tree.
How different from a tree that's rooted, planted
by the rivers of water, bearing fruit in
its season, the leaf is green, and it's
very healthy.
How different the chaff.
Oh, one time it held the grain in
its embrace.
One time it too was growing out there,
but now it's rootless, it's fruitless, it's lifeless.
What a picture.
The chaff which the wind drives away.
Remember some years ago, yes, it goes way
back now to about the late twenties.
We were living in Dallas then.
I was planting some sweet peas in my
garden when my young daughter, who's now mother
of four, stole with young fellows.
She came out to me with a bit
of wild oak chaff in her hand.
I forgot, I shouldn't have said that Texas
grows wild oak, but it does.
But anyhow, she came with this bit of
wild oak chaff in her hand.
She said, Daddy, you're making a garden?
I said, yes, darling.
She said, Daddy, would you plant my flower
in your garden?
I looked at this bit of wild oak
chaff.
I said, honey, that will grow.
She looked at me with such a perplexed
look.
She said, Daddy, if you plant it, I
know it will grow.
You know, you don't argue with a child
that talks that way.
So I took my gibble and I made
a little hole in the ground and put
this bit of chaff in, pressed the dirt
around it.
And of course, every day when we watered
the ground for the seeds, of course, this
got watered too.
One day she came in quite dressed.
She said, oh, Daddy, do you remember that
plant, that flower that you didn't want to
plant?
I said, yes, I think I do.
She said, it's growing.
Well, I said, honey, if it's growing, it
must be a miracle.
Well, she said, it is growing, Daddy.
I said, how do you know?
Well, she said, it's getting green.
Well, I said, if it's getting green, maybe
it's one of those sweet peas I planted.
No, Daddy, she said, it's that flower that
I gave you to plant.
So I took a bottle of chaff in
one hand and went out the garden.
And sure enough, there was the piece of
wild oak chaff.
And it was green, but it was green
mold.
And in a few days, it turned black
and gone.
Lifeless, ruthless, ruthless.
Friends, what a picture.
Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the
judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the
righteous.
For the Lord knoweth the way of the
righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall
perish.
My dear unsaved friend here tonight, oh, I
wish we could just have a little personal
word together.
I wish we might be by ourselves or
we could just talk this thing through.
And to have you face this question just
in the presence of God, what has my
life amounted to up to tonight?
Would my life be represented by a growing
tree bearing fruit with a verdict testimony?
Or is my life after all like it
does have been a child?
Friend, may God use this parable to speak
to you and to drive you to Him
who said, I am the way, the truth
and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by
me.
And remember that this life is a gift
from God.
The wages of sin is dead.
That's the chaff.
But the gift of eternal life, the gift
of Jesus Christ our Lord, that's it.
It's yours for the taking.
The Lord Jesus paid for it with His
precious blood.
A price you and I simply cannot comprehend.
It's beyond us.
It's incomparable.
It's priceless.
That's why He says in the prophecy, come
and buy wine and milk without money.
That will appeal to the bankrupt without price
because nobody is able to compute its value.
And this is offered to you tonight through
simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Won't you take a minute's word?
I thought I'd like to close this meeting
tonight with a hymn that probably sums this
up.
It's hymn number three in the book, but
we're going to sing it to a different
music.
I've arranged with Mr. Hancock to play it
to the tune that the Lord made for
this tune, for this hymn.
It's hymn number three.
It says, How firm a foundation ye saints
of the Lord is laid for your faith
in His excellent word.
What more can He say than to you
it is said, to you who for refuge
to Jesus have fled.
The only thing about this tune that Mr.
Hancock is going to play for us is
that you don't repeat the last line.
Just sing the full line.
But this is a hymn, this is a
tune rather, which should be known very well
south of the Mason and Dixon line.
So all you good southerners are going to
join in as we sing this grand old
hymn to this wonderful tune.
Hymn number three, let us stand.
Hymn number three.