I get to speak
to me.
I just finished saying, you know, he said,
that's just wonderful.
Isn't it wonderful, Brother Andrews?
And by the time I said amen, he
said, let's have the ladies sing the next
verse.
Just to see you out there and to
see the expression on your faces when you're
singing, but even when somebody like...
We have an alert audience.
I don't make a mistake more than one
out of every two times I open my
mouth.
Now, T.K., it's all right for you
to react when somebody's singing, but not when
I'm...
Anyone in the back that can't hear me,
please nod your head, and that is stupid.
How are they going to nod their head
if they couldn't hear me?
So, if we catch you sleeping now, you'd
be real careful.
You've been a great group.
You really were.
You want
to hear Hurley Dixon sing again before his
regularly scheduled time, which I don't know when
that will be, but he will be singing
out on...
What you looking at, Brother Oxendine?
The weather?
We've got this cool weather, so we could
have it outside.
So, don't worry about the rain.
If it does rain, we'll be inside here.
We'll be eating lunch with you.
Would you raise your hand so we can
tell the dietician?
We'd love to have you over to any
visiting we'll be eating lunch with.
It must be a bad bunch.
Well, we've got enough to fill it up
anyway, so we'd like to have you if
you want to.
Now, let us bow to a word of
prayer.
We're going to ask our good friend and
brother Art Miller from Atlanta if he'll lead
our hearts together in praise and prayer.
Brother Miller.
Now, this being your day, it will not
be the full schedule, of course, of recreation,
but beginning tomorrow, we assure you, there will
be as much as you want to do
to keep you busy in many different ways.
And so you can enjoy a horizontal exercise
like this.
Enjoy some deep nasal breathing, sometimes called snoring.
And there was plenty of it, I'm sure,
last night.
And we hope that the parents will drive.
I shouldn't even say drive, but that's what
it is sometimes.
But we hope they will keep the little
ones also in for a nap.
Jim's announcement, and he will keep a few
of you busy in another activity.
There will be a hike for the children
ages 5 through 12.
They will meet out front if you want
them to go, and there will be a
good group to take them on a nice
hike all down behind us here through a
beautiful area where they pick up wildflowers and
stones, and they give them prizes, and they
enjoy that.
So that's at 3 o'clock.
Now, this morning I said the nursery went
up to 3, and the children's meetings were
5 through 12.
Well, that was another boo-boo.
We left out the four-year-olds.
We don't leave out anybody at Bristol.
I should have said the four-year-olds
have the privilege of going with or soever
they will.
If they prefer the nursery, they may go
to the nursery.
If they want to go to the children's
meeting, Mr. Murphy will take them and persevere
and really make something out of them.
So if you want to send your four
-year-olds down there, you may.
But the hike is at 3 o'clock,
and the lawn service, not L-O-N
-G.
We try not to have too many of
those L-A-W-N.
Lawn service is just down the hill to
your right as you go down the steps.
Please bring your blankets or large beach towels
or newspapers or whatsoever to sit on, and
we believe you'll enjoy the informal type service
of getting better acquainted.
Please wear your name tags.
It's important.
We want you to get to know a
lot of people.
And at mealtime, don't just go now and
sit over in a corner somewhere at the
same table, way off from anybody else, and
then say people are not friendly to me.
We like to move around at Bristol and
move from one table to another.
Just go and flop, and somebody else will
come and flop, and then you fellowship.
I don't say we have floppy fellowship, but
I mean we have good fellowship around the
table, and you can call it round-table
fellowship if you'd like to.
Help us out with that.
Ray Ruth—Ray, can you stick your head out
the door just a minute?
Ray Ruth does a great job, along with
others, of taping all these messages.
Did you come out far enough that you
can see me?
There you are.
He will be glad to provide you with
any or all the tapes of all these
messages without you even touching a button to
a cassette, and he does it just about
as economically as you could do it yourself.
And he does one about every four minutes,
or something like that.
So, if you want tapes, you see Mr.
Ruth, and before the week's out, you'll go
home with some great ministry for some of
your friends.
Thank you, and have a good day, and
let us know if there's any way we
can help you.
Jim Ray.
I'll hand you this now, Jim.
We do want to invite all that are
good singers here to be here right after
dinner for our choir practice.
We're going to have a choir sing tonight,
and a lot of times people say, well,
I didn't get an invitation.
Well, the only invitation you get is a
public invitation to everyone.
The Volunteer Choir, and we'd like as many
that can sing to be here and have
a part in this choir.
It's a wonderful time of blessing, and you
really bless the hearts of the people.
So, if you've got a voice, use it
for the glory of God, and especially you
men that are so bashful that I have
to get after two or three times before
I get you up here.
How about coming this afternoon right after dinner,
and we'll work down some of that meal
that you ate, and we will keep you
over a half hour if you're here.
Now, if you straggle in little by little,
it can take three quarters of an hour,
but if you're here, I know Beverly now.
She has a right to bust the line
this afternoon, to go in front of the
line.
So, there you are, Beverly.
I cleared it with everybody, because I want
the piano player here to be sure.
Last year, she got stuck at the back
of the line, and I waited and waited,
and everybody else was waiting, and she was
still down there eating, and she would quit
until she finished it all.
So, anyway, Beverly, we're going to give you
a head start on it.
So, let's remember that right after lunch, choir
practice, and we'll have a good time singing
together.
And so, this is your invitation.
Don't expect me to come up and say,
how about you singing?
If you're that good a singer, I guess
we don't want you in our choir.
You're just too professional for us.
So, this is your invitation.
Come and join us, and we'll have a
wonderful time.
Even if you're a Yankee, we'll let that
Yankee promote come off, because I'm from the
Midwest, and they've just about got it out
of me.
I don't know if Dick's still working a
little bit with my accent, but we'll work
on it some more for the next few
years.
Number 40 will be our next hymn, just
before our message this morning.
Number 40, you know, I couldn't help but
think that when the brother Dick was saying
about Ray reproducing these messages in four minutes,
and I thought of how long it takes
John Phillips to put it across first.
Brother Phillips, you can get me tonight.
I know he will anyway.
Four minutes, John.
Your message is minutes.
All together now, singing number 40.
It has
been a privilege for several years in the
past to have our dear brother, Dr. Carl
Armadale, come to Bristol and minister the word
of God.
We weren't able to get him one or
two times.
When we wanted to, he still has a
very busy schedule, and many, many conferences would
like to have him, but many, many of
you said, please get Dr. Carl Armadale back
to Bristol again.
And the Lord has provided us that, and
met our desires and requests, and what a
joy it is to have him to minister
the word again to us this week at
Bristol.
Dr. Carl Armadale from Dallas, Texas.
Dr. Carl, it's a joy and a pleasure
to have you back with us at Bristol.
Lord bless you.
Thank you.
I'll just repeat those words, that it is
a joy and a pleasure to me to
be back here at Bristol after all these
years.
I was reminded last Lord's Day when I
passed the fourth score and five mark that
I won't have very much longer around here
for Lord Tyrus, but we thank God for
the strength that he gives us so we
can say in the language of scripture, think,
yet pursue it.
I'm to have the privilege, God willing, of
speaking to you four mornings this week.
Today, of course, and tomorrow, Wednesday and Friday.
And on those four mornings, I would like
to speak on the 23rd Psalm.
So, if you have your Bible open to
that way, in fact, I suppose most of
you know the Psalm by heart, and I
would like if the whole audience this morning
would join in repeating the 23rd Psalm from
the time-honored King James Version, which, as
you remember, one dear old lady said is
good enough for the Apostle Paul, good enough
for David, and good enough for her.
So, let's repeat Psalm 23 from the King
James Version.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want him.
He maketh me to lie in empty green
patches.
He leadeth me beside the works.
He restoreth my soul.
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
for it may take.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will still use
thee for thou art with me.
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
As a carrier I receive thee before me
in the presence of my enemies.
I am the voice and the angel of
the Lord.
I shall not run afloat.
Sure as rivers and oceans shall follow me
all the days, and I will dwell in
the house of the Lord.
This is probably the best known and the
most popular chapter in all the Word of
God, and yet there are those who challenge
our right to use it, because they say
this was a psalm that belonged to the
Israelites, and the poet, of course, was an
Israelite.
And we acknowledge that claim as a prior
claim.
But by this time, in the light of
the New Testament, we can say that this
is public domain where anyone who comes to
the Lord Jesus Christ can claim this psalm
for his own.
And even though what I shall have to
say about the psalm has to do mainly
with God's people, I trust that if the
Lord has sent someone in here who is
still without Christ, that you too may learn
to say with a psalmist, say it from
your heart, the Lord is my shepherd.
You know, it's a wonderful thing to make
a statement like that.
It's a tremendous claim, and it's quite distinct
from some other statements which people make when
they try to sum up their creeds.
They say, well, you know, I believe in
an Almighty Creator.
Well, I remember an answer my father gave
to one man who made that statement.
For years, the man had been an atheist.
In fact, he was an uncle of mine.
He was an atheist.
And then he joined the Masonic Lodge, and
he claimed that he now believed in a
Supreme Being.
And he came to my father, and he
said, well, Ernest, you know, I'm making progress.
I now believe in a Supreme Being.
And he expected to have to give him
a pat on the back and commend him
for this.
He said, God, even the devils believe and
shudder.
And that put him in his place.
So, if you just believe in a Supreme
Being or an Almighty Maker, you still haven't
come up to the level of this.
But the Lord is my shepherd has certain
implications.
It's a wonderful thing, I say, to say
that the Lord is my shepherd, because when
I make a statement like this, I'm confessing
that I wanted his sheep.
And last night we were forcefully reminded, as
our dear brother was ministering to us, that
we were as sheep going astray.
And when you say the Lord is my
shepherd, all his coming into the world is
implied in that statement.
This is what he came for.
And he himself gives us a very wonderful
picture of it in the fifteenth chapter of
the gospel according to Luke, when he speaks
of a man who having a hundred sheep,
and he loses one.
Does he not go after that which is
lost in the wilderness until he finds it?
And thank God for everyone who can say,
yes, and he found me.
And in this way, we can say the
Lord is my shepherd.
You'll notice if your Bible makes the distinction
that the word Lord is in all capital
letters, if it makes that distinction.
This means that in the original language, this
is the equivalent of the word Jehovah, which,
of course, to many Israelites, even to this
day, is a word that they must not
speak.
The French have given a very interesting translation.
Every time this word Jehovah occurs in the
original language, the French have given it the
interpretation, the Eternal One, l'Eternel.
Yes, he's the Eternal One who came down
into this world of time, this world in
which you and I live, became incarnate that
he might rightfully bear this title of shepherd.
And he himself identifies himself, as you know,
in the tenth chapter of John's Gospel.
I'm going to ask you to turn to
that, but just keep your bookmark in Psalm
23, and let us turn to John chapter
10 to see how the Lord Jesus claims
to be the one of whom the psalmist
is singing here in Psalm 23.
You'll notice in the opening verse of the
chapter, and it begins with an expression which
is frequently repeated in this Gospel according to
John.
In fact, I think it's found here something
like 25 different times, the Lord Jesus making
this solemn affirmation, Verily, verily.
In the original language, it's an Amen, an
Amen, and the Roman Catholic translation of the
Scripture retained that in exactly those words.
It's a solemn oath on his part when
he says, Verily, verily, I say to you,
he that entereth not in by the door
into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other
way, the same as a thief and a
robber, but he that entereth in by the
door.
Now, what did the Lord mean by this?
Well, down in the sixth verse we read
that this parable or this allegory spake Jesus
unto them, but they understood not what things
there were which he spake unto them.
So that we are allowed to look up
in these words as being figurative.
In other words, the Lord's not talking here
about a door into a building, but he's
talking of a place of entry into that
which the Scripture here calls, and which he
himself calls, the sheepfold, which I take it
as a poetic expression for the nation of
Israel.
And there were three things connected with that
entry that I should like to call attention
to in passage.
In the first place, this shepherd had to
come in as one of the tribe of
the nation of Israel, of the tribe of
Judah, and not only that, he had to
be born of a virgin.
And our blessed Lord fulfilled that Scripture to
the letter.
He was born of a virgin Mary.
In that sense, he came in through the
door.
He fulfilled that Scripture.
But not only did he fulfill that Scripture,
but he fulfilled it in that he was
born in a certain place.
According to the fifth chapter of the prophecy
of Micah, he came and he was born
in Bethlehem of Judea.
Yes, there we have two lines of prophecy
fulfilled in the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Born of a virgin, and born in the
town of Bethlehem.
But it's conceivable that somebody should come along
someday and say, Yes, I was also born
of a virgin.
We'd probably question that.
And I was born in the town of
Bethlehem.
That could be possible.
But there's another Scripture that our Lord fulfilled.
And this you find in the ninth chapter
of Daniel, and which is summed up for
us in the fourth chapter of Galatians, where
it says, In the fullness of time God
sent forth his Son, made of women, made
under the law.
Galatians 4, verse 4.
So, he had three lines of prophecy.
Three lines which can never converge again.
Over one person, in one place, at one
time.
Three lines of prophecy.
And I believe this is a detailed explanation
of what our Lord means when he says,
He that came in by the door is
the shepherd of the sheep.
So, our Lord identifies himself with that.
But somebody says, Yes, that sounds very biblical,
and perhaps a little too theological for some.
They say, You know, it's a little beyond
me to think of all these Scriptures and
all that sort of thing.
But our Lord gives another proof.
Not an objective proof like these three that
we've just now looked at.
But he gives a subjective proof.
Something that you feel within.
And you notice this, please.
It says here in the third verse of
that tenth chapter of John, To him the
porter opened, and the sheep hear his voice.
And he called his own sheep by name,
and leadeth them out.
And when he put forth his own sheep,
he goeth before them, and the sheep follow
him, for they know his voice.
And you know, you don't have to be
very old to distinguish one voice from another.
I remember when our firstborn came into the
world.
Like every father, I was very proud of
my firstborn son.
And one day my wife, when he was
about three months old, she said, I have
to do a little shopping on my own.
I wonder if I could leave the baby
with you while I go shopping.
She said, I'll put him to sleep.
And if he wakes up while I'm gone,
just pet him lightly, and he'll probably go
off again.
I said, you leave him to me.
I'm the oldest of ten, and I know
how to handle babies.
Well, she hadn't been gone ten or fifteen
minutes when I heard sounds coming from the
bedroom.
And I went in and did as I
was told to just pet him very lightly.
But you know, my hand weighs at least
twice as much as hers.
So I guess when it came down on
him, he felt like it was a ton
of bricks coming down on him.
Well, I noticed that she also sometimes put
her cheek next to his.
So I did that.
I said, I'll just put that.
But you know, even in these days of
the flexomatic razors and all that kind of
thing, very soon after a man's shaved, he
can feel the bristles growing again.
And I guess the child noticed, too, the
difference between his mother's soft cheek and mine.
He knew the difference.
I thought, well, now I'd better speak to
him.
And you know, I tried to put on
my best tenor, and it didn't work.
Alongside of her, I met the soprano, and
I had a yelling baby on my hand.
And when she came in the door, this
was the sound of greeting her.
Well, she just took him in her arms
and said one or two words, and then
I heard that, and pretty soon he was
off to sleep.
Just one voice from another, didn't he?
You say, what a wonderful, precocious child.
No, it's just a garden variety.
And so it is with the children of
God.
The Lord Jesus says they know his voice.
And friends, this is the one thing that
we are credited with in the fifth chapter
of this same Gospel of John.
For again, the Lord Jesus Christ says, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that heareth
my word, and believeth on him that sent
me hath everlasting life, and shall not come
into judgment, but is cast from death unto
life.
Yes, if you're a Christian this morning, you
have heard the voice of the Son of
God.
You've heard it through his word.
The Holy Spirit has made it good to
you.
And we can say on the authority of
the book itself, we have heard the voice
of the Son of God.
So here we have two lines of proof.
Objective proof in the fulfillment of Scriptures.
Subjective proof in that it does something to
our hearts when we hear his voice.
But the Lord gives another proof in this
tenth chapter of John, that he is the
Good Shepherd.
Will you please come down with me to
the eleventh verse of the chapter?
John 10, verse 11.
I am the Good Shepherd, the Good Shepherd
giveth his life.
Look at you.
This is the crowning proof that is exactly
what he claims to be in the giving
or the laying down of his life.
And this is so important that he refers
to it three times in this chapter.
Three times.
Right there in that eleventh verse.
Then you know again it says in the
fifteenth verse, As the Father knoweth me, even
so know I the Father, and I lay
down my life.
That's the same word in the original giving.
I lay down my life for the sheep.
And that word for is important.
You know to us in the grammar you
might say that's just a little preposition.
But it's pregnant with meaning.
It means that he laid down his life
in place of the sheep.
You say in place of the sheep?
Yes.
Because every one of us as wandering sheep
has forfeited our right to live.
We have no right to live.
But he came in and he took what
was our Jews.
And he died upon the cross of Calvary
and was forsaken.
We were reminded in the earlier meeting this
morning.
He took what we deserved.
When he cried out in the anguish of
his soul, My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me?
That's what I deserve.
Sometimes people who question eternal punishment they say,
Well what do you think hell will be
like?
That's what it'll be like.
One man said to me, Well, if I
go to hell I'll have plenty of company.
I said, don't be deceived.
You'll be an awfully lonely man.
And that doesn't mean that others are not
going there.
But there's no such thing in hell as
fellowship.
Loneliness expressed by the Lord Jesus Christ when
he said, Why hast thou forsaken me?
Oh, the loneliness, the utter loneliness of it.
My dear unsafe friend of yours here this
morning, may this be used of the Holy
Spirit to awaken you to what it would
mean to lead this life without the Lord
Jesus Christ as your Savior.
An eternity of utter loneliness away from God.
That's what hell will be like.
He laid down his life in place of
the sheep.
But then you'll notice he also makes reference
to this again in the 18th verse.
He says, No man taketh it from me,
but I lay it down of myself.
Oh, that's what gives real value to this.
He did it voluntarily.
Not only was his death vicarious, substitutionary, but
it was a voluntary death.
He wasn't forced to do this.
He did it voluntarily.
I lay it down of myself.
It may not look like it.
When you study the Gospels and you see
the way he was handled in the judgment
before Pilate and finally nailed to the cross,
sometimes we lose the very force of our
Lord's worship, but he was going voluntarily.
He could say, I could ask of my
Father to give me ten legions of angels
right now.
But he didn't, because he went there voluntarily.
And you and I know, dear friends, that
what we do voluntarily has far more value
than things we're commanded to do.
Take a man with a loving wife.
When he leaves home in the morning to
go to business, he tells his wife, he
says, I've left a list of things on
my desk that I'd like you to do
till I get back this evening.
Well, if he had a wife like mine,
it wouldn't wonder when those things were done,
because that wasn't the way she did things.
But you know, it was a wonderful thing
to come home, never having made any such
list, and to find one thing done, another
thing done, another thing done.
You know, that's what makes a man want
to bring home a bouquet of flowers or
a chocolate, you know.
And you get things done voluntarily like this.
This is what the Lord Jesus did.
Yes, he offered himself without stop.
But there's still another note here.
You notice it says in that 18th verse,
he says, I have power to lay it
down, and I have power to take it
again.
Not only was his death vicarious and voluntary,
it was victorious.
He laid it down of himself voluntarily, but
he says, I'm going to take it up
again.
Earlier, in the same book of John, he
had destroyed this body, the body, the temple
of his body, and in three days I
will raise it up.
We challenge the world this morning, dear friends,
to produce another character that could talk like
that and mean it.
Only the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of
life and glory, could say, I lay it
down, I have power to lay it down,
and I have power to take it again.
Beloved, let us rejoice in the fact that
we not only have a Savior who loved
us and gave himself for us, but who's
living today.
He did it at the right hand of
the majesty in the heavens.
All of these are proof that he is
exactly what he dreamed to be.
And this is the one of whom the
psalmist is singing in that twenty-third psalm
when he says, the Lord is my shepherd.
As you know, that statement implies a transaction.
It implies that you've had something to do
with him, and something to do with him
personally.
We're not simply saying, our shepherd, but we're
making it very personal and individual this morning.
The Lord is my shepherd.
Oh, how individual that psalm is, isn't it?
Yes, dear friends, we can't be saved for
somebody else.
This is an individual matter.
Some years ago, living in the city of
Albuquerque, one of our sisters in the assembly
had an unsafe husband, and I spoke to
him about his soul.
And he said, well, he said, I understand
you call the ladies in your church sisters.
I said, yes, that's their official name.
And he said, you men are called brethren.
I said, that's it.
Well, he said, seeing as I'm married to
one of your sisters, I must be a
brethren lord of your church.
Well, you know, that sounded very clever.
I said to him, well, Charlie, well, you
can find me a verse which says, being
a brethren lord to the church or to
some other Christian will save your soul.
I'll quit talking to you.
The day came when Charlie Brinkley trusted the
Lord Jesus Christ as his own personal savior,
no longer rejoicing in the fact that he
could rejoice in that he was married to
one of our sisters, for she was a
choice woman, but he himself a personal, individual
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
To be able to say with this psalmist,
the Lord is my shepherd.
Just thank God for all of this, that
we have the proof that he's exactly what
he claimed to be.
And we can go to the world with
a statement like this.
I don't know of any other religion and
teaching in some of the institutions where I
have taught, like the Moody Bible Institute, Dallas
Theological Seminary, and so on, Wheaton College, 14
years.
And in the course of our teaching, we
had to take up what was called comparative
religions.
I often laugh at the term because, well,
Christianity is not one of them, you know.
We talk about comparative religions.
In the first place, Christianity is a faith
rather than a religion.
Someone has distinguished between all these others than
Christianity, yet these others say, do, and Christianity
says it's done.
You know, this is the great difference between
Christianity and the other system that you know
of.
Not only that, dear friends, but you can
be an adherent of any one of these
other systems without ever having known the founder.
You could be a Mohammedan.
You could be a Muslim without ever having
known Mohammed.
Perhaps the less you know about him, the
better.
And then, you could be a Confucianist without
ever having known Confucius.
You could be a Buddhist without ever having
known Gautama.
But you just can't be a Christian without
knowing Christ.
And that's what makes the first verse of
our psalm so important, dear friends.
And here's the psalmist claiming this one as
his own personal possession.
To say with that dear old woman whom
they have celebrated in poetry, I have Christ,
what want I more?
Oh, beloved, this is the secret, isn't it,
of our Christian faith as a whole, that
we have one who truly satisfies.
And that's all summed up in the latter
part of that first verse of our psalm,
I shall not want.
It's true it's a negative statement, and sometimes
people discount negative statements as though they were
worthless, but they're not.
We find two negative statements in this psalm,
and they're both very precious.
I shall not want is one of them,
I shall fear no evil is the other.
But, friends, each one of these negative statements
has a positive implication.
When you read the description of that wonderful
city in the book of Revelation, you read
there's no night there, there shall not enter
into it anything to defile it, and so
on.
A lot of negative statements.
Somebody says, why are these statements negative?
Because they're given to us from the earthly
standpoint.
God could hardly give them to us from
the heavenly standpoint, because we haven't got fully
afforded with that as yet, you see.
Ear hath not heard, eye hath not seen,
neither have entered into the heart the things
which God hath prepared for them that love
him, but God revealed them to us by
his Spirit.
So, we only know them by Revelation.
That's why the apostle Paul, in describing it
all, says to be with Christ, which is
far better.
So, don't be disturbed that because this negative
statement appears in this verse, it's full of
meaning.
I shall not want.
Which, put into other words, is perfect satisfaction.
You know, the world tries to cash in
on dissatisfaction.
Some years ago, I was riding along in
Florida, going from Miami North up to Orlando,
and when I got on the bus, I
noticed a sign that said, smoking on last
three seats only.
Well, it depends on where you start counting,
of course, which of those last seats and
which of the first.
But anyhow, there was a lady sitting right
in front of me in the second row,
and she paid no attention, whatever, to this
sign.
I just simply decided that she must have
gone to night school and couldn't read in
the daytime.
But anyhow, it said, no smoking except in
the last three rows.
And I watched her.
She used only one match in the whole
trip.
She just kept lighting one with the stump
of the other one, you know.
And as we drew near to our destination,
she threw an empty carton down in the
well of the bus, and I noticed two
big words, they satisfy.
And I just felt like tapping her on
the shoulder, which I couldn't do, of course.
It would have been rude.
But I felt like tapping her on the
shoulder and saying, lady, how many does it
take?
They satisfy.
Thank God in our Christian faith it takes
only one.
It takes only one.
He satisfies the longing soul.
Oh, are you longing for something here this
morning?
Having to do as we have in the
ministry.
We have to do with people who are
victims of one thing or another.
This young person has already become an alcoholic.
What's he doing this for?
He knows that it's not only ruinous, but
it's expensive.
Here's another kid who's overtaken with drugs.
He was promised some wonderful things by the
fellow who sold him his first six.
Oh, yes.
But now it's costing him more than he
can possibly afford in one day.
Like we had a man over in Dallas
who killed another man just to get his
money.
He said, well, it cost me $200 a
day to keep up with my habit.
Expensive, isn't it?
And yet not satisfied.
And you look at their faces as they
come into council with you.
And written all across their forehead is the
words, dissatisfaction.
Dissatisfaction.
They need all sorts of things to divert
their attention because they're not satisfied.
And they wonder how you and I can
be so satisfied.
Is it because we're so indifferent?
No.
It's because we're found in the Lord Jesus
Christ, one who truly satisfies.
And I think I can say this, dear
friends.
Having known my Lord as my own personal
Savior for over three score and ten years,
I was saved as a teenager of 15.
And all these 70-odd years, the Lord
has proven to me how satisfying he really
can be.
Why I don't need these other things.
Why I don't need alcohol.
Why I don't need drugs.
Why I don't need a conference.
And these last ten years especially have been
lonely years for me.
And the Lord called my beloved home to
himself.
But oh, how much satisfying he really is.
He was satisfying to her, satisfying to me.
Our greatest satisfaction some evenings is just to
sit together and enjoy the Lord's presence in
our home.
Friends, there's something so wonderfully satisfying about being
a Christian.
I invite you to this satisfaction this morning.
I make no apology for the evangelistic thrust
in this message this morning, because the older
I get, the more I feel impelled to
speak to those like myself at the very
gates of eternity.
And to plead with you, my friend, if
you've never made the decision before, whether young
or old, maybe you're just a teenager, just
entered your teens perhaps, and you've never made
a decision.
You know, it's a wonderful thing that when
you trust the Lord Jesus Christ, he not
only saves your soul, but he saves your
life.
And this is a great difference, isn't it?
He saves your soul, and he saves your
life.
May God lead you to the point where
you can say with a psalmist, The Lord
is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Let us turn to hymn number 112.
Number 112.
Thou alone, Lord Jesus, canst true peace impart.
Thou dost know the sorrow of the human
heart.
Thou who came from glory, hear that heart
to win.
And in love for sinners, suffers once for
sin.
There is none, Lord Jesus, there is none
like thee.
For the broken-hearted, there is none like
thee.
Let us rise to sing hymn number 112.
Amen.