Brother Gary Sunday Morning 11/18/12

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 11/18/12

Isa 50:4  The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.

This is a prophecy of Jesus.  My burden is that this congregation would have the tongue of the learned that we would know how to speak a word to the weary.

Psa 42:1  To the chief Musician, Maschil, for the sons of Korah. As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

Psa 42:2  My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

There is something within us that cries out for the living God and will not be satisfied with anything else.

Psa 84:7  They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.

When you find yourself weary and in need of divine intervention, get alone with God and with the Word of God and appear before Him.

Psa 42:3  My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?

If you have difficulty in your life, that doesn’t mean that God is not around.  God is still God and He is still around if you have big challenges in your life or are sick and afflicted.  God is still around.

Psa 42:4  When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.

Psa 42:5  Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

The reason that our soul is cast down and disquieted is because of the reality of lost souls.  When you and I think of the account of my brother: it was 1957 or 1958 when he was in a car accident.  There is a lone white cross near Lonepine where my brother went into eternity.  His family lives over the mountain on the reservation. 

Occasionally we are asked to visit them.  Sin has taken them to situations that would cause the hair to stand up on the back of your neck.  We received a phone call one night.  My brother’s son had jumped off a bridge or fallen into the river; he went into eternity and they were searching for his body.  I will never forget that service and the pain.

There was a young guy standing there at that service dressed as a cowboy with overalls and in black.  This tall good looking young cowboy just stood there by that casket with a saddle on it.  You could see that he was in pain.

A few years back another phone call came and another of my brother’s sons had gone into eternity.  There stood that young cowboy again.  He invited us to his house and treated us well.  He looked like my brother had when he had been killed at 25 years old. 

In the kitchen part of his house, there were a dozen hard liquor bottles.  Sin breaks people’s lives and they try to find something to help them get through.  When you and I realize that a soul is hurting, we cannot be at ease.

Knowing that children, sons and daughters are hurting and knowing heart-broken people, that is a part of life, but let me help you.  Without Jesus, the pain is unbearable.  There is a hopelessness of souls in sin.  

There is hope, but there are a lot of people that don’t know any hope and they are in the hopelessness of sin.  The hopelessness brings mourning; it casts down, and is oppressive.  The suffering of children, young people, and parents of rejection, of knowing that they have done wrong and deserve to be where they are, but are hurting so bad.

God give us the tongue of the learned.  People feel hopeless.  They find no way out.  We need to ask God to stir us.  It is good when people tell us how they feel so that we can realize the terribleness of sin.  It awakens us to how sin will callous hearts and cause them to feel that they are just fine and happy in sin.  Sin always brings suffering to children, to young people, to adults, and to parents.

Sin is the terror of the world.  You and I have every reason to be disquieted in our heart when we realize that we have family and friends that are being personally affected by the terror of sin, 2012.  I am not preaching of those on the streets of New York City, Far Rockaway.  Sin has reached everywhere.  It is like the rays of the sun. 

You cannot hide from the affects of sin.  It is everywhere.  In a commune, in a locked gate society, in those areas that we cannot get to, it is always producing the same thing. 

The greatness of the burden, there will be times when you are going to feel the weight.  It doesn’t have to be a relative or just your own family.  We don’t believe that the only people that are important in the world are me and mine. 

The very greatness of the burden for precious souls that were designed to have light, peace, and joy!  They were designed to give their life to God to use for His honor and for His glory.  To think of that life being ruined and wasted by sin! 

Why art thou cast down?  It is not just the sin but the reality of what sin does.  Sin has put the world out of course.  It is the unusual for a dad to be a good dad.  It is unusual for a child to have a praying mother and grandmother. 

The scripture is fulfilled that men shall be lovers of their own selves and have a form of godliness.  We have a world of religious people that their god is their self.  Sin has set the course of this world out of course. 

Hope thou in God.

Psa 42:5  Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

Psa 42:6  O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.

Psa 42:7  Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.

Psa 42:8  Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.

David felt cast down and disquieted.  You and I and America and the World recognize the pain of sin.  It is very, very real.  David went to the thought: The Lord will command His loving-kindness in the daytime.

I know that I woke up burdened and so did some of you.  I heard your prayer requests.  It is ok to be heavily burdened.  We need to know what to do with our burden.  We can look at that young cowboy that was dressed in black and say, “this situation is bad; alcohol will ruin his life as it did his dad’s.” 

I challenge you to look at the real answer.  Hope is the real answer.  Hope in God.  Have hope and faith in God.  There are many things under attack in the world today.  Among those things is having hope in God.

I hope before we conclude, God has spoken a word to those that are weary: Hope in God.  I shall yet praise Him.

If you acknowledge that you have had a real dilemma, then you know that there is no tangible thing that will answer that dilemma, hope is the answer.  You will have real dilemmas in parenting and grand-parenting but have hope in God. 

I shall still praise Him.  Jesus Christ is our hope.  He is the health of our countenance. 

Yes Jesus took my burden that I could no longer bear. 
Jesus took my burden in answer to my prayer. 
My anxious fears subsided, my spirit was made strong.
When Jesus took my burden and left me with a song.

The reason for that song is that there was an individual that was cast down and there was something that came from Almighty God that said, “Have hope and faith in God.”  As they began to study they found that they could hope in God. 

You may not want to remember your sin, but when I came to Christ I was burdened down and was headed to destruction as fast as I could get there, but Jesus took my burden.  Since 1965, He has been taking my burden over and over again.  He takes our burden and leaves a song. 

Psa 119:81  CAPH. My soul fainteth for thy salvation: but I hope in thy word.

Psa 119:114  Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word.

I hope in thy word.  In the Old Testament, David hoped in the Word of God.  He believed what God had promised and put his hope in that.  John chapter 1 says the exact same thing.  He lets us know that Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh.

Joh 1:14  And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

In the New Testament Jesus Christ Himself brought hope.

1Ti 1:1  Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope;

You can have hope and you can have great hope this morning.

My personal testimony was written before I was here:

Eph 2:11  Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;

Eph 2:12  That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

Eph 2:13  But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

Before salvation, this is how we were: we had no hope.  Whatever your family or name, that doesn’t give you any hope with God.  It takes Jesus Christ.  We were without God and without hope.  But now in Christ Jesus we are made nigh by the blood of Christ.  This is my testimony.

We have the common factor of having had sin in our life.  All have sinned.  I think I remember my first sin.  I don’t even know if I enjoyed that cookie; I had rebelled to get it.  That was a start of going down the wrong road.  Sin controlled my life.  You may have tried to stop sinning.  You can stop but it takes Jesus Christ.  Sin controls lives and leaves them hopeless, Jesus Christ brings hope to sinners.

Abounding sin is the terror in the world in 2012.  Wherever sin is abounding, it only brings terror.  Abounding sin was the reality of my life before salvation and it is ruining lives today. 

Many times people think that they are going to live in sin and it will not affect anyone else.  When sin abounds and people know that God is telling them that they need to change their life.  Abounding sin brings destruction to all the lives that it is reaching to. 

When men and women choose to not serve God, there is no controlling how far sin will go.  It is unjust for a man or woman to hold onto sin.  Whether a wife, a husband, children or grandchildren or someone that is unknown, it damages them. 

People think, “I’m not going to do right but I want my kids to do right.”  I will not be that way.

Sin brings scars to lives.  You say, “Can God help those whose lives are scarred?”  Yes, but why would anyone want to scar someone’s life? 

Sin is terrible.  It is like a leprosy and it eats away.  Pretty soon the conscience becomes hard.  Soon the heart becomes gross.  Unkindness reaches further than you ever thought that it would reach.  There is no limit to what sin will work in a person’s life.

Rom 5:20  Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:

Rom 5:21  That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

Everyone has experienced sin abounding in our lives.  One day the eternal God made a plan, before the world ever began, that He would send His only begotten son into the World to save sinners.  He made a way that His grace and influence would come to our heart to show us that we needed a savior. 

Where sin abounded, grace came and penetrated through the darkness and the pain of sin.  Grace reached that soul and said, “You can have a changed life.”

2Th 2:15  Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.

2Th 2:16  Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace,

2Th 2:17  Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.

If you are saved and heavily burdened, cast down and concerned about your son, your grandson, or for this one over there.  God may have laid a burden on your heart for abused children or for Rebecca that is in a drug recovery house. 

Stand fast.  Have a hold on something.  There is an anchor that is unique.  It goes up to heaven.  Get a hold of that anchor.  Whatever your job is, you can get a hold of that anchor.  My mom needed a life change and began to pray.  Thank God she got a hold of this anchor. 

“Jesus Christ, Himself”, when you see this, what it is telling you is that they are really emphasizing the individual.  Paul was emphasizing Jesus.  He has given us, Himself, this hope.  He has heard your prayer and has given you consolation and good hope.

Instruction to all mankind:

Tit 2:11  For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

Tit 2:12  Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

Tit 2:13  Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

The grace of God is the inspiration of the Divine on the heart and mind.  This grace brings salvation. 

Salvation has five meanings.  Deliverance: If you confess your sins to God then you can have deliverance. 

Salvation means Help:  Sometimes people feel that they don’t know where to turn.  God understands that.  If you turn to Him, He will make it easy.  He says, “Follow me.”  He has left us the script of the journey.  Some of us cannot understand by reading but must see it done. 

Jesus said that He goes before the sheep and the sheep follow Him.  There is something so awesome about serving Jesus.  He is just far enough ahead of us that we know that He is leading all the time.  If He spoke to you then let me tell you that He loves you.