Brother Gary Sunday Morning 5/4/14

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 5/4/14

Heb 5:14  But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

This audience would know that strong meat means the truths of the Word of God and heavy conviction.  It belongs to them that are of full age.  We realize that as we come into life it is not long until children reach a situation in life where they want to mature.  That is how that is.  It is good.

In the spiritual realm, we realize that when we get saved, we don’t go very far in our experience until we come to a crossroads of, “Am I going to drift and be mediocre or put my whole heart in and mature to be everything that God wants me to be.”

In the natural, God created us with natural organs of sensation.  There was a time when Sister Darla’s eyes matured from birth until she had perfect eyesight.  Not only did she see clearly but had feeling in her hands so that she could take the brush and draw that line just like she wanted to draw that line.

For you that kneed bread, there is a maturity that comes where even your hands can tell if there is a right amount of flour or whatever else.  That is how God made us. 

Sister Darla left us the testimony that her eyesight is not so keen now.  When she looks at a picture now instead of one tree on an island there may be three trees.

God gave us eyes to see and ears to hear.  There are people who have just the right ears for hunting, just the right ears to be a mechanic.  Some have a perfect pitch: an ear to hear just the right pitch.

God created us with a mouth with the purpose of tasting.  There are many taste buds in your mouth.  The nose is for smelling and there is feeling in our fingers.  These five sensations are important physically and spiritually.

I understand being born again, but God begins working with the spiritual seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and the ability to feel the presence of God as a child.  They are designed to be useful in our spiritual life. 

God has ordained that these spiritual senses be exercised and taught to children.

Your spiritual eyes:

Psa 119:18  Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

We are all individuals that see, hear, smell, taste, and have the ability to feel things.  Many times people become brassy and don’t feel any situation delicate.  They had to harden themselves to get there. 

I think of those that are in the age of their life being molded.  I think of those that we look upon and enjoy, the young people, the children, and all the saints.  These little eyes, if we as a congregation can excel to edify them.  That lives will say unto God, “Open my eyes that I may behold things out of thy law.” 

I walked into an office where I felt things were very delicate.  She was in a situation where she could ask me to leave.  I walked in a little shaky and trembling.  I could tell that she was weighing it.  May God open our eyes as the church that we will see the wondrous things in the Word of God. 

Life is to deal with delicate situations.  Sometimes we don’t want to face reality that “This situation with my mother, sister, grandchild, whatever it may be, is delicate.  I am dealing with a soul.”

Open my eyes.  We can have this sense exercised to discern as the bible says, “Both good and evil.”  You must know the real in order to recognize the counterfeit.  We won’t learn the counterfeit by studying the counterfeit but by studying the real.

Isa 55:2  Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

Isa 55:3  Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

Isa 50:5  The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.

Dear ones this morning, pray, “God open my ear.  Oh that there would be that sensitive-ness that when God speaks and says, “Be careful.”  It doesn’t mean to do nothing but to be careful.” 

Open thou my ear.  In this week ahead of us, I am confident that God will speak to everyone that is saved.  We must have an attitude, “Open my ear.”  Isaiah said, “I was not rebellious to what God said.”

You say, “Sometimes I don’t know when God is speaking or not.”  Get your life in order and your priorities right, have an utmost desire in your heart and life, “I want my ear open.  I want to hear God speak to me.” 

Did God create the ear and him not have something to say to us?  He has something to say to us.  Don’t be afraid to humbly do your best.  Don’t be afraid to make a mistake.  If in your best of efforts you hear and are mistaken, sometimes God allows us to be mistaken so that we learn. 

Exercise so that you know, “God is speaking.”  God is saying, young man, young lady, children…  Oh God open thou my ears.

We see the mouth:  The psalmist said, “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.”

The saddest thing in the world is being messed up in our taste.  There are conditions in the physical that mess up our taste.  Taste before you make a mistake and sin and leave scars all over your life.  Don’t think that it will never happen.  Very intelligent people thought that they could play with sin, Babylon, carnality, or doctrine.  No you cannot.  They messed their lives up.

Individuals that were good looking and thought that they could play with this guy or gal’s affections and things would turn out ok.  No they wouldn’t.  Don’t ever play with a guy or gals affection.  It is wrong.  Don’t think that you can handle it.  You cannot.

Psa 34:8  O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

Psa 119:103  How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

We understand that manna is the Word of God.  There was a golden pot of manna placed in the Holiest of Holies.  It is as coriander seed, making a wafer that tasted like it had honey in it. 

D.S. Warner said, “Sin had made my life so bitter.”  Everyone in this audience knows some bitter woman.  Everyone in this audience knows some bitter man.  They are mad at the world and at all whatever they are mad at.  They didn’t taste of the manna they tasted of the works of the flesh.  There are things that if you taste of them they will make you bitter.  That is how it is.

Heb 6:4  For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,

Heb 6:5  And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,

Those that have rejected Christ have tasted of the heavenly gift.  “I have tasted of freedom.”  Bill Gaither.

These heavenly things that God has provided for us that only heaven can provide:  freedom, fellowship, sitting together in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, sitting in the pew and a song witnessing to our soul.  Tasted. 

The Word of God being preached and our soul rising up and saying, It is for me.  Tasting not only of the heavenly gift but of the Word of God.

When you feel antsy, when you feel, “I am so dissatisfied,” when you feel bewildered, when you feel the pain…  I could feel the request for Sister Sheri:  Jobless in Canada and probably trying to help some of her children survive. 

Taste the word of God; eat of that manna.  When I got the report that her job had been terminated, it was as if God said, “I’ll work it all out.”  He has the answer. 

You are not underprivileged when you haven’t tasted of some things.  That mind and heart saved for God.

The nose for smelling:  Amos 4 the smells of the camp of sin.  Don’t forget sin has a stench of a smell.  The smells of carnality:  You need to know them so that you recognize them the minute it begins to make an expression.  If it is in yourself, “This smells like carnality and I will not allow it.”

The prophecy of Christ:  All the garments smell with myrrh, alloys, and other things.  Isn’t it marvelous when you smell something that is of an eternal nature?

Php 4:18  But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God.

I like to think of that, not as someone doing something for me, but applied to my life, “God I want my life to be a living sacrifice, holy acceptable, I want the aroma of this life to be as in Revelations, the smell of linen garments, the righteousness of the saints.”

All of us, May God help us to be so clean because we love Him, that there is as the aroma of clean linen, the righteousness of the saints, “I’ve done right here.”  Oh the smell!

The feeling:

Joh 8:3  And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,

Joh 8:4  They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

Joh 8:5  Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

Joh 8:6  This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.

Joh 8:7  So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Joh 8:8  And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.

Joh 8:9  And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

Joh 8:10  When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?

Joh 8:11  She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

One knows the feeling of being convicted in their conscience.  Conviction is a wonderful thing.  When Jesus asked the woman, “Where are thine accusers?”  She said, “They are gone.”  He responded, “Neither do I condemn thee.”  There is a wonderful feeling of being forgiven.  Forgiven by God.

Jesus asked Peter, “Lovest thou me more than these?”

You and I have experienced being loved of God. 

Joh 3:16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

We feel it.

Jer 31:3  The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

I have felt love and I have felt hatred.  I felt hatred in my heart when I was in sin.  I felt the root of bitterness try to spring up in my soul toward one that I thought had done me wrong.  If it is in our mind then it can spring up.

He loved us with an everlasting love.

There is another feeling, the feeling of being drawn with loving kindness.  You know, you have heard, it has been preached by better preachers than I.  The dull of hearing syndrome is unacceptable to God.  It is an old condition.  In Isaiah’s day they were dull of hearing.  “These people’s heart is waxed gross.”

It was in Jesus day, “Why are you speaking in parables?  It is for you to know but for the dull of hearing to not know.”

The dull of hearing condition produces a smell that is intolerable to God.  When it comes to the Word of God, the quickening conviction of the Word of God, our sight, our hearing, our smell, our taste, may God help us to have the attitude, “I want to be quickened.”

It is wonderful that even though Sister Darla may never see as well again.  Her spiritual eyesight, hearing, taste, feeling can be very good. 

God has provided everything that we need for all of our senses to be exercised to know the difference between good and evil.  Don’t override your senses.  When God says to be careful, then be careful.  When you smell anything that is unclean don’t touch it.  When you smell carnality in your life then don’t allow it.  Don’t be a partaker of carnality in anyone else’s life. 

Strong meat belongs to those that are of full age who have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.