Brother Gary Sunday Evening 3/22/15

Brother Gary Sunday Evening 3/22/15

Mat 13:44  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

There are times when we must really press for the righteousness, for the peace, and for the joy.  There are times when we really need a vein of gold or a pearl to help us press for righteousness.  The vein is real.  The mine is real.

I couldn’t press too strongly how the world always leads to heartbreak and disappointment.  You look upon precious souls.  Some of them are very young, just getting to be teenagers.  Some I talked to had set out to get a college education and found themselves in disappointment. 

The world leaves individuals disappointed, beat up, and scarred.  There is a wonderful thing that God made us with a hunger for God.  David in Psalms 139: 23, 24 said, “Search me, try me, and see if there be any wicked way in me.” 

Among the many truths that my mother dug out and taught us is that the ‘wicked ways’ are our own ways.  It is tough to change our own ways.  The power of the kingdom of God gives us power to change.  A vehicle can look like a regular vehicle but if it has the right mechanisms it can become a convertible.

It is so wonderful how it cleans us up and changes our direction.  Indeed there is great power in the kingdom! 

It is as a mine that can be mined for unending resources for the soul.  I am not sure how much oil there is in Eastern Montana and the Dakotas.  It is so much that they cannot even grasp how much is there.  Yet we have something that is more sure and unending and unrestricted resources for the soul, the mind, the body, and more.

When a man found it he hid it.  My thought about this is to hide that treasure so that no one can steal it away from us.  There are many people that plan to get right with God.  Bill Valentine said, “If I ever get religion, I want the kind Chuck Sheppard has.”  I doubt that he planned for his life to go in the direction that he went in and it kept going the wrong way.

Remember the prophet that said, “The summer is ended, the harvest is past.”  In this part of the world, we think of the spring time and ordering our seeds.  I have a notion to dig up a trough right down the middle of the garden and take the compost and put it there and then the rotor tiller and till it in. 

We think of spring time, the growing season and then we think of harvest.  God saves folks that are 60, that are 70, that are in their 80’s and 90’s.  The treasure is an individual that found it.  He didn’t let the pride convince him to leave it and go away. 

We are blessed to have individuals that encourage us here.  There are people out there that will steal the seed and quench the desire.  It is a terrible thing and it will happen; adults will say to children, “You don’t have to stay in that home if you don’t want to abide by those rules, opening the door to rebellion.  We know where rebellion leads to. 

Brother Gyme talked to a young man and gave him a book.  He was reading it and enjoying it and probably saved.  Someone came along and said, “God doesn’t require all that.  He doesn’t require living holy.”  How sad.

When it comes to this mine, it has veins, pearls, stepping stones to develop character.  Hide it in the thought, “Don’t let the world steal it away.”

That soul that realized, “I need to be saved; I want to be saved.”  God help us to help them to not let it slip. 

I wonder if eternity will reveal those that stood in little congregations like this and were just about ready to get saved.  Some of them you and I know and remember: Someone just about ready to go to the altar and someone else saying, “Don’t do that.”

May God help us to keep being a miner and working the veins of gold and silver, and of instruction.  That vein of honoring our convictions.  We have convictions of the conscience and convictions of how we need to live and behave ourselves.

“I will not talk away my need.”  Sometimes people know they are really needy, they talk and talk and make excuse, and they talk away their need. 

For joy:  I thought of this joy.  There have been a few occasions in our life, we have thought we knew how to find a motel on the internet and thought that we knew how to reserve a room.  We looked at Eureka California and it looked like there were plenty of motels.  We got there and found no vacancy.  We drove 50 to 100 miles and I slept with one eye open.  I didn’t know what we would find.

The vacancy of the kingdom of God will not be filled with tangibles.  Why do people drink or take drugs?  They are vacant of God.  They are vacant of going to the mine, of being satisfied in the soul. 

We are taught that in order to buy the field and have the kingdom we must sell everything, “God I will forsake all my own ways.  I will forsake peer pressure.”  It is not just children that have peer pressure.  “What will people think?”  We must come to the place, “I want the kingdom more than the approval of the world.”

We must count the cost and yield to godly sorrow.  It is so important when God begins convicting the soul.  We need to encourage those that are feeling conviction to yield to godly sorrow.  It works repentance not to be repented of.  It causes them to want to clean up their life.

It buys the field when we confess and turn from our sins.  We receive a changed life.  It is not just religious.  We are not the same person with just a religious garb.  When we buy the field, we buy life and quickening. 

I have experienced a quickening in the thought, of praying the Lord’s Prayer where it says, “Thy kingdom come.”  When I am tired and weary then I begin to pray, “Thy kingdom come.”  It is easy to get upset and to worry when you are tired.  It is easy to have disappointments, to have leaven go into them, and they get bigger and bigger.

You can go to this mine and it is open all the time.  You can begin mining the promises of the Word of God.  You don’t have to chip off much gold and get many pearls and this kingdom has quickening in it.  You can still be tired and yet have peace and joy. 

There is quickening.  The abounding treasures of the kingdom of heaven are revealed in the Bible.  I think of this treasure, the Bible.  Never lose the grip of having this treasure in your hand.  It is such a treasure! 

We usually have a plan as we are reading in the Bible and many times our need is met through that plan.  But there are times when we have a special need.  We go to the Word of God and say, Lord where do we turn.  It is a mine that is abounding and never closed.

This motherlode meets the need of salvation, of sanctification, it gives a special grace.  It is wonderful to have something so sure.  It has been mined on for years and it is just as powerful as it ever was.  You can find thousands of Bibles through eternity that have been well marked.  “God came to me one night.  He came to me one morning, and I marked this scripture” 

It describes the veins of gold and the pearls of fellowship.  It has been so warming to my heart for the Paradise Church to carry the burden for Brother Rod.  Every time a report or request comes in, there are jewels of fellowship.  We are one with all the redeemed: the saints in Cuba, the saints, north, south, east, and west.

I thought of the power of the mind.  In Isaiah 45 God said to His anointed, “I will disarm those that would try to resist you.”  There is such power in this mine.  If you are faced with a difficult situation in life if you go in your own strength, it probably won’t clear it up.  If you go in the strength of the Lord, “God I am trusting you to help me.”  He will.

Some in this audience have such burdens.  Souls are in the valley of decision.  Life is just a little part of the story.  We are facing eternity.  Souls that need divine intervention in their lives. 

“Is not this the fast that I have chosen?”  It doesn’t just profit those you are fasting for.  You cannot begin to fast without looking into the mine.  Looking, “God is there any faultfinding in me?  Any thought of putting people in bondage?”

Is not this the fast that I have chosen to undo heavy burdens and break every yoke?  There is a power of burden and the power of light.  The Word of God leads us to light.  Light is sown for the righteous.  “Thy word is a light to my feet and a lamp to my path.”

This gold mine reveals the thoughts of God to us.  In Jeremiah 31 God said that He would do marvelous things.  Then He comes to the thought, “I will bring my remnant to the height of Zion.”  There is higher ground in Zion.  Not in a proud way, but “God I want to climb higher.”

We can expect God.  We say, “God I love you and want to serve you; make me what you would have me to be.”  He says, “I have chosen the furnace of affliction and difficulties in life.”  You say, “To get above so that I see past the afflictions of the moment and see afar.”

The gold mine tells us what to think on.  I find that it works.  When there is a thought going way too fast in my mind.  “Think on these things.”

It is wonderful to have fellowship and unity.  It is wonderful to have the family of God. 

Rev 22:17  And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

Come and mine a while. 

I used to go over to Brother Ricks and cut fence pickets out and sand them so they were nice and smooth.  You can go to the mine any time.  “Let him that is athirst come.  Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely.”