Brother Gary Sunday Morning 8/16/15

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 8/16/15

Psa 78:53  And he led them on safely, so that they feared not: but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

HYMN 326 by Brother Charles Naylor: “I’ll Follow with Rejoicing”
The future lies unseen ahead,
It holds I know not what;
But still I know I need not dread,
For Jesus faileth not.

Brother Naylor was injured as a young man and was ill for 43 years.  He had no source of income so his wife worked in a laundry.  He was very despondent and God sent a bird that began to sing.  God translated that bird’s song into “Cheer up.”  I don’t know how long the bird was gone, but it came back, “Cheer up.  Cheer up.  Cheer up.”

We are blessed to know songs.  We are blessed to hear the songs of Zion.  I was beset with a disappointment yesterday and that is a part of life.  God came to me and spoke, “I will follow Him with Rejoicing.” 

“Doeth He not know what I shall meet upon life’s rugged way?” 

God spoke.  It is so wonderful to have God speak.  We are very blessed every time that God speaks to us.  There will be times when God speaks such encouraging words.  There will be other times when He wants to teach us a lesson.  Still other times He will speak and correct us. 

We know that as children of God, it is proven when He corrects us, chasten us and brings us to an understanding “You are my son or daughter but I want you to move up where ever it is.” 

I am always thrilled when God corrects me.  I come back and say, “I am not taking pleasure that you corrected me, but I am taking pleasure that I am your child.”

God told Jeremiah, “Go to the potter’s house, there are things that I want to teach you.” 

God can teach us in whatever way that He chooses.  We sometimes want to say, “I want you to teach me in this way or that way…”  God may call us to the potter’s house.  He may call us to someone who has everything in this world to show us but they have missed the mark.  He may call you to the one that is so poor and has nothing. 

This potter had some vessels that were being made; one was marred in the hand of the potter. 

It is wonderful to know the potter and the hand of the potter.  When something is not right with the clay, the potter recognizes it.  “This vessel is not turning out the way that I had hoped that it would turn out.”

We visited a potter’s house last week.  We got to see the wheel.  While we were there the potter said, “I was asked to make this certain vessel and was not able to make it.  I tried twice and I just couldn’t get it to turn out right.” 

I wish I had asked her if she made something else out of that clay. 

The vessel was marred in the hand of the potter and the potter said, “I will make the vessel over anew.”

I don’t know any better message or encouraging words to an individual whose life is out of order, to one that feels, “I really messed up.”  No one takes pleasure in the thought of failure, but I take great joy in the thought that the potter is willing to make the vessel over anew.

“Can I not make a marred vessel over again?”

God is more than able to take that clay, in the potter’s hand, and make it over again.  Souls, Gary, Congregation at Paradise, those that we will echo to this week, my desire is that they would be challenged to be clay in the hand of the potter.

My first emphasis is that God will speak, is speaking, and has spoken to everyone in this audience.  I don’t know that I pray every day for the town of Paradise, the county, and the state of Montana, but I pray often.  I believe that God speaks over and over again.

You might ask, “Do they reject Him?”  There is a better way than dwelling with the negative.  The positive is: When God is speaking to everyone in this state, I am one in this state.  To have God speak to me and to you is one of the best things that can happen in your and to my life.”  We don’t want to miss the mark.

The tenderness of God’s teaching:  He went down to the potter’s house.  I probably could never be a potter because of the lack of dexterity especially in my right hand.  But there has to be something in the feeling of that clay.  That potter has to love that clay.

“I am starting with this mud.  This mud has gone through several processes and has many things happened in its life.  This hunk of clay is not the finished product.”  That is not the design of the potter. 

There are pedals on the potter’s wheel.  If you want to be challenged this week, go buy Mr. Marco’s wheel.  I think there are two pedals.  The potter cannot rush through the process.  He knows the right amount of speed.  He knows how to keep just the right time.

People will tell you, “There is a right time.”  Parents have learned, “There is a right time.”  The real-estate people would tell you, “There is a right time.”  You are on this potter’s wheel and the potter has spoken to you and you feel the gentle hands working with you. 

He could have thrown me into eternity and say, “He is lost forever.”  He could have taken me off of the wheel and said, “I have worked and worked with this piece of clay.”  He didn’t throw you and me away.  He pedaled on.  The Spirit, the Word, and the Love of God were some of the pedals.

He brought back to our mind, “Eternity.  Eternity.  Eternity.”  Most of us as children had the thought of, “Life and then eternity.” 

The tenderness of the potter’s hands!  The tenderness of how God taught us!  I think of growing up.  Yes, my mother spanked me; my mother grabbed me by the ear.  She was inclined to tell dad to get the belt when she became exasperated. 

One time we were driving and she became exasperated at Joanne.  She told dad that he needed to get the belt.  He stopped and was reluctant to use the belt and came back with a tumble weed, “Now Joanne…”

The tenderness of the potter:  The vessel was marred in the hand of the potter.  This message comes closer to me now as an individual that has been saved then it did when I was a sinner.  There are things in my life where I have a design and God has a design.  I think this way and He thinks that way.  We go back to the wheel and tell Him how much we love Him.  He says that He is a patient potter and the clay must have patience.

The potter was molding the clay for a vessel to honor.  There is no child in this audience that God doesn’t plan for them to be a vessel to honor.  It is the design of the master potter that every child be a vessel of honor.

There is not any that are too old to go onto the potter’s wheel.  It is beautiful that God works with us from childhood to the very end of the journey.

The vessel had become marred.  In a great house there are vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor, there are vessels of gold, of clay, of wood… 

The vessel became marred.  God’s design is a vessel of honor.  It is a beautiful design.  Consider how an earthen vessel becomes marred.  The first marring of our life was sin. 

I think back of my life and as Brother Bill was exhorting about after he got saved, the one thing that I would have vastly changed in my life was to teach and discipline my mind to only think on wholesome things.  I would never consider myself of being less valuable.  I would never allow the thought to harbor in my mind of the difficulties in life that came from cruel people in our lives. 

There will always be cruel people.  We have some of the best parents that are alive in our audience this morning.  I remember the Davis’ daughters coming to church one morning.  Those daughters were broken and weighing, “My parents have been treated so wrong.”  Not everyone in Canada is kind.  In the process of time the Davis’ left Canada and those precious daughters left Canada scarred.

I was a young preacher and the young lady poured out her heart, “I am hurt so deep inside; scarred, marred because of what someone or ones did to my parents.”

David knew what it was to be marred.

Psa 25:7  Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD.

The message came back as I was studying last week.  The word ‘sin’ entrance 2398 in the Hebrew means to miss the mark or the goal. 

There is a factor that comes into every one of our lives known as sin.  When we sin it begins leaving a scar and a mar on us.  We all know it.  We all think, “Where would I be if I had not yielded to sin and more sin.”  The message is still real.  He takes a vessel that has been marred.

The devil would like to cause us to allow something to cause us to miss the mark.  The final goal is eternity.  There are many definite marks and goals that God places before us.  The choir sang, “Help me to live victorious today, to do the will of God today.”  That is the mark, the goal.  If we do it today then the final goal or thing will be heaven.

David said, “Remember not that which caused me to miss the mark.”  David loved God with all his heart.  He loved to worship God.  Yet he missed the mark.  His life was marred by sin. 

He cried out, “God, please don’t remember the sins of my youth.”  God forgive.

Jeremiah, “God make me over anew.”

Sin mars the conscience of all mankind.  We have enemies of freedom today.  We wonder, “How did they ever get so calloused?”  It started with the first mar of the conscience.

We have men that have left the testimony of becoming so marred in their conscience…  I am not so sure but what God would call it lasciviousness.  They started with little sins and they went further, further, and further.  Pretty soon they became so calloused in their conscience.

I would say to everyone, keep your conscience keen.  I would say to every parent, pray that God would give you the spirit of discernment.  So that when you come against a spirit you recognize it. They may be dressed much nicer than me, they may not have marks that tell you, but God knows the heart.

Sin mars the conscience and darkens the heart.  It claims the souls in the kingdom of darkness. 

I am near the end of the journey.  There is nothing more frightening to me than the thought of being in darkness.  I don’t mean the lack of electricity.  There is nothing more frightening to me than a soul being in darkness. 

The bible says that all the foundations of the earth are out of course.  They wander on in darkness.

An individual mars their conscience, their heart, and their mind.  The result is darkness.  Think of trying to find your way in darkness.  The kingdom of darkness!

Rom 5:8  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

The word, sinners, comes from Greek entrance 333 and means when we missed the mark. 

Sin causes men and women to miss the mark.  The conclusion of a marred vessel:  sin mars the vessel but God has a design to make another vessel.

The clay, the marred vessel, in the hand of the potter:  The potter works with it.  He digs the clay out of somewhere.  Mr. McDonald told me that He dug the clay that he sold out of the bar-pit.  God goes to the bar-pit, the horrible pit, and reaches way down with his very own tender hand and says, “I have a plan.”

The hand of the potter, the patience of the potter!  I heard your prayer requests this morning and I can hardly keep from crying for I don’t have a record of how many times He went to those that we requested prayer for this morning that are in the pit.  He has reached way down with a tender hand.  He didn’t kick at them.  He reached down his hand.  They had missed the mark.  They were full of gravel, stones, and other things that were just thrown out. 

If you dig around in a bar-pit you find accumulations of years of debris.  Think of the patience of the potter!  All of us that have been saved a while would do as Brother Bill, get saved and never falter.

The potter comes back.  He is patient.  You may tell me, “I think God has been faithful with whomever a 100 times.”  The attitude of the potter!  “I want to make something useful out of this life.”

There are those in this audience that are heavily burdened for lives that are full of debris.  Minds, bodies, conscience…  Think that He is ready to come and work with that clay! 

The strength of the hands of the potter!  There are times when I don’t feel that I have any strength.  I want to tell you of one that has strength.  The love of the clay in the potter’s hand, the attitude, and the heart cry!

God is a specialist of making new vessels out of marred vessels.  Marred vessels miss the mark every time. 

Paul was a marred vessel before God made him over anew. 

1Ti 1:13  Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.

1Ti 1:14  And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

1Ti 1:15  This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

“I was a blasphemer, spoke injuriously, unjustly of Jesus, His doctrine, his way and His power.  Endeavoring to exterminate all that called upon Him.”  Injurious: destroying men and women by his prejudice.  “But I have obtained mercy.  The grace of the Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love.”

Php 3:13  Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

Php 3:14  I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Do you realize the key in that scripture?  “Forgetting those things which are behind.”  There are thousands, probably millions of souls that are controlled by the past.  You talk to people and they tell you that the reason that they are the way that they are is because of what happened in childhood and/or somewhere else.

Forgetting those things that are behind… there is not one of us here that hasn’t been marred.  Even since we have been saved there have been things done that left you hurt.  It is not easy to forgive and to forget. 

It will leave you apprehensive if you are not careful.  You have tried and failed again.  You think, “I am about to get a relationship with whomever it might be.”  The next time that you see them it is the same old story. 

Forgetting those things that are behind and reaching forth to those things that are before.  God has a plan.  Children love to have friends.  You need to have God help you to find friends that will help you serve and love Him. 

Let us therefore as many as be perfect thus minded…

Php 3:15  Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

Press toward the mark! Press toward that vessel of honor!  It is easy to measure to those things that He has told you about.  All you have to do is to say, “God I am going to measure.”