Brother Gary Sunday Evening 8/26/12

Brother Gary Sunday Evening 8/26/12

Isa 51:1  Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.

It is very important that we listen to God.  ‘Ye that follow after righteousness, that seek the Lord, look to the rock whence you are hewn and to the pit whence you are digged.’  It is so important that we remember where we came from and to the broad road that we were traveling in sin. 

As I look I know that, beyond the shadow of any doubt, I was headed to destruction.  God wants us to look and know what He brought us out of.  It took a lot of the Spirit of God chiseling away on me to get me out of the pit and loosed from the bondages of sin that I was in.

Look to Abraham your father:  I thought of Abraham and Sarah.  God called Abraham, “I want you to leave where you are and go someplace else.”  All of us have been called by God and it takes obedience to obey God. 

There is no one that has backslid that wouldn’t have pages of excuses why they backslid or if they are not saved they have pages of reasons that are legitimate in their minds.  If you heard their excuses you may feel sympathy for whatever the case may be. 

They may feel that you’ve failed them or I’ve failed them, but what about Jesus?  He has and will never fail. 

We need to be reminded of Abraham and Sarah, they left where they were and started following God.  They were obedient to the bidding of God.  Abraham didn’t get too far until there were problems.  In his kindness He had taken Lot with Him and before long there was trouble.  That is how life will be, ‘Man that is born of women is of few days and full of trouble’. 

The herdsmen of Lot and Abraham began to have trouble between them and Abraham said, “Let there be no strife.”  We don’t want any strife, tomorrow may bring poverty, or prosperity.  Whichever it doesn’t mean anything.  God is God.  He has brought us this far and will not fail us. 

Abraham took Lot, and in my mind I would have thought that Lot would have been so appreciative of Abraham and had enough character that he would have said, “You’re saying for me to choose?  I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you.  Let’s handle things a little differently.” 

Instead Lot stepped out and looked around and picked what he thought looked the best.  Lot looked to where there was a lot of prosperity and not only was there lots of prosperity, there was sin.  Lot took the best. 

There will be times that you will suffer losses, remember what Abraham did when he suffered losses.  He probably built an altar and began seeking after God.  God told him to look through the land and that He would bless him. 

If you obey God then you will be blessed.  Not that you will be rich, the greatest blessing that you can do for yourself and for others is to obey God.  The greatest blessing that husbands, wives, grandparents, and those that work in the school system can do is obey God.  Always hold the bar of the word of God as your standard.  Obedience is the best thing.

God called Abraham alone and blessed and increased him.

Isa 51:2  Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.

The blessing and the increase that we are looking for is not materialism: bigger houses, bigger trucks… The blessing that we are looking for is, “God I want to be obedient to you in such a way that I receive the blessing of the intangible.” 

There would be no greater thrill than a soul being saved.  I don’t care who it is, there would be no greater blessing than when you get home to have a phone call that says, “God has been talking to my soul and I want to get saved.”  That is the blessing and it will come by obedience to God.

There is no greater blessing for you saints that will be here Labor Day Sunday than for God to be here.  There will be no greater blessing than for the saints in Carmichael to be edified and for us to be edified.  There is no greater blessing than that we are obedient to God in such a way that we encourage one another.

Isa 51:3  For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

Zion is a city inspired by God and for God.  It is an army, militant and triumphant.  Forget the thought of easy religion.  Put on the whole armor of God, this isn’t for someone to take a picture, it is because we are in a battle.  Thank God we are in the church triumphant.

That which has been nonproductive for God: There is nothing that makes us sadder than to go through a day and feel that we weren’t productive for God.  I believe in studying, meditating, and door knocking, but there is something about us communing with God.  When we don’t then we feel that we’ve wasted the day and wasted the precious commodity that will never return once it is spent.

Four treasures are promised for the obedient in verse three.  Whatever experience you are in, if you are going through a real trial of faith or a situation where you feel that you need God to fulfill, you can have joy, gladness, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody if you will be obedient.

Bro Goble asked me to preach the first night of the meeting and I am shaking and trembling before God.  There is nothing worse than being unprepared and a meeting getting off to a bad start.  It is a sacrifice for me to go and be away from home and I want to be there. I’m going a day early. 

When you come in here Sunday, you need to be shaking and trembling, “I need to draw near to God, we need God to be here.”  We don’t know who could be here. 

Joy is the first promise; there is not much joy in the world.  I am shocked at the miserable life that sinners have and they stay in it.  I was with Babylonians and I saw people that don’t have any joy.  Obedience brings joy.

Obedience brings gladness and thanksgiving.  Isn’t this wonderful?  It is wonderful that we can be joyful, glad, full of thanksgiving, and have the voice of melody.  ‘There is a fountain full of blood that flows from father’s throne, and sinners plunged beneath that flood cleanse all their sins away.”  All test the power of the blood.

It is wonderful to have a song on your heart.  We have a neighbor that is somewhat of a strange cowboy.  He listens to rock and roll music, and so we do too.  He hauls water to his horses in five gallon buckets.  He first turns on the truck so that he can start that noise, that isn’t music because there is no voice of melody in it.  It has a terrible affect on him because every once in a while we look at him and I’m not going to tell you how he is acting.

The greatest honor that I can give God is obedience.  The best thing that I can do for my house and family is for me to be obedient to God.  The blessing of obedience to God is the most honorable choice I can make for the church, the school, our country, and my family.