Cost of Discipleship - Part 2 — Paris Reidhead

The Essence of Sin: Living to Please Self

That's not the word I want, it's a new word by nature. The essence of sin, what is it? Sin itself? The essence of sin is I, I want to please me, I want to do what I want to do. We shall be taught after the word love, and we're getting the definition of it now.

Love as a Deliberate Commitment

What does it mean to love? Meaning that the word love comes from an ancient Anglo-Saxon word. It's pretty well forgotten now. It's the word love. For instance, in one part, leefon, which be-leefon, leefon means get.

And to be, leave, or be-leefon means to exist, or live, or have your being together. From this we get our word, love, together with. Now what does spring here, brother, like that? Does it mean to feel soft, and warm, and cuddly, and subtle?

Would you change the name of that? Love can have an emotion, word. Emotion, word. Suppose life will be just one, two, three. And when I count to three, I want everybody in this auditorium, would you do that count for me?

One, two, three. Be angry. If you do precisely what you do, you laugh. Well, why? Because your emotions are not under the control of your will. Be angry. I'll get you to think about the thing which will make you angry.

I'll get you to feel sad. I'll tell you the thing that makes you feel sad. Because your emotions are not under the control of your will. They are influenced by your thoughts. This is a volition word. Thou shalt love.

What do they mean? The things to be together with. Or of another way, to seek the best interest of, the greatest happiness of, the satisfaction of, the pleasure and fulfilment, and joy of. It means a commitment.

The pleasure, the joy, the happiness. That's what it means to love. That's how you feel. It's where's your will sits. Where's your decisions taken. What's your supreme choice of your life. What's the purpose of your being.

Sin as Self-Rule and Rebellion Against God

In its very essence, it's the function, it's the supreme choice of the will of the life to make one's own pleasure and gratification and satisfaction the end of his being. And the sinner is a person who at the age of accountability responds to his mother, even father, Adam, by saying, I will do what I want to do.

I will make my back or die and try is a change from that which characterizes us before. I'm going to do what I want to do. Isaiah said we have turned everyone to his own will, all we like. What did he mean?

That every one of us have committed our will and our purpose to the end of peace in our self? Is he reason for our being and the purpose for our life? God is true and it is because it says all have sinned.

It is a choice that's made. This is a commitment. Therefore, if this is there is to be a change from this, then there has to be a change of mind and a change of purpose and a change of intention from I'm going to do what I want to do.

I'm going to live to please me to something else. And that else is what will go. Does it mean, therefore, to love God? It means a change of mind and a change of intention and a change of purpose from pleasing self to seeking the blessedness and the joy and the satisfaction and the happiness of God.

Therefore, it's why I see the Spirit of the Lord Jesus saying, on this commandment or these commandments hangs the law. Love the Lord. Why? Because every one of the Ten Commandments is an evidence of and a proof of the fact that we have chosen to please ourselves as the reason for our being.

And thus the law is the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ and show us the enormity of the crime that we've committed in loving ourselves and in seeking to please ourselves. What then does it mean to us to love God?

Renouncing Self and Receiving Christ as Lord

That there comes that moment of choice, that moment of purpose, when the whole man, the mind, and the soul unify, totally involved from the purpose, renunciation of that purpose, an abandonment of that purpose, and a new commitment and a new purpose.

The whole purpose and plan of our life is to please ourselves, to seek our own satisfaction and joy and happiness and blessedness. That's the crime of sin. We renounce that. We renounce it totally. We renounce it completely.

We don't even understand why we're renouncing. We renounce it anyway because we're through with the foul and filthy thing of defrauding the rightful sovereign of his worship, of defrauding him who's worthy to be praised at the praise that he deserves, and enthroning ourselves on that throne so big that we can't possibly fill it and say, I will be like the Lord I want to do, irrespective of what he wants.

We renounce it. And then we turn around and we say, Lord, that allegiance that I gave to myself in unknowingly to Satan, that purpose to please myself, and at the same time unknowingly to gratify Satan, making my joy and pleasure the end of my sin, that which is controlling governing me, I now repudiate, I renounce, I abandon.

He's going to be in charge of my life. He's God that he made the world. I believe that he lived a sinless life. He died on the cross for sinners, and that you raised him from the dead, and I confess with my mouth, Jesus to be Lord.

And I believe in my heart that you raised him from the dead, and from today on the purpose of my life is going to be to please him. He's going to be the king and the prince and the ruler and the governor and the controller of my life.

And I so receive him as the only one that's wise enough and good enough and big enough to have that kind of allegiance and that kind of service. I'll be signing just something of what we see when we hear those words of Christ, thou shalt love mine.

A Pianist Confronted by the Gospel

Was it just my problem? I spoke something as I've spoken to you. I previously had the same quartet from Tacoma Falls in Charlotte, North Carolina, and they bore us at this year, July, back in 1950. You'll recall by being there I said yes.

He said, I went home that night, and I realized you'd been talking about me. When you gave your testimony, you were giving mine. Since that time, I have been aware that Jesus Christ is just a name. He's just a word.

And he's not been beyond that. What shall I do? Find a salvation? Of course I do. I'm a senior student at Tacoma. I said, all right, then I want you to go home, and the others go to sleep. I want you to get out and tell them, listen, Lord, just what you've told me.

And just what you know about yourself. And just what you're prepared to do in regards to Jesus Christ. When you come, take complete charge of the purpose of your life that's going to please him. And you'll meet him.

And when you know that he's forgiven you, I want you to come and tell me. Will you do it? Wasn't you back until I was speaking at the Alliance Conference in Edmersonville, North Carolina, the next summer.

This young man came and stood there, and he said, do you remember me? I said, indeed I do. What happened that night? He said, I went home. I went to bed with the others. But after the others had gone to sleep, I awakened and knelt beside my bed.

And I did just what you said. And I told Jesus Christ who I was and what I knew about myself. And that the purpose of my heart, whether he ever saved me or not, was to serve him and obey him because he was worthy.

And that I, too, did believe that he had shed his blood for sinners like me and for my sins. And he said, before the sun went across the sky and the night gave way to day dawn, Jesus Christ saved me. And he said, since that time I've been walking in the joy of the Lord.

And that man came to us and gave that testimony when his pastor, the gospel tabernacle, Alton Bynum, came as our director of music. But you don't think it's unique. At 68, I was 67, rather. It's straight one way or another.

A Son's Honest Confession of False Faith

It's important to me. Bible conference where I will at the end of this month have been there for the 12th year in a row. My son, Jim, was with me. He was going from his senior year in high school to his first year in college.

And he'd come down to spend the week on the main road, up the road that would take us to our home. Jim, you've been quiet for two or three miles. Would you pull over and stop for a minute? Of course I did.

I waited. In the light of the dashboard, it is very important to him. He said, Dad, I'd like to be honest with you. He said, you remember that night in the tabernacle when I went forward and prayed and I told you I was saved?

I said, yes, I remember. Then he said, Dad, I wasn't. Nothing really happened. And I've been living a lie ever since that time, letting you think I was a Christian when I've known I wasn't. He said, Dad, I can't go on like this anymore.

He said, I don't even know that there's a God. I don't know that Jesus Christ is alive. I don't know anything. And I just can't fool you and Mom anymore. I've got to be honest. He went ahead and told me a little more.

Praying while he was talking that the Holy Spirit would guide me. Responded and I said, Jim, do you know the plan of salvation? He said, I know the plan of salvation. Haven't I listened to your preaching through all these years?

I said, Jim, do you know what kind of people did Jesus Christ save? He says, Dad, you've been saying he saves lost people. I said, Jim, someday you're going to find out how lost you are. You need a Savior.

And I just want to make sure that when that happens, you know what the plan of salvation is. I want you to, if I know that, then I can trust you to the Lord. I can trust you to Him. I'm not going to bring this subject up again unless you do.

I'll talk to you anytime you want me. I'm going to tell your mother what you told me. And I know she won't bring it up. Not that we don't want to talk to you. Not that we wouldn't do anything. Dad, you come to know Him.

But, Jim, you've got to be here. You've got to do it. And I said, Jim, there's just one thing I want you to promise me. I don't know when you're going to come to Christ, but I'm sure you are. Just this.

If I'm alive, when you do, wherever you are, the day that you know that Jesus Christ is Savior, that day I want you to start for me. Maybe it's halfway around the world. But, son, I want you to start for me.

Come to me. Jesus Christ is Savior. Will you promise me that? And he put his hand out and he said, I will, Dad. To each other, deep in each other's eyes. I started to cry and we drove on home and I told my wife.

Jim's Conversion and Commitment to Obey Christ

I said, Dad, don't bring it up. Oh, we prayed for him every day. He went through that school year. He was the most exemplary boy. Helpful in every way. The next summer, he finished the work at home and then he went to Cornell University.

And our older son was a senior that year. And he called one night and said, you know, Mom, Jim's pretty wild. He's doing a lot of things here I didn't think he'd do. Should I talk to him? And she said, Sonny, you just leave your brother alone.

If you do anything, pray for him. But don't talk. All you know about it. We don't know about it, but we just know what we've got to do. Now you leave Jim alone. You just pray for him. November, I had to make a trip to New Orleans.

I came back on a Thursday night. When I drove into Clark, there was a, I don't know, there was a wife. I went in, and to my amazement, there was Dean Chase and Jim. We chatted for a few minutes, and after a while I said, Well, you fellows will be here in the morning.

I'm going to go to bed. I'm awfully tired. I left New Orleans this morning. And so I started in toward our bedroom, and I heard a voice, Dad, can I talk to you for a minute? It was Jim. We sat down by the dining room table.

He said, Dad, do you remember the night on one side of the road now? It hadn't been mentioned for nearly a year and a half, a year and three months. I said, Jim, you know I do. There hasn't been a day I haven't remembered.

He said, remember my promise? I said, yes. He said, that's why I'm here, Dad. And what do you mean, Jim? Well, he said, two weeks ago, Dean came to me, and he asked me to go to prayer meeting at the Alliance Church.

If there's any place in the world I didn't want to go, it was the prayer meeting. And if there's any church I didn't want to go to prayer meeting at, it was the Alliance Church. He said, sure thing. I said, yeah, I'll go.

I don't know why. We sat in his car and talked till 1 .30. The next Wednesday, he called me. He said, Jim, I want you to go to prayer meeting. How about it? And I'd made up my mind all week. He asked me again.

I wouldn't go. And I heard myself saying, yeah, gee, I'll go with you. We talked till 12. We came in. And at 1 o 'clock, I was up. And he said, Dad, somewhere between 2 and 3 in the morning, I told Jesus Christ as long as I lived, he was going to be the king and the boss and the ruler and the governor of my life.

And that the purpose for my being was to please him. I don't know how well I'm going to succeed at it, Dad, but that's what I'm planning to do. And he said, before 3 o 'clock, I knew that I had passed from death to life.

And God saved me. He made me his child. And you remember, you made me promise that I'd come. And I got here just as soon as I could. And I'm going to leave at 5 in the morning because I've got a test at 8 .30 back at Cornell.

Examining the Heart's Supreme Love

What am I talking to you about? I'm talking to you about the heart of the whole matter. What do you love? What do you mean love? Have you made the decision to still live and go to please? That's what it's all about.

I'll show up. I'm going to tell you about it. If someone's here tonight like my Jim, like Alden Bob, I don't know where you are, but I know you're here. And God's been dealing with you. And we're just going to give you an opportunity tonight to take the first step in the direction of reality, to acknowledge your need to become the true father of Jesus.

An Invitation to Confess Need and Receive Reality

Sit down upon us tonight, company of men and women, midway between birth and death, and most of us well on the road toward meeting the end of our hours, our days, our time. What a tragedy it would be, Lord, for someone to have a name to live and be dead.

How often we've been so cruel to our children by letting them be satisfied with less than the reality we demanded of ourselves. And so tonight, we're asking that there will come just a settling hush of the Spirit of God as each of us looks well into our heart and realizes that the first and wisest step that we can make when there is a question and there is an uncertainty is to expose it in ourselves to the prayers of thy people and to the focus, concern, and love of those who've cared.

That's why we're here, Father, to meet with thee. And so we plead the precious blood of Christ over and upon us. And as we sing, rest thee, Lord, that thou wilt just make it easy for those who embellished in speaking to mind thee and to follow the drawing and the pulling of the Holy Ghost.

Father, we do know that there's no saving power in this altar, but there is in the acknowledgement of our need and brokenness in confession and receiving faith and counsel and prayer of those who know and love thee.

And so we're asking, Father, this evening, those with whom thou hast been speaking, to respond to thy ruling law, move toward thee.