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Bro. Otis Fisher
Someone tell me, how can you experience the joy of not having a toothache without having them all pulled out? That's right. Now, how is it that we can have joy of praising the Lord? Well, let me put it this way.
How is it that we can experience joy of forgiveness? What causes the experience of forgiveness? Put your hand up. Doing something wrong. Alright. First we sin. Then we can experience the joy of being forgiven.
Let's say that each one here has dedicated their life to become a concert pianist. What does it take for that to happen? Let me see a hand. Alright. Lots of practice. Lots and lots of practice. Do you make a mistake?
Sure. Many, many mistakes. In order for you to walk on stage by yourself and present to the audience a beautiful concert on the piano, because now you have mastered it, then would be possible only by what method?
What do you have to do to get there? Don't say ride it in a car or verge. You would have had to practice, would you not? Now that wasn't hard. In the practice you make mistakes. In our life in eternity with the Lord, what are we going to spend our time doing, David?
How do you suppose we're going to learn how to do that? When we get there? Here. Now, to practice how to praise calls for what? Too much chicken. Alright, but to truly worship or to truly experience the joy of forgiveness, or to truly praise God, you would have had to do what?
Have God within your heart. Well, but it takes more than that. Sin. Sin. What do you think this life's for? It's a practice field. We learn how to praise by sinning. We cannot wait until we get into eternity and learn how to praise.
We do that here. That calls for problems. Troubles. So you see, there's a good side to it. We always thought trouble was something I'd try to get out of. Well, who puts you in it? Do you suppose he's going to put you in it and then take you out of it immediately?
No. It's for a reason. This life is for a reason. And it's to learn how to worship God. How to praise God. And only here in this life do we have a chance to practice. Now, how are you going to go into the next life?
From a second grade or third grade or postgraduate work or as a master or what? It all depends upon you. Your desire to study. Come with me now to Genesis, the 20th chapter. We're following Abraham. And he gets into trouble again.
Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur and sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, she is my sister. And the Bimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.
Bill, is there such a thing as a half lie? It's a whole book of lies. Okay. So you're saying no, there is no such thing as a half lie. That's correct. Then, Greg, explain to me, give me the definition of a lie.
No, that's not a lie. That's a lie, all right, but we can have a better definition. Deceiving. To deceive? All right. The reason I told Greg that purposely not telling the truth would have been all right if he had clarified it into the fact that you can tell the truth and it'd still be a lie.
A lie is purposed to deceive by whatever method. But whatever you say or whatever you don't say, your purpose is to deceive somebody. We find that with Abraham. Now, it's true that she was his half-sister.
The first time we find him using it, he was afraid that they were going to kill him. And just the day before yesterday, the Lord told him that he was going to have a son. Okay, we're dealing now with a Bimelech.
He has taken Sarah. I don't know why this isn't sounding like it did this morning. But God came to a Bimelech in a dream by night, and he said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken, for she is a man's wife.
Does God ever speak to heathens? All right, before men had the Bible to guide them, God often made known his will in dreams. I know some people today that still depend upon dreams to guide their life.
In fact, there's people in business to interpret to you what your dream meant so you'll know what to do. It's sad. We today have no excuse to expect revelation of God's will in dreams. He just doesn't work that way.
I truly believe there is another realm of intelligence because there's too many documented proofs of communication between two people that are far distance apart. And I think the longer you live together with someone, the more you can communicate without saying anything.
But that's not what we're talking about here. All of the needful directions and duty in our life can be obtained where? In the Bible. Prayerfully, from a study of the scriptures. Now, how did a Bimelech know that this was the God Almighty speaking to him?
Roger, who's talking?
Thank you. If God should speak to you, would you wonder who it was? Did Paul wonder who it was? I'm here to guarantee to you that you will not have to say, huh? Why would the Lord protect even his own when they had lied about the situation?
Burge? Well, he had done that all right. Greg? What? No one can speak unless they hold their hand up. She probably went like that. Well, if I don't see it, you can't talk. You'll be surprised how much easier it was in class this morning.
Thank you very, very much. Now, you may speak again, Pat. The promise had to be kept. All right. And the promise depended upon what? On God's saying and nothing else. All right. So how much weight was there to his keeping his promise and what Abraham did?
It was his promise. He made the promise without any input from Abraham. And he would keep it without any input from Abraham. Okay.
So whatever Abraham did, it could not affect the promise? No, because it was God's promise. Who saved you? God did. How much input did you have to it? None. Then can you do anything to unsave yourself?
Nothing. You see how simple it is? He did it. We didn't. Same thing here. But Abimelech had not come near her and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? Said he not unto me? She is my sister.
And she, even she herself said, he is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands, have I done this? And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart.
For I also withheld thee from sinning against me. Therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. Now, just look at what's taken place here. Abimelech says, I didn't know that. They lied to me. They told me they were brother and sister.
And we may think, well, he shouldn't have taken her anyhow. You have to allow for the knowledge of the day, of the custom of the day. We are held accountable for things that Abimelech would never have been, and even Abraham would not have been.
Because we know, we know more than they did. We have the Bible. They didn't. God is saying, I withheld thee from sinning against me. Now, Clarence, who is it that restrains us in our sins? What if he did not?
We'd probably kill ourselves, if possible. So, it is God that restrains men from doing the ill that they would do, if there was not a restraint put upon it. From the looks of the world today, he's taken off most of his restraints.
I've got to tell you something here, but Greg, would you go back and stop the tape for just a moment? Because I'd rather this was not as restrained people from doing all of the evil that they would. By his influence on men's minds, checking their inclination to sin, or by his providence taking away the opportunity.
It's a great mercy to be hindered from committing sin, which God must have the glory of whoever is the instrument, whether it be Abimelech or someone else. Everything is for his praise. Now, therefore, restore the man's wife, for he is a prophet.
Clarence, what's the word prophet mean? Could you be a prophet? Has he not done that? Then you could be a prophet. See how easy it is to change his mind. A prophet is one, it also means teacher, expounding the truth, making clear to people something that they do not know, something that is yet to come.
There is no true prophet today as we think of prophets in the Old Testament. But there are teachers, there are expounders of the word, there are theologians that explain things that are yet to come. Our own pastor played the part of a prophet this morning.
Only he wasn't playing. Now, therefore, restore the man's wife, for he is a prophet, meaning Abraham, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live. Greg, it sounds like if Abraham didn't pray for him, he wouldn't live.
As far as Abimelech is concerned, that's exactly true. And if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou and all that are thine shalt surely die. This shows God's abhorrence of this crime.
Harvey, what was the crime so we don't lose sight of it? Right. Did you all hear him? Adultery. Did you all hear me? We're going to look at God's abhorrence of the crime of adultery, his indignation against those who commit it.
Adultery is a sin which exposes all who commit it to the wrath of God, both in this world and in the world to come. Now, I know this is not a very popular subject in church. It's very popular outside of church.
And I assume that everybody here thinks they know all about it. But if you do, teach your children. But I want us to spend a little bit of time. Adultery is a criminal connection between persons who are not married to each other.
And it exceeds the guilt of fornication, which is the same intercourse between unmarried persons. As the highest sin of its kind, and including all other sins of the flesh, it is forbidden in the seventh commandment.
God often compares himself to a husband jealous of his honor. Go to Jeremiah 31 -32.
Bill, read that to me. Did you say 31 -32? Yes. Today's prophet said to the Lord, I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judea.
He doesn't say anything about being a jealous?
I'm sorry. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the days that I took them out of the land to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which by covenant they break.
Though I was a husband to them, said the Lord. All right, he compares himself as a husband. Now, Jeremiah 3 -9. Joy, you read that one. Or don't read it until you get to it. Nine. Read it out loud. He's talking about the land.
Now, Ezekiel 23. And Greg, I'd like for you to read 36 -49. Ezekiel 23. Yes. Why is it that even the church people pay little attention to scriptures such as this, David? All right, let me ask this now.
That's right, let me ask this. You have a small child at home. And the child misbehaves. And you have already explained that he would get a spanking if he did it. And you threaten him again. But you don't give him the spanking.
And then a week later does the same thing. You threaten him again. And you threaten him and threaten him and threaten him. And what's he finally going to think? Right. I think a lot of the lackadaisical attitude that we have concerning God is because he doesn't execute punishment right now.
And it seems as though he's never going to. So I kind of relegate all of that to an insignificant law. Because it's not corrected right now. We must remember that he works on his own time schedule, not ours.
If he said it, it will happen. We're not through yet.
Go to... Yes. Don't you think that a lot of that is due to our present-day churches? When they all have the Ten Commandments, too. But you'll have one member of the church having improper relationships with another member of the church.
And everybody in the church knows it, and nothing is known about it. That's right.
So that encourages it. The church is at the base of most of the problems of the world. The lack of discipline. Now, come with me to the book of Leviticus. To chapter 20. Bill, read verse 10.
20, 10. And the man who committed adultery with another man's wife, even he that committed adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely look dead.
Now, go over to Leviticus 21 .9, Bill.
9. Yes. And the daughter of any priest, if she profaned herself by playing the war, she profaneth her father, and she shall be burned with fire. Now, Moses said, The law committeth us that such should be stoned, but watch thyself now.
And I won't get into politics, but the Bible says that there are things that demand death. By the law of Moses, both the man and the woman who had committed adultery were punished with death. A woman suspected of this crime might, in order to clear herself, drink the water of jealousy.
Did you ever hear of that? Anybody say yes? All right, go to Numbers 5. Bill, as you look through 5 through 31, pick out something that explains a little bit about the drinking of the waters of jealousy.
I know that's springing it on you, but... All right, someplace between verse 1 and 31, all of that deals with the water of jealousy. Can you tell us what it is, just from a survey of that? No. Hagar did.
And Abraham. Well, do you understand anything about waters of jealousy that you can tell us?
I understand that God has prescribed some sort of dosage to be used on adultery. She used to drink it. The Lord said that in order for the Lord to clear her will allow her to live. And if she has been guilty of adultery, she will die.
Well, there is something that they do that they put together to make it. Yes.
Well, make note of that and read it. It's longer scripture than I had supposed it to be.
So it's the dust from the floor of the tabernacle that is put in the water of jealousy.
In my study of the scripture, I've never seen it. Suffice to say this, folks. Don't assume that your children understand. What they understand is what the world has taught them. Don't depend on that. You teach them what the Bible says.
And be sure that you put it in language that they can understand. And cause them to understand. Again, it's this practice thing. Just be sure that over and over they learn the truth. And by that I mean your life should be the most powerful tool.
And then what you say and what you teach. And it's extremely important. More so today than ever before, Greg. When our children go out from home, they're going to assume that every home is like their own.
They're going to assume that every church is like the one in which I grew up. That's just the way they're going to think. And it's going to come as a shock. I remember when I'd come back the first time to my home church.
And they wanted me to speak. And I'd just been away at college for the first time. And the first thing that I told them was, be sure that these young people, and I was just a kid myself, I said, be sure that the young people understand that just because the name Baptist is in the church title doesn't mean they're the same church as we have here.
I was shocked when I found out there's about 30 different ones back in 1941. Well, we're dealing with that. Therefore Abimelech, verse 8 now, Therefore Abimelech rose early in the morning, called all of his servants, told all of these things in their ears, and the men were sore afraid.
We're going to quit here. We've run over time. He's going to discuss some things with Abraham and with Sarah. And I have not yet found a clear-cut reason to believe that Abimelech was one of the followers of God.
I'm not saying he wasn't, I just haven't seen him. Alright, is there anything from anybody?
I have something that struck me while you were talking about the mercy that God showed to keep him from sinning. Back in Romans 1, where he says, Wherefore, who changed the truth of God to allow him to worship and serve the preachers, the foremen and the creators, who is blessed for evermore?
For this cause God gave him up to their final vengeance. So he won't always be there to refrain us or restrain us from sinning.
Well, he has always been so far. Even in giving those up to their own vile affections, he still controlled the limit. Because he just has to, because he did. As far as it looks to the world or to us, he didn't.
Because they are so vile and so wicked.
Well, I think I should have said it exactly like I was. The world around us is getting less and less restrained. Yes. And at some point, I believe God allows him to become fully immersed in his sin. That he has protection from it.
So that's something we have to be concerned about. That we don't just become immersed in sin ourselves.
That's right. And that's why it's such an important and difficult task. But it's all going exactly as he foretold it would. And it shall continue that way. There will be a time during the tribulation, when Satan will be worshipped for about 15 minutes.
And God still has control of it. Even in that. But it certainly won't seem like it. Thank you, Bill. Anything else? Then let's stand and be dismissed. Harvey, would you dismiss us today, please?