If He Could Do That, He's Got to Be God (05/28/2000)

2 views

Dr. Myron Golden

0 comments

00:00
I thank the Lord for the opportunity to be here this morning, still morning, this morning, and thank the
00:11
Lord for this church, for all you wonderful people, for those of you who are not so wonderful.
00:23
I didn't want to leave anybody out, amen. And I dare say that I don't think
00:32
I have a closer friend in the world than Brother David Mitchell, and truly believe that there's not anything he wouldn't do for me, and I know that there's not anything that I wouldn't do for him.
00:45
So consequently, we just go around doing nothing for each other. I'm just kidding.
00:59
Really, I love David, this family, this church.
01:06
Thank God for God. I'm just going to read one verse this morning, and we won't even be able to finish this verse.
01:14
It's not a very long verse, but it is a very heavy verse, and we're just going to look at it a little bit, turn around a couple of times, look at it from a couple of different perspectives, and then we'll be as close to done as we can get this morning, amen.
01:32
Genesis chapter one, verse one, it says, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
01:42
I didn't read that too fast, I hope, but that is indeed a great, great verse saying so much.
01:53
And I want to talk to you this morning. I'm not, you know, I'm not, I'm not very deep. I'm not, you know,
01:59
I'm not even all that smart, but I'll tell you what, this Bible is awesome now. If we'll just look at it, if we'll just meditate it,
02:06
God will show us some things. I want to talk to you this morning on this subject. If he can do that, he's got to be
02:16
God. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the power of it.
02:26
The power of your word that sustains all that we know and see and feel.
02:34
Lord, you are truly awesome. In our daily lives, we are so hurried sometimes,
02:43
Lord, we've got so much to do, so little time to get them done, that we don't stop to think about you and how great and how awesome and how powerful you really are.
03:02
But I pray that you'd help us to think about you a little more today and hereafter in Jesus name.
03:18
There was a time, if time it could be called, when God in the unity of his nature, those existing equally in three divine persons dwelt all alone.
03:32
There was no heaven where his glory is now particularly manifested, no earth to engage his attention.
03:40
There were no angels to him as praises. There was not even a universe to be upheld by the word of his power or by the glory of his power.
03:52
There was nothing and no one but God and that not for a day, not for a year in age, but from everlasting,
04:02
God was self -contained, self -sufficient and self -satisfied and in need of absolutely nothing or nobody.
04:12
That's one of the reasons perhaps we cannot comprehend God, because we need so much and he needs nothing.
04:22
This verse says almost as much in what it doesn't say as it says in what it does say.
04:31
Notice with me if you will that God does not go about to prove his existence in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1.
04:37
He does not go about to prove his authority, he just assumes it.
04:44
He just states a fact, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth without any shred of proof, without any effort put forth whatsoever to prove to you his existence because God does not lose anything if we don't believe in him.
05:01
There are a lot of people who call themselves evolutionists who say that they don't believe in a
05:07
God. They feel like if they could just eliminate God, then they don't have to deal with him.
05:12
But the fact is whether or not you try to eliminate him with your verbiage, you still going to have to deal with God one day.
05:22
They say that everything that is just happened to be, imagine that, everything with all of its intricacies, all of its minute detail just happening to come into existence.
05:37
There was a poem once written about an evolutionist that goes like this, once I was a tadpole small and thin, then
05:46
I was a froggy with my tail tucked in, then I was a monkey up a coconut tree, now I'm a professor with a
05:52
PhD. They say there is no
05:58
God, everything that is just happened to be. The B .R. Lakin was an evangelist and he said, those peanut brained, possum headed, pin whiskered rabbit faced monstrosities, the professors that praise our father, which aren't in a coconut tree, they are biological baboon boosters.
06:17
Now I don't know what a baboon booster is, but it sounded like an adequate description to me.
06:28
Notice also, if you will, that God needs nothing. The verse doesn't say it, but it does say it without saying it.
06:36
The Bible says, in the beginning God created, which means before the beginning, God was already there, if you could call it there, because it really wasn't anywhere, but he was there anyway.
06:47
Before anything else was here, before all the things that we need on a daily basis, a moment by moment, moment basis, we need oxygen to breathe.
06:54
Without it, we're gone. God didn't need any oxygen. Moment by moment, we need an earth upon which to stand,
07:02
God needed nothing upon which to stand. We need food day by day to eat, and God in his words said, if I was hungry,
07:11
I wouldn't tell you. God needs no food to eat, no water to drink. God, before there was anything, was totally self -existent, self -contained, and self -satisfied.
07:26
Do you think about this, when the Bible says, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, it shows us that God, unlike us, is not bound.
07:35
See, we're bound. We're bound by three dimensions. We're bound by time. All of us feel like we just need, if I just had a few more hours in a day, if we had a few more hours in a day, those would be just a few more hours for us to be frustrated by the fact that we don't have enough time to get everything done in.
07:55
We're bound by time. God's not bound by time. God has always existed.
08:02
He's not bound by time. He's been there from everlasting, before the beginning.
08:13
He'll be there after everlasting, after the beginning. There never was a time when there was no
08:19
God. There never will be a time. God is outside of time, and operates in time, all at the same time,
08:26
God's before time, and after time, and in the present time, all at the same time. God's awesome.
08:33
He's awesome. I mean, we can't even think about it, and He does it effortlessly. God's not bound by space.
08:43
There was no place to be, yet God was there. God's not bound by matter. We're bound by all three.
08:52
The more we have to do, the more we realize that we're confined to one place at a time.
08:57
You ever think about that? What if you could be here and at home mowing the grass right now? Huh?
09:03
Wouldn't that be good? Wouldn't it be good if we could be more than one place at a time, but we can't, but God can.
09:09
The Bible tells us in Psalm 139, verse 7 through 10, Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Whither shall I free from thy presence?
09:16
If I ascend into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
09:21
If I take wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
09:31
God is not bound by space. God is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
09:38
The Bible says God is a spirit. Now, where does a spirit live? What does a spirit look like?
09:45
How heavy is a spirit? God is a spirit. They that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
09:54
First Timothy 117 says, Now unto the eternal, immortal, invisible, only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever.
10:01
Amen. Our very life depends on the matter around us performing in a way that we expect it to perform, and when it fails sometimes, as it sometimes does, it doesn't just cost us in money, but it can cost us in our very lives.
10:17
You need to think about people who get on an airplane, and they sit down, and they put all their faith in this big, old, heavy piece of machinery.
10:26
I don't know if you've ever studied this, but think about this with me. A 747. How many of y 'all have rode on a 747?
10:32
Now, that's a one -mole big airplane, fully loaded. It weighs just short of a million pounds.
10:42
It flies around the area. 600 miles an hour, like, no problem. Yet and still, we're dependent on that matter.
10:49
We're dependent, when we're on that plane, we're dependent on the matter in this building to hold it up just to sustain our lives.
10:56
God's dependent on nothing. The person of creation proves that he is
11:03
God. In the beginning, God. That's what it says. In the beginning, God. That's an awesome word. God, sometimes we take it lightly.
11:09
The world would even go so far as to use God's name as a common curse word, but I say the word
11:15
God is an awe -inspiring word. Just his very nature.
11:21
His person proves that he is God. God is an omniscient. God knows everything.
11:27
Now, have you ever stopped to think about that? Ever stop to think about how hard it would be to know everything?
11:34
Now, we sometimes think we're pretty smart. I mean, we look at some people, we think they're pretty smart.
11:40
We think, well, Einstein was the smartest man in this country. You know, I saw that on Time Magazine. Then we think of other people, and we think, man, that person's pretty smart.
11:48
I think Brother David's pretty smart, and I think Brother Otis is pretty smart, and I'm sure there's some of the rest of y 'all that are pretty smart.
11:56
I think Brother Mitchell, Brother Fred Mitchell is pretty smart. You know, I know that I've met some pretty smart people in my time.
12:04
But you know the difference between human smarts and God smarts? Ever stop to think about this? Everything that we know, and it's only a little bit anyway.
12:12
We can take it across the board. Everything that we know, we had to learn. And it's limited.
12:18
We only know a little bit. God knows everything. He didn't have to learn nothing. That's awesome.
12:25
God does not know everything because he learned everything. God knows everything because he designed everything.
12:34
That's an awesome God. That's an awesome God who never has to read a book and knows every content of the book.
12:41
That's an awesome God who never has to study a subject but knows infinitely perfectly everything about that subject.
12:49
And I like it when God shows off. Because sometimes God just shows off. He says, I'll show you how much
12:55
I know. He said, the very hairs of your head are enough.
13:02
All 6 million people in the world today, all that have ever lived in the past, all that will ever live in the future,
13:08
God said, just so you know how much I know. I know how many hairs on all their heads. We don't stop to think about how great he is.
13:19
We don't stop long enough to think about how awesome he is. But I'm telling you, God is omniscient.
13:24
Knows everything there is to know. Knows every person there is to know. And everything about them.
13:31
Some people think they can hide in the dark from God. But darkness cannot hide from him. Curtains can't hide from him.
13:37
Doors can't hide from him. Nothing can hide anything from him. Even those who are thinking.
13:44
He knows everything we've done, everything we've seen, everything we've said, everything we've done.
13:50
Everything we will do. Nothing is hid from this awesome, awe -inspiring, almighty, omniscient
13:58
God. I really wish I could describe him to you this morning. The person of creation is omniscient.
14:06
If he can know everything, he's got to be God. Nobody else has ever done that. He's omnipotent.
14:13
I want you to think about that for a minute. A God who knows everything. And cannot do what he determines to do about what he knows.
14:22
Then he wouldn't be God. But he can do whatever he wants to do. Whatever he wants to do. And you don't have to change what you know about it.
14:32
He's an awesome God. All power. All power he owns. Doesn't have to get permission.
14:41
Doesn't have to meet anybody's approval. He's just God all by himself.
14:49
Amen. The Bible says God has spoken once. Twice I've heard this.
14:55
All power belonging unto God. Just by the fact, the very nature of the fact that God has spoken once.
15:03
We know that he's God. If you don't believe that, just try speaking once. If you've got children, just try speaking to them once.
15:09
See how far it gets you. Amen. But God has spoken once. Not twice.
15:15
It's one time and it's done. Because he is our limitless power.
15:22
All the powers that we have sometimes we feel like we're pretty strong. And we're all that sometimes.
15:39
We think because of the might of our bodies. And the might of our machinery.
15:45
And the might of our computer systems. And the might of all that exists around us.
15:50
We think we're pretty strong sometimes. But not. The greatest thread of strength that we have is our end of ourselves.
15:58
All of it is borrowed from an awesome God. And there's not one matter of people in all of the universe.
16:04
Everything is subject to this power. Amen. Put it on. You've never been in that place.
16:24
I used to prefer to think that they hate
16:29
God more than they hate me. But you know what?
16:36
We don't need God no more than everybody has been out of his comfort zone. We don't need him anymore. We don't need
16:45
God anymore than everybody needs him. Right? Because Jesus is there.
16:51
So great. Big, powerful. Nothing. All of it.
17:02
I mean, no wonder it's going to take all of eternity just for grace. No wonder we're going to have to live up to his praises, his glory, forever.
17:11
A year is not long enough. A million years isn't long enough. A million years isn't long enough. Because we will never in our history,
17:18
Even in our glorified bodies, we will never be able to fully comprehend this awesome, wondrous, glorious God.
17:27
Okay? Forever! It's crazy. Every time we learn something about Him, it's worth learning.
17:34
We'll never be able to fully grasp the greatness of our Creator. He's omnipresent.
17:41
He's omnipresent. You ever think about that? I'm omnipresent. I'm telling you, that would be cool. I mean, if I could be out preaching at home,
17:48
I'd have both the same time.
17:57
My wife would be talking to David, preaching, so I'm all on the same time. I mean, that'd be awesome! But I just can't do it.
18:06
Can't do it. You only get one place at a time. God says, when you're in a closet,
18:16
I'm right there with you. When you're hiding in the dark, I'm right there with you. When you're in trouble, I'm right there with you.
18:22
When you're... You know what gets me excited?
18:31
It amazes me that God answers our prayers. I mean, it's just... It's mind -boggling. To me.
18:36
To me. To think that God can answer prayers. I'd be over there in Brunswick, Georgia, down on my knees, praying in Georgia.
18:47
Or, no. Somebody could be down there in Mexico, praying in Spanish.
18:59
Somebody over there in Asia, praying in... Whatever you're praying over there in Asia. Somebody over there in France.
19:06
In France. Praying in French. You know what? God, don't you stop listening. All of us in our own language.
19:14
All at the same time. It's right there with us. God is omnipresent.
19:26
And, David, when you're in trouble, and I'm in trouble at the same time, He don't have to leave. He can come to me.
19:32
Amen. He's omnipresent. The person of creation proves
19:38
He's God. If He can do all those things, He's gotta be God. Why don't you think about something else?
19:44
The power of creation proves He's God. The power of creation is the
19:50
Word of God. The Bible says, In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
19:55
All things were made by Him. Without Him was not anything made that was made.
20:01
What a demonstration of power. That's a demonstration of power. To create galaxies, the universe, planets, stars, sun, moon, without even lifting a finger,
20:14
He just speaks it. What an awesome God. That's awesome. He just says, let there be light.
20:22
Now, see, let me demonstrate for you, if I could. If I could. Brother Russ, can you help me?
20:28
Can you get that light switch over yonder? That one right over there. Okay. Yeah, whatever turns these lights off up here.
20:35
These pretty chandeliers. Somebody turn these pretty chandeliers off. Okay. Now, see,
20:41
Jesse just turned those chandeliers off. Thank you, Jesse. But you know what? He had to use his hand.
20:48
These are just chandeliers. These are just lights. Jesse, turn those back on.
20:53
Don't use your hand. Okay, turn them back on. Use your hand.
20:59
You say, Brother Marion, what's your point? There's not a one of us, no matter how powerful we might think we are, there's not one of us in this room that can turn these lights on.
21:08
But God says, something as great as the sun, let there be light. Boom! The sun moves the stars just by the word of his mouth.
21:17
What an awesome God! What an awesome God. The word of God is powerful enough to create everything.
21:31
Now, that ain't enough. Oh, that's all right.
22:20
Go ahead. You know, every time
22:28
I come to you,
22:40
I'm sitting here thinking, Jesus, you should just not offer my hand.
22:52
I'm going to make everything that we don't need, everything. God said,
23:03
I'm going to make everything that he needs. He's God.
23:14
The power of the word of God. The word of God has the ability to crush his enemies.
23:31
God said, I'm going to show you how awesome I really am. I don't even need to touch my enemies.
23:38
The Bible says in Psalm, chapter two, verse four and five. Bible says what? Now I forgot.
23:45
Verse four and five says, he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision.
23:51
Then shall he speak. Why did the heathen rage? That's what it says. Why did the heathen rage? Kings have imagined vain things. The kings of the earth set themselves.
23:57
Those rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointing, saying, we shall break their bands asunder and cast away their courts from us.
24:04
But he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sword, his pleasure.
24:16
What an awesome God. The power of his word to crush his enemies.
24:22
That's an awesome God. The Bible tells us over in, man,
24:27
I didn't put the verse down there, but I thought I did. The Bible says that he shall consume his enemies by the spirit of his mouth.
24:40
That's an awesome God. Guys, you know, we say sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
24:46
I'm telling you, if you're the enemy of God, his word will crush you. Amen. Word of God, powerful enough to create everything.
24:57
God said, I'll tell you what, I'm going to give it to you in a form. If you use it right, you won't even hurt yourself. Amen. That's an awesome
25:03
God. And it's powerful enough to consecrate the elect.
25:11
The Bible says in John 17, 14 through 17, the Bible says,
25:16
I have given them thy word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world.
25:23
Even as I am not of the world, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
25:31
They are not of the world. They are not of the world. Even as I am not of the world, sanctify them through thy word.
25:37
Thy word is true. God gave us his word, and the fact that his word is powerful enough to consecrate the elect shows us that he's
25:52
God. When I think about the fact that God saved me, hey, y 'all, you know what? You might be impressed with me, but if you knew me better, you wouldn't be so impressed.
26:01
You wouldn't be any more impressed with my wife and kids. If I knew you, I wouldn't be any more impressed with you either. But God knows us, and God said,
26:09
I'll save that one anyhow. God didn't save me because of me. God was not impressed with Byron Golden, not one little iota.
26:19
But God said, I'll save you anyway. The power of God's word. The Bible says in John 8, 31 -32, the
26:25
Bible says, Then said Jesus unto those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my words, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
26:37
Thank God for the word of God that frees me from the bondage of this wicked world, that frees me from the sin, that frees me from the sin that my mind, that my flesh wants to commit.
26:48
Thank God for the word of God. Well, the purpose of creation.
26:57
We talked about the person of creation. He is omniscient. He is omnipotent. He is omnipresent.
27:03
We talked about the power of creation, the word of God, and how it has the power to create everything.
27:11
How it has the power to crush the dead. How it has the power to consecrate the elect. But now let's look at the purpose of creation. We look at all these great things that God has done.
27:19
We have to ask ourselves, what's the meaning of it all? Sometimes we go through life and we want to ask.
27:28
We say, well, we can't ask God why. We want to ask, why did he do all this? What's the reason behind the sun and the moon and the stars?
27:36
What's the reason behind this spinning planet? What's the reason behind all the relationships in my life? What's the reason behind all the pain that I see going on in the world?
27:44
What's the purpose? And I'll tell you, I believe the Bible gives us the purpose for everything that God created in Revelation chapter 4.
27:53
Why he made you. Why he made me. Why God made everything that is.
28:00
I believe it's all summed up. Revelation chapter 4, verse 11.
28:06
The Bible says, Revelation 4, 11. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things.
28:13
And here it tells us why. For thy pleasure they are and were created.
28:21
That's why everything was created. That's why you were put here, to please him. That's why I was put here, to please him. It was all because we were put here to please him.
28:33
I want you to notice something. I don't know if you ever thought about this or not, but what pleases God is obedience.
28:39
We were kind of talking about that in Sunday school this morning. I'm amazed how often that happens. But he is pleased by the obedience of his creation.
28:48
Did you ever think about that? Over in Genesis chapter 1, the Bible says, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Verse 3 says,
28:55
And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good. So God divided the light from the darkness.
29:02
The Bible says, God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw that it was good. God said it.
29:07
It was so. God said, It's good. He's pleased by it. Why? Because it obeyed him.
29:13
Creation. Nothing. The worlds came into existence out of nothing because God commanded it by his word.
29:20
God said, It's good. Genesis 1, 9 says, And God said, Let the waters under heaven be gathered together into one place.
29:27
And let the dry land appear. And it was so. And God called the dry land earth. And they gathered together the waters he called seas. And God saw that it was good.
29:34
Why? Creation obeyed his voice. The Bible says in Genesis 1, 11.
29:40
The Bible says, And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass. He didn't even have to sow any seed.
29:47
He just said, Let the earth bring forth grass and herb yielding seed and fruit, trees yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself upon the earth.
29:56
And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind.
30:03
And guess what? God saw that it was good again. Well, he didn't stop there.
30:08
The Bible says in Genesis 1, 14. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven and divide the day from the night.
30:16
And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to be given to give light upon the earth.
30:25
And it was so. And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night.
30:31
And he made the stars also. And God said, Let the firmament of heaven give light upon the earth and rule over the day and over the night.
30:40
And he divided the light from the darkness. And God saw again that it was good. I could go on, but I'll just read the last verse of Genesis 1.
30:48
The Bible says, And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good, because creation obeyed him to his pleasure.
31:05
But you know what? If he can do that, why don't you think about this?
31:12
He's not only pleased by the obedience of creation, but he's pleased by the obedience of Christ. You have to ask yourself, if you're going to ask the question,
31:20
Why everything? Certainly, this question has to come to your mind. Why would a holy
31:26
God send his son robed in human flesh to live a perfect life, to die a vicarious death in your place and in my place?
31:37
You have to ask that question. There's only one answer, because it pleased him.
31:45
The Bible says, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but he made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant.
31:58
Watch what it says. He was made in likeness of men. Being found in fashion as a man, he became obedient unto death, even to death of a cross.
32:10
Christ, the Lord God himself, was obedient to the point of dying.
32:17
It pleased God. So how do you know it pleased God? Because the Bible tells us in Isaiah chapter 53, verse 6 through 10,
32:23
All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all.
32:29
He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughters, a sheep before a shearer's dumb, so he opened not his mouth.
32:37
He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off of the land of the living, and for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
32:47
And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
32:53
Watch this. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Those Roman soldiers couldn't crucify
33:00
Jesus. Jesus said, no man takes my life. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it back up again.
33:09
He was pleased by the death of his son. The Bible says it pleased the Lord to bruise him.
33:14
He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the
33:23
Lord shall prosper in his hand. The Bible says Jesus said himself in John 8, 29, and he that sent me is with me, for the
33:35
Father hath not left me alone, for I do always those things that please him.
33:43
He was pleased by the obedience of creation. He was pleased by the obedience of Christ. Well, then, he is pleased by the obedience of Christians.
33:53
The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2, 4, no man that woreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, but he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.
34:07
Let me ask you a question this morning, church. Is your life pleasing to him?
34:13
Now, I know it pleases you. I understand that. Is he pleased?
34:19
Yeah, I understand your job is pleased with the work you do. That's not what I meant. I understand your husband's pleased.
34:26
I understand that. Your wife's pleased. I got that. Is he pleased?
34:34
Is he? The Bible says in Hebrews 11, 6, without faith it is impossible to please him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
34:45
The Bible says, furthermore, 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 1, furthermore, then we beseech you, brethren, exhort you by the
34:52
Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk, and to please
34:59
God, and so ye have bound more and more. Do you please him? Is your life pleasing?
35:04
The way you talk, is it pleasing to him? The places you go, is it pleasing to him? Your relationships, your associations, is he pleased by that?
35:14
Colossians 1, 10 says, Paul wrote to the Colossians and said, I'm praying for you that you might be filled with all the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding.
35:24
He says that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.
35:33
Not most pleasing, not some pleasing, but all pleasing. Is the
35:39
Lord pleased by your life? When God speaks to you like he spoke to the creation and says, let it be thus and such, can he look at you five minutes later and say, it's so, and I see.
35:55
Or do you, unlike the trees, and unlike the sun, and unlike the elements, unlike the grass, and unlike the cattle, do you rebel against the command of a holy
36:07
God? I'll tell you today, the
36:13
Bible tells us that when we were without Christ, we were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, we were enemies in our mind, we were enemies against God in our minds.
36:25
And I think about this, the fact that when I wasn't looking for God, not at all, wasn't interested in God, got no pleasure from the word of God, got no pleasure from the people of God, when
36:39
I was not looking for God, when I was lost, he came and saved my old wicked soul.
36:51
If he can do that, he's gotta be God. If he can take a life that was headed 100 miles an hour in the wrong direction, and glad to be going that way, and turn it around, but if he can do that, he's got to be
37:12
God. If God can take you and I, in our disobedience, save our souls, turn our lives around, make our lives, if he can do that, he's got to be
37:45
God. My mom tried to change me. She couldn't. Daddy tried to change me.
37:53
He couldn't do it. My brothers tried to change me. They couldn't do it. The only one in existence who's ever tried to change this old boy, or you, that's ever accomplished it, is
38:05
God himself. And if he can do that, he's gotta be God.
38:10
Father, thank you so much for who you are. I pray that you would help us with our finite minds to at least labor someone to try and contemplate you, who are an infinite
38:38
God. I pray, Lord, that like the elements who were called into creation out of nothing, when you speak to us, it might be so.
38:55
That you might say, when we stand before you, well done.
39:02
You're a good and faithful servant. With heads bowed and eyes closed, we'll say,
39:10
Brother Myron, I'm not sure. I know I'm saved because Jesus Christ saved my soul. By the death he died on the cross, his burial and resurrection.
39:19
I trusted in that. Not in myself, not in my religion, not in my religious exercise, but I've trusted in Christ.
39:25
I know I'm saved. That's your testimony. Testify by raised hand. You know you're saved. Praise the Lord. Put your hands down.
39:33
Say, Brother Myron, I don't know I'm saved, but I sure would like to know before I leave. Please pray for me.
39:39
I'd like to know God as my father. I'd like to know Jesus as my savior.
39:46
Please pray for me. Anybody like that, not sure you're saved, but you'd like to be sure, please pray for me. God bless you, little girl.
39:51
I see your hand back there. Anybody else not sure you're saved, but you'd like to be sure, please pray for me.
39:59
We'll say, Brother Myron, I needed this message. I needed to contemplate this morning.
40:06
God in his greatness and in his glory, please pray for me that my life will be one that is pleasing to him.
40:13
More pleasing than it's been in the past. Pray for me that my life will be pleasing. Anybody?
40:19
Praise the Lord. Father, thank you so much for these that have come this morning. Pray that you bless now during this time of invitation.
40:26
I give you the praise for what you told us your word would do. In accomplishing that, would you please?
40:34
In Jesus' name. Heads bowed, eyes closed. Stand with me, if you will, please. The spirit of God has spoken to your heart, and you need to respond to the message.
40:43
I want to give you the opportunity to do so. I want to give you the opportunity to do so right now.
40:49
They're going to play a song on the piano, but you don't have to wait. You can come now. The spirit of God has spoken to you.
40:54
You do what he said to you. Good day.
42:15
Let's bow our heads and pray together. Brother Alfred, would you ask the Lord to bless our time of fellowship and our meal together?