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Bro. Otis Fisher
The first thing I must do is take my coat off, if that's all right. Apparently, even if it wasn't all right. Today, we're going to delve into the field of chemistry to show how everything speaks of Jesus, the Christ.
I've always admonished people to look for him in every facet of their life, because he's there. Everything in creation speaks of Jesus Christ. First of all, I'd like for you, and you're going to have to be part of this this morning, I've passed out some scriptures to read at particular times, and I don't know what order I gave them to you, but I'll call for them.
And the first one we need to go to, and I don't think I passed this one out, is Genesis 3 .1. We're going to talk about salvation, about sin, about people. You didn't know, but I have a picture up here of everybody here this morning.
You're found in one of these bottles. And I'll leave it up to you to decide which by the time we're through. In Genesis 3 .1, we find this. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.
And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the servant, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.
And the servant said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. Now, the one that has Romans 3 .23, would you stand and read, please?
And talk to that microphone out there. No, both. All right, now we have found out that everybody has sinned. Because of what Adam did, not what Eve did, but what Adam did, the whole human race now is born in the state of sin.
Now, Romans 5 .19. Yes, what a statement. In Psalms 3 .8, we find this, salvation belongs unto the Lord, not man. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Thy blessing is upon thy people. Thy people, not the world, upon thy people.
Now, someone has Psalms 37 .39, would you read that? Yes. All right, now moving on into the book of Acts, 4 and 12. All right. That lays the foundation for the beginning of the human race, the beginning of sin in the human race, the solution for sin in the human race.
The sin that came upon the human race did not surprise God. It's rather strange when you really get to studying that God ordained the human race to fall. He did not sin himself. He just did not tell Adam what he was going to do.
So whatever Adam did, he did because he wanted to do it. And we find that the very same rule holds today. Each one of us have always done just what we wanted to. Now, I know some of you young people are probably disagreeing with me because you can remember your parents made you do something you didn't want to do.
Well, I too can remember that. But in retrospect, I find out I really did want to do it because I didn't want the consequences. So I ultimately, Russell, did what I wanted to do. You could not have convinced me of that at that time.
Now we have here, besides all the rest of you, we have two that look a little bit different. These are by name. That's Waldo Turk. And this is Half-Pint Joe. Now, they're pure. They're innocent. Well, pure, as pure as, of course, what kind of water gives.
But they represent Adam and Jesus in the first state. Both were born innocent. Neither had the sin nature. They each had the capacity to do that which they wanted to do. Adam chose to sin. Jesus chose not to.
Therefore, he could not sin and still be our sacrifice. So we have to have something now to represent the sin nature. I chose to do that with some tannic acid. So I'm going to put into these two now, into Half-Pint Joe and Waldo, the sin nature.
And it doesn't take very much to represent the sin nature. I see now you're not supposed to do this when you're half blind. By the way, we'll probably get out early. All right. There's old Waldo and there's old Half-Pint.
No two look alike. There's always a little bit of difference. But the sin nature is in each one. Waldo is a little bit better morally than Joe, but that makes no difference. All of us are that way. So we call that the overt act of sin that Adam and Eve installed.
Again, referring to Genesis, the third chapter and sixth, and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took the fruit thereof and did eat, gave to her husband.
The eyes of them both were open and they ended up with fig leaves. Man has been trying ever since then to invent some way to cover his sin. And that was a forerunner of it. Since that time, all of mankind has been born with a sin nature.
Now, does anyone have the book of James 1 .14? Now we come to a state in everybody's life when you're tempted to do something. And, you know, you shouldn't. But a skeleton used to say, I'm going to do it anyhow.
Satan makes lots of promises. He says, Waldo, you're a pretty good boy. And your parents know that. I'm going to show you something that you'll really enjoy doing. Now, I know it's never that simple and that clear and that plain, but the temptation comes, whatever it is.
Maybe you feel like breaking some windows out of the schoolhouse. Maybe you feel like letting somebody's tire down or turning somebody's outhouse over. I'll have to pause here a moment and give you an experience.
It didn't happen to me. But we had a telephone system in town. Now, this is a town of 250 where I spent all of my youth. There was a man there who was not married. He was, by the time I knew him, he was probably in his late 60s.
He was a real short man. And he drove a great big Ford truck. He had a special box made that he could stand on to get onto the running board and then get inside. And the teenagers always liked to torment him, especially at Halloween.
Everybody had an outhouse. And every year, my cousin and some of his people, his aides, would beat him in town with their horses. And invariably, riding down the alley, they'd rope that outhouse and drag it off.
This year, Shorty was ready for them. He says, they're not going to do that. So he stationed himself inside that with a shotgun. They come by and rope it and drug it off and him shooting holes every place.
So temptation comes in many, many different forms. But here's Waldo and Half-Pint. Satan says, now, it's better if both of you would partake of this because it's actually going to take two. And, of course, they said, well, you'll just go tell everybody what we did.
And he said, no, I won't tell a soul. I'm not going to tell anybody that you did. So you don't need to worry about that. So, first of all, the boys had to be willing to. They took off their cap. Now, the sin that they're going to commit is ferrous sulfate, if you know anything about that.
And they got all ready. They waited until everybody was in bed. They both climbed out their windows. One was on the second floor and he had a little bit of a problem. But they met at the rendezvous place.
I'm not going to tell you what they did, but it wasn't too good. They thought it was. Oh, it was fun. They just laughed and laughed and laughed. They laughed especially when they thought about what people were going to see the next morning.
Actually, it was put in a farmer's wagon on top of the Methodist church. They disassembled it and took it up and put it together again. So they went through all of that. And they said, how are we going to keep people from knowing that we had anything to do with this?
Satan told us that he would tell nobody. Now, did he have to tell anybody? What's happened? Why do they look different? Joy? And you just look different, don't you? Well, they felt very ashamed. Half-Pint didn't, but Waldo did.
He was the better of the two. And Half-Pint wanted to go do it again. But Waldo said, no, no, once enough. I got in enough trouble. Because somehow Dad knew, even before I got home, what was going on.
Remember, it's a town of 250. And we had a telephone system. Had four lines out of town, one in each direction. Everybody that lived in one direction was on one line. And if you would call somebody, no matter where they were on that line, they had a special ring that belonged to you, two shorts and a long or whatever.
But you'd pick up the receiver, and after it stopped ringing, everybody else picked up their receiver. And you could hear them click, because they'd come off hook. Well, by the time the last one picked up their receiver, the first one couldn't hear anything.
The voltage had dropped so much. But it was an experience. Now, there's a revival comes to town. Comes to Waldo's church, in fact. Waldo was one of these boys that, you remember when the Baptists would give, oh, what'd they call them, a star, I think the first one was, and then they had bars under that for every year you'd come without missing?
Any of you remember that? Arthur, you ought to. Well, Waldo didn't have quite that many, but he had more than anybody else in town. And the Holy Spirit was speaking to him, and he knew what he ought to do.
Now, we know sometimes ahead of time what we're supposed to do, and we just can't bring ourselves to do it. And we think we're putting it off and putting it off, when really you're not, because everything's going to be done exactly when it's supposed to be done.
But Waldo didn't know that. Neither did I, and neither did you. But here we have the greatest cleanser on earth. It's called oxalic acid. It represents the blood of Christ. So when Waldo, he thought, yielded and he was saved, the blood of Christ came into him.
Where'd Waldo's head go to? There it is. It got all through him, and he's not black anymore. It's true that he is not as clear as he used to be, because that sin left an indelible impression upon him.
You know, the consequences, the unintended consequences of things that we do affect our life. And Satan's not going to tell us all of that, just the joy for the moment. But needless to say, he didn't ever again participate in putting a wagon on top of the Methodist church.
One time they put a cow up there. But it wasn't Waldo. Well, old half-pint, they run around together. And shortly after that, Joe says, You're not like you used to be. I said, What's happened? He said, Well, Christ has come into my life.
I said, Oh, to do you. You ought to get saved, Joe. No, I don't want any of that. He said, Well, that sure made a difference in my life. Well, yes, I can see that something happened. I don't know if it was that or not, or whether it was a whipping you got when you got home.
That might be what changed your life. And they talked back and forth for quite a while and several days. Before the revival was over, they were going to have a baptizing at the close of the service. So they both, he went down also, simply to get Waldo to quit pestering him.
They went down and they both were baptized. So here we have our baptismal baptistry. Now, did that change Waldo any? Well, you mean baptism doesn't change you? Here's Joe now. He's not saved. He's going to be baptized too.
Did it change him? It didn't change him. So baptism evidently is not salvation, is it? Does it have anything to do with salvation? Does salvation have anything to do with baptism? All right. So there they are.
Saved, unsaved. Then, both baptized at the same time. One right after the other. But in Waldo's life, it made a big difference. Satan doesn't give up. He says, oh, so what? Now, Satan comes again. He's got something that even Waldo can't turn down this time.
It's been long enough that he's kind of forgotten the results of the last one. So we're going to submit to Satan again. I want to be sure and get the right Satan bottle. Ferrous sulfate. Remember, this is what turned him black.
Can't turn him black. He's already black. So here comes Satan. He says, yeah, come on. Waldo's urging him on. And they sneak out again one year later. And they go through the same act, only different results.
Now, why didn't he turn black? He did the other time. He's got the blood of Christ in him. He could sin from now till doomsday, and he'd never turn black. Of course, he doesn't do that because he doesn't want to do that.
We all sin. Believe you me, we're never going to turn black like Joe did. No way. Well, Joe then begins to pay a little closer attention. And the Holy Spirit's working on him. I'm going to lay Waldo down a minute.
And David, you nearly let me make a mistake. Christ has got to come into his heart. Now, as far as Waldo's concerned, Waldo took his heart open. We know better, but that's the way it's made. That's the way it's presented.
And Jesus came in. Because Waldo had been chosen before there was a world. Waldo didn't know it. The Lord knew it. And there's the blood of Christ. And never again can he turn black. Now, there is consequence.
We'll let those sit there for a little while. And we're going to look over here at some of you. We have here Bob Romine. You probably never met him. But he saved, believe it or not, kind of like Lot. Do you remember Lot?
If the scripture had stopped with the explanation of Lot back in Genesis, I'd have never believed he was saved, Virg. But when we get to the New Testament, Peter tells us he was. So we'll have to say that Lot is saved.
But he gets disturbed pretty quick. Pretty easy. Now, he doesn't look saved. And from reading Lot in the early accounts, you would say he wasn't saved. Then here's a woman. Her name's Mrs. Gotrox. And she loves to sing.
She has sung in every choir of every church that she's ever attended. But there's a new music director come. And he had an interview with each one. Because he's going to start from scratch. And he told Mrs. Gotrox, he says, you can't be part of the choir.
She said, what do you mean I can't? I've been part of that choir for 80 years. And you're telling me now I can't? And I mean she gets so shook up that she just fumes all over the place. Has nothing good to say about this new man.
And finally nothing good to say about the church. And she finally quits going. But she's saved. But she's not practicing salvation. Here's Claudine Throckmorton. I never heard of her. Claudine. I don't know if you can see that stuff in the bottom or not.
But it's there. And she's all right as long as you just leave her alone. You just go on about your business. Now, some of you act like you know this person. But the best they could do really didn't leave her alone enough.
And she gets to where you can't see through her any longer. Serious. Ernie Spitz. Good old Ernie. His name fits him. Then we come to Carl Snodgrass. This is a well-known man. He's in every church. He has the most money.
He's the fattest. Drives the biggest car. Has money without working. He's an authority on everything. And if you don't believe him, just ask him. But he's not saved. Yet, he's a deacon in the church. You ever know anybody like that?
Big, fat Snodgrass. He runs it all. In fact, he runs all the preachers off. And he goes through them just like you would a telephone book. And nobody has the courage to stand against him because he could buy the whole town.
Carl Snodgrass. What an awful picture. I would rather be Gottrox and stand before God as this man. Even Bob Romine. Now we come back here to Waldo. If you leave people alone and just let them settle down, Waldo will become fairly clear.
He'll never be as clear as he was because he has sinned. And the physical part of his sinning affected the rest of his life. And you may say, well, you didn't put any of this in again. So we're going to put some of the old sin nature in him just to be sure that he doesn't sin.
And this is the sin nature now that we could not detect in the first. So we have given him a double dose of sin nature. Now what's going to happen? Nothing. By chemistry, we have proven that if the blood of Christ is in us, we can never be black.
Never again. Nothing. Did I give anybody Romans 8 .38? What's that mean to you, Dennis? Is it because of what we do? We can try to do everything wrong and it still will not break it, will it? Heaven forbid that we'd ever try to turn black again, but even if we did, we couldn't.
Because he chose us before there was ever us. Lots of people recently have asked, well, what about the babies? I can't answer. All I can say is that they, too, were chosen before, just as you and I. So it behooves all of us to live as transparent a life as possible.
The less sin we commit, the more clear we are, the more we can show Jesus in us. The more sin we commit, we don't study, or we go to church once in a while, twice a year, Easter, Christmas, or Easter and Mother's Day.
But we don't have much time. Virg, if I were judging, I would wonder why the Lord ever chose him. But I'm not. And it's a miracle to me why he chose me. You know, we have Jacob and Esau. Jacob was chosen and Esau wasn't.
I think the miracle of all of it was how could he love Jacob when Jacob was such a character? But we all are. So here's your picture. You pick it out and try to clear it up. Stand with me, please. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this feeble attempt of showing your word in the illustration.
How much it means to us. Go with us now in the meal. Bless the food. Each one that's here, we would ask that we would all go from here with the truth that we have learned and apply it to our life from everything that we've heard.
In the name of Christ.