Gospel Meetings-Shannon Hills 05 — Worth Ellis

Reading the Scriptures on Faith and Justification

Now tonight we're going to read from four different places in your Bible, and we're going to have what we call a little four-finger exercise. In order to read from one passage to another without the loss of time, I want you to find Hebrews chapter 11, Ephesians chapter 2, Romans chapter 4, Romans chapter 3.

Now, you won't have much trouble in the last two, because they're very close together. I'd like you to find Hebrews and leave a finger there, and turn over to Ephesians 2 and leave a finger there, and then turn to Romans chapter 3, and we'll begin reading at the third chapter of the Book of Romans.

Hebrews chapter 11, Ephesians chapter 2, Romans chapter 3 and 4. As soon as the rustling of the leaves has ended, we'll know you're ready to go. We shall begin reading now in the third chapter of the Book of Romans, verse 21.

Shall we pray? Righteous Father, we thank Thee tonight that Thou hast in Thy condescending grace committed unto us this ministry of reconciliation. We remember Thy word that said that Thou hast given to us this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and in all of us.

Grant that we beseech Thee, our Heavenly Father, for the Lord Jesus' sake, amen. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference.

For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that have passed through the forbearance of God.

To declare, I say it this time, his righteousness, that he might be just, and that justified of him which believeth in Jesus. Where it is boasting, then, it is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law of faith.

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Now in Ephesians chapter 2, our second reading, second chapter of the book of Ephesians, we read here in verse 8. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should burst. Now in Hebrews chapter 11, and I do hope you haven't lost Romans 4 now, because I forgot to read it as we were passing by. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6.

But without faith it is impossible to please God, or to please him, and speaking of God of course, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a reward of them that diligently seek him.

Now just in the event you have your finger in the right place, Romans 4 and 4. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of death. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

The Evangelist’s Duty to Declare the Gospel

May God bless to us tonight the reading of his words. The number one duty of the evangelist is not to entertain sinners, but to simply make a clear declaration of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is God's way of salvation.

He is bound, if God has commissioned him to preach the gospel, to be clear and distinct in his annunciation of the principles of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in connection with this marvelous privilege that the Lord has afforded to us, he has not left us in doubt.

And I'm so blessed and thankful that where there may be many differences of opinion as to interpretations, so far as I have noticed, wherever you have a verse of scripture relative to the way of salvation, that particular verse will not allow of any interpretation.

It's always a simple statement of fact. For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Now if you can interpret that, you're a pretty good interpreter.

To me it's a simple statement of fact. Now the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is God's ordained way of salvation of poor sinners. The great apostle very clearly set this forth in Romans chapter 1, verse 16.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. When writing his epistles to the Corinthians, the first one, in the 15th chapter, in verses 1 through 3, he very clearly and distinctly sets forth the gospel by which people are saved.

Moreover, brethren, said he, I declare unto you that which first of all was delivered unto me, I received it of the Lord. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, he was buried, he arose again the third day according to the scriptures, and he says in the second verse, 1 Corinthians 15, 2, this is the gospel by which ye are saved.

Now that's simple enough. A man doesn't have to be an educated person, nor is he specially intellectual to understand such clear and simple language. I deliver unto you the gospel by which ye are saved consists of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins.

He was buried, and he was raised again, and notice this says he is according to the scriptures. Now we're living in a world today that is characterized by a lot of new thought, but most new thought to me really began in the Garden.

They have some sort of pernicious doctrine that just sprung up recently down in the city of Durham. I don't even know how to pronounce the name of it, but I read one of their pamphlets, and it's a group of disgruntled people from every sort of religion you can think of who have sacrificed some of their outstanding principles, and now they call themselves something another.

I can't even say their name, much less figure out what they believe. But in days like this, when practically every new man that arises on the scene or every difference of opinion in the interpretation of a passage of scripture only gives rise to a new denomination or a new form of religion, we can thank God tonight as evangelical believers that we still have God's infallible word that says that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried and raised again the third day, and this is the gospel by which he was saved.

The gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. And there you have the doctrine of election. I like that, you know. You notice in that wonderful passage of scripture in Romans 1 .16 that the gospel is very specifically the salvation of God to a certain class of people, and it's to those that believe.

Election, Human Responsibility, and the Simplicity of Salvation

I never will forget the story I heard of a doctor, I'm sorry to say a doctor, but I don't know any doctors except my medical doctor, but this doctor was preaching one time on the subject of election. And he says, you all know tonight, folks, he says, some of my brethren is awful confused on this subject of election.

But he said to me, it's one of the simplest doctrines in the whole Bible. He said, I remember one time we had an election. Well, that's what an election is, it's an election, you've got to have an election.

And he said, there was an election. Two thousand years ago almost, said he, the Son of God died upon the cross, satisfied the judgment of God against me, arouse you to my sin and the penalty thereof. The wages of sin is death, but Jesus tasted death for me.

Now the Son of God died for me and arose from the dead and is alive in heaven to give me eternal life if I'll only believe in him. And so through his death and resurrection, the Lord Jesus voted for me to go to heaven.

Well, you know, Satan didn't exactly like the idea of this poor darky going to heaven. He wanted me to be lost forever in the pit for this weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. And so Satan, he voted.

Well, quite naturally, he cast his vote against me, so he voted for me to go to hell. Now, there was only one other person voted in that election, and that was me. And I cast my vote with the Lord Jesus and we won the election.

And he said, Brethren, that's the doctrine of election. Now, bless your heart, that's all you've got to know about the election in order to be saved. That the Son of God elected in love for your soul to die upon the cross and he's voted for you to go to heaven.

But never you forget for one moment that Satan has voted for you to go to hell. And if he can keep you from trusting Christ as your Savior, if he can confuse the simplicity of the salvation and get you all mixed up and be puzzled so you can't even figure it out and take you to hell all mixed up, then that's exactly what he wants to do.

But I want to tell you tonight as a poor sinner who has been saved by God's grace, you can make the way of salvation just as complicated as you want to until you have to hire every psychiatrist in the city of Greensboro.

But God will have no part of it. If you want to go to heaven, believe that Jesus died for you, was buried and raised again the third day, and God says the doors of heaven are wide open. Now, you can make that just as complicated as you want to.

Salvation by Grace and Faith

But bless God, he's made it just that simple. The gospel of Christ is a power of God unto salvation. Now, the burden of my message tonight is that this salvation is bestowed upon the sinner by or on the principle of the grace of God.

In Titus chapter 2, 11, the Bible says that the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men. And so that's a very emphatic mistake, that it's grace that brings salvation to us. It's grace, the grace of God that bringeth salvation, hath appeared unto all men.

In Ephesians 2, 8, we read, by grace are ye saved. So eternal life, the forgiveness of sin, righteousness, reconciliation, justification, all are bestowed upon the believing sinner as a direct result of the unmerited favor of the Christ Holy God.

As a matter of fact, it's not only unmerited favor, but it's favor over against what we really merit. I remember once hearing our brother Ernik Tatum, who was here a little while ago, about a year or so now, and he told a story where he's driving through the countryside one time in Canada.

And as he drove along, he saw two boys standing on the side of the shoulder and one lying along the shoulder. And they flagged him down and he says, oh my, something has happened. And so when he stopped, they helped this other boy up and put him in the backseat of the car.

And he says, boys, which doctor, which hospital? They said, well, just go on town. We'll think of that later. And as he made his way down the road, he looked up in the mirror and all three of them literally convulsed and lashed up.

They had taken him in. Now, he said, the moment I realized it and grasped the situation, the first thing crossed my mind was to stop the car and kick them in the seat of the pants as far as I could and thrust them out.

But he said on second thought, I think I'll just go ahead and take them in town and be a good sport. So he actually gave them favor over against what they really merited. And that is a picture of the grace of God and eternal life, salvation and the forgiveness of sins.

If you want to make it yours tonight, must be bestowed on the principle of God's unmerited favor, actually having God to give you as a free gift that which is absolutely opposed to what you really desire.

That's the grace of God. Now, it is bestowed on the principle of grace, but it is appropriated and enjoyed by the sinner on the principle of faith. And that's the burden of our message tonight. What is faith?

Now, did you notice in all of our sections that we read from tonight, every one of them had the word faith in it. We read that the righteousness of God in the epistle to the Romans is by faith. We read in Romans chapter three that a man is justified by faith.

We read in Romans four that Abraham's faith was counted unto him for righteousness. And in Hebrews 11, we read without faith, it is impossible to please God. Now, as I was looking through my concordance one day, I noticed that the word faith, strange to say, is only found two times in the entire Old Testament, once in the book of Deuteronomy and again in the book of Habakkuk.

But when I turned to the New Testament, which is God's revelation and all of its full of the beauty of salvation through the person and work of his Son, I found the word faith 243 times in the New Testament.

Think of that. And so I arrived at this conclusion. I don't know what you would have done, logically speaking, but I arrived at this conclusion that whatever faith is, it is an indispensable ingredient for this thing called salvation.

243 times in the New Testament, the word faith is used. By grace are ye saved. Take notice, there is a bestowal, the appropriation through faith, and that not of yourself, this salvation is a gift of God, not of one, lest any man should boast.

Therefore, if we cannot possibly get to heaven without faith, what is it? What is faith? If I have to exercise faith in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, what is the scriptural definition of faith?

Last night we sought to bring before you the absolute impossibility of being saved without repentance. The Lord Jesus Christ said, repent ye and believe the gospel, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

And now tonight we discover that along with our repentance, we can't be saved without faith. And so we must turn away from all the books about the Bible and turn to the Bible and see what faith is. And if the Lord tonight, in his marvelous mercy, will show you what faith is and show you how to believe and how to receive Christ and put your faith in the Son of God, you can leave that door or this one or this one, any way you care to go, with the absolute assurance that every one of your sins are completely forgiven.

And that's the objective of these meetings. What is faith? Now, this may be a sneaky way to approach this problem, but first of all, I'm going to say what it isn't. Now, I think this is very, very important because there are many things called faith which are absolutely spurious.

Faith Is Not Feelings or Emotionalism

For example, without a shadow of a doubt, that which causes more sinners, more confusion than any other false faith or faith in the world, is this horrible curse of feelings and emotionalism. I never will forget, I was in the coal mining camp of Otsego, West Virginia.

A little bitty hole in the wall, and this lady came out night after night, and she heard the gospel. And so one night, when I was waxing rather warm on the subject of faith in the Lord Jesus for salvation alone, I made this statement, and I'll make it again tonight, and I don't apologize for it because I'm right, and you don't have to apologize when you're right.

I said that night that you don't even have to pray to be saved. And right away, I could feel that somebody in the audience had been offended. She didn't come back anymore, so we went to see her. And so I said to this dear lady, I said, Madam, it's quite obvious that you've been upset by something we have said.

Now, what's the trouble? Well, she said, if there's no need to pray, there's no need of me going. What use is there trying to be saved if you're not going to pray? And so she told me this story. Several years ago, a man came through this city, or this country here, this little mining town, and he pitched a tent, and he preached, and he was a great preacher, a grand preacher.

He could move you. And my, he was such an exciting speaker. And so she said, finally, one night, I got the peely, and I went down to the front, and several other people were there with me. And some of them were rubbing me on the head, and some were patting me on the back.

And we all prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and she said, oh, glory, I finally got it. I said, you got what? She said, I got a wonderful feeling. Oh, I said, well, where is it now? Oh, she said, that's the thing, but I've lost it.

You've lost it? What did you do with it? She said, I don't know. But she said, sometimes I can almost get it again, and then it, it, it slips away from me. See? Now, there was a poor woman who was resting upon her feelings.

And just so long as she could have her emotional jag and stretch it out, say it's there, and tie it onto another emotional jag, you see, she was on her way to hell. One emotional jag after another. And don't you think, though, the moment there are multiplied millions of sinners in the world today who are on their way to hell with emotional jag, one after another.

One thing we must learn is this, that the faith that's saved is not feeling. Now, get that straight. Faith is not feeling. A man can be saved with a feeling, or he can be saved without a feeling. I love to tell the story of Harold Hopper.

I heard him speak one time about getting saved out on the street corner. As a young man, he attended some gospel meetings somewhere out in the Midwest. He'd been under conviction, but he had fought. He had fought against the fears of God.

So one night, in a terrific snowstorm, he made his way out of the meeting and went out on the street corner. And under the streetlight, with the snow falling, to think he could hardly see the light, he said, I looked up and faced up to heaven, and I said, O Lord Jesus Christ, if Thou hast died for me, and if Your death alone will save me, I will at this moment receive Thee as my Savior.

He told of giving his testimony when Charmin, a dear lady, came up to him after the meeting and said, O Brother Hopper, O Brother Hopper, when it happened, she said, what did you feel? What did you feel, brother?

He said, I felt a snowflake falling on my cheek. See? Now, the great problem with people today is this. They think in order to be saved, they've got to have a terrific feeling. Now, I would not give you a plug nickel for a conversion that doesn't produce a feeling of genuine relief from the burden of sin.

I wouldn't give you a plug nickel for that. See? But I'm trying to tell you that if you wait for a feeling to be saved, you'll feel your way right into hell. You're not saved by feeling, you're saved by faith.

By grace are you saved through feeling. Is that what your Bible says? No, by faith. You must remember, friend, when you're wrestling with a problem of salvation with a natural mind, you're like a bunch of hogs trying to place top value on a pearl in a handful of corn.

They can't do it. It's absolutely impossible. The natural mind cannot perceive the things of the Spirit of God. Salvation is a revelation of the Holy Spirit operating through God's living and powerful and sharp two-edged sword, the Word of the living God.

Men are born again by the scriptures applied by the Holy Spirit of God to their heart, to their intellect, to their will, and to their conscience. But it's not feeling. Now, will you tell me, please, the Genesis chapter 27 for a moment?

And I'll show you what the Bible means when it says in Romans 15, whatever things were written aforetime were written for our learning. In the 27th chapter of the book of Genesis, we have a remarkable illustration of the absolute utter fallacy of feeling.

And it's the story of Isaac and his two sons, Jacob and Esau, and his dear wife, Rebekah. The setting for this scene, sad to say, was a divided home. In chapter 25 and verse 28, we read these words,. And Isaac loved Esau, because, indeed, he was venison.

But Rebekah loved Jacob. Jacob was mother's boy, Isaac was father's boy. And there was a four-lane highway right down the middle of the family, and it made for nothing but absolute confusion. It brought nothing but untold sorrow into the life of Jacob, who went out expecting the protection, never saw his dear mother again, so far as I know.

Now, notice, here Isaac is about to die. It says in verse 1 of chapter 27,. And it came to pass that when Isaac was old, his eyes were dimmed so that he could not see. He called Esau his eldest son, and said unto him, My son.

And he said unto him, Behold, here am I. And he said, Behold, now I am old, and know not the day of my death. Now, therefore, take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver, and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me some venison.

Now, notice verse 5. Now, the reason he made this request, he wanted his son Esau. He says, You know how I love that venison stew, that deer stew. Go kill me a deer, and make me some stew. But I'm about to die, and I'm going to bless you real good before I go.

I'm going to pass a patriarchal blessing on to his eldest son. But notice, his wife heard it. And in verse 5, Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, and bring it.

And Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son. Well, where in the world did he get that? They were both of them, weren't they? Didn't they belong to the two of them? You notice the root of this trouble in the home there?

What a tragedy! Now, Rebekah said to Jacob, I heard your father speak unto thy brother, and he's going out to get him some venison, and you're going to get the blessing. But now I'll tell you what you do.

Look, you run out into the yard, out in the barnyard now, and get me two good, very best kids of the goat. And we'll whip up a stew such as your father loved. And you'll take him in a bowl of that steaming goat stew, and give it to your father, and we'll steal your brother's blessing while he's out trying to shoot a deer.

Oh, but Jacob says, Mama, look, Mama, now my brother Esau's a hairy man, and I'm a smooth man. Perhaps, notice in verse 12, perhaps, oh, my father peradventure will feel me. Notice it? See? And I shall seem to him a deceiver, and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing.

And his mother said unto him, Upon me be thy curse, my son. Only obey my voice, and go fetch me them. Now, if we read the story on, you would see this, that immediately he went and got the two kids of the goat.

He skinned them and dressed them, and she made the stew. And in order to further deceive her poor old blind husband, she took the skin of the goat and put it on the back of Jacob's hand, on the back of his neck.

I'll never forget one time when I saw a child introduced to a blind man. And this blind man said to this child, as it was brought before him, Come here and let me look at you. And you know what he did?

He took the blind, this little child, by the hand, and he began to feel him, and he felt on the back of his neck and brought his hands around this way to see what the child looked like. And get this picture now.

In order to further carry out their deception, Jacob goes and he gets these two kids of the goat, and he brings the stew to his father with his own brother Esau's clothing upon him and the skin of the goat.

And the horrible part about it all is when he came back his father said, Who are you? He says, I'm thy favorite son, Isaac. Oh, my boy, you really move fast today. How did you get to me so quick? Oh, the Lord thy God gave it to me.

What a liar this man was. The Lord thy God gave it to me, he said. Now, I want you to notice the situation that we have in hand here. Now, as far as I can remember, and it's been a long time since I went to school, and I didn't go too far when I did go, but if memory serves me correctly, there are at least five senses that we have.

Is that correct? Smell, taste, and sight, touch, and hearing, basically speaking. Now, it's perfectly obvious that his smell was defective because he couldn't tell the difference in the smell of goat stew and deer meat.

Secondly, the Bible says very distinctly in verse 1 that he was blind, and his taste was defective because he couldn't tell the difference between goat meat and deer meat. But he did have, regardless of this, two of his faculties working.

He could feel and he could hear. Now, notice verse 21. Which one is he going to put his trust in? Is he going to put his trust in his feelings or what he hears with his ears? Now, notice in verse 21,.

And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee my son, whether thou be my very son, e 'en so or not. And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father, and he felt him. He's a poor old blind man.

With the aroma of that goat stew in his nostrils, and with his stomach and his senses of his flesh outweighing his spiritual perception, he felt of his son Jacob. Now, note it. He says in the latter part of verse 22,.

The voice is Jacob's, but the hands are the hands of Esau. And he discerned him not. Rather than to trust his ears, he trusted his feelings, and he was utterly deceived. The Bible says, Faith cometh by hearing, not by feeling.

And any sinner who trusts his feelings when it comes to being saved will be utterly deceived. Do you get what I mean? See? There's a fallacy of feeling. Know, my beloved friend, if you insist on a feeling, remember this.

Fat, feet, and dinner feeling. But not necessarily the kind that makes you want to jump up and shout. So bless your heart if you get saved tonight and you want to shout. It's all right. We're good at that, too.

And I'll shout with you. Be okay with me if you shout. I'll tell you right now, I'd love to see you get saved tonight. What I'm trying to tell you is this. You don't have to have a feeling in order to be saved.

The feeling you're going to have when you really rest your full assurance and your soul's salvation upon the written Word of God is simply a feeling of a, oh, what a relief. That's the feeling you'll get when you're saved.

See? Now, that's what we need to know. And sinners need to know these things. You need to be warned. Don't put too much emphasis on your feelings. You'll be hopelessly deceived. Now, I believe the second great stumbling block in the way of sinners in connection with faith is simply this, that many people today labor under the delusion that faith is a sin.

Faith Is More Than Mental Assent

In other words, if they hear a preacher of the gospel stand up and tell you that Jesus Christ died for your sins and that you believe that, you believe everything he says, and you believe everything in the Bible, then that's faith.

But that's not faith. That's simply agreeing with what you hear. There's a vast difference in faith and a mental assent. Many a person in the world today believes the Bible from cover to cover and the cover too, who are on their way to an eternal hell.

I don't know of a single place in the Bible that the Word of God tells me that by grace is a man saved through believing the Bible. It's this. A man is saved by faith. And that faith must be put in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

Now, the biblical example, I think, the one that fits the picture best, is in Acts chapter 26. There you have Paul preaching the gospel message to Agrippa. And you'll notice sometimes that you'll learn that he preached two things to him, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now, you remember this. Paul, our beloved brother, was so carried away in his love for this poor heathen king that he wanted to see him saved. He said, King Agrippa, believe this, thou, the gospel. I know that thou believest.

But what do you find that Agrippa got saved? Believe this, thou, I know thou believest. Now, Agrippa believed the Bible. Judas Iscariot believed the Bible, what he had in his day. But there's not much change to a being in heaven.

Absolutely none. So you see, dear friend, believing the Bible won't save you. Agreeing with what the preacher says won't save you, no. That's simply agreeing with what you hear. And there's a vast difference in faith and giving a mental assent to the historical facts of the gospel.

Knowledge, Belief, and Trust

Now, on the positive side of the ledger, what is this thing called faith? Now, I want to give you three words, and I want you to get these down very clearly in your thinking tonight if you're an unsaved person.

Three words. The faith that's saved is composed of three elements. Number one, knowledge. Number two, belief. Number three, trust. May I repeat those? There are three elements in faith that's saved. And if you're going to be saved tonight and leave this building knowing that every one of your sins are forgiven, these three things are definitely going to take a part in your conversion.

Number one is knowledge. Number two is belief. And the third one is trust. There must, first of all, be knowledge. Scriptural proof. Romans chapter 10, please. The 10th chapter of the epistle to the Romans.

It is absolutely ridiculous to hear of some people who speak about being saved in a vision, who speak about being saved in some sort of a characteristic experience when they didn't know whether they were in the body or out, only God knew.

And they have all sorts of fantastic stories to tell and not one bit of knowledge or fact connected with their conversion. No, they're not saved. I don't believe a word of it. The infallible word of God says that the first essential to faith that saves is knowledge.

Now, I said a night or two ago that God places very little value upon your intellect or your wisdom. But I venture to say there's a vast difference between knowledge and intellect. And I don't know how to explain the difference between the two.

But what I'm speaking about in the knowledge is not what you know but something that God reveals to you in the way of knowledge and that is essential. Now, notice, please, here in this marvelous chapter of Romans 10, we have these two familiar verses.

Verse 9, "...that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.". Now, look at verse 13, "...for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.".

How much simpler can God make it? Now, this kind of salvation the Bible speaks of is not when you get your foot caught sometime or turn your car over in a wreck and about to kid yourself and you holler out, God have mercy on me.

That's not calling on the Lord. You're only looking upon God as an aspirin tablet. And when you get on your own feet again, you'll pay about as much attention to Him as you do the aspirin tablets in the medicine cabinet.

That's not calling upon the Lord. Now, notice, "...whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall emphatically be saved.". Verse 14,. "...how then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?".

All right. All right. "...whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed?". And how in the world can you believe in one of whom you haven't heard?

Is that knowledge essential? Would you agree? If you won't, turn to John chapter 9. I noticed this one day, and I'll tell you. You know something? The 9th chapter of the Gospel of John to me is one of the richest chapters in the whole Word of God.

I just love to sit down sometime and just burst my sides laughing at this poor blind man who put all the Sanhedrin in the Pharisees in the shade and made them look like a bunch of monkeys. He'd just gotten his eyes open, but all these doctors of the law didn't know the first thing about it, and I just revel in this chapter.