The Sin of All Sins — Bill McLeod

Christ Jesus Is Faithful Over God’s House

Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.

For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who has built a house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by some man, but he that built all things is God.

And Moses, in truth, was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after. But Christ as a son, over his own house, whose house we are, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope, firm unto the end, wherefore, as the Holy Ghost says, today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Israel’s Unbelief in the Wilderness

Now this is a quotation from the Psalms. As in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works, forty years, wherefore, I was grieved with that generation and said, they do always err in their heart, and they have not known my ways.

So I swore my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God, but exhort one another daily, while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

Unbelief as the Worst Sin

Well tonight, God has led me to speak on the subject of the worst, the worst sin of all. What Spurgeon called the bottom line of sin, the most serious sin of all, the most crippling sin of all. Now I'm referring to unbelief.

The bottom line of sin, it was the original sin in the Garden of Eden, because Satan insinuated doubts into the heart of Eve, and she bought his program, and the result we know, it's affected all of us in a very disastrous way.

Spurgeon said it was the bottom line because he based that in 1 John 5 .10, it says, he that does not believe God has made him a liar, because he does not believe the record that God gave of his son. We wouldn't dare to call God a liar, but every time we doubt him, we doubt his promises, or allow unbelief in any way to creep into our heart, we're doing exactly that.

We're calling God a liar. And one of the great problems among Christians is this, that the average believer does not think that unbelief is a sin. He thinks it's unfortunate, he wishes he had more faith, but he never faces up to the fact that the Bible calls it an evil heart of unbelief, an evil heart of unbelief.

I frequently hear people praying or saying, oh, I don't have much faith, I wish I had more faith, I find myself doubting God all the time, and they're really sort of putting the blame on God and excusing themselves, they're saying, well, I pray for more faith, I pray every morning for more faith, and it somehow doesn't seem to come.

And so, perhaps unconsciously, but just as really, they're blaming God for the problem. And he calls it an evil heart of unbelief. If you include the prayers in the Psalms, and they've sometimes been called ejaculatory prayers, God save me, the Lord deliver me, short prayers, if you include all those, I think there's a couple hundred in the Psalms, then in the Bible altogether, there's around 600 prayers.

There are 231 references to faith, there's 134 references to trust, there's 121 references to hope. If I add rightly, 486 altogether. Unbelief. Satan, when he came to Eve, as someone said, began with a positive and ended with a negative.

He began with a yes. Well, I like a positive person, no doubt with a smile. He says yes. This helped to disarm her. Do you think God really said this about the tree? This is how it went. And she began to doubt.

Satan knew what he was doing when he talked to Eve, because she got it from her husband, he got it from God. And we're distinctly told in Timothy, 1 Timothy, that Adam was not deceived. In other words, he walked in with his eyes wide open, probably because of his love for Eve, he did not want to be separated from her.

His love for Eve was greater than his love for God. And that was the problem. There's a verse in Psalm 119 that says, Therefore I esteem, that is I count, I esteem all your teachings, all your precepts, to be right, and I hate every false way.

The Authority of All Scripture

We're living in a day when many of the teachings of the Bible are being questioned. Why? They tell us Paul was a woman hater. And the things Paul says about the woman should not be accepted. The son on the mouth, that's for the kingdom age.

Well really, if it's for the kingdom age, then it means that in the kingdom age, we're going to have hypocrites and sinners of different kinds. But that's what some people are saying. I read something recently that really disturbed me.

The writer was saying, you should not preach the gospel from the four gospels or the book of Acts, but only from the epistles of Paul. And he raised this question, he said, would you say to a sinner, if you want to be saved, if they give all your money to the poor and take up your cross and follow Jesus, is that what you tell a sinner?

I don't know what he did with the gospel of John. The gospel of John preaches the gospel as clearly as anything. And the gospel is found in all four gospels as far as that's concerned. But this is a very popular teacher.

Everywhere I go, people have his books in their library. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.

All of it. And in Romans 15, Paul said, referring to the Old Testament scriptures, whatever things were written before were written for our learning. It's all inspired of God. There are parts that are difficult to understand.

Read your Bible. As Moody read his, Moody said, I read my Bible the way I eat fish. If I come across a bone, I don't stop eating fish. I lay the bone on the side of the plate, and I go right on eating fish.

So if you come across something you don't understand, don't spend hours mulling over it. Commit it to God. Ask God to tell you what it means, and sooner or later you'll get an answer. Might be a month.

Might be an hour. Might be a day. Might be a year. Who knows? But God will give you an answer. But it's all inspired of God. It's all profitable for doctrine. And the burning question is, what did God say?

Because by this word, someday, we're going to be judged. We're going to be judged. Unbelief. It grieves God greatly. It grieves God so greatly that even Moses was denied entrance to the promised land.

Moses and Israel Punished for Unbelief

Remember what happened? They needed water, and God said, I'll stand on the rock. Now you smite the rock with your rod, and water will come out. Now would you take a piece of wood, and smite a rock, and expect water to come out?

No, I wouldn't. Unless God told me to do it. Then I'd expect it. And he did, and the water came. The water overflowed. Rivers ran. After all, there was a million and a half people to be taken care of.

It wasn't some little brook. On another occasion, God said, speak to the rock. And Moses didn't believe that would do it, so he smote the rock with his rod. And God said, because you did not believe me, you'll never enter the promised land.

Unbelief. Israel wandered 40 years in the wilderness. From Mount Horeb to Kadesh Barnea, the borders of the promised land, was only an 11-day journey. It says in Deuteronomy chapter 1. An 11-day journey became 40 years of wandering in what is called a waste, howling wilderness.

Serpents, and scorpions, and salt pits, and all the rest of it. 40 years. Because of their wicked unbelief at Kadesh Barnea. Now I remember as a young Christian, sort of scratching my head and saying, Why did God put this big deal on them just because they failed once at Kadesh Barnea?

There was a reason for it. They've been doubting God all along. In Numbers 14, God said to Moses, how long will it be? How long will this people promote me? How long will it be, ere they believe me? For all the signs which I've done among them.

Look at the miracles in Egypt. There was no reason why they should not be any doubt. Absolutely none. No nation ever saw the power of God as Israel did. And they had no reason whatever for doubting God.

Think of the crossing of the Red Sea. Think of the manna coming down every day. And twice as much in the sixth day, so they wouldn't have to gather on the seventh day. I mean they had daily miracles. And God was extremely angry with the people because, how long will it be?

Before they'll believe me. So they wandered for 40 years. Until a whole adult generation died in the wilderness. Their bones bleached under the sun. And their children entered the promised land 40 years later.

Unbelief and Rejection of God

Unbelief grieves God because, some people become agnostics to unbelief. Some become atheists. And agnostic believes there may be a God. But if there is a God, He doesn't communicate with man. The atheist simply says, there is no God.

I read something the other day about a couple who have professed to believe in God. I don't think that everyone's saved. They've been going to church. They decided church wasn't for them. They talked it all over.

And finally they decided they better, they were really atheists. And so they said, we better tell our daughter. But she was only 7 years old. So they sat her down. And they said, now honey, we want you to understand.

Mother and I, we don't believe there's a God anymore. And she said, does God know about this? You know, good question. I remember hearing in a school classroom, a teacher wrote on the blackboard, God is nowhere.

He was an atheist. And the girl got up and walked to the blackboard, took up a chalk and put a line after the W. God is now here. Well, that was good. There's different ways of handling these problems, you know.

People often say, well, I've never committed adultery. I haven't killed anybody. I haven't stolen money. Why should I go to hell? In Revelation 21 .8, there's a list of 8 sins that send men to hell. And the first two are the fearful and the unbelieving.

And then come the abominable, the whoremongers, the murderers, the idolaters and the liars. The top of the list are the fearful and the unbelieving. Mark 16. You don't have to do anything to go to hell, dear people.

If you don't believe in Christ, you cannot go to heaven. We've seen, my faith looks up to thee, thou whammoth, Calvary, Savior divine. Now hear me while I pray. Take all my guilt away. Oh, let me from this day be holy thine.

And that's how men get saved. But we're lost if we don't believe in Christ. I am the door. I am the door, he said. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved. Are you saved? Have you entered in? Have you entered in by the door?

Salvation Through Christ Alone

There was a woman. They called her Holy Ann. You might have read about her. She lived in Toronto. She was so well known when she died. The mayor of Toronto was at her funeral. She'd been raised Roman Catholic.

But somebody one day preached the gospel to her. She couldn't read or write. And she became a true believer in Jesus Christ. And one day she was walking down the street. And the priest saw her walking down the street and he picked her up to give her a ride.

And he took advantage of the opportunity to try and show her the great mistake she'd made. And finally he told her, you know, the apostle Peter is the rock on which our church is built. And Peter has the keys to the door of heaven.

Do you understand that? She said, yes, but? Jesus said, I'm the door. I've got the whole door. I don't care who has the keys. Well, that was good theology, right? I think so. Unbelief prevents God from working.

Unbelief Limits God’s Work

Psalm 78. It says, they turned back and they tempted God and they limited the Holy One of Israel. That is, they limited what God could do through unbelief. In the same psalm, they said, God, you provided water.

Can you set a table in the wilderness? Can God do this? Can God do that? Constantly questioning what God could or could not do. They turned back and tempted God and they limited the God of Israel. In Mark 6 and also in the Gospel of Matthew, we read that in Nazareth, his hometown, he could there do no mighty works because of their unbelief.

Now, if you read all the accounts about Nazareth, up to a certain point, he worked some miracles there. And the unbelief took over and they were saying, well, who does this guy think he is? We know his father and mother.

Who does he think he is? And unbelief took over and from there on it says, he could not do any mighty works except he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. No mighty miracles in Nazareth because of their unbelief.

So whether it's Old Testament or New Testament, it's the same. The God of heaven can work where men are filled with unbelief. And it's the same for your church as for any church in the country. Spurgeon was in the church one time.

He said, the building was filthy. There were cobwebs hanging everywhere. Everything looked dirty and unkempt, untidy. And after meeting, he saw a couple of men leaning against the wall. And he walked over and said, I presume you're deacons of this church?

And they said, how did you know? Well, he said something like this, you look like the building. Wasn't exactly charitable. But there wasn't any faith there. You can sense that sometimes. You get in some churches.

People are not expecting God to do anything. Some people are praying nothing will happen. Because they got some skeletons hanging in the closet. And they don't want them to start clunking around, making a noise.

Drawing attention. So they're hoping nothing will happen. One fellow invited me to come to his house for coffee on a Thursday night. I don't drink coffee, but I was there anyway. My wife drinks gallons of it.

Enough for me. And anyway, he went home and said, honey, guess what? I invited Bill McCloud to come to our house for coffee on Thursday night. She said, what? What are you going to do that for? She said, what if he asks us if we're filled with the Holy Spirit?

What are we going to tell him? Oh, I never thought of that. And they were both petrified to have me come to their house. But what happened, Wednesday night, they both came forward and they met God. They could hardly wait for Thursday night to come.

We had a fantastic time of fellowship. But the wicked flee when no man pursues. But the righteous are bold as a lion. People like to hide their sin. The most useless thing you can ever do is to hide your sin.

Hidden Sin Will Be Exposed

Because it says in Psalm 90, Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of it come. Up in northern Canada, two Eskimos went hunting and one came back alone. He said, my friend wandered away in a prison, I couldn't find him.

I didn't know what happened to him. I searched all over the place, couldn't find him. And they accepted his story and that was that. But next spring, what had actually happened was he shot his friend, he hated him, took him hunting and shot him between the eyes.

And they dragged him to the shore. He was an iceberg not far away. And somehow he got this body into a big crack in the ice. Covered up with snow, couldn't be seen. And that was that. But in the spring, this iceberg was bobbing around in Hudson Bay and somebody happened to go by and saw an Eskimo in the ice with a bullet hole between his eyes.

Went and told the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They went up there with a power boat and chipped his body out. And they found it was this man who supposedly had wandered away in a blizzard. And so the guy's sin was found out.

The Bible says, be sure, be absolutely sure your sin will find you out. Sooner or later, dear people, it's much better to take care of it now at the cross. Get our sins forgiven. He that covers his sins shall not prosper.

Whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy. God is just waiting for us to be guilty. And Hosea chapter 5 goes like this. God said, they shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord, but they shall not find Him.

Listen, if Israel's going to seek God with flocks and herds, it's because they're going to offer sacrifices. Don't they mean business? Why would God hide Himself from them? They shall not find Him, it said.

And in the last verse of that same fifth chapter of Hosea, we're told why. God said, I will go and return to my place until they acknowledge their offense and seek my face. So they were seeking the face of God.

They were not admitting their sin. And we never get anywhere with God when we come to God that way. When we come to seek the face of God, the first thing we've got to talk about is our sin. Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me. You can see it in your wife, and wives can see it in their husbands, but everybody's blind when it comes to their own sin. I've had people tell me, I remember one lady said, I've asked God 50 times to search my heart, and He hasn't shown me a thing.

And I said, then who is lying, you or God? Once she said, I'm not. Well, I said, God is? Gee, where are you getting at? What it says in Job, then He shows them their work and their transgressions that they've exceeded, and He opens the rear to discipline.

And He commands that they return from iniquity. Now, my Bible says that God shows us our sin. You tell me He doesn't. Who's right? I said, why don't we kneel here, and you ask God from your heart of hearts to search your heart, and He did.

And she broke and began to cry, all kinds of junk poured out. She hated the place she was, she was a pastor's wife, and she hated the church they were serving, and hated the town. She'd come from bricks clundering the mountains, now she's up in the prairies now, she hated that.

She hated some of the people, and you know. But she was telling me that there was nothing there. God hadn't showed her anything. There's one thing God can do, dear people, is to show us where we're wrong, where we make sin.

God’s Gentle Discipline and Conviction

Now, David said, thy gentleness has made me great. God is very gentle with His people. He gently leaves those that are with young. It says in Isaiah 40, and every Christian is, pregnant with spiritual young, a possibility.

You can win people, it doesn't matter who you are. My mother led people to Christ. And when she'd gone about four months, one time without winning a soul to Christ, she said to me, I think there must be some sin in my life.

She couldn't understand how she'd go for four months and not meet some of the Christ. Unbelief then it cripples God. It shuts heaven to sinners. When you stop to think of it, the thief on the cross. Jesus said to this thief, now remember he was a thief.

He had never been baptized. He never had any of the seven sacraments. He really had nothing going for him at all. Except faith. Lord, remember me. It wasn't really even what you might call a sinner's prayer.

God be merciful to me a sinner. He never prayed that prayer. He just prayed, Lord, remember me. When you come into your kingdom. And everything was wrapped up in that. And Jesus said, today you'll be with me in paradise.

God doesn't hate us. God doesn't chase us around with a big stick as Moody believed when he was a young Christian worker. He learned better later on. He gently leads us, but very firmly. He doesn't let us get away with anything.

If you can sin and get away with it, you're not born again. Whom the Lord loves, he chastens. And scourges every son whom he receives. If you be without chastisement, whereof are partakers. Then are you illegitimate children and not sons.

That's what God says. So if you're a child of God and you sin and get away with it. Then you're not really a child of God. Hebrews chapter 12 makes it very, very clear. Now unbelief prevents God from answering prayer.

Unbelief Hinders Prayer and Faith

Do you remember the story of the man who had a child demon possessed. And he brought him to the disciples and they couldn't cast the demon out. In Luke chapter 9 verse 1. Jesus Christ had just given the 12 apostles power over all demons.

In the 40th verse of the same chapter. Nine of them tried to cast a demon out of a child and it didn't work. They couldn't do it. So the question is, didn't Jesus really give them the power? Oh yes he did.

But they didn't believe it. And so when Jesus cast the demon out so quickly and easily and powerfully. Afterwards they said, Lord why couldn't we? And he said, because of your unbelief. Now he gave them the power.

They had the promise. That's what it was, a promise. Power over all the power of the enemy. But they didn't believe it. So when they ordered the demon to go, they didn't believe the demon would really respond to that.

And they were disappointed. He didn't. I want you to notice something about the story. Because in Luke chapter 9, the same chapter. They came to Jesus and said, Lord we saw a man cast the old demons in your name.

And we forbade him because he doesn't follow with us. Do you know why they forbade him? Because they were embarrassed. He could do what they couldn't do. And they were apostles. While this guy wasn't even an apostle.

And he could do what they couldn't do. And it was extremely embarrassing. You can understand that. Also in Luke chapter 10. Jesus sent 70 men out. They were not apostles. They were ordinary lay people.

You never read about them again. They were in just one place. He didn't give them power to cast out demons. He told them to heal the sick and preach the kingdom. And they came back and said, Lord, even the demons are subject unto us through your name.

So the 70 had more faith in the apostles then. It seems so strange, doesn't it? But I mean that's exactly what we're reading in the word of God. So when Jesus came down, the Pharisees were needling the apostles because they couldn't cast this demon out.

There's hundreds of people apparently standing around watching. And the child is frothing at the mouth and on the ground. All this kind of stuff. And Jesus came on the scene. Of course the Pharisees backed away.

They were afraid of him. Not of the apostles. And he asked what happened. And the father said, well, I brought my child as a demon and it throws him in the fire. And sometimes throws him in the water.

And then he said to Jesus, if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Now, dear people, that's not faith. If you can do anything. It goes like this. Oh, Lord, if you can do anything. It goes like this.

It's up to you, not up to me. If you can believe. So what Christ was really saying was this. Yes, I want to do it. Yes, I can do it. Yes, I will do it. But only if you believe. In other words, the responsibility was on the father.

Not on Christ. And Christ waits. And it says immediately, the father child cried with tears and said, Lord, I believe. Deal with my unbelief. I mean, faith was there, but unbelief was rising up. And he wanted to believe.

And Christ saw that little spark of faith and cast the demon out. Why couldn't we? Unbelief. Because of your unbelief. All things are possible to him who believes. That's why I say, dear people, it's the number one sin of all the sins there are.

This is the worst. Because it's the one sin from which all other sins come. When unbelief takes over the Christian's heart, anything can follow and sometimes God. Anything. You're supposed to walk in faith.

Faith Grows Through Trusting God’s Promises

Believe in God. These marvelous prophecies. Does anybody remember how many there are? 7 ,487 promises. There's only about 33 ,000 verses. Dr. Herbert Walker, remember, has this all in the book. Certainly, we need to know.

Here's the good thing. When you're reading the Bible, every time you come across a promise, put a big P in the margin. And by the time you've gone through the Bible once, and I hope it doesn't take a lifetime to do that, George Mueller read his Bible through 200 times from cover to cover.

He read it through 100 times on his knees. He wasn't worshiping the book. He was worshiping the God of the book. But 200 times. I don't know where he found the time. He spent three hours a day praying.

And on top of that, he prayed with his wife an hour a day. He said if he didn't pray four hours a day, he couldn't get all the work done. Remember, he was co-pastor with Henry Craig of a church with 1 ,200 members.

That would be enough to keep him busy the rest of his life. He had 2 ,000 orphans in an orphanage and a staff of 250 or 300. He fostered, he founded a missionary organization called Scriptural Knowledge Institution.

And he sent money and men and material around the world. He probably raised more money for the China Inland Mission than anybody. He was a close friend of Hudson Taylor's. But he found the time. And he was a great man of faith.

But he said faith is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes. The less you use it, the weaker it becomes. He said when I started off, and I'll put it in the Canadian or American dollars.

He was talking about shillings and pounds. But he said when I started off, I had difficulty believing God for $5. But the time came when I could believe God for $50 ,000 with no trouble at all for the work of God.

He probably prayed in, if you're thinking in terms of gold currency today, he probably prayed in about $90 million. He never told anybody, ever told his needs or the needs of those 2 ,000 orphans. And he had no government assistance, whatever.

But nobody ever went hungry. Nobody went without clothes. God took care of the whole thing. For years and years. He died, I think, when he was 94. Was active until the last. He made 13 world tours after he was 70 years old.

If you can believe it. But he said it's so simple. God said it, I believe it, that settles it. That's it. There's that Corinth faith, mighty faith, the prophecies, and looks to God alone, laughs at impossibilities and cries, it shall be done.

And cries, it shall be done. And cries, it shall be done. Laughs at impossibilities and cries, it shall be done. So faith doesn't look at the problems, it looks at the promises. And the promises more than take care of the problems.

There will always be problems because man is born into trouble as his sparks fly upward. And he that is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble. Both these texts are found in Job. But forget about the problems.

Forget about the troubles. And believe God. In Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, I had a crusade with a number of churches years ago. And there was a lady attending the meetings, came for counseling. I preached on the prayer of faith.

I said the Bible doesn't know about the prayer of unbelief. But I was talking to James Fodden about the prayer of faith. Now she had three problems. One, she was getting terrible migraine headaches. Used to get them once a month.

Now she was getting them once a day. And then she had a child, eight years of age, a girl, who had some kind of a mental block, who had never spoken a word outside the house. She would talk a little bit in the house.

They took her to some psychiatrist. He said, well, there's a block somewhere we can't get a hold of. We don't know what it is. There's no reason why she can't talk. But she couldn't talk outside the house.

She was going to school. The third thing was her husband. He had a stomach that was so bad, all he could eat was milk and soup. And so she heard me preaching the prayer of faith, and she decided she was going to go whole hog.

She was going to pray for all three things. Well, then she shared this with her pastor. He was a good man, but he said, you know, it may not be the will of God, and man, if God doesn't do it, you're going to fall flat on your face.

You better go careful, sister. And so she decided not to do it. But a week later, came back with a great force, the prayer of faith, the prayer of faith. She decided to pray. I was back in the area about 18 months later, and they had me for coffee, and she told me what happened.

Within 24 hours, oh yeah, the other thing about her eight-year-old was that the kid had never professed salvation. They prayed for him, talked to her, and she just sit there like a dummy, wouldn't say a word.

Within 24 hours, the daughter came and said, Mom, guess what I just did? I just prayed and asked Jesus to come into my heart. And she went to school that day, and suddenly got up in the classroom, all unannounced, and repeated the 23rd Psalm from memory, and he was talking normally ever since.

She said, me, migraine headaches, I've had one in 18 months, only one, and that began when I began to doubt God. And she pointed to her husband, she said, him, he can eat cactus and barbed wire. Well, the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and there may be times, and there are times, when it may not be the will of God for various reasons, to heal the sick.

But mostly, I believe it's God's will to do this. We have to find out perhaps God is disciplining us through the sickness. This happens too. When we search our hearts before God, I think He's far more willing to heal than we are to be healed.

Remember when they prayed in Acts chapter 4? They had been forbidden to preach the gospel. Ever notice how their prayer went? They asked God to stretch forth His hand to heal, and then signs and wonders might be done by the name of your Holy Child, Jesus.

I mean, they prayed for miracles to happen. Why? I know people can see miracles and not believe. We're told that. If they don't believe most of the prophets, they won't be persuaded, even if somebody is raised from the dead.

It says that in Luke 16. Some understand that. But some people are moved to explore the gospel if they happen to see a miracle. Some people. Not by any means everybody. So, it prevents God from answering prayer.

It prevents God from working on beneath God. It robs the Word of God of power. Paul said the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to every woman of God that believes. If you don't believe, it doesn't do anything for you.

Unbelief Robs the Word of Power

I think of two brothers raised on the same wall. No favoritism showed to one or the other. The one boy is in full-time Christian work. The other kid's in penitentiary on a five-year stretch. What was the difference?

One believed, and one did not believe. That was the difference. It robs the Word of God of its power. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, Paul said, he was rejoicing, he said, because, he said, when you receive the Word of God, which you heard about us, you did not receive it as the Word of men, but as it is in truth the Word of God, which effectually works also in you that believe.

The Bible works effectually in you if you believe. When you read the Bible, how do you read it? Some people yawn their way through a chapter or two once a day. And they may miss for a few days. I remember being in a church one time and the pastor pointed out a certain deacon, and he said, he's the best Christian I've got.

He's red-hot for God. It wasn't long after my wife and I happened to be talking to this deacon and he got honest about his spiritual life and he said, I haven't read the Bible or prayed in two weeks.

That was the hottest man he had? Something wrong, terribly wrong. His problem really was busyness. When sometimes we say we're busy, I heard somebody say, we're not busy, we're buzzy. If what I'm doing takes away time from God, then I'm doing something that isn't right.

He expects us to give him, he expects us to give him what somebody has called quality time. Quality time. Abraham was called a friend of God. Remember that? A friend of God. Moses was called a friend of God.