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The light for
God's people increases until the perfect day, and the last generation
will have more light than any previous generation. Spiritual light
is equivalent to truth, and when we receive light or truth we have
more responsibilities. So not only do we have more light today,
but we also have more responsibilities. In studying about the last
generation this morning, I would like to begin with Luke 12. Now
Jesus is talking about the time when probation is going to close
and He is going to return to this world. That's the subject in verse
42. We will read verses 47 and 48.
"And that servant
who knew his master's will, and did not prepare himself or do according
to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not
know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten
with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will
be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will
ask the more." Luke 12:47, 48.
What is the
principle here? The more truth that I understand, the more responsibility
I have to the Lord to obey that truth. Is that true or not? That's
true, that's what this text teaches. Before printing was invented
the common people never had a Bible. No! Never! They couldn't afford
it. You had to be very wealthy to own a Bible. There were scholars
that went to libraries. Martin Luther didn't own a Bible; he went
to a library to read the Bible. It is very interesting that the
art of printing was invented just in time for the Protestant reformation.
That wasn't an accident!
As a result
of printing and the Protestant reformation, almost everybody in
the world can have a Bible. There are still a few places in the
world where people are very, very poor and cannot afford to purchase
a Bible, so Christians from Western countries are sending Bibles
into countries where it is hard for people to get a Bible. Today,
all over the world, people have access to the Bible, and there are
translation groups such as the Wycliffe Bible Translators.
John Wycliffe
is one of my favorite reformers to study. When I was in England
a few years ago I went to Lutterworth where his church was. There
are still pictures of him in his church and memorabilia from the
time in which he lived. John Wycliffe was the first person that
gave the common people the Bible in the English language. He was
born in 1324.
As a result,
we have access to the Bible today. Common and poor people all over
the world can get access to the Bible. Do we have more and more
responsibilities because of this than people who lived 600 years
ago? Do we? We have a lot more responsibility.
Principle number
one is that the more truth I understand, the more responsibility
I have. Here is principle number two:
Nobody is lost
because they are deceived. Did you know that? Nobody is lost because
they are deceived. There will be people in heaven who were deceived
on many different things. Being deceived about something is not
what causes you to lose your soul. This is what causes you to lose
your soul: if you understand truth and reject it and don't follow
it, you're lost. That is a principle.
We could read
a few texts, but instead of reading texts, I will just illustrate
it with a little story. In the Garden of Eden, why did God tell
Adam and Eve they had to leave, they had to die? The Bible says
that Eve was deceived. Was she sent out of the Garden of Eden because
she was deceived? No! That wasn't the reason; nobody is lost because
they are deceived. But Eve disbelieved God and she rejected the
truth that He had told her. What had God told Adam and Eve in Genesis
2:16, 17? He said, "In the day that you eat of it you shall surely
die." They died spiritually that very day, they died physically
later.
Eve rejected
the truth that God had told her and that was the reason she was
lost. Because of the plan of salvation she can be saved. God gave
the human race a second chance. We need to always remember that
this life we are living might now is our second chance. There's
not going to be another chance after Jesus comes--this is the second
chance right now.
Nobody is lost
because they are deceived, but people are lost when they reject
truth. We see that in the experience of Eden. Let's read about the
end of the world in 2 Thessalonians 2. Here is a bunch of people
that are deceived, but you will notice that they are not lost because
they are deceived, they are lost because they rejected the truth.
It's talking about those who are deceived by the anti-christ power
at the end of time. And notice, 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12. It says,
"With all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because
they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they
should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not
believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
What is the
problem? The reason they're lost is not because they were deceived;
the reason they're lost is because they rejected the truth! Is that
what you see there? If you reject truth, you're lost. Now with that
principle, let's go to a third one. In the last generation God sends
a message of truth to the entire world, and after you receive that
message of truth, that message of truth draws a line for the entire
world.
That happened
when Jesus came the first time. Let's look first of all at John
15. Jesus is talking here about the Jewish nation and notice what
Jesus says in John 15:22-25. Jesus says, "If I had not
come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have
no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If
I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they
would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me
and My Father. But this happened that the word might be fulfilled
which is written in their law, 'They hated me without a cause.'
Jesus says,
"If I hadn't come and spoken to you what nobody else has spoken,
then you wouldn't be guilty. If I hadn't come and done the works
among them that nobody else has done, they wouldn't be guilty."
But when Jesus came and spoke the truth and He worked the works
of God among them, they were responsible for the truth that Jesus
told them. And they rejected it.
You see, nobody's
lost because they were deceived. But if the Lord makes it possible
for me to understand truth and I say, "No, Lord! I don't want to
know it," then I've rejected it. I've lost my soul when I reject
truth. Remember John 14:6. Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth,
and the life." If I reject the truth, who have I rejected? I've
rejected Jesus! He is the truth. Jesus said that everyone who is
of the truth hears His voice, that's what Jesus said to Pilate,
you'll find that in John 18. Everyone who's of the truth hears His
voice. If l don't want to know the truth, then I've rejected Jesus.
Now in the last
generation, Jesus sends a message to the entire world. Look in Revelation
14:6, 7 and it tells you distinctly here that this message will
go to the entire world. And what is the message that Jesus says
He's going to send to the entire world in the last generation? What
is it generally called? The Three Angels' Messages--the Gospel.
It includes the Gospel, that's verse 6.
It's exciting
today that the Three Angels' Messages are being preached all over
the world-- in Japan, China, the Far East, in the Islands, Australia
and New Zealand, in Africa, the Middle East, in Europe, Russia,
North and South America--it's being preached all over the world.
Now the Bible doesn't say that everybody will accept it, but Jesus
said it will be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations,
Matthew 24:14.
Now when the
Gospel, when the Three Angels' Messages is preached in all the world
for a witness to all nations, what happens to the world at that
point? You're responsible for the truths that God's has sent to
you-- whether you accept it or reject it. Now I would like to spend
the most of our time together talking about those who accept it,
but just for a few moments let's look at what will happen if I reject
the truth.
In the latter
part of Revelation the fourteenth chapter you notice that there
are two harvests. Look in Revelation 14. We'll look at the harvest
of the grapes of wrath. If you reject the truth, what will happen?
Notice, verse 18. "And another angel came out from the altar, who
had power over fire, and he cried with a loud cry to him who had
the sharp sickle, saying, 'Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather
the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully
ripe."
Now this is
the concept that we need to fully understand about the last generation.
What happens in the harvest time? Every plant comes to full maturity
in the harvest time. Is that right? Now this is a shocking concept
to study through. In the harvest time, the last generation is the
harvest time, every, not only physical plant, but also every spiritual
plant comes to full maturity.
Now we already
read it in 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12, what is going to happen if I
reject truth? The Lord's going to send me strong delusion, I'm going
to believe a lie. And when I believe a lie, who is going to get
in charge of my life? Evil spirits.
Revelation is
full of warnings on this point. For instance, look at Revelation
16. This is talking about the last generation. And it says here
in Revelation 16:13, 14 that "I saw three unclean spirits like frogs
coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast,
and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits
of demons, performing signs [that is miracles], which go out to
the kings of the earth and of the whole world."
Who is this
whole world that it's talking about? It's talking about the whole
world that rejects the truth. And they're going to come under the
control of who? The spirits of demons!
Now the Bible
talks about the devil as being a deceiver, a liar. Revelation 12:9
says he deceives the whole world. How do you deceive somebody? How
does the devil deceive? Well, you say, he tells lies. He tells lies
all right. And he makes people think that what is happening is the
exact opposite of what's really happening! We see this happening
in our world today. I suppose with the work that I do that I go
to a lot more funerals than most of you go to. But there has been
a new development in the world in the last ten years in regards
to funerals. If you're a preacher and you go to funerals all the
time, you see something that has dramatically changed in the world
in the last ten years.
A number of
years ago, a funeral was a time of sadness and mourning. Now that's
as it should be. The Bible's very clear that when somebody dies,
it ought to be a time of sadness or mourning. But we have a new
development in the Western world today. Do you know what people
are told to do today, have you noticed lately? They're told to celebrate!
This gets your mind mixed up. Did you know that during the Dark
Ages people were told that when they saw a martyr being burned at
the stake that they were to celebrate? It's a way to get your thinking
all mixed up.
When the devil
leads people to the Battle of Armageddon in Revelation 16:13, 14,
when the devil leads them into the greatest Baffle of all time,
where are they going to think that they're going? We could read
the text in Isaiah 2, Micah 4 or 1 Thessalonians 5. They're going
to think that they're going into a time of everlasting peace! The
Bible says that they're going to say, "There's not going to be anymore
war. There's not going to be any war, we're going to have peace!
We're going to have a thousand years of peace!"
By the way,
Ellen White saw this very time in vision. You can read about it
in the book Maranatha, 209. She said that she saw our people
[that is Seventh-day Adventists] in great distress. She said that
the wicked were all around us, mocking us and they were taunting
us with words calculated to cut deep. They were saying to us, "The
angels are among us, and miracles are among us, and we've entered
a millennium of peace. The whole world is in harmony with the Sunday
law. And if you people would conform, then everything in the whole
world would be right, we would have peace throughout the whole world.
It's going to
look like for just a little while that they're going to have peace.
But the Bible says that they're going to walk into the biggest war
of all times. And when the war's over, not a single one of them
will be left alive, that's Revelation 19, because they're going
to get into a battle with the Lord.
So if I reject
truth, what is eventually going to happen to me, what's going to
happen to me in the last generation if I reject truth? Evil spirits
are going to get control of my mind. And we read in Revelation 14
that the grapes of wrath were how ripe? They were fully ripe.
Now the Holy
Spirit is called, in the Bible, the Spirit of Truth. If I reject
truth, what am I doing to the Holy Spirit? I'm rejecting the Holy
Spirit! I am grieving the Holy Spirit. Can the Holy Spirit be grieved
away so that the Holy Spirit doesn't work on my mind anymore? Is
that possible? Does the Bible talk about the possibility of committing
a sin that cannot be pardoned because the Holy Spirit has left me?
A lot of people
who haven't thought this through think that they can repent and
change their ways anytime they want to, but that's not true. Unless
the Holy Spirit brings to you a change of heart, you can't do it
yourself. You can't change your heart yourself. But if a person
rejects truth and they are grieving the Holy Spirit away, then what
is happening when people do that? What are they doing as a whole
group? The Holy Spirit is not working and the devil moves in.
Ellen White
wrote in her day that the Spirit of God is slowly but surely being
grieved away from our world. And then what happens? Evil spirits
get control of peoples lives. And the result is that the grapes
of wrath will be fully ripe, or, in other words, if we were to just
use common, simple language, people develop a spiritual character
just like the devil--they're a reflection of the devil's character.
The grapes of wrath are fully ripe.
"Oh," somebody
says, "that will never happen to me, I could never get that bad!"
As I've studied this subject, I've realized that we don't know how
bad we can get. We have no idea what could happen to us if we reject
truth and we come under the control of evil spirits. We have no
idea what can happen in the human heart if we come under the control
of evil spirits, and that is what is going to happen in the world
in the last days. Everybody in the world is going to go in two directions
and there's going to be just two groups of people.
There's going
to be one group of people that is just like the devil. If you're
part of the devil's kingdom, you break God's law, that's part of
the rules. "He who sins is of the devil." 1 John 3:8. And there's
going to be another group of people much smaller that are going
to follow the truth and they're going to become ripe too. In fact,
it says in 1 John 3:1, 2, "Behold what manner of love the Father
has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore
the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.. . And
it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that
when He is revealed, we shall see Him as He is." There's going to
be another group of people that are going to be a reflection of
the character of Jesus. That's the group that I want to be in, do
you?
I want to study
with you for just a few minutes this morning what can we do to cooperate
with the Holy Spirit so that we are a part of the wheat harvest.
Notice: the wheat harvest takes place at the same time. You see,
as a result of the Three Angels' Messages being preached in all
the world, that's in Revelation 14:6-12, the next thing you have
is the harvest of the earth. And the first harvest mentioned is
the wheat harvest, and that is harvested by the Lord Himself.
The wheat harvest
is mentioned in verses 15, 16. It says, "And another angel came
out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the
cloud, 'Thrust in your sickle and reap, for the time has come for
you to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe." This is the
wheat harvest, this is the harvest of the saints, this is the harvest
of the saved. "So He who
sat on the cloud
thrust in His sickle in the earth, and the earth was reaped."
The wheat harvest
is ripe too. There are people who have chosen to follow the Lord,
and the Holy Spirit has worked through their lives until their character
is a reflection of the character of Christ. What I want to know
is, how can that happen in my life? How can I be part of the wheat
harvest so that I'm fully ripe? It would be too bad for the wheat
harvest to come and to not be fully ripe. But the Bible says that
we are going to be fully ripe-- we're either going to be part of
the grapes of wrath or we're going to be part of the wheat harvest,
one or the other, we're going to be fully ripe.
Let's look at
a few Bible principles, a few Bible texts. How can I be a part of
the wheat harvest, those people that reflect the character of the
Lord at His coming? The first text is2 Corinthians 3:18. It's speaking
to those who follow Christ, "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding
as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into
the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the
Lord."
What is the
principle in this text? I'll state it for you in very simple English:
it is a law of the human mind that by beholding we become changed.
Read that text again and see if it doesn't say that. As we behold
as in a minor, he says, the glory of the Lord, what happens to us?
We're changed into the same image by the Holy Spirit.
I have a few
questions to ask you. I don't want you to answer, I just want you
to think. I want you to think about your own life. What are you
beholding in your life? Is it easy today to behold acts of sin?
It's easier than it has ever been! When I was a boy you had to wade
through the commercials to look at it; you don't even have to do
that now. You can go to the video store and spend 100% of your time
looking at acts of sin. If you look at evil, what's going to happen?
You're going to become evil, because it is a law of the mind that
by beholding we become changed.
I don't keep
tract of this kind of information I'm going to talk to you about
now. I don't want anybody to be uneasy. I don't go into anybody's
home, anywhere in the world, and then write down what I saw or talked
about--I'm not into keeping records. The angels keep all the records,
so I don't need to keep any. In fact, I don't even pay any attention
to whether a person has a television in their home or what they
have and I'm not looking to see what magazines people have in their
homes or anything. But I want you to think about this for yourself.
The books you
read, the magazines you look at, the pictures you look at, the television
or the videos you look at--whatever you look at, when you chose
to look at that you are surrendering your mind to an influence,
and it is going to have an affect on you. Now sometimes I meet people
that are having a terrible struggle in their Christian walk and
they can't understand why they're having such a terrible time. It
seems so hard to follow the Lord. And they don't realize they're
being educated by the hours and hours of T.V. And so it is hard
to follow the Lord when you're being educated by the devil if you're
watching his kind of programs and listening to his kind of music.
"Well," somebody
says, "Pastor John, what are you talking about?" Just read the ten
commandments. If what you're watching is breaking any of the ten
commandments, you are being educated in evil. That's just the way
it is! By beholding what happens we're changed.
Whose image
would you like to be changed into? If we're going to be saved, we're
going to be in the image of Christ. So what do we want to spend
our time, what do we want to look at? This is a very famous statement
that Ellen White wrote in the book The Desire of Ages, 83.
"It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day in
contemplation of the life of Christ. We should take it point by
point, and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the
closing ones. As we thus dwell upon His great sacrifice for us,
our confidence for Him will be more constant, our love will be quickened,
and we shall be more deeply imbued with His Spirit. If we would
be saved at last, we must learn the lesson of penitence and humiliation
at the foot of the cross."
Oh friend, are
you spending time studying the life of Jesus? People say, "How am
I going to change all my bad habits?" One of the most efficient
ways is to get the focus of your attention on a Person who has a
perfect character, and it will change your mind. You will be changed
into the same image.
I like all of
the Gospels, but there are two Gospels that I decided a few years
ago that I was going to make a specialty of my own. One of them
was the Gospel of Matthew. After I memorized that I decided I was
going to study the Gospel of John, so I memorized that. I still
study each one of those books every single day; I don't need the
Bible to study them anymore, I can study them without a Bible.
One time a few
years ago I was going to Three Angels' Broadcasting Network with
my brother Marshall and Ron Spear. We were traveling by car and
we went through some thunderstorms, and by the time we got there
it was one o'clock in the morning. Well, you're tired when you have
to go on television the next morning and you get in bed at one o'clock
in the morning. And the next morning I woke up and I was sleepy
and I said, "I'm not going to wake anybody else up. I'm just going
to have my devotions right here in my sleeping bag on the floor.
I'm so tired I'm not even going to open my eyes. I have the texts
all memorized and l'm going to start having my devotions." I was
going through the scriptures on the life of Christ. And when I got
done, I got up.
A little later
that day Ron Spear said to me, "You know, I woke up early this morning
and I decided I wasn't going to wake anybody else up, so I decided
that I'd just lay in my sleeping bag and I'd have my devotions right
in bed." I said, "Well I was doing the same thing." And what was
he doing? He was going over what he had memorized from the Bible,
the Word of God.
"Well," somebody
says, "I can't memorize a whole book." You can memorize a whole
chapter! Everybody can. Several years ago, when I was preaching
in Australia and we were traveling around from several places in
the country, the roads were so bumpy I could not read. And so I
said, "I'm just going to lay back and close my eyes and study the
scriptures I've already memorized." So I started going through the
book of Matthew. And I went through the book of Matthew, and as
a result, I took some notes and after I was through quoting I had
about thirty sermons outlined. Now I've never preached them, I have
hundreds of sermons outlined that I'll never preach in this world,
there's not enough time, but it sure was a blessing to me to study
it out.
I want to tell
you friend, if you have not made a detailed study of the life of
Christ, you can meditate on His life every day of your life and
you will never get tired of it, it will get better and better and
more exciting and more wonderful all the time. And it's so much
better than what most people are wasting their time thinking about.
What does it
say in 2 Corinthians 3:18? As you behold the glory of the Lord what
does the Holy Spirit do in your mind? It changes you into the same
image! Do you want to have that experience? You can have it, everybody
can have it. Everybody has time, we all have the same amount of
time, we just use it differently.
When I was in
college I had a job for awhile. It was my responsibility to clean
restrooms. I've spent I don't know how many hours cleaning toilets
and urinals and mopping floors and cleaning out sinks and those
things. In commercial restrooms those things get so messed up that
you can't just walk around with a brush, you have to get rubber
gloves on and get cloths and scrape them. So I had this job and
frankly it was boring. You know, you just stand there and you're
trying to get it clean and it doesn't take any brain power at all,
it's just boring. And I thought, What am I going to do?
I needed the
money, so I made out some cards with some Bible verses on them and
put them in my pocket. Before I started each job I'd look at each
verse and so I had something good to think about while I was doing
this job. I don't know how many verses I memorized, many verses.
At that time I was memorizing passages out of Isaiah. I can still
say some of them today that I memorized while I was cleaning toilets.
Everybody has
time. It's just, what are you doing with your time? There are some
people that have spent all of their time beholding the works of
sin and they're getting more and more like the devil. That's just
the way it is, that's the way it happens. But there's going to be
a group of people that spend their time studying the One that is
altogether lovely. I want to tell you friend, I know it's so, because
I've spent a little time in my life studying His life and He is
altogether lovely.
You can never
have the most happiness that you can have until you know Him. And
the better you know Him, the more happiness you're going to have,
and the more you study about Him, the more happiness you're going
to have. For those of you who are interested, here are a few especially
enlightening chapters from the gospels of Matthew and John that
would be a tremendous blessing to you if you decided to memorize
them.
Number one:
from the book of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5--7.
The Sermon on the Mount, by the way, contains the Lord's Prayer,
so you already know a little bit of it. And then, from the gospel
of John, there are four chapters that Ellen White has counseled
us to especially study, and if you are ever in trouble and you know
these chapters, it will be a tremendous blessing. Those are chapters
14-17.
I've just given
you seven chapters, you can memorize them anytime you want. You
can make a special study of them and you will find that you will
receive a great blessing. If we want to be a part of the wheat harvest,
if we want to be a reflection of the character of Jesus, the first
principle was that it is a law of the mind that by beholding we
become changed. And so if we want to become like Jesus we need to
spend some time studying Him everyday.
Here's the second
principle: John 12:25, 26. "He who loves his life will lose it,
and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal
life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there
My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will
honor."
Jesus said,
" If you want salvation, follow Me." That's what He said to all
the people of His time. That's what He said to His disciples, He
said, "Follow Me." When He said, Follow Me, He wasn't just talking
about following Him with your two feet so that you are goingwhere
He was going, He's talking notjust physically, He was talking spiritually.
Now I have a
queslion to ask you: Jesus isn't here in the flesh now, so how do
you follow Him? How do you serve Him when He's not here in the flesh,
how do you do that? He says, "If anyone serves Me, let Him follow
Me and where lam there My servant will be. Let him follow Me." There
are some people that think that it would be a great privilege if
they could go to Jerusalem, orto Jericho, or to Nazarath and actually
see where Jesus was. And there are people who have spent thousands
of dollars on tours so that they could see the lake of Galilee and
say, "Well Jesus was right here and they think that's wonderful."
But friend,
you can follow Jesus without going there. You can follow Jesus and
never leave the city limits of Wichita. How do you follow Jesus?
The way you follow Jesus is by living the way He lived. Now let's
just see how He lived. We'll read one verse. This is in Matthew
20:28:
"Just as the
Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give
His life a ransom [that is a redemplion pricel for many."
What did Jesus
do when He was here?Acts 10:37, 38 says He went about doing good
and healing all who were obsessed with a devil. What did Jesus live
for? Let's turn it around completely opposite. What did the devil
live for? And what do all that are following the devil live for?
Who do they live for? Themselves! You study the way that sin first
entered the universe, look in Isaiah 14 where it describes the fall
of the devil and he said, "I'm going to do this and I'm going to
do that, I, I, I." Sin began by self-seeking. And if I'm spending
my time serving myself, I'm developing a character like the devil.
That's the kind of character he has.
Jesus said that
He came to do what? Not to be served but to what? But to serve.
When you study the life of Christ, it's an amazing thing! His entire
life was in service for other people.
You can go through
any of the Gospels and you'll find that He spent His entire life
in service for other people. He served the sick, He served the rich
and brought them salvalion, He served the poor, He served the downcast
and the outcast and the lepers and those that were possessed with
devils and His own enemies. He even brought salvation within reach
of His own enemies if they wanted it. His whole life was spent in
service for others.
If I want to
become a reflection of His life, I must learn to become a servant
of others. By the way, the greatest service that you can give to
any other person is to bring eternal life within their reach by
helping them to understand the glad tidings. That's the greatest
service you can do. But often times people aren't ready to receive
that, they don't even understand the importance of it and they're
not ready for it. Jesus often healed people of their physical diseases,
people that were lost! And as I read that I thought, These people
were lost, they hadn't even received the Gospel yet, what was He
doing? He was serving them. And as He served them He realized that
He loved them. When He had their confidence, He said to them, "You
follow Me and receive eternal life."
Oh, friend!
This is one of the reasons, one of the big reasons, that there is
so much unhappiness in our homes. We're wanting to serve ourselves
and we think the other people should make us happy. That's what
the devil wants too. He wants other people to make him happy. The
Lord's program is just the opposite, heaven works on a completely
different principle. As I become like Christ, as I am following
Him I live to make other people happy. In fact, I can get so interested
in making other people happy that whether or not they make me happy
doesn't even matter, because I'm happy when I see that they're happy.
That's the way
it is in heaven, everybody up there serves others. And we must have
that spirit if we're going to make it. Are there other people in
your family that aren't saved? Are there friends that you have that
aren't saved? Are there neighbors that you have that aren't saved?
Now you may not be able to help all of them to be saved, but if
you live a life of service like Jesus did, that's the way that you'll
save the most.
When you're
following Jesus, over and over again the question arises in your
mind, What can I do for this person? Now the greatest good you can
do is to help them to have eternal life, but if they don't want
that yet, maybe you can do something else for them that they will
appreciate when they find out that you are interested in them.
When Jesus comes
there's going to be a group of people in the world that are just
like He is. As you get to know Him and you know His love, you put
your trust in Him because you know He'll never do you wrong. And
when you put your trust in Him, He gives you the ability and the
power to obey His commandments so that you can be happy.
You see, all
true obedience comes from the heart. Jesus obeyed His Father's commandments
from the heart. And to be ready for Jesus to come, my heart has
to be changed so that I follow Him and I obey Him and I do His will
because I want to--it's in my heart to do it For that to happen,
the Bible says I have to have a new heart--that's what conversion
is all about, getting a new heart so that I want to do God's will,
I want to obey His law and I want to serve my fellow man.
The two principles
of the ten commandments are to love the Lord with all your heart,
soul, and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. When you love
your neighbor as yourself, you become a servant to the needs of
mankind. Friends, there's going to be a group of people at the last
that have this fully developed experience, through the power of
the Holy Spirit, and I would like to be a part of that group, would
you? If you would like to be a part of that group too, I'd like
to invite you to kneel down and pray with me.
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