Elder Mason Tillery and Elder David Crawford | Primitive Baptist Association 2026 - Saturday Morning 08/01/2026

So thankful to be here.

Thankful that Brother Mike plugged the Rich Mountain Association meeting so I don't have to come up here and tell y'all about our meeting that's less than two weeks away starting August 13th, Thursday night through Sunday morning at Old Union Church.

I don't have to tell y'all that so thank you very much.

So think, you know, coming down here, you know, I knew been here before, been amongst you all, and thinking I was like, you know, I'm closer to them than I even think.

You know, the the three pastors of the the churches here, uh Brother Ron and he and my dad go back so since they were young boys, and Brother Travis, he and our family have gone back.

They both know me longer than I've known me, probably.

Um and so the closeness to our families, and then Brother Mike and I, we've been good close friends since we were teenagers.

And so that so the ones in here, the teenagers, these friendships can last.

Certainly can last.

They have with our family, and ours has, and I trust yours will as well.

Uh, and thinking about it too, that you all have traveled so well, not just the ministry, you all traveled so well up, and I appreciate it.

I really do.

I really do appreciate that.

Um, but that's not why we're here to talk about relationships and things of that nature.

We're here to talk about our Lord.

And the I would like to look at three different people in the Bible and kind of tie their stories together.

We'll look at the prodigal son, Naomi, and Elijah.

If that's piqued your interest, and you're wondering, how is he going to do that?

I'm sort of wondering the same thing.

But if it's piqued your interest, stay interested.

Stay with me.

And trust the Lord will bless this.

So, Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

Start with prodigal son.

Brother Philip ended his comments yesterday afternoon, just right in line with where my comments, my thoughts were, and even he even mentioned about the prodigal son.

And so I trust, trust this is of the Lord.

Luke 15 and 11 said, and he said, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me, and he divided unto them his living.

So the father, the father did.

He gave unto the younger son, here's your inheritance, here's here's my goods.

And not many days after the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with righteous living.

So here he is.

He was living in a good home with a father who loved him, and he just he decided, this isn't fun enough, this isn't exciting enough, and and I have stuff coming to me, I want it now.

So there's so much into that on how offensive that should have been unto his father, and all, but he said, I want it, I want it now.

And he went and he wasted it.

He spent it all.

And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want.

So here, he I would presume he left with quite a bit.

He probably had enough to probably live out his days on, but he just he spent it all, and then hard times came.

Hard times came, a famine came, and he began to be in want.

He was lacking, he was needing.

So then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

So here he is.

He spent all he had, he wasted what was given unto him.

What should he have done at this point?

Well, he should have never been in that position, but what should he have done?

He should have gone back to people that loved him.

He should have gone back to his father, his father's home, and everything, but he didn't.

He went and joined himself to a citizen of that country.

He went and found somebody who he thought was willing to help him, he thought cared for him, but this citizen didn't really care for him.

He just found somebody that he could use to feed his swine.

He had joined himself into someone who didn't love him, someone who didn't have his best interest in mind.

And so here this citizen had given him a job.

Um and he said he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine, and he would fain have filled his belly with the husk that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him.

So not that citizen that was helping him that he came to for help.

No man gave unto him.

There was no one helping him, no one feeding him, no one tending to him in this in this hard time of his life.

But he was starving, and he had nothing, and no man came unto him.

He he left a good life.

He went to have a good time.

He wasted what he had, and now he's in a in a in a pig fin, wishing the pigs had it better than he had.

You know what it says, cast not your pearls before a swine.

No swine will think I'm not casting my pearls before this guy.

He's got nothing.

He's in a bad way.

And he had no man.

I'm gonna leave him here just for a little while while we go look at Naomi.

Ruth chapter one.

Ruth chapter one.

We all know the story of Ruth, right?

I'm joking.

That's a little inside joke.

But we're gonna talk about it.

We're gonna tell, we're gonna tell the story how it started.

We're not gonna get to the good stuff, you know, that uh that most of the times preach upon.

I want to start in the beginning.

It says first verse, first chapter.

Now it now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land.

So here they're already in a famine.

When you think of a famine, we you know, it gets dry.

Telling people in Texas that it gets dry, it gets dry.

And it gets hard to grow crops, but you know what?

HE B always seems to have crops.

When they had a famine, it was hard.

And I don't want to discount the fact they were hungry.

They they were struggling.

So I'm not gonna discount the fact that they were in a hard time, but there was a famine in the land.

And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.

And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi, and the name of his two sons, Malon and Chileon, Ephraithes of Bethlehem, Judah, and they came into the country of Moab and continued there.

So here's Elimelech.

He's got a wife, he's got two children.

They're hungry.

It's a hard time in this land.

But what land are they in?

They're in Bethlehem, Judah.

They're in their land.

They're with their people.

They're in a land, we know how Bethlehem's been blessed.

We know how it would be blessed in the future.

Our king, our Christ, our Messiah, was born.

You know, we know, we now know about Bethlehem, but it's even at that point, they might not have known all that, but they knew it was a blessed land.

They knew God had blessed them.

They knew God's people dwelled there in Bethlehem, Judah.

And they went unto Moab.

What is Moab?

Moab was not a blessed land.

Moab was the enemy.

Uh, we you can read over and over accounts where the Moabites had battled against the Israelites.

They fought against them.

Uh this was in the time of the judges.

There was there was the king there who had just who had just been battling against them.

So I know at the current time they should have known this people battled against our people.

But that's where they went.

They left their people, left their country during a famine, and went to this other people who was not for them, who did not care for them, was not in their family.

But they went.

And what happened?

And Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left and her two sons.

That's tough.

And then they took them wives of the women of Moab.

The name of one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth, and they dwelled there about ten years.

And Malon of Chileon died also, both of them.

And the woman was left of her two sons and her husband.

So here's Naomi.

Her husband's died, her two sons have died.

That is not a good place for a woman in this time period.

She she was in a bad way.

They were, and did the people of Moab come and just gather her up and say, We're very sorry of your troubles.

We want to take care of you.

No, they didn't.

Obviously, they were they were struggling here.

Now I will say, she was blessed with a daughter-in-law that was such a blessing, an outstanding blessing.

God can bless us even when we're away, when we're doing wrong.

God can still bless us.

But but still, it didn't change the fact.

They were in a bad spot.

They were in a bad place.

Um, so I'm gonna leave her here just for a little bit.

I'm gonna try to come back and tell them all together.

1 Kings chapter 19.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

We're gonna look at Elijah.

Probably not 19.

I know it's not an Exodus.

I know that.

1 Kings chapter 19.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

You all should beat me there.

So Elijah had just done some magnificent things.

I mean, he with he went up against the prophets of Baal and had a mighty victory in the Lord.

The Lord had a mighty victory, but Elijah witnessed it and was part of it.

God used Elijah with a mighty victory.

He challenged them, said, Call on your gods, call on my God.

We'll see who will send fire to take up the sacrifice on the altar.

And the prophets of Baal were cutting themselves and making this big display, and he was so bold at the time he was he was mocking them.

Maybe your God sleepeth.

Maybe he went on a little walk.

He was he was feeling pretty confident in his God.

He was feeling good.

He was feeling bold in his God and what and what God can do and will do.

And he was blessed to go and call upon God, and God sent the fire down.

And and then, not only that, he was blessed.

He killed all the prophets.

I mean, it was a mighty bold battle.

This just happened.

He should be riding high.

And then we get to.

I'm still not in King's.

I said I wasn't nervous.

I still don't think I'm nervous.

I just can't find spot.

I'm not afraid of you all.

I'm certainly not nervous to be in your presence because you all love me.

But I don't want to waste time in God's house.

1 Kings chapter 19, that y'all have been at for a while, I'm sure.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.

So this account had gotten back to Jezebel and said, Man, this Elijah, he had he had quite a victory, and he slain all the prophets with the sword.

Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow, about this time.

She was threatening him in a powerful way here.

It's like, if I don't kill you, just let it happen to me.

She didn't, she you know, she she laid it out here.

It's like, if I don't kill you, let it happen to me.

So she she didn't just threaten him, it wasn't a veiled threat, it was a very serious threat.

And when he saw that, he arose and went for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there.

Okay, here's this wasn't a good idea.

He came and he left his servant there, but he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree, and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, It is enough.

Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my father's.

Elijah, you just you just saw a great and tremendous victory.

The Lord blessed you mightily.

What happened?

One threat from one lady here that threatened him, and he just he said, I I'm no better.

Lord, just take me.

Just take my life, Lord.

He went alone.

He didn't take his servant with him, he didn't go and take other servants with him.

He went alone.

He he separated himself from people that would encourage him and love him, and he went out and just said, God, just take my life.

Elijah was at a low point here.

What a low point.

A servant of God, you think, how could he get to this point?

But here he is, under a juniper tree, just asking that God just take his life.

Alright, so we've got three people, and I've left him in three bad spots.

So let's let's see, let's see him get out of this spot.

Let's see.

Alright, I'm gonna bounce back.

Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

And I want to tie this into not just their time.

So this prodigal son, he was in a good house, good land.

Had a father that obviously loved him.

We saw how he received him back.

But he didn't he didn't really know it.

He didn't really understand it.

Are you just coming to church with your family and you don't really know?

Is this important?

What are we really doing?

Just going because my family goes, but I kind of want to go try my own thing.

That's really what he did.

He's like, dad's here, this this home's good, but I want to see what else is out there.

So he went and saw what was out there.

What was out there was no man cared for him.

What he saw was want, need, starvation, famine.

What he found was out there without his father.

It was not good.

It was not good at all.

He'd left that all and he wasted that.

You know, we've been given an earnest of our inheritance.

We've got a great inheritance in heaven, and we've been given a taste of that here.

We've been given an earnest of that.

And we can waste that, not in the sense that we use it up, but we can miss out on the blessings that we should be getting with that earnest of that inheritance.

Don't go wasting that because you want to go sow some wild oats.

God is not mocked.

You will reap what you sow.

Don't go try it out.

We can read here what happens when you go try it out.

Say, ah, this is just playing church.

No, we're not playing church.

This is real.

This is, we're here with our Father has given us a place to come.

He's given us a people that cares for us.

He cares for us.

His people cares for you.

He could have stayed there and had that, but he went and he wasted what he had, and he had nothing and no man.

He should have come back then, but he did finally come back.

And what did he come back to?

He came back.

His father received him.

If you do stray, please come back.

Please come back.

Your father will receive you, and there will be rejoicing in heaven.

I trust we will receive you if you come back.

But don't waste that time.

This time is precious.

The blessings of the Lord are precious.

Don't come back and hear everyone say, Man, did you, were you at that meeting at the Primitive Association in 2026?

What a blessed meeting.

You're like, no, I missed that.

I was out wasting what I had.

I was out trying it out.

I was out on my own.

Don't do it.

It's not good.

You need to be surrounded by people that love you because this world does not love you.

This world is not with you.

It may pretend to be with you, but it's not with you.

It does not love you.

And how will it help you?

It will let you go feed its swine and starve with no man caring for you.

Stay in the house.

Stay with the father that loves you.

Stay with your brethren, brothers and sisters that love you.

I love you.

People in here love you, and I hope everyone knows that.

And I would do whatever I could for you.

Now, I'm limited by distance.

I couldn't help every one of you out.

Lillian, I'll come help you.

You're 20 minutes from me.

But I can't come help everyone in here.

But these people can.

You are loved.

Don't run from being, don't run from the people that love you.

Stay near that.

Stay in the house.

Stay where the Father has blessed us with what he has given us.

Don't go try it out.

We'll be in the pig pen.

You'll be in the pig pen.

And hopefully you'll come to yourself.

Fortunately, this prodigal son came to himself.

So many people go and they never come to themselves.

They just they just swallow in that mire and and they don't feel that relationship anymore.

Does it send them to hell?

Absolutely not.

We know that and we believe that.

Nothing can separate you from the love of Christ.

There's nothing that separates you, but you will be miserable in this life.

He's given us a home.

He's given us a city.

He's giving us a church, a body of believers that care for you.

He cares for you.

And the fact that he cares for you is that he's given you this place.

He's given you this place to come to, to live in.

You know, Ezra, when they were rebuilding the temple, and he was adorning the temple, said for a little space, grace has been given unto us.

He said, there's a pen or there's a nail there that we can fasten to, but he also a place to go in relief of the bondage.

This is a place to go.

This world is not for you, but we have this refuge.

We have this hiding place we can go.

Fasten that nail into this place.

Secure yourself.

It's secure.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the nail that we can come and attach to.

Fasten unto this place.

Don't just come play church.

Be a member of the church.

Love your brethren.

That's how you know you've passed from death and life.

But we love the brethren.

Love your brothers and sisters and love the Father.

How do we show the Father love?

We love him and we love His love His brother, our brothers and sisters.

Fasten yourself into that place.

He's given us this place.

He came back home, and we have a wonderful story.

But he missed out all that time.

Don't miss out.

Don't go into the wilderness.

Don't go into the pig pen.

Now let's go see if we can see what happened with Naomi.

Back from Ruth.

So where we left Ruth, her husband had died, her two sons have died, and she was still in the land of Moab.

She had two daughters-in-law who were, at this point, counting on her.

Sixth verse says, Then she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the country of Moab.

Why did she decide to return from the country of Moab?

For she had heard in the country of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people and giving them bread.

She heard the report.

She'd heard about her people over in Bethlehem, Judah.

She'd heard that the Lord had visited them and giving them bread.

Here she is struggling.

She's lost everything.

But the people back home that she left, and I'm not going to say it was really her fault.

She was.

Her family left.

She was put in this position of being gone.

Now she hears, well, they've been blessed.

God has been visiting his people and giving them bread.

Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters-in-law with her, and they went on the way to return in the land of Judah.

Now we know the rest of the story.

I would assume, like I said, we're not ever just going to assume everyone knows, but it's a good ending to the story.

She came back, and Boaz, a near kinsman, redeemed them, took Ruth as wife, and they were blessed of it.

So when they came back, what did they find?

They found Boaz's servants gleaning in the field.

They had much.

They had food.

They had blessings.

God blessed his people.

They could have been feeling that blessing the whole time.

They could have stayed in the land.

I can't say if her husband would have lived or not lived, but if he still would have died, she would have had people there to care for her.

She would have had people to take her in and lift her up.

But no, they left.

They left the land.

Stay with your people.

This is your people.

Who are your people?

The ones that follow your God.

Stay with your people.

They care for you.

Don't leave because hard times.

You know, the prodigal son was one that just really didn't understand what he had, didn't understand what he was in.

They were in there, but there was a famine.

Is your church struggling a little bit?

Is it kind of a dry season for your church, or maybe just for you?

Maybe your pastor's not preaching real well right now.

Or is it just a dry season?

Does it feel like a famine unto you?

Does it feel hard?

So what do we do?

Don't run to the world.

Absolutely not.

You stay with the ones that love you.

It may be a dry season, but it won't stay dry.

The Lord will visit his people.

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't move from church to church, but don't leave the church.

That's the critical part.

Don't leave the church.

Stay where the Lord is visiting his people.

The Lord is feeding his people.

There may be dry seasons.

There may be.

Don't give up.

Don't leave because of the dry seasons.

Sometimes the dry season might just be your dry season.

But stay.

Press on, press into the kingdom.

Stay where your father cares for you and feeds his people.

He feeds the flock.

Stay with those that love you.

And so they've come back now, and that's what a blessing.

They've been received in.

They've got food abundantly unto them.

They've been given handfuls of purpose.

They've been given blessings.

The skirt had been spread over Ruth.

Our Father has spread his skirt over you, his covering over you.

You are his bride.

The church, the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ, and there's a covering over you.

They shouldn't have left.

Don't leave when times are hard.

Alright, let's go, let's go to Elijah.

So Elijah, alright, so the prodigal son was one that didn't really know what he had.

Naomi, Elimelech, left because things were dry, were hard.

Elijah had just had a wonderful blessing.

Just seeing God pour out a blessing, just a miracle before him.

You think, how could he turn?

How could he get so down?

Just because you see somebody as a giant before you doesn't mean they don't struggle.

Ministers, you can think, I've heard this man preach abundantly, just powerful.

How can he be down?

It can happen.

It can happen unto the ministry, it can happen unto your deacons, it can happen unto the sisters that just are pillars, and you think, how can they get down?

How can they get low?

Because we are sinners.

And there is somebody who wants to remind you and likes to remind you that you're a sinner.

There's one, the devil walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

And he is an accuser of the brethren.

Who does he accuse you to?

He doesn't accuse you to God.

He can't.

But he accuses you to you.

Tells you you're not good enough.

He points that out.

You're not good enough.

You're just a hypocrite.

What do we do with that?

Well, I think, well, like bullies, bullies like to get a reaction.

They like to pick on you.

What happens?

When you kind of joke back with them, they say, well, you're just short.

If you pitch a fit and scream and say, oh, and they get a reaction, they're going to keep telling you that.

But if you say, well, somebody's got to dust the underside of the of the coffee table, you know, if you can do something like that, bullies are kind of kind of let up off of you.

You know, if someone's talking about, oh, you don't talk about you being bald, I don't recommend you making fun of bald people.

Didn't work out too well with Elisha.

Uh the children saying, go up, bald head, and uh she bear came and devoured them.

Don't make fun of bald people.

But if someone is, if someone does make fun of bald people, say, I save a lot of money on hair care products.

You know, they they don't they want a reaction.

The devil wants a reaction.

And he wants to take, he wants to remove you.

He wants you to go out into the world.

He wants you to go latch on to that citizen that doesn't care.

He wants He wants your fellowship to be broken with God.

And he desires that.

So when He tells you you're not good enough, when you feel that within, you know what helps?

I know.

I'm not good enough.

When I look at myself, I'm not good enough.

But I've been made good enough by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

My righteousness is as filthy rags.

I've got nothing to bring before him.

But he's made me righteous, and therefore I can come before God's people and attempt to preach the gospel because of what he has done for me, not because I'm good enough.

He'll tell you you're not good enough.

Say, I know, but I'm still going to press in because of my Lord Jesus Christ and what he's done for me.

Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Get thee behind me, Satan, and he'll keep on.

But keep resisting, he'll flee from you.

Don't give in to those thoughts, thinking you're not good enough.

What are you doing there?

I'm in my father's house.

I'm where someone cares for me.

My father cares for me, and my brothers and sisters care for me, and I'm not leaving.

I put a nail in that place.

I'm fastened under that place.

And my family is going to be in that place.

Because I love the Lord.

Cling to it.

Hold to it.

Cast all your cares on him, for he careth for you.

That doesn't happen in the world.

The citizen of the world does not care for you.

They will use you, chew you up, and spit you out.

The Lord Jesus Christ loved you enough to die on the cross for you, and he loved you enough to leave you church, place to come to, a refuge.

He's given you a place.

He told the Jews, he said, I would have, as a hen covereth little chicks with the rings.

I would have done that to the Jew.

He said, I would have, but they, but they would not.

What a sad verse.

But they would not.

So he would have done that for them.

That tells me he does that for his church.

Now he does that for the Gentiles and the Jews whose heart have turned unto the Lord and not just on the ways of Moses.

He's as a hen covering.

That means we're the little chicks.

We didn't have any defense mechanism.

We keep being called sheep and chickens, and it, you know, it doesn't make you feel real good about yourself.

But what makes you feel good about is the shepherd and the one that's covering you with his wings.

Come tuck up under.

When times are hard, when the accuser of the brethren's accusing you again, just tuck back up underneath the wings of your Savior again with your brothers and sisters.

Don't run away.

Don't go it alone.

Don't go out and just waste, say it just it's not worth it.

I'm just going to go have a good time.

No, that's not worth it.

This is what's worth it.

It's worth being in the house of God.

It's worth being around those that love you and those that care for you.

And even maybe your church doesn't love you like you think they should.

But your God loves you.

Your God loves you.

We're fallible.

And we I might not show you the love that I should.

I might not be there for you like you need me to, but our Father, He's there for us.

And our elder brother's there for us.

He cares for you and He loves you.

And He's given us what we need in this life.

It's not all Rosie.

It's not all rainbows and lollipops.

In this world you shall have tribulations.

But let me tell you, how's your prayer life when things are going pretty good?

I try to pray pretty good when things are going good.

How's your prayer life when things are hard?

It's a lot better.

So we go through hard times, so we lean on him more.

When you go through hard times, your faith is strengthened.

You don't get more faith, but your faith is strengthened because you've used it more.

You're able to use it more and you're able to lean on him.

He said, My grace is sufficient for thee.

He said, My strength is made perfect in weakness.

When we quit trying to use our strength and we use his strength, his strength is made perfect.

Lean on the Lord.

Lean on the Lord's church.

Fasten your life in the Lord's church.

How do we keep our children in the church?

That's a great question.

How do you keep your children in church?

You can't.

You can't make them stay in the church.

But what you can do is live a life in which they see that it matters to you.

When they see Dad really, really loves the church, I think I'm going to keep going.

But if they see you play church, just show up and then leave and just forget it.

And if you find any other reason not to be at church, are they going to find it, make it a priority?

They can overcome that, but you're not helping them out.

The church, lay up for yourself treasures in heaven.

That's where our treasure lies.

Our treasure shouldn't lie in other things.

Lay up for yourself treasures in heaven.

People will see that.

Your children will see that.

It's no guarantee they stay in the church, but it it sure helps.

When they see how important it is, they see that it matters to you.

It'll matter more to them.

Press in.

Cling to the church.

Cling to the Lord's people.

Cling unto the Father.

And don't go through what the prodigal son had to go through.

Don't be wishing you had what the swine had.

Don't go through what Elimelech's family went through where Naomi lost her husband and her sons and was just in a land that didn't love her.

Don't go through that.

And don't do what Elijah did.

Don't send everyone away and go it alone and just get to the point where you think it's better be best if you're not here.

It's absolutely never the answer for you to not be here.

You know, if if you pass naturally, that's one thing.

It is never the answer for you to take your life.

Don't get in that position where you think it'd be better if I'm gone.

It's absolutely not better that you're gone.

You've got a purpose here, and your purpose might just be to pray for me.

Your purpose is to be among the Lord's people.

Your purpose might just be that they can take care of you.

We're supposed to take care of each other.

We need people to take care of sometimes.

You have a place in this life, and if you if you end your life, you've caused problems for your family, your church family, your pastor, you've you've you've you've done some destruction.

Now it will not separate us from the love of Christ, but it sure hurts the people around us.

Press on.

I don't care what the devil's telling you.

You are loved.

You have a place, you have a God that cares for you and loves you.

Press on.

Don't go it alone.

When you're struggling, come tell somebody.

Come tell someone that loves you.

Don't be ashamed.

Don't be ashamed to come.

Minister, don't be ashamed to come to one another and say, I'm struggling.

I'm doubting in myself.

Someone will be there to pick you up.

We're there to pick one another up.

We've been given a place to hold one another up.

Come to your brothers and sisters.

Don't go to the world.

Stay in the house of God.

He loves you.

Your brothers and sisters love you.

I love you.

I thank you for your attention.

Or yesterday, entered at any point previous to this morning, and including the message we heard, I'm confident that like me, your heart is full.

Mine is full, and it's been so wonderful seeing God's people here in this place and joining with you in offering the sacrifice of praise that is the fruit of our lips and giving thanks to his name.

It's been so sweet, so wonderful, and uh I'm hesitant to leave you.

My heart will remain here with you, but duty calls abroad, and so uh we must go.

I'm so thankful for your sweet fellowship and for the kindness I um I don't have the long history that Brother Mason was able to share, and it melted my heart to hear him uh share how God had blessed him over the length of the years with all of you here.

Um but it is amazing, and it's something that only the Lord can do that it doesn't take long for God to join and knit our hearts together.

And uh my heart is knit with yours.

I love you and I pray for you, and I trust that you'll pray for me as we uh leave here.

We have a lengthy uh journey uh ahead of us, so I trust that you'll pray for safe travels that we could arrive to where we go to serve the Lord.

And I would give you an open invitation.

We would be delighted now to have you.

It's the sweet privilege, uh my sweet privilege this morning to be able, I do this for the first time publicly, um invite you all to any primitive Baptist Church in Oxford, Mississippi.

That felt really good.

We um don't just have the hospital, I understand Mississippi's the hospitality state.

Um, but there is a fellowship that exists among those.

Paul said that uh as God had given him grace to preach the unsearchable riches among the Gentiles, he was also given grace to make all men known.

What is the fellowship of the mystery?

I think there's a unique fellowship among those who understand the mystery of salvation by the sovereign grace of God, don't you?

I love all God's people everywhere, I don't care.

Whatever kindred, whatever tongue, whatever people, whatever nation, wherever I find them, I don't know.

Most welcome.

Um and we hope to have a home in Oxford, and we hope to have a home in Clinton, Mississippi, um, and spend you know, part of the week in one place, part of the week in the other place.

Um, well, why don't you just move to Oxford?

Because my wife lives right next door to her son.

And I've been married to her for 46 years, and I'd like for that to continue.

So uh, so um until we are there with the home, we we'd make arrangements for you.

They're wonderful, they're a sweet, precious band just like you all are.

You're welcome.

We'd love to have you.

Um I read um I read a little essay behind a very conservative Christian thinker many years ago, and there was something that he wrote, his name was James Anderson.

He wrote something that uh has resonated with me.

And he said that for the born-again child of God, there are four answers that we need in order to have equilibrium.

That is, in order for us to be able to set steady and walk with some degree of stability in our life.

That is, to have mental, emotional, and spiritual stability.

He said there are four questions that the child of God needs to be able to answer.

Where did we come from?

That's pretty important, doesn't it?

That will inform the way you think about this life.

Where'd we come from?

And um, where are we going?

That's important, isn't it?

What you believe about where you're going.

Um that's critical.

Where'd you come from?

Where are you going?

Then what's the meaning of life?

And how should we then live?

Those are four pretty good questions, aren't they?

And every one of those questions, every one of those questions are answered, believe it or not, they're answered in a person.

And I had tried to preach, I think, um seven times in three days, and he was going to correct me a little bit, and he said, you know, you sure preach a lot about Jesus.

Amen.

Every message, I guess, that weekend had been out of the gospels.

They centered around the life of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's the sweetest charge I've ever received in my life.

I was so happy to receive it.

I hugged his neck and said thank you.

He looked a little nonpluss when I hugged him.

That was not, I don't think, the intended effect.

Listen, my life is not about a religion.

My life is not about a spiritual program.

My life is about a person.

It's about the Lord Jesus Christ.

As long as God will give me breath, I want to talk about him, I want to preach about him, I want to hear about him, I want to sing about him, I want to meditate on him.

It's all about him.

And so let me take this wad of keys out of my pocket, if you don't mind.

It's a 10-pound water key.

The uh the apostle Paul is writing to the church at Corinth.

And I'm gonna say this as kindly as I can.

But you know, one of the reasons I trust the Word of God is on its heroes, the Word of God on its heroes, it leaves all the warts, the pimples, the wrinkles, the scars, the bumps, the bruises, right?

It doesn't cleanse like other quote sacred scriptures do.

And they're heroes, they're perfect, they're unblemished.

The word of God shows us who we are for who we are.

That is no more evident anywhere in all of the scripture than in God's treatment of the church of Corinth, right?

He pretty much exposes them in 1 Corinthians vividly.

And so I say this as kindly as I can.

They were a very arrogant church.

They were.

And they had a lot to overcome.

Um first of all, they lived in one of the most prosperous cities in the Roman Empire.

It was an economic hub, it was an industrial hub, it was a commerce hub, its unique position where it was in the Roman Empire, many roads led to it, it had two ports, it was just, it was very uniquely situated, and they were sharp business people, and they were very affluent, they were really rich, they had high culture, and uh, and they were very, very arrogant.

And that spirit began to permeate the church of the Lord Jesus Christ there.

Though Paul had spent an extended period of time there, our flesh is so persistent.

He had to remind him in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 7.

1 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

He asked him this question.

He said, Let me ask you this.

You're so full and you brained and you have so many spiritual gifts and you're so wise.

He said, Let me ask you this.

What do you have that you did not first receive?

What do you let me ask you, what do you have that you didn't first receive?

How about the breath in your body?

Who gave you the beat of your heart just now?

I'm telling you, I don't think that the health that I have, I'm having from God.

I can't get better from a common cold if God doesn't bless me.

If I have anything, it's because God gave it to me, gave me help to work for it and labor for it and bless me.

Paul said, No, thou didst receive it.

Why dost thou boast as if thou didst not receive it?

They were arrogant.

They felt like I had gotten what I deserved.

They forgot where all the blessings were and they forgot the Christ.

One said that he was a Paul and I'm of a poet.

I'm a spiritual and I'm a line of Christ.

That's right.

So Paul writes to them another thing that made them arrogant.

First of all, they were an imperial city.

Now, not all cities in Rome were imperial cities.

And if you were an imperial city, you had advantages and you had resources that flowed to you that other cities did not.

When cities were doing without during the undulations of economic upward trends and downward trends, you still received imperial resources and you did well because you were an imperial city.

They were probably a little swelled up about their natural condition.

And then they had, so they were Roman imperials, and then they had the Greek culture.

They were informed folks.

Now, you know, in the New Testament, it talks about Jews, Greeks, and barbarians.

Barbarians were, it didn't mean they weren't smart people and they didn't have some level of education and learning.

It's just that they weren't influenced by Greek culture.

That's what a barbarian was.

Because in the Roman Empire, it was a Roman Empire, but it was a Greek culture.

It was a Hellenistic culture.

Stay with me just a few minutes.

You've got to get this.

Got to get the context.

So Corinth was wealthy, it was affluent, they had the stamp of Imperial Rome on them, and the safety that was, and the affluence that that was.

And then they just thrived in the Greek culture.

They were educated, informed, and enlightened people.

And all of that created a spirit of arrogance in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Paul had to deal with it.

And so over in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, Paul makes this statement.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

He says, and God, chapter 4, verse 6, and God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Light, knowledge, and glory, they will be found for God's child and for all of the cosmos in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Jews had light.

Amen?

The Jews did.

You think about it.

For those fifteen hundred years since Moses gave the law before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, it was just one little, small, tiny desert kingdom.

Out of all of the peoples on the face of the earth that had spiritual life.

They had the word of God.

They had the love of God.

They had the testimony of the prophets.

What a blessing that was.

If you can imagine it.

You know, I feel that way sometimes.

I remember when I was a little boy, when I was a little boy, growing up, thank God the first conscious thoughts.

I'm so thankful I was raised that way.

The first conscious thoughts that I had in this world was on the old Baptist church, a bench in the back of the in the back of a meeting house.

That's the first conscious thoughts that I have in this world.

And I remember them singing.

The first things I remember is the church of God singing.

When we all get to heaven.

What a wonderful way to be raised.

Raise your children that way.

The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is the safest place for your family.

The Jews were blessed with it.

They had the word of God.

And so, you know, whenever Paul writes in Romans chapter 2, and he concludes, you know, he's not a Jew that's a Jew outwardly, but he's Jewish Jew inwardly.

Romans 2 · chapter mention

And he makes the case now that in Christ it doesn't matter whether you're Jew or Greek or bond or free, male or female.

And he makes that case very strongly.

But he stops and he pauses.

He says, What then?

What advantage hath the Jew?

Well, what advantage did the Jew have?

Paul stops and reminds us, he says, much chiefly, much every way chiefly, because unto the Jews were committed the oracles of God.

He said, Let's never forget the blessing they had.

They had God's word, and what a glorious word it was.

But by the time Christ came into the world, it was a dead religion.

Instead of using God's law for its intended purpose, the law was to be a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.

And instead of God's law reminding them that they are sinners and in need.

Every sacrifice, every sacrifice should have taught them.

Just like whenever I partake of the Lord's Supper, I'm reminded to my shame every time I take the broken bread and I take the wine into my mouth.

I'm reminded again and again and again that I didn't have what it took.

He had to lay help on someone that was mighty.

And that's what the Jews should have been reminded of in the sacrifices.

But they begin to think that it would be by the law that they would establish their righteousness before God.

They had light, but they misused it.

And so Jesus tells them in John 5.39, he said, Search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life.

They misused it, he said, and they are they that testify of me.

The Old Testament, he said, was a book that was to show me until I come here.

And they missed it.

They missed the fact that he was the skins that God used for the covering of Adam and Eve.

They missed the fact that he was to be the seed of a woman, that would curse the head of that malicious servant.

They missed the fact that he would be Jacob's ladder by which the angels of God had been sending and descending from heaven, carrying the blessings of heaven to the children of God, that he's Jacob's ladder.

They missed the fact that he was God's childhood, unto whom the gathering of the people would be.

They missed the fact that he's the true Lamb of God that would take away the sin of the world.

They missed every bit of that.

And in missing that, they missed the consolation of the universe.

They missed it.

Light.

All light, the illumination of God's will and what he's doing, is to be found in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul quotes that precious Old Testament verse in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 7.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

Whenever Jesus is speaking messianic prophecy, Paul reminds us that Jesus had said, Lo, I come in the volume of the book.

It's written of me.

It's all about me.

It's written of me to do thy will, O God.

And so he came.

And the church has been confessing for the past 2,000 years, and I've heard it preached since I've been here that he did what he came to do.

Praise God.

That's the light that we receive in the face of Jesus Christ.

And then Paul said that all knowledge, so all spiritual light, is in him.

And then Paul said that all knowledge is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I gotta take a little sip of water.

But I used to drink a lot of water.

And I asked my dad, why did I drink a whole glass of water in order to preach 15 minutes?

He took a sip, you know, and preach an hour.

He told me, said, son, it's been my experience takes a lot of water to run a windmill.

That's the encouragement I got growing up.

Knowledge.

Now, I told you it's a Greek culture.

And up to that time and for many years after, Greek knowledge, as you all know, Greek knowledge, Greek learning, um learning and knowledge had reached its zenith on the face of the earth among the Greeks.

And they're philosophers, and their philosophers did a lot of thinking.

They did a lot of philosophizing.

And and they were able to think in ways that men had never thought before and arrange knowledge in some ways that are helpful in some ways.

Mathematics, it's incredible, what they were able to do.

So they glory.

Corinth gloried in its knowledge base.

And the Greeks, their view of God, their knowledge of God was this.

They had uh Hellenized culture had rejected the old gods of Greek, uh, of Greece.

They they rejected the old system of God.

And now they they begin to believe in something uh that, and I'll tell you put it out, George Lucas brought it into modernity.

Uh, it's the force of Star Wars.

It's this nebulous, impersonal force.

That's what the Greeks thought God was.

Um and so Greek, and so they believed that God was impersonal.

And they believed that it was impossible for God to come where they couldn't, they just could not embrace the idea that God could come here.

Um they did believe in this in this knowledgeable intellectual force in the universe that orders things and arranges things, but it's so transcendent, it's so far away from what we are, that that could never come here.

That could never ever come here.

And so I uh and let me say that idea, it's found still in the intelligent design argument.

Um I've met with that, I served on a uh curriculum committee at a state college, and I sat with a group of professors for over a year on this curriculum committee.

I began to visit with a uh biology professor, very kind, very respectful.

And uh he he asked me, you know, what I believe about creation, and I uh I said, Well, I believe in creation.

I don't believe that matter is eternal.

He said, you know, I don't either.

He was very respectful, very kind man.

He said, I don't believe that matter is eternal.

He said, I do not.

He said, I believe in intelligent design, Mr.

Crawford.

He said, I know that you're a Christian minister and uh you believe in creation.

He said, and I I can go a little ways.

He said, I believe in intelligent design.

He said, there is just too complex.

There's too much complexity in the in this in this universe.

There has to be a designer.

He said, and I embrace that and I see that.

But he asked me, he said, you believe that Jesus Christ was God?

And I said, it's all my hope.

He said, he said, no, that's where I have to part company with you.

He said, that's just a bridge too far.

It's just a bridge too far for me.

He said, I just I just can't get that.

I just can't believe that that divine intelligence could come here.

That's a bridge too far.

And as long as John was right in the beginning of his word, the word's with God, the word was God, the same as in the beginning of God, all things are made by him.

Without him is not anything made that was made.

The Greeks were with John on that.

That's uh intelligent design.

They could go with that.

They were the ones that began.

Uh the idea of an intelligent designer 600 years prior to John's gospel, but when John wrote in the 14th verse, and the word, the eternal logos, the word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

It was a breach too far for them.

And they couldn't go it.

And so the first heresy in the church, the first heresy in the church, were a group of people that took their name from the word knowledge, where the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.

A group of people took their name, the first heresy in the church.

Paul deals with it in the book of Colossians and John in 1 John, his first epistle, he deals with these people, and they're called the Gnostics.

And they're, it's an arrogant name.

Their name means the knowing ones.

And uh in the church, they begin to teach this idea that listen, we're a little more informed than all of the rest of you, just you know, mere believers.

We're kind of like your lower division Christians.

We're the upper division Christians, we've got the secret story, we've got the secret truth.

And the secret truth is this is that God was really not manifest in the flesh.

Jesus, what they taught, what the Gnostics taught him, what Paul had to, what Paul had to refute in the Colossian letter and John refuted in his epistle, was they taught that Jesus really was not God in the flesh.

They would teach one of two forms.

They would teach one of two things.

They would teach that it that he was kind of a phantasm.

It just kind of looked like he was here, but he wasn't really here.

No, Jesus was really here.

I've already shared with you, he said, touch me and handle me in his resurrection form, and it reappears for the twelve after his death and his resurrection.

Touch me and handle me, for a spirit hath not flesh and bone as you see me have.

Jesus was not resurrected a spirit.

He was resurrected as he came here in a body with flesh and bones, glorified now.

I believe in the man Christ Jesus with a body.

I believe that there's a man seated on the right hand of Majesty on high today.

He came.

He wasn't a spirit, he wasn't a phantasm.

But the Gnostics, being embracing that Greek idea, just couldn't believe that the holy, that the infinite could come down here with the finite and the unholy is.

They believed that uh he would become that God would become contaminated if he came here.

He could not come here and walk in this same cursed earth.

And let me tell you, this was a foul place for Christ to come.

I often wonder what it must have smelt like.

This thing cursed earth, this place where there's dying and decomposition and sin abound.

What must it have smelled like in his holy nostrils as he breathed in this noxious air that we breathe?

But he came.

He came.

They said, well, um, the other thing that they believed, well, he was he was a man with a high God consciousness, and uh he had a heavy, heavy uh spirit on him, but that spirit left, the God part of him left when he went to the cross.

The God, he's verily God and verily man.

And so let me say this: Jesus died, his body died, but his spirit went back to God.

It went back to heaven that day.

The only reason that he could pay for our sins, you think about it, the uh the wicked will, how sobering is this, the wicked will be in hell for all eternity because a finite creature will never be able to satisfy the righteous and holy demands of an infinite God.

Amen?

But because he was God on Calvary, God could do what men and women who were in eternal separation, he could do in three hours what they will not be able to do in the whole eternity because he was God.

It's a great mystery.

It is.

Paul didn't apologize for that.

He said in 1 Timothy 3 16, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness that God's manifest in the flesh.

We must always confess that.

And that's the glorious knowledge of God.

It's amazing.

In Christ.

If you want to see true knowledge, Paul, when he frightened against the Gnostics in Colossians chapter 2 and verse 3, he said, In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

If you want to see what the knowledge of God looks like and the wisdom of God looks like on full display, look at the Son of God.

It's amazing, isn't it?

All of his glorious attributes are on display, especially at the cross in him.

So he is the knowledge of God incarnate.

He's the light of the knowledge of God.

He's uh God sent forth uh that light to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.

So for just a few minutes, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

So Jesus, he's glorious.

He is glorious.

Now, whenever he was here in the world as the lowly Nazarene, he veiled his glory in a body of flesh.

But he's glorious today.

Unabated glory.

And uh I I will tell you, I he's he's glorious and he's there in heaven.

He's the glorified Son of God.

But I really think there's there's coming a day in which the glory of God is going to be put on full display in a unique way.

And we'll mention that.

But he is um he is glorious.

Glorious in his appearance.

Glory.

In the uh Old Testament.

Now remember, God is shining this in our hearts.

He's giving us glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

It's being shared with us.

Light and knowledge and glory.

And this is where it gets very sweet to me.

So Jesus Christ is God and He is glorious.

In the this is one in the in the Old Testament, there are several words that are translated glory from the Hebrew.

My favorite word that really talks about the glory of God, which is the glory of Christ, is Christ is God, second person of the Godhead.

My favorite Hebrew word that's translated glory in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word kaboth.

And that word for glory, it's, and all the others are certainly glorious, no pun intended, but this one, kaboth, it really resonates with me.

And it literally means heaviness, weightiness.

Something that's heavy or weighty, that has great mass to it.

So um in our solar system, our planet.

Planets revolve around the sun.

And you know why?

Because of the weightiness of the sun.

Because of the mass of the sun.

It keeps us, that mass, you know, I know Christ upholding all things by the word of his power, but he uses oftentimes the laws of physics to do that.

And the mass of the sun, the heaviness, the weightiness of the sun is sufficient and just right to keep us in the perfect orbit, going around us.

We're not leaving, going anywhere else.

We're not going around Jupiter because Jupiter doesn't have sufficient mass for us to orbit Jupiter.

We're going to orbit the sun because it's got the greater mass.

It's heavier than Jupiter.

And I'm telling you, all of the universe, all of the cosmos, everything it is, everything is orbiting around the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ because he is weighty and he's mighty.

That's his glory.

It's all about him.

The Apostle Paul talks about the glory of God this way in the last verse, the 11th chapter of the book of Romans, and he describes the kibbutz of God whenever he says, Of him are all things.

Through him are all things, and to him are all things.

All of this universe is flowing to him.

It's going to reach its zenith at the end, at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's why he says, four times in the book of Revelation, he says, I'm Alpha and I'm Omega.

Listen, when God begins to repeat Himself, it bears us paying attention.

And four times he says, I'm Alpha and I'm Omega.

I'm the beginning and I'm the end.

I began it all and it's all flowing to me.

I'm the Omega point.

Why is the Omega point?

Because he's that glorious.

His glory brings it all to him.

You say, what about Satan?

He is going to bring Satan to his glory.

And at the end of time, at the end of redemptive history, Satan is going to be compelled to come to bow before the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and Satan, that old serpent, so glorious and so heavy and so mighty and weighty as the Son of God, that Satan himself, that foul serpent, is going to be compelled at the end, before Jesus, to bow his knee and to confess that Jesus Christ is the legitimate ruler and maker, that he's Lord to the glory of God.

That name that's above every other name, Satan's going to have to confess it.

That's glory, isn't it?

That's incredible glory.

Men like Frederick Nietzsche, who has done as much in his wicked philosophy, did as much to create the lack of stability in our nation today.

His wicked philosophy has underpinned much of the thinking and modern thinking in our culture today.

And it was Frederick Nietzsche who wrote that godless book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

And in that book, Nietzsche got so bold and so pompous to declare in his writing, he says, God is dead, and we have held his funeral.

Nietzsche's got a surprise coming to him.

One day, Nietzsche's gonna have to bow and say, God is not dead.

He's gonna bow and say, Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father.

He is.

Because Christ is waiting.

We went to Yosemite, been to Yosemite several times.

It's glory as part of God's creation.

I like to go there, and there's a river that runs beside the road that leads you to the Central Park headquarters, and by that road there's a great river.

And if you go when the spring falls happen, the river is angry and it's rushing and it's mighty and it looks just like an unstoppable, irresistible force.

But every once in a while on the road, you'll come to a huge rock, a boulder the size of this church, and that boulder in the middle of that water.

That boulder that's in the middle of that angry, rushing river, that boulder is so weighty, it's so great, it's so massive, that the water will begin to swirl.

It attracts the water, that water that's rushing will begin to swirl around and come back to it because of the mass of that rock.

There'll be a pool on the other side that water swirls into.

That's what is happening in this universe.

It's all flowing to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's from him and it's all about him.

Now, here's the good news about the glory of Jesus Christ, and this is what's so overwhelming to me.

It's amazing.

So the Apostle Paul says to a new partner.

I quoted the Apostle Peter calling him Paul like I did by the Jush the other night.

He got a battlefield promotion to the governor of the state of Florida the other night.

Peter Running to a Sure.

What are you wrong to people who are suffering?

What do you say to them?

He said in 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 10, he said, But the God of all grace, I don't care what you're going through, God's got grace, equivalent to what you're going through.

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

No matter how great the trial may be, God's grace is sufficient and sustainable.

God had grace for them.

He had a message of grace for them in the midst of all that.

And Peter said, But the God of all grace, which has called you unto eternal glory by Jesus Christ.

You know what Paul was saying?

That after you've suffered a little while, the Lord established strengthen and settled you.

After you've suffered in this while, in this world, there is coming a great day.

Though you lay your feeble body down in this world, God is going to pour on you the same glory that the Son of God enjoys, the God of all grace, which has called you to eternal glory.

Now listen, when I began trying to preach for the old Baptist over 50 years ago, I had a head full of hair.

I looked a lot different than I do today.

But my glory has faded.

What little natural glory I had has faded.

But there's coming a day for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ when we're going to wake up in the morning of the resurrection and we'll receive glory that will not fade away.

And when you think about that glory that we're going to receive in contrast to where we are and where we've been, if you'll think really about what we are and what God has promised to shed on us, it gets overwhelming sometimes.

Whenever I think about what little Hannah said in 1 Samuel chapter 2 and verse 8, and he says, He lifted the poor out of the dust.

1 Samuel 2 · chapter mention

That's where we've been.

We're just little dust dwellers.

That's what we're made up of.

Whenever you die, if you uh take away all the water, over 75% of you water, you got just a little dust left in an urn.

And Hannah said, There's coming a day in which he's lifted the poor up out of the dust and he's raised the beggar.

This is, you think about this.

And I grew up working on a cattle ranch, and I was the youngest one when I went there.

So you know who cleaned out the horse stalls?

I did.

I made a lot of dung hills whenever I was growing up.

And that was the most disgusting place on the ranch was the dung hill.

And that's where we were before Jesus came to us.

We were in dung hills.

He said we were beggars.

God found us in the dung hill.

And he says that he's lifted us, he's raised us up out of the dung hill, and he set us among princes.

He's made us royalty, and he's made us to inherit what?

A throne of glory, if you can believe it.

Hallelujah.

What a savior.

One day little dust dwellers are going to go away from the dung hill.

That's what Isaiah promised.

In Isaiah 26, he said, Thy dead men, this is the Messiah speaking to his broken people who have lived in the dust and among the dung hill of this earth.

He said, Thy dead men shall live again.

Together with my dead body shall you arise.

Awaken sing, you that dwell in the dust, and there's coming a day whenever the Son of God comes back the second time without sin and to salvation.

And he's going to say to the north, give up to the south, keep not back.

Bring my sons from afar, my daughters from the end of the earth.

They've been in the dust long enough.

Bring them forward, and he's going to visit us with glory.

I love what David said in Psalm 68, verse 13.

Psalms 68:13

He said, Though you've lain among the pots.

You know what he's talking about there?

That's the way you describe a garbage dump back there.

Their garbage dump was filled with bits of broken pieces of pottery.

God's people have laid among the pots of this world, the trash dumps of this world, in sin and in uh deprivation and in depravity.

But this is the promise of God because of Jesus Christ.

We see it in him.

Because of Jesus Christ, though you've lain among the pots, though you made your living in the garbage dumps in the trash heaps of this world, yet shall you be, uh yet shall you be as the wings of a dove covered with silver and feathers of yellow gold.

So uh what's glorious about that?

Your feathers.

He said, the wings of a dove.

Now, a dove's a beautiful animal, beautiful creature.

I apologize for all those that I've shot in dust feel.

But they are beautiful.

They're beautiful creatures.

And God describes our redemption this way.

He said, I'm gonna give you wings to fly above the uh depravity and the darkness and the dumps of this world.

You're gonna do it uh with wings covered with silver.

Silver is the uh is the medal of redemption.

We are going to have glory.

We're going to glory, not because of anything that we have done, but we've been redeemed.

We've been redeemed by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He has justified us freely by his blood.

We're redeemed by blood.

The silvery redemption that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that gives us feathers of yellow gold.

And gold we know in God's word represents glory.

It's the uh it's the uh medal of kings, the crown of kings uh are made out of gold.

Uh the streets of heaven, the asphalt of heaven itself is made out of gold.

It's a glorious place.

I had a brother at home asked me one time.

I was preaching on the streets of gold in heaven.

He said, You don't really believe the streets of gold are literally made out of heaven.

Don't you believe that's a symbol?

Don't you believe that's a metaphor?

Don't you believe it's a symbol?

And I said it may be, but I wouldn't put it past God.

I wouldn't.

I know it's going to be a heavenly place, a glorious place because Christ is there, and we're gonna be with him there, and we're gonna be there in glory because he's made us.

He's made us just as spotless and as sinless and as righteous as his precious son is.

We are going to have glory.

The apostle Paul says, and I leave with this, the apostle Paul said this, who shall change our vile bodies?

You know what that word means there, the bodies of our humiliation.

I say it to my shame, but I brought humiliation on the Son of God.

I have brought shame and reproach on his name.

But there's coming a day which I will shame his name no more, because he's gonna change my vile body and fashion it likened unto what?

His glorious body.

How's he gonna do that according to the working whereby he's able to subdue all things even unto himself?

Right.

It's gonna be a glorious body.

I was preaching a funeral one time at the grave side.

The brother came up to me and I was preaching the resurrection.

We believe in the resurrection of the body.

And the brother came up to me afterwards and he said, Now listen, preacher, he said, uh, I believe God created this earth, but uh, I believe God's powerful.

He said, But you and I both know there have been folks that burn up in houses, their ashes were scattered, men blown up in wars, and uh people that were lost at sea, and the fish ate them, and the fish ate that fish, and another fish ate that fish.

He said, It's just not reasonable to think that it's really going to be, and let me say this, we don't just believe that it's gonna be the resurrection body, but we believe the same it that goes in is the same it that's coming out, but glorified.

It is sononatural, it's raised the spiritual, not another one.

I believe in personal identification and glory.

I believe it's gonna be David Crawford, as we heard preached here this morning, uh, this weekend, who loved me and gave himself for me.

They recognize Moses and Elias on the Mount of Transfiguration, the same it that goes in, same it that's coming out, but glorified.

And he said, but I just I can't believe he can get it all back.

That's just that's that's too much.

He said, How can you believe that and preach that?

I said, Well, there's no problem.

I believe he had the power to get it all together to begin with.

I believe he can get it back together again, don't you?

That's the Lord.

May God bless you and keep his mark word.

The Lord is so good, and I'm so thankful that we were gonna be.