Thank you brother George, it's a good message in song this
morning. It's good to be here.
I'm thankful for pastor allowing me and he asked me to if I would
preach on this Sunday. I'm thankful for the
opportunity. It's always a blessing to stand
behind this sacred desk and preach the word of God.
I believe the word of God is strong and powerful.
I believe it's sharper than any 2 edged sword and I believe it's
something that brings conviction to our lives.
So I thank the pastor for that. I also want to say this, I was
doing real good this week. I was doing real good until
Friday came along and they had lift.
That's when all the ladies get together and they, I think they
discussed the book, don't they? OK, it's not just, it's not
gossip, but somehow gossip enters into it.
And for some reason I was doing real good.
My wife did not know I was going to be preaching today.
I was keeping it a secret and some woman amongst the ladies
that were there mentioned. Well, we need to pray for
Brother Richie, my wife. What for?
What's wrong with him? Well, he's going to be preaching
on Sunday. Really.
She didn't know. I tried to keep these things
secret. I was doing real good.
I was writing my own message. I had one of the astute brethren
here this morning asked me, Doc, if my wife had wrote my message
for me. How did he know that?
Is that some gossip that goes through the church that Sue
writes Jim's messages? What?
No. If you like the message this
morning, I did it. If you don't like it, I'm going
to have a cold dinner today. If anybody wants to know that.
If you have your Bibles this morning, praise God.
You have the Bible, you have the word of God.
Turn over to Exodus chapter 3. A few weeks back, Pastor opened
up to this verse description. I thought, oh, oh, he's going to
preach something that I was going to preach.
No, he went off in a different direction.
We're just going to have this as our jumping off place this
morning in the Word of God. Exodus chapter 3 verse one will
be verses one through 6. Let's do this first, please.
Let's, let's bow for prayer. I need God's hand.
Father, you be glorified today. Lord, it's not about me.
Take Me Out of the way. Remove me from the equation, but
ask your Lord as an instrument in the hands of the mighty God.
Use the words that you've given me, but use the words that are
from your word to bring conviction and working hearts
today. For I pray all this and ask this
in the wonderful name of our Savior.
Amen. Next is chapter 3 verse reading
and verse one if you would with me please.
Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the
priest dominion. He's talking about a flock of
sheep here folks. OK, a flock of sheep and he led
the flock to the backside of the desert and came to the mountain
of God, even the Horeb. Now he came to the mountain.
Understand that I used to think when I read this at first he
went to the mountain. He went up to the mountain.
Have you ever been ever seen Mount Horeb?
It's it's just a big old bunch of rocks up there's there's
nothing for the sheep. There actually be no way hardly
for the sheep to get up there, more of a place that a mountain
goat would abide. And the Angel of the Lord
appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a Bush,
and he looked to behold the Bush burned with fire, and the Bush
was not consumed. Now you looked at this Bush.
It probably wasn't an unknown thing or a weird thing to see a
Bush burn. This Bush would be a cassia type
plant, a Thistle much similar to what we have in the in the
plains states. Tumbleweeds, something dry and
probably sometime along the line, maybe from a spark from
the campfire or something else that Bush would catch on fire
and he would see it burning Within a matter of of seconds,
if not within a minute, that Bush would be totally consumed
and it'd just be blackened and then the ashes would fall to the
ground. But he looked and he saw that
the Bush was not consumed. It continued to burn.
That got up his in his inquisitive nuts and he wonder
what was going on there. And Moses said I will now turn
aside and see this great site and why the Bush excuse me, this
thing fell off my pocket. Why this Bush is not burnt.
And when the one the Lord saw that he turned aside to see God
called him out of the midst of the Bush.
Now I can see him beginning up and walking towards that Bush
and he's going, what's going on with this?
This thing should have been consumed.
And as it got a little bit closer, the Bush talks to him.
Now it doesn't say here, but I imagine he was kind of like,
whoa, what? Haven't you ever had a Bush talk
to you, let alone one on fire? And it was God's voice called
him out of the midst of the Bush and said, Moses, Moses.
And he said, here I am, I'm right here, Lord, I'm right
here, here I am. What, what?
What do you need? What do you go on to say?
He said. And he said, Draw not nigh, hit
her, put off thy shoes from thy feet for the place where in thou
standest get. This church today is holy
ground. This is the first mention of
holy in the Bible all the way here in the exec.
Excuse me, Exodus chapter 3. We find here the word holy.
And God's saying this because the ground was holy, not because
Moses was anybody special. You realize Moses almost 40
years now, he's been the backside of the desert.
He's been, he's run away from Pharaoh.
Why? Because he murdered an Egyptian.
The Bible tells us over in Hebrews that that Moses made a
determination in his life to follow after God by faith, to
follow after God, rather than to to have the pleasures of sin for
a season. I believe Moses living in the
House of Pharaoh, probably knew what some of those pleasures
were. So there might have been some of
that in his life. So he was not, he was not the
reason that the ground was holy. The ground radiated that day
with the holiness of Almighty God.
We serve a mighty God today. I want to say this, my
philosophy in preaching is basically twofold.
First of all, that God receives all the glory and praise.
And secondly, that I leave with those the listeners here this
morning, either a little seed that will bring somebody to
salvation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ as their Lord and
Savior, show them about their sin and their need in life.
Or bring you as a Christian a nugget of something that you can
take with you to carry on in your life in your Christian
walk. So we find here holy.
First, mention it was holy there because why?
Because God was present in the model of prayer, the Lord's
Prayer, many people call it the model of prayer.
We find out the Lord said this to the disciples.
When you pray, pray like this, Our Father in heaven, which our
Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
If you look that up in the dictionary, the first
explanation for the word hallowed is holy.
Holy be thy name. The name of God is to be holy.
It's to be lifted up. It's to be honored and
glorified. God is declared holy throughout
all eternity. If you want to turn over there,
I'm going to go through these scriptures today.
Turn as you can. But in Isaiah chapter 6 verse 3,
Isaiah got to see a glimpse of heaven.
He got to see some Seraphin, which are are heavenly creatures
there. And he found out what does he
say about them? And one cried to another and
said holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
What is what is he holy, Holy, holy.
Now, they weren't saying grace, Grace.
Isn't grace wonderful?
For by grace are you safe through faith?
Not of that's not of our works. Did they could they say mercy,
mercy, mercy? They didn't say mercy, mercy,
mercy. I'm glad Brother Johnny, that
that we have the mercy of God that we don't get what we
deserve. But they didn't do that.
They're crying out holy, holy, holy.
Now let's go forward almost 800 years.
The Book of Revelation chapter 4 verse 8.
This is now John. Revelation chapter 4 verse 8, it
says there John speaking saw the four beasts.
I believe these are the same creatures, heavenly creatures
and they were all. They are also saying holy, holy,
holy Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come.
And the Bible tells us there that they say this day and night
24/7 folks. Now, I know there's no time in
heaven, but they're saying it all the time, giving God the
glory. Holy, holy, holy.
I believe our God is a holy God. Amen.
If I could ask this, I don't know.
I should have thought about it before.
Oh, maybe there's some here. OK, I don't care if it's used or
not. Oh, it was used if you take your
Bibles. Now turn over to Isaiah chapter
40. Isaiah chapter 40.
Isaiah chapter 40, verse 25, if you would please.
This is God speaking. To whom then will you liken me?
You know what man does? He likens all these different
things to God. He'll begin to worship images
and idols and they can't speak, they can't hear, they can't
think, they can't, they can't answer your prayers.
You'll see all religions all across the world that have
certain idols. They bow down through, they burn
incense to them. They do all that.
They can't do anything for them. They can't save them.
They're not God. God says here, come on now, you
have to answer this question, To whom will ye liken me, or shall
I be equal? Is there anyone anything equal
to God? He's asking the question.
Let's go see what he says. He's asked.
He's asking, saith the Holy 1. You see what that says there,
folks? Look at that in your Bibles.
I hope your Bible has this like mine.
Holy One, Capital H Capital, O Holy One.
What does that mean? That means that's his name.
That means that is His name. He is the Holy 1.
He is God, the Holy One. It tells us.
You think? Well, is that the only place
that occurs? Let me read you.
I look this up in Job. Job says exactly like we're
seeing it here. Capital H, Capital, O Holy One.
It's found in Job, chapter 1. Excuse me?
Found in Job one time. It's found in David's Psalms
five times, Jeremiah twice, Hosea twice, Habakkuk 2 times,
in the New Testament, five times in that Isaiah, the book we're
in right now, 30 times. It's recorded.
Holy One. Did y'all Add all those up?
I didn't, But that's a lot of times.
And I think when God says something just a couple times,
we ought to pay attention, let alone all that many times.
We need to get into our minds and our hearts and our lives
that He is the Holy One. He is above all knows all is
all. So many times we want to bring
him down to to some, some idol, some image, some little thing
that we do, whether you're, you know, whether you're counting
beads or all that other kind of stuff, that that's he's the only
holy one. Our God, our great creator is
the holy one. For just a moment, I want to
just focus this morning on the Holy Spirit.
And I know that sometimes in a Baptist Church, we begin to talk
about the Holy Spirit. You're going to think that we're
going to start, you know, dancing up here or people going
to roll around or speak in tongues or do some crazy stuff
like that. So sometimes we're afraid to to
broach that subject because we don't want people to think
different of us. But folks, we need to tap into
the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
We need to tap in to the holiness of God.
If God is the holy one, and interestingly, he calls His
Spirit the Holy Spirit. So we need to talk about that
for a few minutes this morning and I'm going to bring us into
this conclusion in just a little bit, and I think we'll have some
things here that might help you in your walk with God.
First of all, Holy Spirit is real.
He's not just an attribute of God.
He's not just an emanation of God.
He is God, Amen. He is real.
He is part of the divine Godhead.
We find that over in first John 57.
For there are three that bear record in heaven.
And what are those? The Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost. And these three are, I wonder if
we called, I wonder if we'd be all right and not do any harm to
the Scripture if we would say these three are 1.
I believe they are the Holy One. So He's a divine being.
Do you realize that the Spirit of God was there in creation?
The very second verse of our Bible says that it says this.
It says that that the earth was without form and void.
Darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters.
He was there, Amen. I believe He was there.
When the Bible says that God says let us make man in our
plural image, body, soul and spirit.
He were responsible for giving us the word of God.
You love your Bible. I love my Bible.
I'm glad I have I hold in my hand here folks.
I hold in my hand the preserved word of God in the King James
Version for English speaking people.
Second Peter chapter one verse 21 if you're taking notes it
says there for prophecy came not an old time by the will of men,
but holy men see first of all, they had to be set apart not
holy like God, but they were set apart for God of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
He moved them he laid upon their hearts and you see this in
various places in the Bible. One of the message sometimes I
preach is is out of Samuel and there we find that that that
David says that he was given this this of the pattern for the
temple. David wasn't an architect.
I believe that God inspired him. I believe the Holy Spirit moved
on him and he began to draw out exactly what God gave him.
I know, I know Noah was given some idea how to build the ark,
but I believe he, he was never an ark builder.
He was an architect for Arks. I don't think they had them back
then. And he started to do that
because God laid it upon him. God gives us the scriptures
according to what he wants us to have and what he wants us to
know. And the Holy Ghost is the
important element in that. He was at the baptism of Jesus
in the river Jordan and it tells us there.
Luke 322 And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shaped
like a what church like a dove upon him, and a voice came from
heaven. And what did it say?
It said, which said, Thou art my beloved son in thee.
I am well pleased the Spirit of God was there that day, the Holy
Spirit, He was directly responsible for our Savior's
birth, Amen. That virgin birth.
How many believe that Amen. I believe in the virgin birth.
He's directly responsible for our Savior's virgin birth in
Matthew 118. Now the birth of Jesus Christ
was on this wiser. This is how it came to pass or
how it happened says this when as his mother Mary was espoused
to Joseph before they came together before they had
relations. She was found with child of the
Holy Ghost. You know we wouldn't have a
savior born today came the likeness of sinful flesh.
We wouldn't have an Incarnate Savior if it hadn't been for
that right there the Holy Ghost. She had that child within her of
the Holy Ghost and here's here's one of the important parts the
Holy Spirit is needed in our new birth.
Amen. We find Nicodemus came to Jesus
by night. He was he was afraid to see him
during the day because he was of the the Pharisees and high up in
the class of Pharisees and he didn't want anybody to see him
speaking to Jesus. So we found him by night and
begin to talk to him because you know, we've all talked about
you. We know that you're a master and
we know that you know a lot of things about the Bible.
Jesus could have discussed some things with him about that, but
he got right to the point and he said he must be born again.
Of course Nicodemus said, wait a minute, I'm a full size man.
I can't enter back into my mother's womb to be born again.
What are you talking about? He was looking at it literally,
but Jesus meant it spiritually and it tells us there in John
chapter 3 and verse 5. Jesus answered verily, verily I
say unto you, except a man be born of water.
That's that's the fleshly birth women's water breaks and a
baby's born and and of the capital S spirit.
He cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.
You know, unless you've been born again and the Holy Spirit
of God has come and dwelt within you.
You can't get into heaven only through Jesus Christ must be be
saved. There's only one name given
among men whereby we must be saved.
So the Holy Ghost was important as far as in the new birth is
concerned. You can't be born again without
the Spirit of God. You're not going to get into
heaven without the Spirit of God.
Then if we've been, the next thing is, as we've been calling
upon him this week, is he's a comforter of the church.
The Holy Spirit is a Comforter of the Church in John 1426, but
the Comforter. Which is the Holy Ghost, whom
the Father will send in my name, shall teach you all things and
bring all things to your remembrance, Whatsoever I have
said unto you. It goes on to tell us there that
we don't have, we don't have a peace like the world has, but
the Comforter gives us that peace.
Even when you go through a loss, even when there's tragedy in
your lives, even when things happen that we don't care for,
we don't like the comforters there to give us comfort, to be
with us, to see us through those things.
So he's a, he's a comforter to the church.
He's a comforter individual people today.
And I pray, I pray today that he's a comforter to the pastor
and, and his, his, all their family, they're all hurting.
That's something that you don't expect to happen.
We have a son named Andrew. And so to us, that's just kind
of like, oh, we can understand that.
We can understand how we would feel in that situation.
So the Holy Spirit, the comforts to the church next, he's a he
aids believers in prayer in Jude chapter one, verse 20, it says,
but ye beloved, building up yourselves in the most holy
faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.
We also find over in Romans chapter 8 that the Holy Spirit
makes intercession for us with what?
With groanings that can't be uttered.
Have you ever been there in your life?
I imagine. But when something like that
happens and somebody, all of a sudden, somebody instantly is,
is gone from you or something happens tragically in your life
or there's just a terrible accident when you fall to your
knees and you're praying and you're asking God for things
that you don't even know what to say.
You're sobbing and praying and and weeping.
But the Holy Spirit knows he makes that intercession.
It talks with the Father say here's what they need, here's
what they need. He aids us in our prayers.
He's there for us. He makes intercessions for us.
Even with groanings that we can utter, we find that He also
witnesses through us. He witnesses through us.
We all know, Acts chapter 1 and verse 8, that they would receive
power after what? After the Holy Ghost came upon
them, they were to wait there for the Holy Ghost.
It says up in the previous verse.
And then you'll receive the power, and then that power will
allow you to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and
the uttermost parts of the world.
I know a lot of people are going out and they knock on doors and
they do it all in this. But here you just do this and do
this and do this in the Spirit of God is not even there.
And many times I'll get somebody, as pastor said,
they'll get somebody to repeat a prayer.
Well, say after me, do you realize the room could be half
filled with communists today and I could pull out the American
flag and say, let's all stand and pledge allegiance to the
American flag. And so they don't want to show
their colors and they'll get up and put their heart.
They don't mean it. How many people have prayed the
prayer of salvation? They've done that because
someone LED it them through that and they walked away and it
meant nothing. Their life was never changed
because first of all, there's no conviction first.
Secondly, there's no repentance and there was no faith.
You might as well buy a vacuum cleaner from somebody.
I mean, do you just as much good as doing that.
So we need the Spirit of God when it comes time for
witnessing that we allow the Spirit of God to take what seeds
we live or leave and we he puts those seeds in that heart and
let the word of God nurture those seeds and build those
seeds and bring the conviction that they need.
It's the Holy Spirit of God that does that.
Next one. He indwells the believer.
First Corinthians 69 says what?
I always like that. What do you ever do that when
you see your kids doing something, what are you doing?
What did you do? Sometimes we have husbands Hear
that. What?
I'm probably going to hear that later.
What he says, what he says this He says what?
Know ye not? Don't you know this, that your
body is the temple? That temple is like a
Tabernacle. It's like a dwelling place.
This body, the body, physical body you have right there today
is a temple. Holy Ghost, do you realize
you've got part of God living inside you?
Bible tells me that I don't see it.
I don't see it, but I see it. You know why I see it, Brother
Paul? I see it because you're here.
You said the Lord. You love the Lord.
I see it in his eyes. I see it in his heart.
Colossians chapter 1 tells verse 28, Christ in you, Christ in
you, the hope of glory. Years ago for Evangelist Paul
Lambert, I did a an illustration.
It was probably about this high, a young man standing there with
his Bible suit coat on and stuff.
And here he is. And you'd look at him and say,
OK, well that's the guy, some guy that goes to church.
But it's very interesting. You would turn off the lights
and I'd use a black light. And right there, instead of
seeing him, you would see Christ standing there in him, Christ in
you, hope of glory. You want hope of glory, you want
hope of heaven. You want hope of being in heaven
for all eternity. Christ in you, unless he's in
you. One day the Bible tells us it
meant men, men, women, all will stand before God, stand before
the Lord Jesus. And they'll say, wait a minute,
hold on, just give me a word. Can I say a word?
I did all this for you. Hey, I was in church.
I mean, I was good enough to cast out some demons and I fed
the poor and I did this, and I did this and I did this.
And Jesus will look at them and he'll say, I never knew you.
Wow. Why?
Because he never indwelt them. You see, it's a bond, folks.
It's a bond of intimacy. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes
into your life and you know beyond a shadow of doubt you're
saved and on your way to heaven, you can't take that away.
Oh, I felt like times I wasn't saved.
That was my fault. That surely wasn't his.
But you can never take it away. So that Holy Ghost dwells within
us, which is in you, which you have of God.
You are not your own. But we think we're our own,
don't we? So God dwells within this
temple. You know, our body is the temple
of the Holy Spirit. I thought about this I've for
many years now. I realized He dwells within me.
I want to take care of this as long as I can, the best I can.
So live as long as I can for His glory, that He might be able to
use me as an instrument. If I don't take care of myself
and I get something and I die early or whatever, then he, he
can't use me anymore because I'm with Him.
So as long as I can to be used of the Lord.
Next He intercedes for them, directs them in duty first.
John 220 But you have an unction from the Holy One.
There's that word again, folks, in the New Testament.
You have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all
things. That unction means that
earnestness, A fervor, and where's that come from?
It comes from the Holy Ghost of God.
It comes from Him in your life, the Holy One working in you.
All these things give us glory and put and help us focus on the
Spirit of God and what He does in our lives.
On October 28th. I know it's going back a long
time ago, but there's, you know, I don't know where the row of
old guys went, but you know. October 28th, 1969 at Avenue A
Bible Baptist Church in Hutchinson, KS Doctor Paul
Lambert was preaching that day. He was a pastor of that church.
And I can't tell you what the message was.
I can't. As I get older, I can't remember
anything anyway. But I know that day I was
standing there at the time of invitation, and I was one of
those people. I grabbed hold of Pew in front
right here. They were pews without cushions.
I don't even know if the place had air conditioning back in the
day. Man, you know that, Brother
George, you know horses and buggies.
Sorry, brother. And I was holding on that Pew.
It was invitation time. It was prayer time.
The pastor was praying. And I knew that, you know, hey,
I'll bow in prayer. So I bowed my head and I'm
looking down, holding on that Pew.
I'm not letting go of this Pew. I'm not stepping out of this.
They don't know. No, I'm not doing this.
I'm not doing my own flesh was fighting, but I bowed my head
right there and I remember he was saying, you know, in his
prayer have Jesus Christ and died for every one of us gave us
life that we might have salvation.
We might not go to a place called hell.
Hell's real folks. I'm holding that Pew.
My head's bowed. My eyes are closed.
I'm not looking around and I don't know whether it was Paul
Lambert or the Holy Spirit of God that said I heard it
verbally. Isn't that right, Mr. Ritchie?
If it was Brother Lambert, I'm glad he said that because that
was the Spirit of God directing him to talk to me.
And one minute I'm not let go of that Pew.
I'm staying right here. The next minute, weeping, I
stepped out, went forward, and at the altar I accepted Christ.
Amen. Amen.
My sins were gone, all the guilt was gone.
I had my name written in the Lamb's book of life that day in
the blood of Jesus, because his blood was shed.
For me. Being saved changed my life.
If you claim to be saved and your life's not changed, oh, I
think about that. But being saved changed my life.
Before I got saved, I used God's name in vain.
I asked God to damn this or this person or this or or maybe
something happened. I smashed my my thumb with a
hammer and I said Jesus Christ. But I didn't say it in a
religious fashion. I said it in a vain, empty
fashion. I said it in a way of, of, of
uselessness and cursing. But I got to the point I no
longer used God's name to damn anything.
I no longer use God's name to say something bad about somebody
else. And I no longer use Jesus Christ
as a, as a cuss word because I was surprised or alerted or
something happened. I believe most of us here have
been saved for any time. If probably gotten to the point
that maybe, you know, you haven't got everything cleared
up, but at least you, you realize that man God saved me.
He's a holy God. I'm not going to use his name in
vain. But hold on a minute.
There's one person we're not thinking about this morning.
That's God the Father. And we don't use Jesus.
We got one more Holy Spirit. God says, first of all, He's the
Holy One. And that would be all three of
them together. I believe all three in one.
Of course, these three are one. Well, I don't use God's name in
vain. I don't use the God the Father's
name. I don't I don't say Jesus Christ
in vain. But what about the Holy Ghost?
Holy Spirit of God, we find in our day and age that we take
holy and we add any type of vile, dirty, reprobate thing
behind that. Be very careful when you're
listening to certain radio programs and radio shows and
they'll come on there. Oh holy, that's my God.
Is he not as much God as God the Father, God the Son?
Then how dare we drag his name through the dirt?
I'm just going to say these things.
It's in an Oxford dictionary. I looked at the word holy.
Now, first of all, it does. It refers to God.
God is holy. What's that mean?
He's without sin. He's perfect, He's wonderful.
That's our holy God. But it goes on.
There's a second definition. This definition is a informal
use, informally used, an explanation, explanations of
surprise, alarm or dismay. That's when somebody you know,
they, they, what are you talking about?
Oh, holy. And they call out something What
what they used in the dictionary was they said holy macaroni.
Well, folks, macaroni ain't holy.
Why do we attach God's name to that?
I mean, I'm, I imagine Moses up in heaven and he's listening.
He knows what's going on. And all of a sudden someone down
here says, Holy Moses, He's going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa. Hey, don't, please don't do
that. Don't, don't, don't use my name.
Don't get me in any trouble. I don't want you doing that.
Because first of all, he wasn't only God is holy, but our world
today has gone beyond that. And they put all these four
letter words behind holy. And sometimes we as Christians
hold on, We as Christians. Why?
Because I've heard it. I've heard it.
We'll put holy and then something else after it.
A few weeks ago, not our pastor, but a few weeks ago I heard it
right behind this pulpit. I can't tell you what was said
afterward, but that term was used.
I'm going do do you see with me, folks?
Did the Bible not say that the, the Seraphim and these beasts
are going to be going holy, holy, holy?
Does the Bible not say probably 50 times that He is the holy
one? Capital H, Capital O, And it's
the Holy Spirit, Capital H, capital S that lives and dwells
within us. So how dare we take his name
holy and run it through the mud? And I think it's sad because
we've given into given into the world around us because that's
what they do. I remember as a child, how many
of them watched the old Batman? Who was in the old Batman?
What was his name? Adam West and Batman.
And his buddy was Robin, not Robin Hood, but just Robin.
And how many times would Robin use the terminologies?
And we we pick up from that as little kids and then we carry it
into adulthood. You know, he might say holy
Batman or holy this or holy that.
So it began to be used as a term that downplayed God.
Just because the world makes it informal doesn't mean it is
Amen. His word is very important and
this is not to accuse anybody of anything but boy, if that's
something you in your life maybe just never noticed before and
never never put that together. God says in Exodus chapter 20
verse 7, this one of the 10 commandments, Thou shalt not
take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
You shall not lose. You should not use it in a
useless, empty, vain manner. It should not be an informal
manner. Do you remember those that
copied out the word of God as those scribes would copy out the
word of God after they wrote God's name, they'd step away.
They get a new pen, They get a new change of clothes.
Why? Because it wasn't informal, it
was holy above all things because it goes on to say in
that verse, you get this folks, the Lord will not hold him
guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
You say, well, I I didn't realize that.
OK, if you didn't realize what you were doing was causing that
would then just get it taken care of.
Ask God to forgive you for that and just realize that man, I
can't. I'm not going to say that
anymore. Make that commitment today.
I'm not going to use His name in vain for His whole name.
I hope today, based upon what we've seen in the Scriptures,
the evidence we've seen in the Bible, God's holy word.
Do you hold that in front of you today?
I don't know about you, but my Bible says it's a holy Bible
from a holy God that gives us the Holy Spirit.
I guess if I leave anything with you today, please, I've seen so
much of this hurt, so much of this.
Matter of fact, it's been a number of years ago, I preached
this message in down in North Carolina and the pastor's wife
just came up to me after that says, man, wow, I've been doing
that. I've been doing that.
If you're standing with me today, please stand with me if
we get to the invitation time. Miss Hannah's going to come and
she's going to play #2 in your song books.
Holy, holy, holy. Let's bow our, let's bow our
heads, close our eyes for just a moment.
Lord Jesus, we come before you right now.
Lord, if there's a person here today that does not know that
they're born again, a person here today that does not know
that the Spirit of God dwelleth within them, does not not have
that in their life, and they don't know where they're going
to spend eternity, Oh, Lord, that they might come forward
today. We'll take the Bible, the word
of God, the Holy Bible, and show them where they can be saved.
They can know for sure that their name is written in the
Lamb's book of life. That would be glorious.
That'd be great. But Lord, maybe is there some
today that just would come to the altar?
They would just say, you know, wow, maybe that's not an issue
in your life and maybe somebody else you can help them with
that. I mean, honestly, Lord, you know
this, if we watch something, we see something on television,
they, they say holy this or holy that, we turn it off because
there's no different than using your other names in vain.
And that that's just, it's disgraceful to my God.
So Lord, please today, help us to make a commitment to always
lift you up. Help us to see that no matter
what takes place, you are the capital H, Holy capital O1, the
Holy One. And Lord, may we give you the
honor and praise for all this today, Said Your bow and eyes
are closed as she begins to play.
If you have a need today, the altar is open.