WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:29.800 It's such a precious season that's thanksgiving. 00:29.800 --> 00:38.800 And there's so much to be thankful about, but there's just one thing I wanted to be thankful about this morning of a thousand things I could call to mind's eye. 00:38.800 --> 00:45.800 We had such a good time at our little school here last week, and it's called the first thanksgiving of the pilgrims. 00:45.800 --> 00:55.800 If you'd like to think of thanksgiving besides a commemoration to a greasy dead bird, there's something more to thanksgiving than just turkey. 00:55.800 --> 01:00.800 And though I love it, there's something better by far that God had in mind for such a thing. 01:00.800 --> 01:09.800 And so pick that up and as you men gather around on the table there at Thanksgiving, speak of these things. 01:09.800 --> 01:14.800 And I wanted to just use this as a way of saying what I'm thankful for. 01:14.800 --> 01:19.800 And our theme this morning will be Philippians 4 verses 6 and 7 where it says, 01:19.800 --> 01:23.800 The Lord is at hand. Be careful about nothing. 01:23.800 --> 01:33.800 But in everything, give by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, your requests should therefore be made known unto God. 01:33.800 --> 01:38.800 Prayer and thanksgiving and your requests being made known unto God. 01:38.800 --> 01:42.800 The Lord is at hand. Be careful about nothing. 01:42.800 --> 01:50.800 Gracious Heavenly Father, I thank you for the gift of life for this exquisite day for the word being preached all over the face of the earth. 01:50.800 --> 01:54.800 And bless our loved ones. All be with Huey and Dale as they're coming home tonight. 01:54.800 --> 02:04.800 And as we see our film and enjoy our fellowship with these two precious saints of yours, Father, how to thanksgiving we are having before thanksgiving. 02:04.800 --> 02:10.800 And we do thank you for our young people and their promise and their hope and their joy that we have in you. 02:10.800 --> 02:14.800 In Christ's sweet name we pray. Amen. 02:14.800 --> 02:19.800 You know what I could say? This is the subject that Billy Graham preached to John F. Kennedy. It was a terrible time. 02:19.800 --> 02:25.800 And way back there in close to 65 was a time when Cuba had big rockets pointing to us. 02:25.800 --> 02:32.800 And here was a busy, busy man, the strongest nation on the face of the earth with problems that few men will ever have ever again on the face of the earth. 02:32.800 --> 02:38.800 And it is amazing to me at a time of great crisis in our world, he called Billy Graham and asked, 02:38.800 --> 02:42.800 Can you tell me something about the coming of the Lord Jesus? 02:42.800 --> 02:48.800 Now, you may not agree with John F. Kennedy, but that was a smart thing to ask about. 02:48.800 --> 02:51.800 What about the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ? 02:51.800 --> 02:57.800 On this preeminent thanksgiving season, I am so thankful that Jesus is coming. 02:57.800 --> 03:00.800 For the Lord is at hand, be anxious in nothing. 03:00.800 --> 03:05.800 And when he says be at hand, he's talking about the brawlers left hand. 03:05.800 --> 03:10.800 I don't know if you've ever encountered such a thing. If you want to see what it looks like from the side, 03:10.800 --> 03:14.800 that's what happens when someone gives you a strong left hand in a great big hurry. 03:14.800 --> 03:19.800 When he says the Lord is at hand, it is exactly that, preeminent, no telegraphing. 03:19.800 --> 03:24.800 Now, if you're really sharp, you'll see the punch coming, but you're not going to see this punch coming, friend. 03:24.800 --> 03:28.800 And I believe that there's an attribute here for that preeminence that's very important. 03:28.800 --> 03:33.800 You've got to prepare now for his coming, for the Lord is at hand. 03:33.800 --> 03:41.800 And I really believe that the Lord is at hand, and you're not prepared to dodge it in the last moments that come. 03:41.800 --> 03:44.800 I wanted to read something because there's always a fool that says, 03:44.800 --> 03:48.800 America doesn't have anything to do with God and its founding or in its getting together. 03:48.800 --> 03:55.800 But I want you to know that William Bradford recorded this in his own chronicles in 1641, the following words. 03:55.800 --> 03:59.800 They began now together in the small harvest that they had. 03:59.800 --> 04:04.800 And to fit up their houses in dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength, 04:04.800 --> 04:06.800 and had all good things in place. 04:06.800 --> 04:08.800 Well, you'd think these guys had it in space. 04:08.800 --> 04:11.800 Well, you'd think there was no problem in their life at all. 04:11.800 --> 04:15.800 Listen to the kind of funny little way they went about to celebrate their Thanksgiving. 04:15.800 --> 04:22.800 For as some were thus employed in fairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing about cod and bass and other fish, 04:22.800 --> 04:26.800 of which they took good store, of which every family had a little proportion. 04:26.800 --> 04:29.800 All the summer there was no want. 04:29.800 --> 04:35.800 And now began to come and store a fowl as winter approached, of which this place did about when they came first, 04:35.800 --> 04:37.800 but afterward decreased by degrees. 04:37.800 --> 04:40.800 See, every time man gets together, he messes up nature. 04:40.800 --> 04:47.800 And besides water fowl, there was a great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison and so forth. 04:47.800 --> 04:53.800 Besides, they had about a peck of meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, 04:53.800 --> 04:56.800 end in corn to that proportion. 04:56.800 --> 04:57.800 And I listen. 04:57.800 --> 05:02.800 And thus they found the Lord to be with them in all their ways, 05:02.800 --> 05:05.800 and to bless their outgoings and their incomings, 05:05.800 --> 05:09.800 for which let his holy name have the praise forever, 05:09.800 --> 05:12.800 and to all posterity. 05:12.800 --> 05:14.800 Oh, and I hear some jerk say, 05:14.800 --> 05:16.800 America has nothing to do with God in its beginnings. 05:16.800 --> 05:17.800 You know, you just ought to go, 05:17.800 --> 05:19.800 because you know better. 05:19.800 --> 05:21.800 Here's the man who brought them here. 05:21.800 --> 05:25.800 And I want you to know this, that out of 144 people, 05:25.800 --> 05:30.800 exactly one half of them, 72, had perished. 05:30.800 --> 05:34.800 There was only one of four families out of the group of families who came there, 05:34.800 --> 05:37.800 where a mother or father was still alive. 05:37.800 --> 05:44.800 And I want you to know that they gave God praise for corn and gruel and turkeys and venison, 05:44.800 --> 05:47.800 even though half of them were dead, 05:47.800 --> 05:50.800 because they wanted to give us a country the world has never seen since. 05:50.800 --> 05:54.800 And I praise God for that and give him thanks for it. 05:54.800 --> 05:59.800 I'm even more thankful at this season for something that John F. Kennedy learned on that day, 05:59.800 --> 06:01.800 after four long hours. 06:01.800 --> 06:03.800 A man whirled about world problems, 06:03.800 --> 06:08.800 and he wanted to know what these people were talking about as he kept hearing 06:08.800 --> 06:11.800 in his busy schedule that the Lord was coming. 06:11.800 --> 06:15.800 Jesus was coming, for the Lord is at hand, be anxious in nothing. 06:15.800 --> 06:18.800 Now there's four studies that we can make of this. 06:18.800 --> 06:21.800 There's four receptive techniques that we can see here. 06:21.800 --> 06:24.800 First of all, we can laugh at it or mock it or be a scoffer. 06:24.800 --> 06:27.800 Secondly, we can just stay ignorant and don't know. 06:27.800 --> 06:32.800 And I'm glad that our president in those days didn't want to stay ignorant about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. 06:32.800 --> 06:37.800 And the third thing is, and often is preached in Christian churches around the world. 06:37.800 --> 06:40.800 Well, he is coming, but it is not relevant. 06:40.800 --> 06:45.800 And the fourth thing, which makes a lot more sense, he is coming and I'm going to do something about it. 06:45.800 --> 06:48.800 That's really a wise person, is it not? 06:48.800 --> 06:51.800 And so there are some proper attitudes I'd like to go over with you. 06:51.800 --> 06:54.800 First of all, we need to be looking for his coming. 06:54.800 --> 06:56.800 And I'm thankful that he's coming, see. 06:56.800 --> 06:57.800 Titus 2.11 says, 06:57.800 --> 07:00.800 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all man, 07:00.800 --> 07:04.800 teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, 07:04.800 --> 07:09.800 we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this very present world, 07:09.800 --> 07:19.800 looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. 07:19.800 --> 07:21.800 We need to be otherworldly, he says. 07:21.800 --> 07:28.800 We don't need to be dealing with the worldly lusts and we need to be denying the ungodliness we find around us. 07:28.800 --> 07:32.800 The Lord is at hand, be anxious in nothing, he said. 07:32.800 --> 07:36.800 Now, this needs to be preached more often and not less. 07:36.800 --> 07:41.800 You know, this is everyone's business, not just a preacher or datesetter's business. 07:41.800 --> 07:43.800 It's more important than that. 07:43.800 --> 07:46.800 This is not for just prophets or datesetter's, 07:46.800 --> 07:50.800 but this should be preached because it's preeminently God's business. 07:50.800 --> 07:52.800 He's sending his son to straighten out the world. 07:52.800 --> 07:58.800 In the short letters, it's one verse in 25 that we speak of his specific coming. 07:58.800 --> 08:04.800 50 times in the New Testament and one verse in five in Thessalonians, 08:04.800 --> 08:08.800 which was to a little baby church, they weren't even in mature yet, you see. 08:08.800 --> 08:15.800 I reckon it's close to 20% of the verses of the New Testament deal with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. 08:15.800 --> 08:17.800 In Hebrews 9.28, we see, 08:17.800 --> 08:22.800 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many unto them, 08:22.800 --> 08:28.800 that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin and to salvation. 08:28.800 --> 08:34.800 Yes, it was so marvelous and went out across the highway there and here was a great bald eagle. 08:34.800 --> 08:36.800 And he was so awesome. 08:36.800 --> 08:39.800 This great bronze bird and there was something on his mind. 08:39.800 --> 08:43.800 And, you know, Lucicephalus, the white head of the, 08:43.800 --> 08:45.800 now that's a bit, that's a word bigger than mayonnaise, 08:45.800 --> 08:46.800 but I apologize for that. 08:46.800 --> 08:47.800 I didn't really mean to say that. 08:47.800 --> 08:52.800 That is a bird who has something on his mind. 08:52.800 --> 08:57.800 And I can just imagine this little rabbit there in the snowy brush is this great monster like this. 08:57.800 --> 09:04.800 With his eyes, I swear you could see a, at quarter of a mile away, you could see his eyes piercing, piercing. 09:04.800 --> 09:08.800 And were I to be a bunny rabbit, I would be down under the ground. 09:08.800 --> 09:14.800 Is where I was because he was looking and what an eagle looks for, he often finds. 09:14.800 --> 09:15.800 Isn't that an awesome thing? 09:15.800 --> 09:22.800 I still will never in my mind, I forget that great big bird looking for those things which he sought to find. 09:22.800 --> 09:26.800 You'll find in your life exactly what you are looking for. 09:26.800 --> 09:31.800 And I think of that as Jesus will, when he comes out to claim his bride, his sweetheart, the church, 09:31.800 --> 09:36.800 will he send out great eagles together in as the eagles whirl about the body. 09:36.800 --> 09:42.800 He said in that, Luc, he said, so will the coming of the son of man be, and there's going to be anything left out. 09:42.800 --> 09:48.800 Anybody left behind, he's going to see everything and everything will be garnered into his great kingdom, 09:48.800 --> 09:51.800 which we will deliver up with his father's right hand. 09:51.800 --> 09:54.800 Now, it needs to be preached often. 09:54.800 --> 09:56.800 It needs to be told often. 09:56.800 --> 09:58.800 The Lord is at hand. 09:58.800 --> 10:00.800 He's a perimeter as a left jab. 10:00.800 --> 10:08.800 He is ready and he is coming and he is seeking whom he will find out and nothing will be left behind. 10:08.800 --> 10:15.800 Well, if we are looking for him and his soon appearance, we shall be a rewarded people. 10:15.800 --> 10:18.800 But we're going to look and not gazing idly by. 10:19.800 --> 10:21.800 Now, we need to be a busy people. 10:21.800 --> 10:25.800 In Luke 19, verse 11 and 13, but especially 13. 10:25.800 --> 10:29.800 In 11, he had introduced the subject they were wanting to come back. 10:29.800 --> 10:31.800 He had left that they wanted to come back. 10:31.800 --> 10:33.800 But in verse 13, we hear these poignant words. 10:33.800 --> 10:35.800 I hear a lot at night. 10:35.800 --> 10:38.800 I do more thinking at night than any other time. 10:38.800 --> 10:44.800 The taedium witty of life, the busy, busy hubbub of life, doesn't allow me to think much during the day. 10:44.800 --> 10:48.800 Become the evening in the quiet hours is when I began to really think. 10:48.800 --> 10:50.800 Maybe you're a little bit like that. 10:50.800 --> 10:56.800 There's time to digest the events of the day and to look to those things which are coming. 10:56.800 --> 11:02.800 I think for every biblical scholar, you need the quiet hours of the night and the still watches of the evening 11:02.800 --> 11:06.800 in order to really digest what God has for us. 11:06.800 --> 11:10.800 For he said these words, occupy until I come. 11:10.800 --> 11:14.800 That word is pragmatiomahi, and that's the word pragmatic or practical. 11:14.800 --> 11:17.800 Keep busy doing something until I come. 11:17.800 --> 11:18.800 What does that mean? 11:18.800 --> 11:21.800 Mama, if the baby's crying, change its diapers. 11:21.800 --> 11:23.800 Or daddy, one or the other. 11:23.800 --> 11:29.800 And I'd say this, if there's someone bleeding in the field then, or some little creature's bleeding, go feed it. 11:29.800 --> 11:32.800 If there's work to be done, go take care of it. 11:32.800 --> 11:33.800 Keep busy. 11:33.800 --> 11:39.800 If this day and age was the idea of going away and hiding and waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus 11:39.800 --> 11:43.800 to crawl into caves and to go to the tops of mountains and the wilderness, 11:43.800 --> 11:47.800 and they're seeking for the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ. 11:47.800 --> 11:48.800 Don't you do that. 11:48.800 --> 11:55.800 The church needs to be occupied not in caverns and not in mountains and not in forests of the world, 11:55.800 --> 11:57.800 but it needs to be shining out like this morning. 11:57.800 --> 11:59.800 It needs to be going into the prisons. 11:59.800 --> 12:01.800 It needs to be going into the hospitals. 12:01.800 --> 12:06.800 It needs to be going into the schools of our land and teaching and preaching a better gospel 12:06.800 --> 12:09.800 for the world isn't happy with the gospel that it really has. 12:09.800 --> 12:12.800 They don't know that, but they are miserably. 12:12.800 --> 12:19.800 They are poor and they are lacking and wanting because they're hungry and thirsting after righteousness 12:19.800 --> 12:25.800 but don't have enough sense to see that it is the King and the Lord of righteousness who gives peace 12:25.800 --> 12:28.800 and who gives a pleasant sleep. 12:28.800 --> 12:33.800 And a looking at the world in a new kind of viewpoint. 12:33.800 --> 12:38.800 It is a frightening thing that we have to tell the world to occupy until we come 12:38.800 --> 12:41.800 because we've been unoccupied with the Kingdom of God. 12:41.800 --> 12:47.800 I really believe the church is basically unoccupied with the works of God. 12:47.800 --> 12:48.800 There's so many things left to do. 12:48.800 --> 12:52.800 What it says, Jesus, if you're going to come tomorrow, you're going to find me busy 12:52.800 --> 12:57.800 and we ought to be able to swear on a stack of Bibles that we'd be willing to do such a thing. 12:57.800 --> 13:01.800 Ready to meet you in the sky, dear Lord Jesus, and whether it's the orphans 13:01.800 --> 13:06.800 or whether it's the school that we have or whether it's our wonderful missions plan. 13:06.800 --> 13:10.800 And I'm so excited tonight because I'm going to get to see Huey. 13:10.800 --> 13:15.800 And I wasn't even sure she would be alive when I would gaze upon her face. 13:15.800 --> 13:17.800 And yet she's here and she's home. 13:17.800 --> 13:19.800 We're going to get to hear preaching from Dale. 13:19.800 --> 13:25.800 And as our children come and go, how we witness the wonders of God and the power 13:25.800 --> 13:30.800 of the authority of a glorious church, one who is ready to change this veil of tears 13:30.800 --> 13:36.800 into a better place in a more holy calling and a more wonderful place in which to raise our babies. 13:36.800 --> 13:41.800 Because I'm concerned about the world and the way that we're raising our babies 13:41.800 --> 13:47.800 in this foul and filthy and putrid blob of slime that we call today's world. 13:47.800 --> 13:50.800 It is needing to be changed. 13:50.800 --> 13:55.800 Now this congregation, I pray with all of my heart, will continue to be not a thermometer church, 13:55.800 --> 13:57.800 but a thermostat church. 13:57.800 --> 14:01.800 A thermometer church simply restores the things that are wrong in the world. 14:01.800 --> 14:03.800 Oh, oh, gross. 14:03.800 --> 14:04.800 Oh, disgusting. 14:04.800 --> 14:05.800 Oh, how sad. 14:05.800 --> 14:07.800 Oh, frightening is the world. 14:07.800 --> 14:11.800 And you know, the church is basically kind of scared of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ 14:11.800 --> 14:16.800 because there are some horrendous, portentous things that must come to pass. 14:16.800 --> 14:18.800 But why should we be scared? 14:18.800 --> 14:24.800 The world is about to be made into a better place, but it's only at the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ. 14:24.800 --> 14:27.800 And I need to not register the filth of the world. 14:27.800 --> 14:33.800 And we can spend a lot of time on what's wrong with the world today, but that tends to frighten people. 14:33.800 --> 14:38.800 The church is to rise above such things and to be unafraid and to stand tall. 14:38.800 --> 14:40.800 Warriors are the kingdom of God. 14:40.800 --> 14:45.800 And a thermostat's where someone goes over there and just sets the tone of the temperature of the room 14:45.800 --> 14:47.800 for the hours ahead, isn't it? 14:47.800 --> 14:52.800 The church that should be out among the peoples of the world setting the attitude, setting the mood. 14:52.800 --> 14:55.800 This is called a Christian nation. 14:55.800 --> 14:59.800 What a farce that is because the church has been a mousy little wimp 14:59.800 --> 15:03.800 and hasn't preached the full authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. 15:03.800 --> 15:06.800 Now, he'll come and straighten that out one of these days. 15:06.800 --> 15:08.800 You may believe that. 15:08.800 --> 15:13.800 For it is the thermostat that changes the environment of that local room. 15:13.800 --> 15:19.800 And it is the church who will sustain the environment of the world, which is to come. 15:19.800 --> 15:21.800 Politicians aren't going to do it. 15:21.800 --> 15:27.800 And petty politics will never make the world the kind of place that it ought to be. 15:27.800 --> 15:32.800 It's only the kingdom of God that has the authority and the power to do such a thing. 15:32.800 --> 15:38.800 Now listen, when his coming is real, we will all be working. 15:38.800 --> 15:40.800 And so I say we can work in another way. 15:40.800 --> 15:41.800 Let us pray. 15:41.800 --> 15:43.800 Pray for his coming. 15:43.800 --> 15:44.800 The Lord's prayer. 15:44.800 --> 15:46.800 Thy kingdom come. 15:46.800 --> 15:48.800 Thy will be done. 15:48.800 --> 15:49.800 I hear it in my sleep. 15:49.800 --> 15:53.800 Thine will be share of envy in himmel. 15:53.800 --> 15:57.800 And I love the way that old Gestapo man said that. 15:57.800 --> 16:04.800 Man, the kingdom of God is going to come, not a mousy little Jew nailed to a cross, 16:04.800 --> 16:13.800 but Lord Jesus coming at the power of his right hand, seeking to fight and fighting 16:13.800 --> 16:17.800 and mounting a great white horse with victory on his thigh, 16:17.800 --> 16:22.800 mounting the skies and like the great white headed eagle, 16:22.800 --> 16:28.800 seeing all sin and all that is wicked before him and sweeping the sky clean 16:28.800 --> 16:36.800 and the world's clean clean of its ungodliness and of its filthiness. 16:36.800 --> 16:37.800 Listen to what he says. 16:37.800 --> 16:39.800 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. 16:39.800 --> 16:42.800 They shall prosper that lovely. 16:42.800 --> 16:47.800 And I pray thee that in Psalms 122 verse 6, as you've never heard that verse, 16:47.800 --> 16:52.800 we've been studying lately with people who want to know what's the power and the authority of a good prayer. 16:52.800 --> 16:57.800 Always pray for the peace of Israel because it says you will prosper. 16:57.800 --> 17:06.800 And the sooner the king of Jerusalem comes home, the sooner the world will be a better place in which to live. 17:06.800 --> 17:10.800 The Lord is at hand, be concerned about nothing. 17:10.800 --> 17:11.800 Isn't that amazing? 17:11.800 --> 17:14.800 I'm a worry ward and you know that I am. 17:14.800 --> 17:17.800 I can tell you on any day who's here and who isn't. 17:17.800 --> 17:19.800 And I worry about each one of them. 17:19.800 --> 17:21.800 And I'll always be a worry ward. 17:21.800 --> 17:25.800 I don't like to see a house of God that's empty with anybody. 17:25.800 --> 17:33.800 And I pray that if you're not here, your son bear it where else where people are convening in the name of the Holy Father and his son Jesus. 17:33.800 --> 17:34.800 You know what? 17:34.800 --> 17:36.800 When he saw the horrible things that might be happening. 17:36.800 --> 17:45.800 Oh John the beloved man, he was a guy who loved and someone who loves really can be hurt very distinctively. 17:45.800 --> 17:51.800 And when he saw the great vision, which the angels of God had laid upon his shoulders with them, 17:51.800 --> 17:55.800 Almighty Jesus had given to him to see which no other man had seen. 17:55.800 --> 18:01.800 He says in the last verse of the Bible, even so Lord Jesus come. 18:01.800 --> 18:03.800 Isn't that a magnificent thing? 18:03.800 --> 18:07.800 Five little words, even so Lord Jesus come. 18:07.800 --> 18:15.800 And what a marvelous testimony to living in a veil of tears and in a bowl of excrescence. 18:15.800 --> 18:20.800 What a terrible place this world would be if there were no thought and no hope in the coming. 18:20.800 --> 18:23.800 Of the Lord Jesus Christ. 18:23.800 --> 18:26.800 That's what's worth getting up in the morning you all. 18:26.800 --> 18:28.800 Love his coming. 18:28.800 --> 18:29.800 Love his coming. 18:29.800 --> 18:31.800 Henceforth, 2 Timothy 4 verse 7 and 8. 18:31.800 --> 18:37.800 There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day. 18:37.800 --> 18:43.800 And not to me only, but unto all them also who love his appearing. 18:43.800 --> 18:44.800 Why should you be scared? 18:44.800 --> 18:48.800 He said you should love his appearing. 18:48.800 --> 18:54.800 It's power to live a gracious life in this veil of tears. 18:54.800 --> 18:59.800 Now most churches are a little bit embarrassed to preach about the coming of Lord Jesus Christ. 18:59.800 --> 19:04.800 Happiness is being preached, you know, that's what really makes happiness our film tonight. 19:04.800 --> 19:06.800 You'll enjoy a great deal. 19:06.800 --> 19:09.800 Happiness doesn't have to do with possessions. 19:09.800 --> 19:13.800 Happiness has to come with your relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. 19:13.800 --> 19:19.800 Can anybody put you down or hurt you if you love the Lord Jesus Christ and put him first? 19:19.800 --> 19:22.800 See, happiness is a relationship with a person. 19:22.800 --> 19:32.800 The wondrous one who's going to come and claim his sweetheart, his bride, the kingdom of God, the church, the church, the church. 19:32.800 --> 19:34.800 And put it down if you will. 19:34.800 --> 19:41.800 You will ascend into heaven with the church, the precious body of the Lord Jesus Christ. 19:41.800 --> 19:44.800 I like it, I like it, I like it. 19:44.800 --> 19:53.800 Love is the essence of the church and the Lord is at hand. 19:53.800 --> 19:55.800 Don't be anxious about anything. 19:55.800 --> 19:56.800 Don't be scared. 19:56.800 --> 20:02.800 In the book, Hidden Persuaders, which was a psychological phenomena having to do with what sells things. 20:02.800 --> 20:04.800 You know what sells things? 20:04.800 --> 20:08.800 Well, he says to sell a good cigar, you need sex. 20:08.800 --> 20:09.800 Now think of that one. 20:09.800 --> 20:12.800 The world's in trouble, don't you really believe that? 20:12.800 --> 20:20.800 I passed by the girl in the bikini out here this morning and I admit I looked over there and went on my busy way. 20:20.800 --> 20:22.800 But you know, you need that to even sell beer. 20:22.800 --> 20:23.800 Isn't that amazing? 20:23.800 --> 20:28.800 If you want to get cancer, you need sex involved to get the right kind of cigar or cigarette. 20:28.800 --> 20:30.800 No wonder our kids are messed up. 20:30.800 --> 20:36.800 If you talk about being a drunkard, you really need sex to sell that because who really wants to be a drunkard? 20:36.800 --> 20:40.800 You need your attention focused on something else while you're swelling it up. 20:40.800 --> 20:43.800 Well, no wonder our children are mixed up. 20:43.800 --> 20:44.800 But I know the Lord is at hand. 20:44.800 --> 20:47.800 Don't be anxious for those things and don't be frightened of them. 20:47.800 --> 20:52.800 Rebels will never be happy at the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. 20:52.800 --> 20:55.800 Now some said that Christ came in 1914. 20:55.800 --> 20:56.800 You don't believe that, do you? 20:56.800 --> 21:00.800 Get your little shovel and go out there to the graves and find out if they're empty. 21:00.800 --> 21:02.800 If they are empty, he came. 21:02.800 --> 21:04.800 They are not empty. 21:04.800 --> 21:06.800 And so don't believe everything that you're told. 21:06.800 --> 21:08.800 Find out what it said in the horse's mouth. 21:08.800 --> 21:13.800 Look what it says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 beginning in the verse 13. 21:13.800 --> 21:16.800 But I would not have you be ignorant, brethren. 21:16.800 --> 21:18.800 I didn't say I wouldn't have you ignorant, brethren. 21:18.800 --> 21:22.800 But he said, I wouldn't have you to be ignorant concerning them which are asleep that you sorrow, 21:22.800 --> 21:25.800 not even as others which have no hope. 21:25.800 --> 21:28.800 Someone who loves the Lord doesn't cry very long over a grave. 21:28.800 --> 21:30.800 Now that's the truth. 21:30.800 --> 21:34.800 And as much as we will cry and we ought to cry and there's purpose in crying, 21:34.800 --> 21:39.800 we don't dwell on the grave for very long because we know we're going to be with them 21:39.800 --> 21:42.800 one of these days in heaven at the right hand of God. 21:42.800 --> 21:44.800 And there's our victory and there's our success. 21:44.800 --> 21:47.800 I'm going to weep forever over that empty grave. 21:47.800 --> 21:49.800 My papa went ahead of me. 21:49.800 --> 21:50.800 Why should I worry about? 21:50.800 --> 21:52.800 I'm going to see papa one of these days. 21:52.800 --> 21:56.800 He finally, finally listened about this man called Jesus. 21:56.800 --> 21:57.800 Now look as he goes on. 21:57.800 --> 22:00.800 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, 22:00.800 --> 22:02.800 even so them also which sleep in Jesus, 22:02.800 --> 22:10.800 will God bring with him sleep in Jesus and God will have them at his side. 22:10.800 --> 22:14.800 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord that we which are alive 22:14.800 --> 22:18.800 and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not proceed them which are asleep. 22:18.800 --> 22:21.800 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, 22:21.800 --> 22:25.800 with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first. 22:25.800 --> 22:28.800 With a shout, Michael the archangel see, 22:28.800 --> 22:33.800 and the greatest noblest sound the world has ever had bone on a trumpet. 22:33.800 --> 22:38.800 And the cry of God and his people as the wrath of God 22:38.800 --> 22:41.800 is vindicated upon the face of the earth. 22:41.800 --> 22:44.800 And the last verse for then which we are alive and remain, 22:44.800 --> 22:46.800 we shall be caught up together with them in the clouds 22:46.800 --> 22:48.800 to meet the Lord in the air. 22:48.800 --> 22:52.800 And so shall we ever be with the Lord. 22:52.800 --> 22:54.800 I appreciate it, Brother Pete Jones. 22:54.800 --> 22:56.800 And by the way, he's going to come back. 22:56.800 --> 23:00.800 Brother Pete Jones said the hardest thing for me was to wonder 23:00.800 --> 23:03.800 why my 12-year-old daughter was taken from me. 23:03.800 --> 23:08.800 And then he said, and when I really thought about it, you selfish man, 23:08.800 --> 23:15.800 your 12-year-old daughter is in the lap of God himself. 23:15.800 --> 23:20.800 And could you deny her that wonderful position with her true father? 23:20.800 --> 23:24.800 And the last words were for comfort one another with these words. 23:24.800 --> 23:28.800 Why should we be scared about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ? 23:28.800 --> 23:30.800 Comfort one another. 23:30.800 --> 23:35.800 When the cold clouds clatter on the coffin, we are comforted. 23:35.800 --> 23:37.800 See how important that is? 23:37.800 --> 23:39.800 Now the last thing is being purified. 23:39.800 --> 23:41.800 The Lord is at hand. 23:41.800 --> 23:43.800 The Lord is at hand. 23:43.800 --> 23:45.800 The Lord is at hand. 23:45.800 --> 23:47.800 Give thanks for that this holiday. 23:47.800 --> 23:51.800 And as you break that big ol' turkey bone off, think, this is a small feast 23:51.800 --> 23:57.800 compared to the grandiopno feast which is coming to me, that great supper of the Lamb. 23:57.800 --> 23:59.800 What a wonderful time. 23:59.800 --> 24:03.800 That will be with all the saints of all time, of all the peoples of the world, 24:03.800 --> 24:06.800 and my family as well who are in the Lord. 24:06.800 --> 24:11.800 What a precious, precious and wonderful attribute that is. 24:11.800 --> 24:12.800 The Lord is at hand. 24:12.800 --> 24:14.800 Don't be anxious about anything. 24:14.800 --> 24:15.800 Don't be scared about the world. 24:15.800 --> 24:17.800 Listen to 1 John 3 verse 2 and 3. 24:17.800 --> 24:19.800 Beloved now, are we the sons of God? 24:19.800 --> 24:24.800 And it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, 24:24.800 --> 24:32.800 we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 24:32.800 --> 24:34.800 I'm happy for Jerry Pat. 24:34.800 --> 24:41.800 He's the first of a line of big ol' ugly men that weren't ugly anymore. 24:41.800 --> 24:49.800 And he broken a new kind of pathway because most of the Allen men were big ugly men. 24:49.800 --> 24:56.800 And big ol' blunt noses that bumped into everything in life. 24:56.800 --> 25:01.800 And quick mouths where someone would be happy to spread that nose a little further across your face. 25:01.800 --> 25:06.800 And I'm so thrilled that God saw that Pat could break the pattern. 25:06.800 --> 25:10.800 He's not this real pretty, but he's better looking than his papa and his grandpa. 25:10.800 --> 25:14.800 And his great grandpa was the homeliest man that ever lived. 25:14.800 --> 25:18.800 I've never even told him about him, lest he become discouraged. 25:18.800 --> 25:23.800 For we shall see him as he is. 25:23.800 --> 25:32.800 And every man that has this hope in him purifies himself even as he, Jesus, is pure. 25:32.800 --> 25:39.800 Now I know that Jesus purifies, but I know also that I was given a job to clean up my act as best I can. 25:39.800 --> 25:43.800 You can't let God do every bit of it. 25:43.800 --> 25:50.800 There are some things you need to deny your mouth and deny your eyes and deny your pocketbook and deny your flesh. 25:50.800 --> 25:54.800 For it's in the denial that we become more pure. 25:54.800 --> 25:58.800 Let a man deny himself and pick up his cross and follow after me. 25:59.800 --> 26:02.800 I don't believe I care for the chaffing of the cross. 26:02.800 --> 26:04.800 Oh, those splinters on your shoulder. 26:04.800 --> 26:11.800 Oh, Percy, I shan't ever be happy until there's another way of life that's more mandatory. 26:11.800 --> 26:16.800 Well, that isn't denial and that isn't going to accomplish anything in any of our lives. 26:16.800 --> 26:24.800 That 1st John 3, 2 and 3, that every man has this hope in him for he purifies himself. 26:24.800 --> 26:29.800 Little eyes, if you're seeing what you ought not to see in little feet, if you run where you ought not to go, 26:29.800 --> 26:32.800 then purify those eyes and purify those feet. 26:32.800 --> 26:38.800 You know, there was a story carried in the AP not too long ago of a 103-year-old English woman. 26:38.800 --> 26:40.800 She went around every mirror in her great house. 26:40.800 --> 26:43.800 She had a lot of money, obviously a rich recluse. 26:43.800 --> 26:49.800 And she crushed every mirror because she couldn't stand at the age of 103 to see that her beauty had gone. 26:49.800 --> 26:53.800 Her fair health, her loveliness of youth had disappeared. 26:53.800 --> 26:57.800 And she could not stand to see herself as she was. 26:57.800 --> 27:03.800 She wandered in her mind's eye to see herself youthful and beautiful and lovely and young again. 27:03.800 --> 27:07.800 But she could not and therefore refused the mirror. 27:07.800 --> 27:10.800 That's not truth. That's a lie. 27:10.800 --> 27:15.800 It's time to see ourselves as we are. 27:15.800 --> 27:17.800 That's why we partook of this communion. 27:17.800 --> 27:21.800 To see ourselves as we are in the light of his bleeding body hung upon the cross, 27:21.800 --> 27:29.800 where his shoulders were chaffed with the splinters of the cross, and yet he denied us not. 27:29.800 --> 27:32.800 Oh, I love that. The Lord is at hand. 27:32.800 --> 27:36.800 Don't you be anxious about anything else in the world. 27:36.800 --> 27:45.800 It's time to see ourselves as we are and therefore time to purify ourselves and to repent of our own will. 27:45.800 --> 27:49.800 The Lord is at hand. Don't be anxious for anything. 27:49.800 --> 27:51.800 Time to clean up for companies coming. 27:51.800 --> 27:53.800 You ought to see how the Allens entertains them. 27:53.800 --> 28:00.800 Man alive, when I hear that front foot, I know that there's still the couch and the sofa and the bathroom 28:00.800 --> 28:05.800 that's still got to be cleaned in the next 16 steps before they can get into the front room. 28:05.800 --> 28:10.800 And you know, sometimes we wait a little bit too long for company to get there, 28:10.800 --> 28:12.800 and we haven't done the house cleaning, have we? 28:12.800 --> 28:18.800 Hey friend, we are looking to a moment in the twinkly of an eye with a left jab when the kingdom of heaven is at hand now, 28:18.800 --> 28:24.800 and it's too late to try to do those things in those 16 steps that has been given for us. 28:24.800 --> 28:29.800 It's not a telegraph message. We do not discern when it shall come, and I don't know the exact age. 28:29.800 --> 28:33.800 I think I know close, but that doesn't matter because I could be wrong, 28:33.800 --> 28:38.800 because God didn't make it very, very clear for intelligent men even, and who are even well versed. 28:38.800 --> 28:41.800 We're not quite sure, but in that unsurety, be ready. 28:41.800 --> 28:48.800 Now, I am just one heartbeat away. I am just one foolish action out there in the streets. 28:48.800 --> 28:58.800 I am just for the vagaries of insulin alive and well, and I have no control over it all. 28:58.800 --> 29:00.800 The Lord is at hand, therefore be not anxious. 29:00.800 --> 29:06.800 Live so close that heaven is only one breath away. 29:06.800 --> 29:18.800 Heaven is only one heartbeat away, and He is there to take you away because the Lord is at hand. 29:18.800 --> 29:23.800 As we sing our hymn of invitation, number 433. I believe that's right, isn't it? 29:23.800 --> 29:33.800 Number 433. No, that didn't right. 438, forgive me. Have thine own way, Lord. 29:33.800 --> 29:39.800 Let's stand as we sing that, and maybe there's someone here who has a decision to make.