Just by way of beginning, I would say it is a privilege and a joy to be with you this morning. Being with the saints in Richmond is always pleasant for me, and being in the meeting with you this morning, I very much sense the Lord’s presence. It has just been pleasant to praise the Lord and worship with y’all this morning.
Now, you all worship the Lord with each other, most of you every week, but there is something about going to a different place, isn’t there, and being with the Lord’s people in a different surrounding. It is refreshing and comforting, and I appreciate that very much this morning.
I have some Scriptures I want to read. They are very familiar Scriptures, I think, to everyone, but it is necessary for me to read them in order to share the things I want to share this morning. The first one is in Exodus 3. I am going to read through these quickly, and you can either look along or just listen, whatever works best for you.
Starting with Exodus 3:
Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, and yet the bush was not consumed.
Next Scripture is Genesis 18, with Abraham:
Now the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day.
And when he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him.
And when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth, and said, “My Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, please do not pass Your servant by.
Please let a little water be brought and wash Your feet, and rest Yourselves under the tree; and I will bring a piece of bread, that You may refresh Yourselves. Now, after that, You may go on, since You have visited Your servant.”
And they said, “So do, as you have said.”
And turning to the New Testament, Matthew 17, that familiar story of the transfiguration:
And six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, his brother, and brought them up to a high mountain by themselves.
And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light.
And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.
And Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”
And when the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were much afraid.
And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Arise, do not be afraid.”
And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.
And lastly, in Acts 9, the famous record of Saul on the road to Damascus, starting in verse 3:
And it came about that as he journeyed, he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.
And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”
And he said, “Who art Thou, Lord?”
And He said, “I am Jesus Whom you are persecuting; but rise and enter the city, and it shall be told you what you must do.”
And the men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.
Just have one further word of prayer.
Lord, we do just want to thank You and praise You so much for Your loving-kindness this morning and for Your presence here with us. And Lord, we do ask again, Lord, that You would help the speaker and help the hearers. Lord, we are all here today, listening to You and desiring to hear You. And Lord, we ask that You help us speak this word into our minds and into our hearts. Get glory for Yourself, Lord. In Your precious name, we pray with thanksgiving. Amen.
You probably noticed a theme in these Scriptures of light, and of people’s initial meeting with the Lord having to do with light. I thought about these things yesterday, even as some of us were gathered here planning for the summer conference and talking about this matter of meeting the Lord in the first place and having the Lord imprint Himself on us in our initial meeting with Him. I think someone actually used that word: having the Lord imprint Himself on us. We talked about some of these things yesterday.
Recently, my wife and I were out in Arizona at a small conference where I was the speaker, just week before last. At that conference, I had five words on my heart that the Lord put on my heart for that time. I will just mention those five words to you today because they do wind like a chain, in some ways, through the things that we talk about this morning.
Those five words that the Lord put on my heart for that time in Arizona, which are still on my heart, are: seeking, listening, hearing, trusting, and obeying. Seek, to listen, to hear, to trust, and to obey.
Of course, you know how it is: whenever the Lord puts something on your heart, you see it everywhere in the Bible. Because the Lord put those five words on my heart as I was preparing for that conference in Arizona, as I meditated in different Scriptures, I saw these words forming a chain and a cord all the way through the Bible.
When we finished that conference out in Arizona, my wife and I had rented a car for the week. It was just as cheap to rent the car for the week as it was for three or four days, so we took a couple of days and went sightseeing. We decided to drive around the area. I know some of you have been out there before, in that area of Arizona.
There is that well-known little town of Sedona close to where we had the conference. When the conference was over, Randy and I wandered over to Sedona. It is sort of interesting. Everywhere you go in Sedona, there would be flyers and advertisements on a post or in a store window for things going on around town.
It is a beautiful place with mountains, a very interesting sort of beautiful place. It attracts a lot of people just like I would be if I were not a Christian: a lot of artistic, sort of peculiar people live in a place like that.
All of these little advertisements on store windows—posters and so forth—were advertising something about inner light. There would be different healing people: “Come hear lectures by Mary Sue so-and-so and discover the inner light.”
I remember one in particular. I was looking at it while my wife was in a store, and it said so-and-so would be giving teaching courses. This person was certified—I do not know how you get certified to do this kind of thing—but this person was certified to help you get in touch with your true inner self.
And I thought, “Mercy me. Man, the whole thing I do not want to do is get in touch with my inner self.” In fact, the world would be a much better place if we could keep the inner self of most people subdued.
Of course, what people really need is to come into contact with the true light, the living light, the life that is the light of men. You and I know that. That is the real answer.
The world is full of seekers, isn’t it? People seeking some meaning, seeking some purpose, seeking to find out something. But what they really need is to be met by the One Whose life is the light of men. Then you find purpose. Then you find everything that is the real thing.
People have their priorities mixed up. Christians even, in some cases, have our priorities not right. That is why this matter of meeting the Lord and having Him imprint Himself onto our hearts—whether it is our initial salvation experience or something that comes later—is such a necessary thing.
I am just going to paraphrase some of the Scriptures that we read, going back to Exodus 3. Those of you who know me know that I believe everything in the Old Testament is there for a reason, and there is nothing there taking up space. The Holy Spirit did not put anything in there just to sort of fill out the deal. Everything in there is either a guideline or has spiritual meaning for something.
So here is Moses. He is a seeking person. He is pasturing, feeding, and leading a flock. Where does this seeking, spiritually minded person lead the flock? He leads them to the mountain of God.
He leads them to a higher place. I believe the significance of that for us is this, brothers and sisters: even those of us who are seeking the Lord in a deeper way, seeking to know Him in a deeper way, can be leading one another to higher ground.
We do not have to be a leader. We do not have to be a speaker. We are all simple brothers and sisters, but in our own hidden spiritual life, we can be leading one another to higher ground. A spiritual person leads those around him to a higher place.
And feeds. We all have the opportunity to feed each other words of life. You do not have to be a speaker to feed each other words of life. In fact, the most needed thing, in my viewpoint, is for we brothers and sisters to speak divinely inspired words of life to one another—to simply have that word of understanding, comfort, healing, or insight for one another as we meet each other in the course of life. It is such a needful thing.
Well, here Moses, of course—you all know the story—came to the burning bush, as we call it: that tree that burns with fire and light, and yet it is not consumed. That is a mystery.
All of us, when we met the Lord—and as we meet the Lord over and over again, not only in our salvation meeting but as we meet Him in the experience of our life—have you noticed there is an element of mystery? There is something in our relationship with the Lord that cannot be intellectually, clearly explained.
There is a certain amount of mystery in our relationship with the Lord. It is really a wonderful thing. It is really a precious thing. We know Him. He knows us. We are getting to know Him more. He is knowing us more, and yet there is always this element of mystery.
I personally believe that when we go to glory, we are going to continue to get to know the Lord in a deeper, living, ongoing way forever and ever and ever. It will never end. We will never exhaust the depths of knowing Him.
If you have been married a pretty long time, like I have—thirty-six years, I think—then you understand something of this. Someone asked me recently, an older sister who is a friend, “Sonny, with you and Randy, is there still any mystery left after all these years of marriage? Is there any mystery left in your relationship?”
I said, “Oh, yes. Yeah, we know each other. Of course, she knows everything about me. But my affection for her is more now than when I loved her when we got married. I love her more now.” It does not have to ever come to an end. It actually gets deeper and deeper and deeper.
Of course, our marriage is a picture, in some ways, of our relationship with the Lord—this thing going on and on and on.
You all know that the Lord asked Moses to take his sandals off his feet. Probably the picture that most of us have in our minds is Moses putting prints in the sand. But I actually think that in that moment of revelation and mystery being revealed, Moses meeting the Lord God, the Lord imprinted Himself into Moses’ heart and life.
The one who really got imprinted was Moses, and he was never the same after that. He made some mistakes in his life after that, but he was never the same person after that. He had that as an experience that he knew from then on.
I also believe that this matter of taking off your sandals—why does the Lord say, “Take off your shoes from your feet, because you are standing on holy ground”? Brothers and sisters, it is a picture, in some ways, of getting off of your life, off of your strength, and onto the Lord.
It is a picture of getting off of your priorities and onto the Lord’s ground. So I do believe the Lord has a question for us today, and the question simply is: Whose ground are we standing on?
Whose ground are our feet planted on? Are our feet planted on our ground—our ideas, our ways, what we want, what we see—or are our feet standing planted in holy ground? That is a question that the Lord, I think, never stops asking most of us through the length of our days.
This matter of being spiritually prepared when the Lord does speak, when the Lord does come to us—are we ready? Do we hear Him? That is a big question.
Back in Genesis 18, this is pretty significant. Now, the Lord appeared to Abraham. He appeared to him in the oaks of Mamre. That is where Abraham was dwelling, and the oaks of Mamre speak of fullness.
Here is Abraham, a spiritually minded person, I believe. Why did Abraham become a seeker in the first place? Well, I believe the Scripture does not tell us. But we know from our personal experience that the Lord made us seekers. He chose us for this salvation, and He even put it into our hearts to seek Him. It all began with Him.
He caused, in many of us, the issues of our life—the things that broke our hearts and made us sad, the trouble we got ourselves into, and how we realized our lives were going nowhere. That created within us a desperate seeking heart. Then, at the right time, the Lord revealed Himself to us.
By His grace and mercy, we said, “Yes, Lord.” We do not understand it. It is just the testimony of many of us in the room that the Lord—even the seeking heart—did not originate with us.
But the Lord came to Abraham in the heat of the day. Isn’t that interesting? It says, “In the heat of the day,” as he is dwelling in fullness. He is living in a place of fullness, and he is sitting in the door of his tent.
I will tell you what I believe that means. He is dwelling in fullness, sitting in the door of his tent. It speaks of being alert, not being spiritually asleep. He is awake. He is ready. He is in the door of the tent. He is ready to move. He is listening. He is looking.
Why did the Lord come to him in the heat of the day? My understanding from the Hebrew—by the way, I do not know any Hebrew. I could not explain one tittle of Hebrew to you if my life depended on it. So I completely depend on people whom I have chosen to believe about the Hebrew.
There are people that I respect, and I go with what they say. My understanding from them is that “heat of the day” has something to do with the sun being directly overhead. What that speaks to me is the moment of maximum light.
The Lord came and revealed Himself to Abraham, the seeking heart—this heart that had been prepared and was being prepared—in a time of maximum light. He was ready to go.
The Lord appeared to him. You can all read the Scripture for yourself. It says three men appeared to him. Three men. Did I say Moses? I meant Abraham. Three men appeared.
Abraham ran from the door of his tent to meet them, and he addressed these three men in the singular: “Adoni,” Lord God. Three men appeared. He addressed them as Lord, and then he bowed down to Him. He ran to them. He bowed down to Him.
He immediately said, “Let me stay here. Let me get some water to wash Your feet. You take a rest. I’ll get my gal to whip up some pancakes. You guys, I want You to rest here for a while. Let me minister to You.” That was his response.
That is the response of spiritual life.
You contrast that with his close relative Lot, over in the next scene. Y’all know the story where two angels appeared to Lot. Where was Lot? Lot was not dwelling in the door of his tent. Lot was in the gate of Sodom.
Not only that, but they came to Lot in the evening time, as the sun was setting, as light was growing dimmer. You know what happens to people who go their own way, even Christians who go their own way?
By the way, Lot, as far as I am concerned, is a Christian. What I mean is that Lot and I are going to be together in glory, as far as I am concerned. The things that happened to Lot happened for our benefit. The Lord allowed them to happen for our benefit.
I want to put that disclaimer on there because I am not interested in saying bad things about my brother. I do not want to be trashing my brother Lot, whom I believe I am going to be with in eternity.
Lot really is a picture of some of us. He was a selfish person. He was a person who chose his own way, and his mistakes are recorded for our benefit.
What happens to those of us who go our own way is that our light diminishes. We do not lose our salvation, but we lose light. We lose vision. People who are self-serving and who try to save their self-life lose light. People who deny themselves and give up their self-life gain light.
The two angels came to Lot. He invited them in, but they said, “No, we’ll sleep in the town square.” They would not come in and abide with him.
Also, back in that thing about Abraham, there is verse 17 of Genesis 18, where the Lord says, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” Abraham is a picture of a person dwelling in a secret place. It makes you think of Psalm 91.
Here Abraham is a person living in a secret place, dwelling in a secret place, having a secret relationship—a personal relationship—with the Lord. The Lord loves to reveal Himself to those who live and dwell in a secret place.
That is why He says, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” It makes you think of the Lord’s words in John 14:
He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him and disclose Myself to him.
That word “disclose” means to allow oneself to be intimately known. The Lord Jesus will allow Himself to be intimately known by those who love Him and keep His commandments.
You would be a fool if you shared your intimate secrets with strangers. If I walked up to people in the airport and said, “Listen, you don’t know me. My name is Sonny Brown, and I’d really like to share with you my deepest feelings and thoughts, personal issues, things I’ve discovered in life,” well, that would be pretty silly.
But I have a need, and you have a need, to share intimate things with a deserving person. The deserving person is the person who loves you the most. In a direct line of how much people love you and are part of your life, that is how much they are allowed to know.
Well, the Lord made us in His image. He has the need, to put it in human terms, to reveal and share Himself with us. But along the way, He has to prepare us, and we have to be those who love Him. The more we love Him, the more we enable Him to reveal Himself to us.
These are just some of the things that I see having to do with this relationship with the Lord. The last thing I want to say about that is that I also thought of Isaac. You do not have to turn there, but I did think of Isaac in Genesis 24.
After the death of his mama, he went out in the field, and the Scripture says, to meditate. It says he went out to meditate. While he was meditating there, he looked up heavenward. He lifted up his eyes, and he saw Rebekah coming.
I will tell you what it means. Again, the original-language meaning of “to meditate” has something to do with going to be alone.
Sometimes the Lord allows, and even brings about, suffering and loss in our own life. It causes us to have a need to be comforted. It does something to us. It softens us. It makes us sensitive.
Sometimes our lives are so busy, and we are so full of other things. We are thinking about other things. We have wandering minds.
I will confess: last night we had a wonderful time of fellowship with some brothers and sisters, and they were sharing testimonies. It was the most wonderful thing. At the end of the evening, we all prayed together.
As soon as that prayer was over, my mind immediately—I almost said something out loud—my mind immediately said, “I don’t know who won the Heisman Trophy.”
I had to wait till this morning and get the newspaper. Actually, I had Barb look it up for me, so Barb knows who won the Heisman Trophy. Well, our minds are always wandering and jumping around all over the place, and sometimes the Lord has to allow disappointments and the issues of life in order to sensitize us.
Isaac went out in the field to meditate, to be alone. You know, I think the hardest thing sometimes is to go and be alone. Do not turn on the television set. Do not talk on the phone. To be lonely is the most trying thing that I know of.
Instead of trying to find some way to fill up that void of loneliness, allow that moment to make you sensitive to the Holy Spirit and have fellowship with Him. That is ministry to the Lord. What a blessing it is to the Lord, and it allows Him to bless us back.
Of course, the Scripture says that Isaac went out to meditate in the field after the death of his mother. He sought solitude, and he was comforted by the coming of a bride.
The Lord is preparing a bride, and He is working in our lives to make us sensitive. He is bringing about His purpose in our lives. I just mention that, brothers and sisters, so that as the Lord works in your life, and as difficult things come into your life, I want to encourage us to hear the Lord’s voice.
The Lord often brings trials and little fiery ordeals to us. In my own personal experience, there are three things that I have seen the Lord use over and over. I know all of you have heard me mention it probably every time I have spoken here, but I always mention these three things.
He uses health, finances, and relationships.
With regard to health, I have seen it over and over: the Lord touches somebody’s health, and there is nothing you can do about it. I have seen the Lord touch the finances of hard-working, disciplined people. He touches their business and their finances.
Boy, oh boy, do I know that deal. Sometimes every great idea turns into mud. Sometimes we feel like we are cursed, but we are really blessed. We are not cursed.
The thing I see the Lord use the most is relationships, especially relationships—the living stones rubbing up against each other in the body of Christ.
One of the brothers in Arizona referred to this as “the jagged living stones.” I thought, “Well, I like that: the jagged living stones.” That is what the Lord builds His house out of. That is what it starts with, and then He smooths us off, of course.
A lot of that smoothing process is as we are rubbing up against each other. I tell you, sometimes it is painful. Most of us can sort of smile about it—and I can right now—but it is painful when it is going on.
Somebody honks the horn at us in traffic—so what? I do not know this person. But brothers and sisters, we have so much power over each other’s lives.
Nobody can hurt you as deeply as the people you love and respect and are being built up with. Our words to each other can be so hurtful or so helpful. They can be so damaging or so comforting.
A lot of times we do not know what we are doing. Sometimes we say a hurtful word to somebody, and we did not intend to hurt them. We did not do it on purpose. It is because we were not sensitive. We did not know what we were doing. We were desensitized.
The Lord is working in our life to make us sensitive. The Lord allows hurts in your life and in my life to make us sensitive, more mature, understanding people. The fruit of that is that, at the right time, you have a word of life—a word of understanding, not a borrowed word, but something that is yours that you can give to another brother or sister in the right moment.
You see this in the lives of the saints in the Bible as they are transformed and changed by the things that they go through. A lot of this transforming work—there is no other word, and I wish I could lighten it a little bit—is done through suffering.
Even in the transfiguration, our brothers saw the Lord clothed in light. They saw Him, but their emotional response to the matter was, “Let’s build some tabernacles. Let me do something.”
Of course, what the Lord wanted—the message that the Lord wanted for them—was that the Lord was coming to tabernacle with them, not to have them build something. Sometimes our response to things is that we want to build a tabernacle to this person from the past or that person from the past.
But that person from the past, if he was a spiritual person, did not want something built in his name. He wanted to draw us to the Lord, the One Who wants to tabernacle with us.
It is not that we are trying to have the wrong response on purpose or do the fleshly thing. It is that we do not know any better. When we meet the Lord, it is mystery. It is exciting. When the Lord reveals something to us, it is so wonderful and exciting.
A lot of times, our initial response is not exactly the right thing, especially we emotional people like me. Sometimes our initial response to the glory of God is sort of the wrong thing.
It is through discipline and some suffering that the Lord grows us up and transforms us into people who, later on, can have something happen and have the right response—exactly the right response—even in the heat of the moment.
It does not happen by magic. It happens by a lifetime of the faithful transforming work of the Lord Jesus in our lives.
I did want to look again at Paul’s journey in Acts 9, when that light from heaven flashed around him and he fell to the ground.
There was something in his response. The Lord said, “Saul”—excuse me—he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who art Thou, Lord? Who are You, Lord?”
Later on, of course, the Lord spoke to Ananias, that one we do not know much about, but he was a disciple. When the Lord spoke to Ananias, his response was different than Saul’s response. Ananias’ response was, “Here I am. Here I am, Lord.”
Sometimes in the beginning, our response when we meet the Lord—I am not talking about our salvation, but even later on—sometimes the Lord speaks to us and we go, “Who are You? What’s going on here?”
Sometimes the Lord speaks in that still, small voice, and we say, “Here I am, Lord.”
I thought, when I was sitting out there this morning appreciating the ministry, the praise, the worship, and just being here with the saints and the singing—it was touching my heart. I thought of this matter of being sensitive to the Lord.
I thought of a funny little story. It is a true story, and I think I have the liberty to mention it.
My wife and I—everybody who knows us knows we are a funny couple emotionally and psychologically. I am more like a sister. My wife is, bless her heart, real practical and smart. I am the head of the household; I do not want anybody to misunderstand that.
My wife understands that too. But she controls the money—all the money. Now, I gave her that position because she is good at it. She knows I will spend all the money on shoes. Within a month, I will have blown our life savings on meaningless things.
So she controls every penny, and she is very practical. That is her main goal in life. People ask me, “What does your wife do?” I say, “Well, what she actually does is spend most of her time figuring out how I will not have to go back to work.” She is very practical.
Once I was going on a trip to California to minister to the brothers and sisters there. Before I went on the trip, I said, “Randy, I need a new pair of tennis shoes. I need to get a pair of tennis shoes that I can wear around, wear on an airplane, and wear with my wardrobe.”
All the young people in Memphis had these certain kinds of tennis shoes. I knew all I had to do was drop a hint and they would buy me a pair of shoes, but I was not going to do that.
I kept telling Randy, “I think I want to get this pair of shoes.” Of course, she was like, “Your other shoes only have one hole in them. Just wear those.” But finally she said, “Okay. It is really important to you, and you want these shoes. You can get them.”
So we went together to a New Balance shoe store in Memphis. It was the day before I was going to go on my trip. But when we got to the store, I just felt this slight, small, weak voice saying, “Sonny, don’t do it.”
I cannot put it in human terms, but you understand. The voice just said, “Don’t do it. Let it go.” I said, “Okay.” I said, “Randy, I just feel like I should not waste the Lord’s money on shoes, so we are just going to let it go.”
I went on the trip, and I was staying with a family there. The brother I was staying with in California liked to do a little walking and jogging at night and do push-ups, the same stuff I like to do. We would do a little exercise, and I would do my push-ups at night.
He lived on the side of a mountain, and we could actually walk up that mountain at night. After one of the meetings, we were going to walk up that mountain and get our exercise. He said, “Let me loan you a pair of shoes.”
He got me a pair of shoes. We wore the same size, and we hiked up together, had a great time, came back, and did our pull-ups and push-ups. Later on, he said, “How did those shoes work for you?” I said, “They worked out real good.”
He said, “You know, I’d like to give you those shoes.” They were exactly the color, exactly the style, exactly the shoes that I was going to buy. He gave them to me.
Now, the thousands of you listening to the tape will not be able to see this, but I am actually wearing those shoes right now.
What a kind and wonderful thing that my brother was sensitive to the Holy Spirit and blessed me. Oh, by the way, it was a stroke of genius, because now every time I put these shoes on, I think about him, I think about his wife, I think about his children, and I have prayers for them.
By the grace of God, I heard His voice. By the grace of God, my brother heard His voice, and we were able to minister to one another. What a good thing it is to hear the Lord’s voice and to minister to one another.
He is working to make us sensitive so that we can hear and so that we can be a blessing to one another.
I have two last Scriptures on my heart this morning. The first one is in 1 Thessalonians 5, starting with verse 4:
But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief.
For you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness.
So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us be alert and sober.
When I read those words, it makes me think again of Abraham dwelling in the light, being alert. It also makes me think of Lot being in declining light and not being alert.
I know you are all familiar with those stories. I do not want to go into them; there is not time anyway. But I will tell you one more thing about Lot, because his whole life happened as a warning and instruction for us.
When the angels came, they did not come to have fellowship with him. They only came to warn him.
They were saving him from the destruction that was coming. You can go back and read it for yourself, but he kept arguing with them. They said, “Listen, leave this place. We cannot do anything till you are gone. Get your wife and everything, get out of here, and go up to this place.”
And he said, “No. Oh, it is too much. Let me just go here.” Sometimes we try to take a shortcut.
Sometimes the Lord comes and speaks to us clearly, trying to save us from something. He is trying to rescue us from something, but it does not make sense to us, and we wind up having an argument with Him.
Oh, brothers and sisters, we need to be sensitive in these days, in these last days. I do not know what is coming on this earth, but I am sure, as you are, that something is now and is about to come on the whole earth.
The Lord is speaking to us in these days, in our assemblies, to make us sensitive, to bring us into a different place so that we can hear Him, so that we can hear the still, small voice.
We hear that voice in the Scripture. We hear that voice from the Holy Spirit, and we hear it through confirmation and restraint from one another. We need to be sensitive in these days to hear the Lord’s voice, don’t we?
I just want to go ahead and read a little bit more, verse 11:
Therefore encourage one another, and build up one another, just as you also are doing.
But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work.
Live in peace with one another.
It is a spiritual sacrifice sometimes to live in peace and to highly esteem other people. Sometimes we do not really feel like other people deserve our esteem, especially if they are getting more credit than we are or they get more something than we do.
We secretly, sometimes in our own secret heart, want that esteem and do not want others to have it, and we do not esteem them. Oh, saints, saints. Sometimes we are Christian atheists.
The Lord Jesus sees in secret. Nobody gets away with anything. My wife’s favorite thing to say is, “Nobody gets away with anything.”
We are all going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. It will not be our salvation that is judged. It is the deeds done in the body, to see whether they are good or bad, and every man’s recompense or reward is coming to him at that time.
The motives of men’s hearts are going to be revealed. The things hidden in darkness are going to be brought to the light.
Sometimes we are Christian atheists. We think, “Oh, somebody is getting all this respect,” or, “Somebody did this. I know what they are really like. I am not going to esteem them.”
Oh, saints, let us pray for one another. Let us forgive each other from the heart and pray for one another. The Lord is able to work. The Lord is able to arrange circumstances in that person’s life and in your life.
Nobody is getting away with anything. Let us esteem one another, love one another, forgive one another, and build. Secret service to one another, I think, is a precious thing to the Lord—a precious thing. We are brothers and sisters.
Lot made one other little, insignificant thing clear. When these wicked men came to his door and said, “Send these other guys out,” he said, “Oh, my brothers.” Brothers.
These people, the citizens of our town, are not our brothers. We are brothers and sisters. It is not just a metaphor. We are spiritual blood because of the blood of Christ. Of course, it is partly metaphorical, but it is more than a metaphor. It is a reality.
So that is the question: Do we really see each other as brother and sister? I believe we should. I believe we should see each other not just in some sort of metaphorical way as family, but as spiritual family, bonded together in a special relationship that is loving and intimate and special.
Do we see each other, really, as brother and sister? Well, do we esteem one another?
The last closing Scripture is from Philippians 2:
If there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
Doing nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself.
Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.
Well, humanly, we cannot do it, can we? Humanly, we cannot esteem others as better than ourselves. We cannot love each other more than we love ourselves. We cannot serve each other humanly. It is silly to demand people do that.
It is like in Communist China, all these posters saying, “Make sure you cut back on your food so there will be more food for the state.” Yeah, right. Nobody is going to do that. That is why communism and socialism do not work: people are selfish and self-serving and are going to look out for self.
But we have the Holy Spirit—another life. We have met Him, and He has met us, and we can live by that life. It is not human life. We can overcome. We can overcome ourselves. We can all have a part in building up the body of Christ in love.
I have a little piece of paper that I keep in my Bible with a quote from Madame Guyon on it. It is one where she says:
A will surrendered is not always a will abandoned. Many who have surrendered their wills are still anxious to carry out their own plans and ambitions, and are greatly vexed when their plans are thwarted.
We have come full circle to this matter of holy ground: getting off of our own ground and onto the Lord’s ground, and having His priorities become our priorities.
I think that taking up the cross—we are all called to deny ourselves, take up the cross, our cross. His work on the cross is finished. Now He commands us to take up your cross and follow Me.
Brothers and sisters, I believe that taking up the cross is basically coming under the priority of the Lord Jesus.
My final thought on this matter is that I go to the doctor about once every ten years. I have friends and brothers in the assembly who are doctors. I have many problems, and I talk to them.
Being sort of a vitamin, health-food person, I am always self-diagnosed. So when I go to the doctor, whether it is Kit or somebody else, I am always telling them what is the matter with me and what the cause of the problem is.
“I have not been getting enough vitamin C, Kit, therefore my foot is hurting,” or blah, blah, blah. Then I suggest to them what they probably need to do about it.
Of course, their response is, “Well, thank you, Sonny. We will give you a blood test, and then we will see what the real deal is.”
In other words, sometimes we go to the doctor already having diagnosed ourselves, and we start explaining to the doctor. We come to the Lord already having determined what the problem is, why it exists, and, “Lord, what You need to do about it.”
And we need to come seeking, listening, hearing, trusting, and obeying the Holy Spirit and our dear Lord Jesus Christ.
May the Lord help us in these days and make us sensitive. May we not resent Him as He works and wills to bring about His good pleasure in our lives. Bless the Lord.