Transcription
Behold the Son. Jesus came and showed us God. That God is good and kind and loving and tender and never angry at people. Always helping people and loving people and bringing out the best in people, and blessing them, and lifting them, and healing them, and helping them.
I'm talking to you about the general theme of receiving miracle healing. We're inaugurating this church with a series of messages on this subject, and it's going to go on quite a while because it's a big subject and it covers a lot of territory. Territory that we want to cover at the beginning, in the foundation weeks of this church.
The first step to receive miracle healing from Christ is to know the day of miracles is not fast. The second step is to know that God's promises are for you and, uh, know them and know that they're for you. The third step is to know that God wants you well. Only Satan wants you to suffer. The fourth step is to understand that salvation, that healing is part of your salvation. The fifth step is to ask for healing according to God's promise and believe that He hears your prayer.
We are now dealing with this fifth step in a series of studies on praying with faith. I think praying with faith is a very vital part of the Christian life. God wants us to pray and get answers. Jesus came and taught us, "Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find." He said, "Everyone that asketh receiveth." Praying and getting an answer is an experience that's so exciting for some folks that they spend the rest of their life telling about the one time it happened. And God wants it to happen every day of your life, praying and getting an answer.
If we know the steps of faith to bring about the healing of our physical bodies, we repeat the same steps to bring about the fulfillment of any promise of God to cover any need that we may have. You understand that? Praying with faith. As I ask the Lord to guide me in helping you to know how to master this wonderful privilege, the Lord gave me seven points, seven ideas to share with you. Excuse me, 12 ideas to share with you on how to pray with faith.
Number one, the f- the first step to Christ we come. The second step, God is not dumb. The third step, behold the Son. The fourth step, what Christ has done. The fifth step, He's for everyone. The sixth step, we add the sum. Seven, we use our tongue. How about praying with faith? Eight, we mark the bum. Nine, we learn to shun.
Now, this can sound like a lot of nice little poetic lines, but these are very profound and deep truths that when I get through them with you, these 12, 12 steps, you're going to look the devil between the horns and tell him to back off and leave you alone. And you're going to look your Father in His face with love, and you're going to be able to ask and receive. And the 10th step, you learn to shun. And the t- the ninth step, the 10th step, you'll shake the glum. I don't know the difference in glum and gloom. One's about as bad as the other. The 11th, you start the fun. And the 12th, you know you've won.
A powerful study series on praying and getting an answer. We're talking about now the third step of this praying with faith. Behold the Son. I've already given you one message. I've already preached to you once on this segment. I want to share some more with you tonight because it's growing. Behold the Son.
Psalms 34:5. "They looked unto Him." Say, "They looked." And I am looking. And I behold the Son of God in all of His glory. In all of His glory. Hallelujah. And as I behold Him, I can pray with faith. I can pray with faith. "They looked unto Him and were lightened." Isn't that beautiful? "And their faces were not ashamed." I love that. They don't cower anymore.
Psalms 123:1. "Unto Thee, lift I up mine eyes, O Thou that dwellest in the heavens." Is that where you're looking? Behold the Son, and you'll pray with faith.
Psalm 17:15. "As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness." Wow. What a prophetic truth this man was speaking. This psalmist was speaking here with all the instinct of God in him, but not being born again and couldn't be born again yet in the Old Testament. He didn't really know all he was talking about. But the instinct was crying out to God. Don't forget, we're made in God's image. We're made to be associated with Him, and all of our instinct, it was there before Jesus came. It was there throughout the Old Testament, and it's there today. But now it can be realized, that instinct. "As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness." Now today, we understand what that's all about. We can see the real righteousness of God in Christ and know that it's been made, it's been imputed to us when we come to Him and receive Him as our Lord. Then it wasn't so. It was still by the works of the law. But "as for me," he's crying out prophetically, looking to a day when it'll be like it is for us today. We're in that day. Oh, it'd be wonderful if Christians would discover that we're in that day, that we've got all that they talked about. It's all real today. We don't have to beg for it anymore. I'm talking about praying with faith. Behold the Son. "As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy likeness."
And everybody uses that at funerals and thinks it's so glorious that they're going to wake up on the other side of the river and be in the likeness of Jesus. And that's nonsense. You'll never be more like Jesus than you are now, once you come to Jesus Christ and receive His blood and are cleansed by His blood and believe on Him and receive the righteousness of God in Christ, and He comes into you and begins to live in you. You can't be any more like Him on that morning, no more. And that's the big part that Christians are missing all across the world today. Missing what we are now in the life of Jesus Christ and His person, as His life lives in us. David wistfully looked into the distant future and longed for the day, "Oh, I shall be satisfied when I awake in His likeness." Boy, I'm glad the morning, the day that I received Jesus Christ, became, came into the knowledge of the truth of Jesus Christ, I awoke in His likeness. Let's talk about that a little bit, but I want to say some more to you. You are you with me? You there?
John 17:24. Jesus prayed, "Father, I desire, I will." That means I desire, I long, I yearn, I have compassion. Oh, I wish I could make this true to you folks tonight. Some of you that are hurting. Some of you that are sick. Some of you that are in despair. Some of you that are facing difficulties. And some of you, you know, that tend to go to church and just go through the formality and, you know, you've got about two hours or two and a half hours of it coming to you. And you got to, you know, pay for it and get it over with, and so you can go home and live happy ever afterward. Oh. Oh, how I long to get through to you that there's something real going on here. Oh Lord, help me to get across tonight what You've put in my heart. Help me, Holy Spirit, to get it to these people. It'll help them to pray and get answers.
Jesus said, "Oh, I yearn, I desire, I have a passion, I have a yearning that they whom You've given Me may behold My glory." And we think theologically that means get Jesus way off there in a beautiful picture with a halo around His head and the white flowing effeminate garb on Him. That's not the idea at all. He's saying, "Oh, Father, I will, I yearn that those whom You've given Me may behold My glory." The glory You've given to Me. He said, "I've given it to them." So that they will believe that as I am in You, we're in them, and they're in Us. Oh, I want them to behold that. I want them to understand, to see My glory. David instinctively yearning for it. Now Jesus, the fulfillment of all David was praying for. Jesus saying, "Oh, I've come. You've set it up. The deal is in force. You've sent Me to pay for their sins, to open the way where they can be right with Me and I can live in them. And all that You've done in Me now can be transferred over to them. And all that You do through Me, You'll do now through them. Just like You've been in Me, You'll now be in them. Now it's all fixed. But Lord, but oh Father, I can tell they're still missing it. They're not beholding the glory at work and what it means."
See, John started the thing off crying out as he looked on Jesus. That's what the Bible says. We're talking about behold the Son. If you want to pray with faith, behold the Son. First, to Christ we come. Second, know that God is not dumb. He talks. He's alive. He's got a message. He's got a plan. He's got a covenant. He's got a contract. His word is good. And then get caught away and behold the Son and see Jesus. Oh my friends, if you want to get an answer for your prayer, follow these steps. These are not trite little rhyming lines. Coincidentally, they rhyme, but that's not the point. There's profound truth in these.
Looking on Jesus. As He walked by, He said, "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world." If you're not right with God tonight as I preach, behold Him, Jesus. See Him lifted up for you, and you'd be washed whiter than the driven snow. Hallelujah.
I read this the last time I preached. Hebrews 12:2. "Looking unto Jesus." Looking unto Jesus. Behold the Son. Verse three, "Consider Him." Think about Him. Hebrews 8:28. "Unto them that look for Him shall He appear with salvation." Say, "I'm looking."
Paul, the man that received the revelation of all this truth of what you and I can be in Christ. It's the greatest revelation known to humankind because it's the fulfillment of the dream of God made possible for you and me. In 2 Corinthians chapter 3, he does some marvelous, tells us some marvelous things. They're very simple when you strip them down from, from, uh, the complexity of 16th-century English, King James. You know, people think God talks that language. And when you strip it all down, it's very simple. Let me read you a little bit of it. He uses the example of Moses. God speaking to Moses. God coming to Moses. He uses an Old Testament example. God talking to Moses about the law that God gave to Moses for the people. So that, you know, a plan that God fixed up so that He wouldn't have to let His anger go and destroy these people. He wanted to make some way where their sins would not cause God's anger to, you know, to just wipe them off the face of the earth. And the law and all the details of the Old Testament, uh, priesthood, uh, was given to Moses. And, uh, and so Paul's talking about that, and he's trying to make a comparison between that and the way it is today with Jesus coming with a new covenant that's easy and lovely and good.
And he says now, he says, uh, uh, he talks about, he says, "He has made us now." Now, here he kind of introduces this subject. He says, "And you get this, He has made us." You and me, ministers of the New Testament. New Testament, New Covenant, of the New Contract. He has made you and me ministers. See, when God called Paul, He said, "I've appeared to you for this purpose to make you a minister and a witness." Now, people think that's for preachers. That's for everybody. Every Christian believer, everyone who accepts Christ becomes a minister. You understand that? Okay. He has made us able ministers. Able ministers. Say, "I'm able." I'm able. Say, "I can do it." I can do it. "I'm good at it." He makes me good at it. What am I good at? Ministering the new covenant. Uh-huh. You went a little weak on that.
Now then, he starts his comparison. Said the min- in verse 7, he says, "The ministration of death," that was that old covenant, the law with all of its justice, and nobody could fulfill it, so it did nothing but bring death. "Ministration of death was glorious." Said the ministration of death was glorious. And he, he's making a point now. He says it was so glorious, so that the children of- it was so glorious when God gave it to Moses that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance. In Exodus 34, from verses 29 to 35, three times it talks about the skin of Moses' face shining. And so when he talked to the people, they had to put a veil on him. He'd go back to God and take the veil off. Come back to people, put the veil on. He said that ministration, that covenant was glorious. So much so that people couldn't even look on Moses' face. He says, and then he makes his comparison. Verse eight, "The ministration of the Spirit is more glorious." See, we're under a more glorious ministration, ministry, more glorious than Moses. And a lot of Christians haven't even learned they can lay hands on the sick and get well. And they talk about Moses and how great he was. And they think Moses was almost like God. That was under the old covenant. Couldn't be as good as us. We ought to think about those things. Practice the presence of Jesus.
He says, "The ministration of condemnation was glorious." In verse 9, "But the ministration of righteousness exceeds in glory." It's better yet. I believe it's better. He said that which was done away with was glorious. It lasted for a while, was then done away with, put on a shelf, folded up and put out of existence and stamped cancelled and out of date. Demode. That's a French word, isn't it? Demode, uh, out of date, you know. But then he says in verse 11, "But that which remains, it's it's more glorious." Seeing then that we have such hope, and hope, you know, is the greatest one of the three greatest virtues known to human persons. Since we have this hope, then, then we use, then now here's what he's saying. Since we have this hope, then we can kick the lid off and talk straight talk. And we don't have to get all hung up on fancy stuff. We can say it like it is and help folks. Said we use a great plainness of speech. See, since we got this hope, what does that mean? Since we've learned what Jesus came for, and since we've found out that He came to take all of our sins and bear all of our judgment and put it all out of the way, and through His own blood, the blood of the Son of God, eternal and without sin, and He shed it for us, and it was accepted in the holy place of the Most High in heaven, and it's accepted on the altar, and the New Testament is in force. Since it's that way, let's quit pussyfooting. That's the idea. Since it's this way, we can talk plain. Not like Moses who tippytoed out to the people and put a veil over his face so they wouldn't see too much glory. Wasn't they big shots? Even the glory that was through through the blood of bulls and goats, that kind back there under the old, the old covenant, they couldn't take it. A lot of folks can't take much from God. If you get very serious, they'll turn you off. You write a book too heavy, they won't read it. You put a program on TV that's too heavy, they'll turn it off. You know, that's that's the problem in America. The TV generation when when concentration span is very short because we're taught, you know, look at your news shows of a morning. They've got a little bit of news, and they got a little bit of sports, and they have a little bit of styles, and they'll have a little bit of more sports, and they'll have a little bit of of diet, and a little bitty about one minute of exercise. But if they give you more, you turn them off. And then you go to church and do the preacher that way. You don't do it. You're stuck. See, you got to suffer it out for two hours and a half before you can go home, you know, to pay for your religion. But, uh, but, but, but, but you'd turn it off if you could because your brain isn't made to concentrate very long because that works it and you get tired. I'm not saying all of you are like that. I'm saying that's the tendency today. And so you got to be careful. And that's why preachers got to preach good, and you got to give good, good titles to your sermons. You got to make them popular and have lots of light, or you, you never hold their attention.
Since we've got this hope and we know this truth, we're not like, we're not, we can use great plainness of speech. We're not like Moses who put a veil over his face that the children of Israel couldn't steadfastly look at it. "Their minds were blinded. For until this day remains the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament to the Jews." I love this line. "Which veil is taken, is done away in Christ." Say that. Which veil is done away in Christ? You believe that the veil is gone in Christ? And even unto this day, the veil is upon their hearts. The Jews, they read the books of Moses. It says verse 16. "However, when they turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away." Isn't that nice?
Now, verse 18, he wraps it up. Listen to this. I'm not wrapping this up, but he wraps this up. I'm just getting started. "But we all with unveiled face." We're right out in there in the middle with the glory of God upon us. The glory that God gave Jesus, Jesus gave to us. And it's imputed to us when we accept Christ. "We with unveiled face behold the glory of the Lord like a mirror." What did he say that for? Like a mirror. What have to do with? He was talking about a reflection. We behold, we say, "Oh, wow. I see Jesus." I'm talking about, "Behold the Lord. Behold the Son." That's what I'm talking about. Praying and getting an answer. Looking at Jesus, we say with unveiled faces, "Oh, wow. I see what God's idea is for me. I see Jesus. Oh, can that be for me? No, I'm just a, I'm just a carpenter. I'm just a plumber. I'm just an office worker. I'm just a Christian. I'm a tithe payer. I go to church." No. When we understand truth and if we want to pray and get an answer, we see Jesus and behold with our faces uncovered. We look clearly and see Jesus like a reflection of God. And in seeing Jesus, we see us in the mirror. But who's in the mirror is really Jesus. And we're standing there looking at the glass, seeing what God showed us in Jesus. And we keep looking and looking and say, "Wow, that's me. Oh, I thought I was me. Now I see that's who I am. I have a new image of myself." Listen, "We all with unfailed unveiled face beholding as in a looking glass, a mirror, the glory of the Lord." Wow. And it's us looking, seeing the glory of the Lord in the mirror. But it's us standing in that mirror. What else can it be but me that I see? That's the idea of Jesus coming so that the world can see God's idea about people. His idea is Jesus. And we look and we marvel. We say, "Wow, I'm getting the idea." And "we are changed into the same image." You and me. That's worth clapping on. Thank you for that wonderful applause.
We behold the glory of the Lord in the looking glass of the Word of God and discover that is me. No wonder I wrote a poem. You want to hear a poem I wrote? The me I see is Christ in me. Now I can be all that I see. Now I am free from the good from the no good me. For now I see a brand new me. His embassy is now in me. All luxury and discovery. New melody. A jubilee. I found the key. So I decree that the me I see is Christ in me. Hallelujah. You believe that? Glory to God. Oh, may God help me to get this to you tonight. Behold the Son. If you want to pray and get an answer, behold Jesus. And when you look into the Word and you see Jesus and you see it and you look and you look and you come to comprehend Jesus, I'm looking that mirror. It's me I see in that mirror. No, it's you. You're you're there in the mirror. I see you. You then that has to be you standing in front of this mirror. But it's not you standing in front of this mirror. It's me. How can me be standing in front of this mirror and you're in it? Nobody else is in the room. Hey, who are you? Me? No. Jesus. No. Hello. You're Jesus. Yeah, I see you. Jesus. This a mirror. Who can be standing in front of it? If you're in it, it's got to be me. But it's not me. I see. I see you. Oh, then it means you are standing in front of the mirror. Then that would be you are in me. Oh, I get the idea. Am I helping you?
We got to get this. We got to get this idea. We've got to get this idea, or we'll never get over our religion. Looks like I'm setting you up for Sunday morning, don't it? We unveiled faces. We behold the glory of the Lord. We see Jesus and we are transformed and become like Jesus. Is it any wonder we lay hands on the sick and they get well? How do we see that in the Word? "If anyone looks into the perfect law of liberty, if you're not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of it, you'll be blessed." Blessed just like Jesus. But see, we always keep ourselves apart from Him. He's there and we're here. And we haven't caught on to redemption when we haven't caught on when we don't behold the Son in the mirror of God's Word and see, "Oh, that's me." You got the idea? Can I go on? Okay.
He said the same thing over in Colossians chapter 1, verse 13. He said, "This Jesus, this God rather said has who has delivered us from the power of darkness." And has- are you hearing that? Say, "I am delivered." I am delivered. "From the from darkness." That's a power. Darkness power. "I'm free." I'm free. I'm free. Me. I'm free. I'm free. No wonder habits break and leave you. No wonder evil practices break and leave you. No wonder sickness gives up and dies and leaves you. No wonder cancer can't live in you and it leaves you. No wonder arthritis can't stay in you. It leaves you. Amen.
"He's delivered us from the power of darkness." And what's He done to us? "Translated." Terrific word, isn't it? Translated. A real change. Say, "I'm translated." I'm translated. "Into the kingdom of His dear Son." Now, kingdom, that word means realm. Realm. Call it dynasty. Realm is a nice word. Dominion, area, strata, level, category. Call it any of that. Translated us into the category of His dear Son. Translated us into the realm. That's the real word. The best one. In the realm of His dear Son. Same realm. Whatever you think about that realm. Whatever you think about Jesus, that's what He thinks about you. Can you accept that? Say, "I'm in the realm of Jesus." Me. I'm in His realm. Right now. See, that was love's idea. See? See? Look. God in the beginning created Adam and Eve in His own image, in His own likeness, in His own realm, in His own kind of being. Now, God never changed His mind. He wants us to be in His realm. You believe it? Love's idea puts us in His realm. I'm in the domain with Jesus. When the devil looks at me, he's very cautious because I'm in the category of Jesus. Behold the Son. If you want to pray and get an answer, behold the Son. And when you behold the Son in the looking glass of God's Word, you behold the you in the Son and the Son in you. Each of which has lost identity in the other. Christ in you, you in Christ. Just like Jesus prayed always talked to His Father, said, "You're in Me and I'm in you." Each lost their identity, buried their identity in the other. He says, "Now I've given to them the same thing. I just yearn for them to see it." He's praying. He prayed for you to catch on to this. The whole idea of Jesus coming to this earth was to show us God's idea about people. It's terrific. It's overwhelming. You know, it's almost impossible to say it without sounding religious. When you sound religious, folks quit on you. They just because because, uh, they just can't relate themselves. They can relate to religion, but they can't relate to this, uh, really sure enough stuff. You know, the tangibility of God in you that you can feel with your fingers. That's what we're after here. That's what we'll do to people. We'll get people out of the out of the out of the out of the junk heaps and we'll get them up into the realm of Christ. And those folks that were practically beggars before will become good taxpayers and good supporting citizens in the community because we'll get them up here in this other realm and get them to look to see Jesus in them, and that'll change their whole idea about themselves. How you doing? Pretty good. Thank you for that happiness.
"He's delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son." Now listen to this verse 14. "In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." Powerful. We're redeemed and, and, and we, we, we have the, the remission of sins. I can't go into that. That's a big word. That's a, that's a big word. Romans, uh, uh, Matthew 26:28 said, "The blood of Jesus Christ was shed for the remission of our sins." That's the first time that word ever appeared in the Bible. Remission of our sins. I'm sorry. It appeared in the prophecy of, of, uh, Luke chapter 1 or 2, uh, when when they were prophesying, but that, that's what it, it's, it's a New Testament word, isn't used in the Old Testament. Remission. They had forgiveness. They had covering. They had atonement, but not remission. Remission is a putting out of existence, wiping it out forever. When we, the blood of Jesus Christ was shed for the remission of our sins, not for our atonement, not to cover our sins, but to remove them forever.
Now look, he says, uh, "being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ, whom God has set forth to be a perpetuation through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past." All gone forever. Verse 15. Colossians, that was in Romans chapter 3. Uh, I jumped on you there. Excuse me.
Now, back to Colossians 1, verse 14. "In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of our sins." Verse 15. "In whom we have remission." Who do we behold? Who do we look to? Jesus the Son. Right? Him who is the image. Look at me. He's the image of the invisible God. That's who you see in that mirror. You can't see God, but you see Jesus. He's the image of God, of the invisible God. You'll never be able to look on God and live, but you see Jesus, the image of the invisible God. And that image is reflected to you so that you become transformed and changed in the same image, except the fact that you are a Jesus person. That's the idea. He's translated you into the kingdom of Him who is the image of the invisible God. We're created in God's image. See Jesus. But then we spoiled it. Then Jesus came and restored us to God and gave us the true image again so we can look again. If we could go back before the fall and see Adam and Eve, we'd say, "Wow, ain't that beautiful? I want to be like that." We'd seen how they walked with God and they weren't afraid of God and they talked to God and they didn't have any diseases and they had power and they could do anything. Why? Satan never could have come in the garden. God told him to keep the garden. Never could have got in there if Adam would have done his stuff. But he got a little negligent and let him come in, and that's where the trouble started. You ever think about that? That's the same way exactly it happens with you. When you come to Jesus, you have power over the devil, and he tells you to keep your garden, and you're the only one that can let him in. He can't do anything in your garden unless you get negligent and let him come. But we don't do that when we behold the image of Jesus and we keep looking at the image of Jesus. And that image, we're transformed into that image. Isn't it wonderful? I'll tell you, I get excited about it. As we see Jesus, we're changed in the same image. I think probably one of the sweetest testimonies of that that I've ever come across. I could tell a lot of, I guess I tell, listen more than any of them. But that guy in Nakuda, I may have already told you about him. I imagine I have, maybe two or three times. I'll tell it a whole bunch more, a lot more times because, uh, it's so, it's so says everything. He came in there. He was, they called him an ex, they called him, he was a pagan. They said he called himself a pagan. Out in Africa, when they say that, they mean that that they weren't Christians. They were with, they were with, uh, their their traditional religions, and they call that pagan. And, uh, I don't like to call them that, but they, they say that. And this guy came to the crusade, uh, from a village. He didn't know anything about the gospel, and he got saved and wonderfully saved. And so then when the crusade was over and we had the, uh, the seminar, I told the preachers, I said, "Now, we don't want it just for the preachers, but let's let anyone come who, uh, you're a Christian or you've become a Christian and you've decided you want to give yourself 100% to the ministry to serve the Lord in some kind of Christian ministry full-time." I love to do that. We love to do that. That opens the door to a lot of nice new young lives, some older lives. Uh, and so he came, otherwise he wouldn't have got in, just for the preachers. I was preaching one day and I asked him, I, and I, I said, "Would you like to know what Jesus looks like in Africa?" And they all brightened up, so interested in that. It really was kind of a shock wave that hit them. They'd never had the thought, you know, they always the missionaries have all taught them the same thing. They'd taken those pictures of Jesus as a Jew, and they all see this Jew down there, you know, and they worship that Jew, and, you know, that's all they know. And so I just really brightened them up. "Would you like to see what Jesus looks like in Africa?" They all wanted to know. So I looked a little bit and I spotted a nice looking, uh, African back there, good, strong shoulders, and just the epitome of a fine young man. And if I had to do over, I'd have found a woman. But, uh, but, but, but at that time, I didn't. Daisy hadn't worked on me enough yet. And so I found a man. That would have shocked him if I brought a woman up there, wouldn't I? I'll do that the next time, though. But, uh, but I called him up there and stood him beside me and, uh, I just said, "Hey, you back there, would you come up here?" I acted like I, I'd thought of something, you know, just to catch him off guard. And he came up here and, uh, he stood beside me. And I looked up at him. I was sitting down teaching. You teach two, three hours, you sit down. You don't stand up that long. And, and I, I said to see this nice looking man, "This is what Jesus looks like in Africa." And it really made a profound impression on them. Looking unto Jesus. Hallelujah.
You see, the whole faith message is seeing, seeing, seeing, seeing. Behold the Son. Hallelujah. See Jesus tonight for your life. If you want a miracle, if you want a change in your life, if you want God to do something, if you want Jesus Christ to come to you and change you and bless you, whatever your need is, you want to bring that and identify, identify with Jesus. Don't think of the problem of praying with faith. See Jesus. How did He do people like you? How did He do un- how did He do sick people? Did He ever turn any of them away? You know, we have the doctrine in the, in the, in the traditional church, you know, that God may will to heal you. He may not will to heal you. His will to heal some, not His will to heal others. Behold the Son. See, Jesus, how did He treat sick people? Did He ever turn anybody down? Have you ever read and found anyone that was turned down by Him? Did anyone ever come to Him? Did He ever say, "No, My child. It's My will that you bear this sickness and that you have this blindness because it will teach thee patience or faithfulness or something nice and pretty flowers." Did He ever do that? No. Thank God. Did He ever say to the fever brow, "This will teach you, and this will glorify God, and this will draw you closer to Me, my dear, and I bless you with more fever so that it can rage in your body, and you can know how near and dear I am to you." Isn't that cruel? Religion's so cruel. It's as cruel as those religious hypocrites out there in the street with stones going to stone that woman taken in adultery without even mentioning the man. That was wicked. But it's just as wicked to say to sick folks, "Oh my dear, listen to the voice of God. He may be chastising you." You know, my dad gave me several lickings. He was, he, he whipped you pretty hard in this day and time. You know, if the law would have caught him, they'd have put him in jail probably, and I'd have gone to the devil. But, uh, he left marks on my back, but they healed up. But he never whipped me without me knowing exactly what it was all about. Explained it all to me. And I knew I had it coming. I never resented him. Never, never, never, never. I loved him. He loved me. But he was a hard punisher. He was an old, he was old when I was young. But he, he was a good daddy. But you know, you know, if God, you, you see people that think God's whipping them with sickness, and you'll say, "Well, well, what's what's He what's He punishing you for?" They say, "Well, I don't know." You know, that I, I would hate a God like that that would whip me and not tell me why. I wouldn't serve a God. Maybe that's why a lot of folks don't. Did you know there's a lot of people out there in the world in sin, mad at God? They say, "I won't serve God." Said He sends them plagues and kills their babies and all them poor people dying in Ethiopia. He sent all that drought and all that. See, mad at God. They won't serve God because religion's taught them God did all that. That tornado came through town, killed all them good people. That act of God, you know, and they're mad. They won't serve God. You got to get through that to even even be able to talk to Him.
Behold the Son. Jesus came and showed us God. That God is good and kind and loving and tender and never angry at people. Always helping people and loving people and bringing out the best in people, and blessing them, and lifting them, and healing them, and helping them. That's the kind of God we serve tonight. Behold the Son.
I want to pray for you. Close your eyes. Put your hand, one hand on your heart. Say this out loud. Say it with them. Say, "Oh God, Oh God, I've heard the gospel tonight. I've heard the gospel tonight. I've been helped to look at Jesus tonight. I've been helped to look at Jesus tonight. And by the eyes of new faith, by the eyes of new faith, I look away to the hill called Golgotha. I look away to the hill. And I see Jesus hanging on a cross for me. I see Jesus for me. I see Him bearing my sins. I see Him bearing my. Oh Lord Jesus, I see You shedding Your blood. I see You shedding for the remission of my sins. For the remission of my s. I see You dying. I see You die. So that I don't have to die. So that I could live with You. So that I could be translated into Your kingdom. Right now, Lord Jesus, Right now, Lord, I repent of my past. I repent of my. I forsake my sins. I forsake my s. I open my heart. I open my heart. I accept the blood of Jesus Christ. I accept as cleansing for my sins. I. Now, Lord Jesus, Now, Lord Jesus, I open my heart. I open my heart. Come into me now. Come into me now. Satan, Satan, you've lost me. You've lost me. You have no more power in me. You have no more power. Because I give my life to Jesus. Because I give my life to Jesus. Right now, Lord Jesus, Right now, Lord Jesus, I've abandoned my past. I've abandoned my past. I turn my back on Satan. I turn my back on Satan. I do not follow the deceiver anymore. I do not follow the deceiver. Right now, I give my allegiance. I give my allegiance to Jesus Christ. To Jesus Christ. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. I call Your name. Because it's powerful. Because it's powerful. Jesus. You are my Lord. You are my. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You are my Lord. You are my Savior. You are my Savior. You are my. Jesus. Jesus, You are my Lord. Right now, I receive You. Right now. Jesus, I receive You. I receive You. Satan, you've lost me. Satan, you've lost me. You can't come to me anymore."
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