Presentation in Minneapolis 25.11.2018

Let's begin our afternoon discussion in opening Thanksgiving in prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, as we gather this afternoon to visit about the way and the journey, you know the prayer in our heart that one day faith would change to seeing. That one day we would be there with you and your Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus, and those saints who have gone to the rest of the righteous and left that testimony of childlike faith.

As we ponder this question, this point of presentation today, we ask you, Father, to open your word. Help us to understand that which you wish for us to understand. Help us to be satisfied with that which we don't understand. But above all, Father, we pray for this: that we could continue to own the name of the child of God.

So for this reason, as we gather, we thank you for the gift of your dear Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, through whom we have been able to remain in your kingdom to this day when we have believed our sins forgiven in his name and blood. In no other way are we preserved in faith.

So bless our discussion, Father, to your honor and glory and for the upbuilding and strengthening of your kingdom here on earth. Amen.

So you've seen our topic here for today. Thank you. This is usually the case: everything works until you do the presentation. There we go. Maybe that starts it going here. Just must have had a good portion of those potatoes and meatballs. When it went to sleep, it was down for the count.

So our topic, our names in the book of life. And of course, as we've been visiting this weekend, it's Judgment Sunday on our church calendar. So the end of the church year. It's the first calendar year. And we go into the Advent season and waiting for Christmas and remembering the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And then that Christmas Eve and Christmas morning when we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus and the promise fulfilled to Adam and Eve there in the garden.

So it's taken from that text, which our brother referred to in his sermon this morning. One of the texts that set aside for this day from the Old Testament from the book of Daniel. I don't know if everybody can read that. There's quite a bit of text on there. But it's from the 12th chapter. And it's verses 1 through 3. And I put all of that up there. But I put also in yellow maybe that portion which we will focus on for our presentation this afternoon.

But for those maybe downstairs or on the internet that can't see the slides, I'll read what it says here for this text.

"And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time. And at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall wake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament. And they that turn many to righteousness as stars forever and ever."

So, as we visited last evening in the presentation by our brother Randy, we talked about the day of the Lord, which is referred to even as "that day" in this particular text and "at that time."

And we remember in the presentation last evening, perhaps many of you weren't here for that, but we talked about the end times last evening and always the importance of being ready.

While we know there is a second coming of Christ, just as there was the first coming at Christmas, the celebration, the birth of Christ. But then Jesus will come again, not in a lowly way, but in a very powerful way. The heavens and the earth shall be shaken and all the things that we see around us will be destroyed, nothing left standing.

And we know that God's promises are sure. When we study and we read the Bible, we remember how that was the first time the world was covered by a flood. How God, through our brother Noah, warned the people, long suffering and patient for 120 years, as they watched him build the ark. They heard that simple sermon of faith, to repent, put away sin and unbelief. The hearts were hardened. And only those few were saved there, that went into the ark.

But God blessed them, not because they were so strong and successful, but rather because they were obedient to teaching and instruction of God's word and endeavored to speak of that faith which they had even though it was weak faith, like you and I have even today.

So, let us not sleep even at this time, but rather be diligent, to be watchful in our faith.

And this particular text here from Daniel again prophesies, just as the flood was prophesied, it prophesies of the last judgment when Jesus comes the second time. And how at that time, thy people shall be delivered, everyone that shall be found written in the book.

And I think that is a message of joy for the child of God. This sure promise of God, that everyone whose name is found in this book will be delivered there into heaven to hear that joyful message, "Come ye of my Father, and obtain eternal life in heaven."

And we know that that's a promise of God.

When we think of the two thieves on the cross there on Good Friday, and we remember the two differences in those thieves. We saw the one thief who joined in with the people of the world and ridiculed Jesus for being there. He ridiculed him in such a way that he said, "If you be the Son of God, get yourself down off this cross and us with you."

You could see in that speech the condition of his heart, and his demands, and his mockery of who Jesus was.

But on the other side, there was that thief. He spoke to the first thief there and he said, "This man has done nothing wrong."

He saw Jesus as a perfect traveler. He said, "I deserve to be here, but not Jesus."

And then he turned to Jesus, and he had that simple plea that, "Lord, remember me when thou art in heaven."

And this is that promise that Jesus made to that thief on the cross also as a promise to those who endeavor to keep faith in a good conscience. And that is, "Thou shalt be with me in paradise."

Jesus has gone to prepare a place for you and for me. And he says, "I will come back."

And these, again, then, are the only two choices. This is what the world would like to expand on these choices in many different ways, as we heard in our presentation last evening again. That wouldn't there be some other way, you know, through our own righteousness, or through our own works, or through a good example, and so on and so forth.

But here again, that there's only those two choices: everlasting life or to shame and everlasting contempt.

We heard in our sermon this morning that living faith is a mystery. And God's word opened up very preciously to our brother how it is. Is it not, my heart said, Amen, when we heard through his word, God's word through our brother, how it is a mystery.

How is it, brothers and sisters, that we are here today owning the name of a child of God? Many of us are older, old enough to have gone through school, old enough to have been in the workforce, old enough to have neighbors and friends, and we see many varieties out there.

But, you know, as we have so often noticed that when we look at our neighbors and friends, some of them, from an outward perspective, we could say seemed so good in our eyes, so righteous. They do go to church on a regular basis. Many, as we visited last evening, have quit going to church, but there are those, that 20 to 25 percent that do go to church.

And they know the scriptures. They do good works. Even at Thanksgiving time, I know some of my coworkers would tell me they were down in Minneapolis serving the homeless, and other times of the year they were doing this or doing that.

And, you know, I hang my hat in shame when I compare myself to them and what they do to help their neighbor.

But yet that's not what saves us. Those good works will be like those who say to Jesus on the last day that, "Yeah, but we did this and we did that, and we fed and we clothed," and all of these things.

But what does Jesus say? "Yeah, but no, never have I known you."

And how is it that He knows us? It is when our sins are washed away in His name and blood.

I think of one example we heard in our recent sermon by one of the brothers, where there was that woman who had an issue of blood for many, many, many years. And she saw Jesus as the Lord and Savior by faith. She knew that He was the one who could help.

And the Bible relates then that here in this throng of people, you imagine Jesus going up there, going through the crowd, and people are jostling and shoving and touching Him and so forth.

But this one woman who, by her faith, knew that Jesus could help her, He said when she touched Him, He turned immediately and He said, "Who touched me?"

And the disciples, they said, "Well, Jesus, everybody's touching you here. What are you asking?"

And He said, "No, I felt the Spirit go out."

In other words, that Spirit that comes from our Lord and Savior Jesus, when one in faith is seeking for help and sees Him as the one who can help to wash away sin and burden, and even in her case, the temporal sickness, illness.

And so, this is how Jesus knows us, is when we gather of His blood drops.

But living faith is a gift from God and it's that kind of gift that everyone born into this world has been given this gift of living faith.

I've heard it said sometimes in visits with believers how all of these young babies that are being taken before they're born are children of God.

The heavens are being filled in our time with these babies whose lives have been taken by man. That's a testimony even there that they have the gift of living faith.

You and I were born into this world with the gift of living faith. Some, we could say, lost that gift and went into unbelief.

But even again, it's been by grace that one has repented from unbelief in the world and here today, traveling as a child of God with owning the name in the Book of Life.

So this gift can be preserved or lost.

Why is it that so many then in the world are not believing?

And for the child of God who has over the years, whether it's been in their own believing home or through believing friends or through the services with God's children and been able to believe their sins forgiven, they know then how this gift is preserved.

Not through our own strength or not through our understandings but rather through simply believing sins forgiven.

And so if one is growing up in that kind of environment where they are not hearing this gospel, as little children grow up, sin attaches and in this way one can fall away from living faith.

The mystery of faith is wrapped up in this relationship with God. It is dependent upon faith. Believe all sins forgiven in Jesus' name. Amen.

Faith is our connection to God.

And when we think about this, nobody has ever seen God's faith.

I first wrote that as nobody has ever seen God. And then I remembered in one of our confirmation schools, one of the teachers had said that nobody has ever seen God.

And when the lesson ended, there were three of the students came to that teacher and they said, "You didn't quite have it right."

And he said, "What do you mean?"

And he said, "Well, in the Bible it does say that Moses saw God."

And they brought up the Bible and they opened it and they showed it to him that, you know, God allowed Moses to see his backside.

He said, he said to look away and he would pass and then he could look.

And so he did see God from the back.

But God told him that if he had seen him, seen his face, he would have surely died.

So, this is, I think, even an interesting point for us.

In a way, it kind of drives home that point that, like Thomas, as we'll talk about later, but if I could see, then I could believe.

But in this way, we think about faith as something we can't see, as the Hebrews write in the first verse of chapter 11, that it's something that's not seen.

It's our connection to God. Not based on sight and not based on seeing.

So often in our discussions with the world, it seems like their position is, if I can see, in other words, if I can see and understand, then I'll believe.

But it's hard for them to grasp the flip side of that, which is God does not work in man's ways. He works in his own ways.

And it is that way that God says believing is seeing.

At first, to believe.

And then, God opens that understanding in such a way that it's enough understanding for us to have our names in the book of life.

We can be satisfied with that which God has given us.

And then, God opens that understanding in such a way that we can see that we are not just seeing.

And that's what we need to do.

And that's why we need to believe.

Because we need to believe in Christ and in your removing our trust in him, we can see his glory in ourselves.

We can see his mercy in our ink, and we can see his love for us, as we have blessed our youth.

And we can see Him right now not being to visit, how happy she was.

And that simple understanding, I'm not sure if she could read. I know she couldn't hear. But she believed.

So, to me, faith is our connection to God, not based on sight or seeing.

When faith ends, then that connection is broken.

And then we are in total darkness in that way.

And so, unbelief, the mother of all sin, comes in its place.

So, it's really a dangerous matter, I think, even there, if we start to question things so deeply that it can even lead us away from God's kingdom.

We start maybe reasoning and thinking too deeply about matters.

And we can go down a real slippery slope.

One of the brothers was speaking at the table last night of an experience he had there in the Colorado Mountains where he was walking on a dry trail that then came to a place where there was some water running over the rock and he slipped and started sliding down the rock shoal.

And it was very slippery and slimy.

And he said he knew at that moment that he wasn't going to be able to stop himself before the edge of the cliff.

But as it turned out, the brother behind saw what happened and called out to the brother in front, and he said just at that last moment when he thought he was now gone, a hand reached out and stopped his progress.

I think that's a picture, too, when we start to reason things too deeply in our mind.

At some point in time, our foot hits that slippery spot.

And if we don't have a brother or sister in faith that can reach out and stop us, we can go over the cliff.

So the mystery of faith then is simply held in a pure conscience.

We heard our brother in his sermon this morning quoting this same portion of 1 Timothy 3:9.

The words of Apostle Paul to young Timothy, but those words, as we know, were given as the Holy Spirit opened those words to our brother Paul.

The mystery of faith is held in a pure conscience.

So God gives understanding.

Because faith is not based on sight, many think that it is but naive imagination.

Here I think this is referring to many in the world who think that faith is based on naive imagination.

But in the Bible concepts, from an article that I found in the Voice of Zion in 1993, it says that if faith was the product of our reason or our abilities, it would only be a human idea or conviction, which we could adopt in our own way.

But living faith does not originate from man.

It is a gift from God.

As we have said, a gift from birth which man cannot take, but which God can give.

So our faith comes from God.

How does God give it then?

The third article of the Creed, in Luther's small catechism, has the meaning which our Sunday School students learn.

I think it is still in the fifth grade.

It was when I was teaching fifth grade.

I remember the students reciting this part when asked about the meaning of the third article of the Creed, and speaking of the congregation.

"I believe that I cannot, of my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus. I believe that I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him. But the Holy Ghost has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me by His gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in true faith."

So this is how we believe.

And it is so in the world.

They believe in God, and many believe in Jesus, but they do not believe in the congregation here on earth.

They do not believe in the Holy Spirit.

I remember in my work life, when it was, I think, the Cocado dedication services, and for whatever reason, I guess well mission work, the brothers there published the schedule in the Cocado newspaper, and listed even there the speakers.

And my speaking turn was Sunday morning for communion.

And I remember, you know, it wasn't Monday morning, but it was just maybe, I might even say more than a month later, I was visiting with one of my coworkers, and my coworker started the conversation kind of this way.

She said, "You know what, I'm just amazed."

And I said, "Oh really, what are you amazed about?"

And she said, "Well I know your schedule, and I know how busy you are."

And she said, "When did you have time to take four years of theology?"

And of course, yeah, my jaw hit the floor, and I'm like, I didn't have time, and I haven't taken four years of theology. Why do you ask?"

She said, "Because in the paper it said you served communion."

Yeah, she's a Catholic faith.

And you have to have understanding.

You have to have this knowledge, this experience, to perform even a sacred act.

They do not believe in the congregation, and that the Holy Spirit dwells there.

Brothers and sisters, what's our experience?

I have to say, last night, again in our discussion, my heart rejoiced and marveled how the Holy Spirit spoke in the discussion, and how the Holy Spirit also answered.

We said Amen to those speeches, and realized that even these are not the words of individuals, but they are confessing their faith, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

As it said, it's that Holy Spirit that enlightens the gifts.

So in confirmation again, in our new curriculum now, we have the first three days talking about the triune God.

The first day our lessons are about God.

The second day our lessons are about Jesus.

And the third day our lessons are about the Holy Spirit.

And at the end of those three days, it's very clear that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are one.

God is our Creator.

Jesus is our Redeemer.

And the Holy Spirit is our Sanctifier.

We have lived the time of God in creation, when God spoke even directly to the prophets.

We have lived the time of Jesus.

We'll be celebrating His birth, and Easter time we remember His suffering and death.

But He spoke to us in the Holy Spirit.

And we have lived the time of Jesus.

But He said to the disciples that, "I will leave. The Comforter will come to you."

It's the Holy Spirit.

And it teaches the same way God taught Moses on the wilderness journey.

It teaches the same way that Jesus taught the Pharisees, the scribes, and those who had ears to hear and believe.

And now it is the time of the Holy Spirit.

And then will come judgment.

God gives understanding.

And He said unto them, "Unto you is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. But unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables, that seeing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand. But at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them."

We are now at the end of the first part of this sermon.

Our brother spoke on this same portion of God's Word which was recorded in the tenth chapter of Matthew, thirteenth verse or I've got the numbers flipped around? Flipped around. Yeah, leave it to me. Whatever you hear, flip them around.

It's the thirteenth and the tenth verse.

But anyway, it was also recorded there in Matthew.

Here that important point that Jesus spoke in parables and the world couldn't understand them.

And Jesus opened the understanding to the disciples.

And then He says that those that couldn't see because of their unbelief, He says that if they would be converted and their sins forgiven them, then they would also understand the parables.

So there's a Holy Spirit that opens the understanding.

So let's speak a little bit about grace, the love of God.

We hear much about grace.

And let's speak about it in terms of the impact on having our name in the Book of Life.

So, grace and the love of God is a gift unto us.

So just as we have the gift of faith, God also has this gift of grace and the fruit of the Spirit that we first love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind.

And then to love our neighbor as ourselves.

But I think one thing about God's grace is that it causes us to focus on ourselves, on our own sins.

That's what God's grace does.

It causes us to think about our own matters.

As happened for that thief on the cross.

He was there suffering with Jesus.

He was considering his own life and his own failures and sins and saw Jesus as the one to help.

God's grace then reveals to us our faults and our lackings.

And even there we can say it doesn't reveal all of our faults or all of our lackings.

But God forgives even those ones we don't see in ourselves.

Maybe sends us an escort to help us to see a fault.

But the point is that it's God's grace that we see ourselves as poor and faulty travelers.

Is there any here this afternoon that would argue with that and say that they are not a faulty and poor traveler?

That's the result of God's grace.

It results in a clear personal knowledge of sin that has attached in our life.

It might be something we see that we've said.

It might be something we did.

It might be something just that we thought.

But God's grace reveals even to us that we have sinned.

And this is the marvelous part, I think, about God's grace then.

When it reveals that sin to us it also creates in us a yearning to have that sin forgiven.

That doesn't come from inside.

That doesn't come from some do's or don'ts in something that's written in somebody's handbook.

It comes from God's grace and love for our undying soul.

And it just simply says that small still voice, "Repent. Take care of that matter. Put it away. Don't let it fester there. Don't let it become the slippery slope that takes us away from God's kingdom."

We have a yearning for reconciliation, for love, for unity.

Has it been in your journey the same as it has been for me when sin has attached that one becomes uncomfortable in the midst of God's children?

You feel like maybe everybody's looking at you or maybe you feel like, "Oh, they're rude to me or doing something to me."

I think that's a result of sin that's in our own heart.

The enemy of souls is right there.

He knows he's got you now, that first foot on the slippery rock.

He starts to speak his sermons.

"Nobody understands you. Nobody loves you. You won't make it to heaven. Your name has been removed from the book of life."

All of these messages.

But in God's grace, there's that yearning that, "But yes, if I can receive strength from God to put that matter away, then that love will come again and the unity will come again."

It guides us to God and yearning for God.

And that's what we're looking for.

We're looking for God.

We're looking for God.

And yearning for eternal life in heaven.

That's what God's grace does.

When the prophets proclaimed judgment to the people, they did God's grace work.

The Old Testament speaks of many times those prophets admonished the children of God who had gone wayward, had gone into the sins of the world, had pulled away from God's kingdom, had even lost the connection of living faith.

And God sent them to speak to the people because He loved the people.

He wanted them to make it to heaven.

He wants you and I to make it to heaven.

And so He does give those grace workers in the kingdom who come and they preach to us, maybe in sermons, and they also come into our visits, maybe in our homes, or maybe along the way somewhere, maybe we're traveling together.

And here the Bible, over and over again, gives this kind of a testimony.

If they accepted and repented, God's good will occurred.

So this admonition that we hear in Revelation so often, "He that hath an ear, hear what the Spirit saith to the church," that if God hath an ear, has sent someone to speak of the way and the journey, and you're able to hear, able to accept and repent, then it is God's will that has happened.

And then it is, as we heard again this morning, how beautiful the feet are of those who preach this gospel to us.

The Bible also warns though, that if they did not heed, disastrous events occurred.

Disastrous events occurred.

People died in unbelief.

We think of the example of King Saul.

He did not heed.

He was not obedient.

In his own pride, thought he knew better than the instruction of God, which came through this brother Samuel.

The enemy of Saul said to him, "Did God really say so?"

And we know how that ended, so sadly for King Saul.

He had grown in himself.

His pride was strong.

And the testimony that's left of him is that he died on his own sword.

So it is important to hear when God sends those escorts to speak to us of our matters.

And then yet, when we think of these disastrous events, we can also see how God's grace work is seen in the cleansing disaster.

I think when I thought of this portion, I thought also of experiences in my life through the times of the last heresy.

And I know there are some older ones who have come through that difficult time in God's kingdom.

I was still living up in Saskatchewan when I was a young teenager.

I had relatives down here in Minnesota.

And so I came down for the summer just before the time of the heresy.

I think it was 1971, 1972.

But I was young and maybe I was seen as too young.

He doesn't hear anything.

But I was startled in the visits that I went to how in some visits they could be so loving and in other visits so bitter.

Angry words.

Hard words.

Words that I hadn't heard or experienced as a child growing up in God's kingdom.

Troubling to the spirit.

It was saddening to hear those.

And then the time of the heresy came.

And what I remember coming in the small flock, being at service business, and I remember brothers and sisters that openly rejoiced.

Their cup overflowed.

That God had spared them in this spiritual storm.

They didn't feel that they had such great understanding.

They didn't feel such great wisdom.

But they knew by faith they were in the right place.

And so you go to services and in the middle of the sermon even their cups were so overfilled or overflowing that they would start to rejoice openly.

It was a heavy trial.

It was a long time of discussion leading up to the heresy.

Already matters were being discussed in the sixties.

You know, and I remember you know how even things could be so confusing.

For example, me and I think most of my friends we had what they called eight-track stereos in our cars.

And they played the music of the world.

And we got even these as gifts from other believers.

Rock music, country music, all of these things in that time.

And I can remember being at some of the churches in the city and I remember being there.

I remember being at some of the gatherings of the youth and people comparing you know, the music that they had to play.

And at the same time there was kind of this thought that we shouldn't have a choir in God's kingdom.

You know, and why wouldn't we want to encourage singing the songs and praises of God?

Last Wednesday we were there at the Kolkato Thanksgiving services.

And how beautiful it was to see the little children, many little children singing hymns and praises to the Heavenly Father.

Such a way that God was able to strengthen His kingdom here on earth through that time of the heresy.

And purge away those attachments to the things of the world like worldly music and we could say sporting events, you know, not only participating in organized sports but actually even going to the sporting events of this world.

And those things went away from God's kingdom.

So we can see how God's grace works to cleanse in that way that some of these things that can creep in are visited about and we realize how dangerous they were to our endeavor of faith.

And this is really where it kind of comes then is down to the endeavor of faith for each and every one of us.

We can't believe for our parents.

We can't believe for our children.

We can't believe for our spouse.

Our neighbors, our friends.

It's a personal endeavor.

And it's a daily battle as we all know.

The good that I would want to do that I don't do and that which I don't want to do seems that I so easily do.

So we feel that battle against our flesh, against the world, and against the enemy.

Against the enemy of souls.

And we pray to the Heavenly Father that to protect us and to give us strength to continue to put away that sin which so easily attaches to us.

And we then see that the one kindred true faith can only be the work of God.

That it comes from the Heavenly Father when each is endeavoring to put away their own sins.

To take care of their own matters.

And then in freedom we can visit and talk about the way and the journey.

So I've thought about this.

We talk so much about unity.

And yet I compare, say for example, in my work life and being on a management team.

You know we're always trying to have everybody, we call it, you know, rowing in the same direction.

And oh man, we worked on many different ideas and plans and try to get everybody to understand kind of the core vision of the company and so forth and the unity.

And it's a lot of work.

It comes even through negotiation.

We have to sit down with the union.

We have to sit down with the stewards and negotiate a unity position.

We'd have to debate the merits of this point or that point.

And you know, 35 years in that kind of a work environment and I don't know if we ever achieved unity through debate and negotiation and discussion.

But you know, got close but never we got there.

And yet, you know, as a child of God, living in God's kingdom, I marveled how there was this unity of the Spirit.

You know, I think like, you know, from the time of my life and the time of raising our family, how there's been this unity in God's kingdom.

Such joy in how God has blessed the work when we think of our camps and we think of the church facilities.

I remember when this church here was purchased and the congregations moved here.

And yeah, there was even, you know, those kind of thoughts that, well, you know, we have our home close to the old church.

Now we have to drive.

But yet, there was joy that from this small remnant that was left after the heresy, so much growth had occurred that we needed a new church.

And God blessed with this kind of facility which has served this congregation for decades now.

And has blessed us with more congregations in Rockford and Monticello and Elk River.

Cocado has seen growth.

We've seen new growth in the northern congregations in Saskatchewan.

Just that small flock there in Dunblane and now Outlook and Saskatoon.

It's come because of the unity of the Spirit, brothers and sisters.

A gift from the Heavenly Father and by God's grace.

There wasn't any negotiation or debate about this or that point or this or that doctrine that needed to be clarified.

But rather, it was pardoned sinners.

And the Holy Spirit creates then the unity of faith.

Man cannot create it.

So, a visit about this daily battle of sin.

Sin is then when our heart falls away from God.

It comes with that kind of question, "Did God really say?"

I think in so many of these questions of our time even, it's kind of presented that "Did God really say?"

Yes, it's maybe in some different words, but the core question is, "Did God really say?"

It's one of the most often used tools of the enemy of souls.

"Did God really say?"

It came from that faulty, weak traveler.

How could that be what God said?

Eve was the one who listened to the sermon of the enemy.

Eve was the one who approached Adam with that fruit, "Did God really say?"

How does sin affect then the endeavor of faith?

I think we all know the answer to that.

It breaks love between believers.

It causes friction.

It causes, back to the points of debate, it causes spreading of wrong speeches.

I think of the game we played as children called the telephone game.

I don't know if anybody knows what that game is, but basically, we'd often play it when we were sitting around the Thanksgiving table because there were so many of us kids sitting there.

And I would turn to somebody beside me, and I would tell them something.

And then they'd have to tell their neighbor, and their neighbor, and their neighbor, and their neighbor, and then it finally came back to me.

And then I would say, "Here's what I heard now from this neighbor."

And I would say what I heard.

And then I would say what I originally said.

And as hard as we tried, I mean, we really tried to pass the message.

Yes, there would be times where somebody would think it's funny to really change it up, but many times we said, "Let's try to get this right."

And we didn't get it right.

We didn't get it right.

And, you know, I think that's how the enemy of souls works even in our time.

We pass on these messages, and we add something to it, or we heard something wrong, and we pass it on.

And the effect of it then is to break the love between the believers.

Has it been with a good intention?

And so in the Galatians, our brothers referred to that in his sermon again this morning, but the fruits of faith.

But if you look at the other fruits then that come from a divided heart, there's many, and we often kind of focus in on the murdering and that sort of thing in the beginning there, but if you read through all that, some words that jumped out at me are wrath, strife, envy, seditions, heresies.

These kind of things come as that heresy of the 70s came from those kind of visits that I heard.

Wrath, strife, putting down things, putting down people, heresies resulted.

I asterisked that word sedition.

Does anybody know the meaning to the word sedition?

I've read over that word many times, and this time when I was reading, I thought, well, what is a sedition?

What is that?

Does anybody know?

I looked it up, and this is what I found.

It's conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against leaders.

Seditions.

I think it's something that can be very close to us as humans to have conduct or speech against leaders.

You know, again, rolling way back in my personal life and my work career, I began my work at the company as a worker.

I was working in the mapping and so forth.

Boy, did I hear things about my boss from my coworkers.

All kinds of things that weren't positive.

Well, my boss left.

Went to another job with another company.

And lo and behold, I ended up in that position where my boss was.

And so I thought, well, I'm going to still hear all this feedback on my work and my job and how I could do it better.

I didn't hear it.

Nothing.

Even if I asked, "How could I do a better job?" I'd say in the interviews, "Oh, you're doing great."

I'm like, really?

That's not the truth.

It's not the truth.

It's not the truth.

It's not the truth.

Because I know when I sat at the coffee table, there was many things.

And I think this is the way Enemy of Souls does his work, is through this.

Inciting people through our conduct, through our speech, to rebel against leaders, see their faults, undermine them in some way.

And sadly, I think this has happened to many people, many people who have been in the same situation and have been in the same situation for many years.

And I think that's what's happening even in our time.

And I'll be truthful with you, brothers and sisters, because I've been saddened when I've traveled to some other areas when somebody has approached me, especially when I was working at the LLC, and they knew that, or something that's come out of the meetings with SRK or SFC.

They've been the product of that telephone game, I would have to say, that what's been shared with me has been far, far from what I experienced working there myself.

LLC there is to support God's Kingdom.

At the annual meeting, the work is reviewed, and there the workers and those that have been placed into those positions are trying to do that which has been asked to do.

Is it always perfect? No.

If we could find the perfect one, maybe we should hire that one.

But we are faulty, we are weak.

We trust that God is leading and guiding.

But it doesn't build, I think, to try to tear that work down, try to spread rumors about believers.

It causes divisions.

It's personal struggle to our own endeavor of faith.

So, God's grace then overpowers sin and burden.

We are not perfect travelers.

And I think when we think about our own walk of faith, I think oftentimes it seems like our situation is very bleak.

We are all sinners, and how could we make it?

How can we keep our name in the Book of Life?

As the psalmist has written in the 14th Psalm, "They are all gone aside. They are all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good, no, not one."

So the gospel of the forgiveness of sins, in Jesus' name and blood, carries one from victory to victory.

That's how we endeavor day to day, through the gospel of the forgiveness of sins, putting our sins away and believing as a childlike faith.

And that gospel then, it does two parts.

It gives birth to, so someone has repented from the world.

This gospel has been there, that door that they have gone through to come into God's kingdom.

We can bring them to the door with the law, for example, but they can only enter the kingdom through the gospel of the forgiveness of sins.

And then as we've experienced, as children of God, that's how our faith is maintained, through the forgiveness of sins.

So the content of faith then is boiled down to these words of Thomas when Jesus appeared to him.

The disciples had been telling him, "We have seen Jesus, He has risen from the grave, He lives."

All of these witnesses that spoke about their faith, simply that Christ is risen, Thomas is risen, and Jesus is risen.

Thomas said, "I won't believe."

Nope, not me.

Not unless I can thrust my hand into His side and touch the print of the nails in His hand.

And Jesus in His love for Thomas, He appeared.

He says, "Thomas, come hither."

This is how it is in God's kingdom.

Remember when Adam and Eve fell into the sin in the garden, God was the one that called them.

He says, "Where art thou? Come to me."

Jesus said to Thomas, "Come hither."

He knows that we are weak travelers.

He knows that we battle that threefold enemy.

And Thomas then, when he saw Jesus, and he knew then, and Jesus knew the very thoughts in his heart, he simply said, "My Lord and my God."

He saw Jesus.

He saw Jesus as the Savior.

So Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet believed."

So John's vision.

John was there on the Isle of Patmos.

And God gave him to see a vision of heaven and He wrote it into that book of Revelations.

And one part that he wrote there is, "After this I beheld and know a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands, and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb."

So we can see in this picture that our brother Rymel Osteberry has drawn this illustration of John's vision.

He sees the golden city there in heaven.

But he sees those robed in white robes.

And I remember this question that dear brother asked in one of his sermons there when I was traveling with him in Africa.

He said, "Did John see me in that white robed town?"

Wouldn't that be wonderful to know?

We want to be there.

We want to leave that testimony of a child of God when we leave this life.

Sometimes I think if we fix our gaze too far out there on everyday life, we see obstacles.

If we fix our gaze on heaven, we see a way through the redemption work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

So it is to just simply believe day by day, step by step, moment by moment.

And so even now, dear brothers and sisters, let's uplift your hearts to believe all your sins and doubts forgiven in Jesus' name, in precious blood.

Believe all sins forgiven in Jesus' name, in precious blood.

Believe all sins forgiven in Jesus' name, in precious blood.

Believe all sins forgiven in Jesus' name, in precious blood.

Believe all sins forgiven in Jesus' name, in precious blood.

Believe all sins forgiven in Jesus' name, in precious blood.

Believe all sins forgiven in Jesus' name, in precious blood.

We have a good God, and He wants us to make it to heaven.

I also desire to deliver this same gospel.

Can I believe my sins and doubts forgiven?

I want to believe with you, brothers and sisters.

God will help us.

We've had some just amazingly wonderful experiences, I think, in the times when, again, thinking of how God strengthens our faith.

We had our Midwest area board meeting just a week ago, I guess it was a week ago, Saturday, and how beautiful it was there in that spiritual discussion.

So many speeches that came forth that answered to the Spirit, and we experienced that earlier at the Speakers and Wives gathering there in October in Cincinnati.

We're in Saskatchewan, and we see that God's kingdom is still strong.

There is unity in God's kingdom.

It is the voice of the Good Shepherd that leads and guides His flock.

In a simple sermon, the gospel of the forgiveness of sins flows freely in God's kingdom, washing away sin, drowning, drying it in the sea of grace, as we heard from our brother even this morning, that God does no longer see that sin, and what a blessing it is.

So I guess I went kind of long here, turn it over to Randy to moderate.

We want to discuss for a few minutes.

Yeah.

Yeah.