In the church many are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. If you do not like what I am saying, I want to ask you something.

If you’ve been a parent for any time at all, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that your child came into the world with an insatiable faculty for evil. Even before birth, your baby’s little heart was already programmed for sin and selfishness. The inclination toward depravity is such that, given free reign, every baby has the potential to become a monster.

Peter the Great, Czar of all Russia, and in some respects the mightiest monarch of his day, used to make shoes like a common cobbler, that he might enter into sympathy with his people and help them to realize that labour is not menial, but honorable and full of dignity. It was a great stoop from the throne of Russia to a cobbler’s bench, but I will tell you of a greater.

The things that are seen are temporal. Ours is a dying world, and here we have no continuing city. But a few years,-it may be less,-and all things here are changed. But a few years,-it may be less,-and the Lord shall have come, and the last trumpet shall have sounded, and the great sentence shall have been pronounced upon each of the sons of men.

There is a world that passeth not away. It is fair and glorious. It is called “the inheritance in light.” It is bright with the love of God, and with the joy of heaven. “The Lamb is the light thereof.” Its gates are of pearl; they are always open. And as we tell men of this wondrous city, we tell them to enter in.

A great many people tell you, “I will become a Christian when Christ comes and seeks me.”

I was talking to a gray-haired man in my native town not long ago who, when I spoke to him about his soul, suggested that he would become a Christian when the Lord Jesus Christ came to him. He was waiting till Christ hunted him personally. And there is a class like him in every community.

Obviously over the last number of weeks we have on Sunday nights been addressing issues that are on our minds and hearts at this time in our nation when we had been subjected to terrorists’ attacks. I’m trying to keep up with all of the nuances, all of the twists and turns in the road as we go and try to shed some biblical light on the issues at hand.

One of the new features in our country in recent weeks is this obsession with “God Bless America.” In itself certainly a nice tune and a well-crafted song that was sung on many occasions for many years in our country, but now has become our sort of new national anthem, if not, our national prayer. And apparently from all that I can tell, as I see the emotion that is attached with the singing of the song, there is not just symbolism here. There is not just shallow sentimentality. I get the feeling that Americans really want God’s blessing, and by that they mean protection. Blessing means, “God, don’t let me die.” It means, “Don’t let my children die…don’t let my spouse die.” It means, “God, don’t let the stock market keep going the way it’s going.” “God, stop the decline in unemployment.” “God, maintain our freedoms, don’t put us in a position so we have to make all kinds of laws against terrorism that wind up impinging upon our cherished liberties.”

?Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: . . Let not your heart be troubled.? John 14:27

Whenever a thing becomes difficult in personal experience, we are in danger of blaming God, but it is we who are in the wrong, not God, there is some perversity somewhere that we will not let go. Immediately we do, everything becomes as clear as daylight. As long as we try to serve two ends, ourselves and God, there is perplexity. The attitude must be one of complete reliance on God. When once we get there, there is nothing easier than living the saintly life; difficulty comes in when we want to usurp the authority of the Holy Spirit for our own ends.

“Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me.” John 17:6

The missionary is one in whom the Holy Ghost has wrought this realization - “Ye are not your own.” To say, “I am not my own” is to have reached a great point in spiritual nobility. The true nature of the life in the actual whirl is the deliberate giving up of myself to another in sovereign preference, and that other is Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit expounds the nature of Jesus to me in order to make me one with my Lord, not that I might go off as a showroom exhibit. Our Lord never sent any of the disciples out on the ground of what He had done for them. It was not until after the Resurrection, when the disciples had perceived by the power of the Holy Spirit Whom He was, that Jesus said “Go.”

“They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful desires, which drown men in destruction and perdition.” 1 Timothy 6:9 .

1. How innumerable are the ill consequences which have followed from men’s not knowing, or not considering, this great truth! And how few are there even in the Christian world, that either know or duly consider it! Yea, how small is the number of those, even among real Christians, who understand and lay it to heart! Most of these too pass it very lightly over, scarce remembering there is such a text in the Bible. And many put such a construction upon it, as makes it of no manner of effect. “They that will be rich,” say they, “that is, will be rich at all events, who Will be rich right or wrong; that are resolved to carry their point, to compass this end, whatever means they use to attain it; they ‘fall into temptation,” and into all the evils enumerated by the Apostle.” But truly if this were all the meaning of the text, it might as well have been out of the Bible.

IT speaks in Galatians about love, the fruit of the Spirit being love, joy, peace, gentleness, long suffering, meekness and temperance. The way this writer has put it — and I think it is very beautiful — is that joy is love exultant, peace is love in repose, and long suffering is love enduring. It is all love, you see, a gentleness is love in society, and goodness is love in action, and faith is love on the battle-field, and meekness is love at school, and temperance is love in training.

Now there are a great many that have got love and they hold the truth. I should have said they have got truth, but they don’t hold it in love, and they are very unsuccessful in working for God. They are very harsh, and God cannot use them. Now let us hold the truth, but let us hold it in love. People will stand almost any kind of plain talk if you only do it in love. If you do it in harshness it bounds back and they won’t receive it. So what we want is to have the truth and at the same time hold it in love.