Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

I AM Pt.8

Father is good, amen? Let's turn to 1 John 4. I want to share a little bit as we continue in our study on the attributes of God. We talked about the greatness of God, His omnipotence, His great majesty, His transcendence, His eminence. He is so immense, so vast, that He's beyond our comprehension. He far exceeds all that is revealed to us. God is bigger than the revelation of Himself. The revelation of Himself is limited by our finite understanding and so, as big as God can be in our imagination, as big as God can be as He's been revealed in His Word and as we have embraced Him in our hearts, He transcends that. Amen? We serve a big God, and everything that we know about Him, He's greater than that, praise God. He is more powerful than you can imagine Him to be. He's more just than man could ever comprehend. When you approach God, there aren't any of the loopholes that men are used to living with. He's absolutely, perfectly just. He's immutable; He doesn't change in one way. We talked last service about the fact that God is not only self-existent but He's self-sufficient. He doesn't need anything. He doesn't need us; He doesn't need our love. The vanity, the audacity of man to think that somehow God was out there in eternity and was lonely. You've heard people say, "God was lonely and so He made man." God was not lonely. He is absolutely self-sufficient. Amen. The three Persons got along real well, and so we understand the sufficiency of God and that He doesn't need us; we need Him, amen? We stand in need of His presence; we stand in need of His visitation in our lives on a daily basis. We stand in need of all the provision of the great free gift of the redemptive work of Jesus, the efficacious work of that blood that is manifesting His righteousness in each of us individually. We serve a big God and He's bigger than we can imagine.

Tonight, I want to talk a little bit about the love of God. And in 1 John 4, we read these words in verse 16, "God is love." Now, Christians have really messed this up a little bit, and especially in our society, the day and hour that we're living in, because many people take this statement in 1 John 4 as a definitive statement of the essence of God. And that's the improper application of what's being said here. If we're going to properly apply the exegesis necessary in this passage, we can't apply that type of an understanding. Because to come up with that as what this is saying to us--exegesis just means drawing the truth out of the context of the letter of the purpose and the heart of God and the revelation of His Word--if that's really what this says, then basically, what we are saying is this, "God is love." The definition of God is "love" if that's what this passage is saying. Well then, you have to reverse that and say, "Love is God." God is bigger than love. In our minds--regardless of what Hallmark says--love is not the ultimate force that is out there.

In our study, we've seen that God is a unitary being. How many of you know that God hates? Therefore, perfect love hates. Many times, we see in the Word God's hatred toward sin, God's hatred toward rebellion, the opposition of His light and His righteousness; so in the unitary essence of God, the unitary being, God is not definitively love. Love is an expression of God and is one of the attributes of God. It is part of His unitary being and it works in absolute union with all of these other attributes that we have been studying. No more than the fact that grace and mercy can override justice, neither can love supercede justice, the holiness of God, the righteousness of God. We need to understand, then, what love is. Love is not God, but God is love. The only way we can understand love is to understand God because He's the reference point for love. If we want to understand perfect love and understand what love is, we have to look to God. Love is more than a feeling. Love is not emotion, though love is expressed with our emotions. "Love is never having to say you're sorry." Well, we've heard that said, but love is bigger than that. When we understand what love is, we see love as the purposeful expression of good intent, well being, toward the object being loved. Love is something that originates within the person doing the loving; it's nothing the object deserves. The object cannot dictate or define what love is as it's being extended to them--and we're talking about God being the perfect expression of love--so we then have to understand what love is. We have to look and see how God responds to man. As we see God's love, we don't see it perfectly in the creation of man, but we do see the love of God being perfected in the redemption of man.

Now, everything God does is perfect. His love was perfect in creation. I said we didn't see it there. Adam didn't see it. When I say "we," I go back to our father, Adam, to the human race. Unregenerate man is incapable of seeing the love of God until it is revealed to him by the Holy Spirit through the revelation of the Gospel. And so we approach God and we find these words in 1 John 4. Let's look and see what the Spirit says to us in verse 7. "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." Now, we are not able to love perfectly as God's love does, but the Scripture says we are to love as we've been loved, that freely we've received, freely we're to give. So we realize, then, that this is the mandate. It is the dictate of our response to having received freely; we're to respond and to give freely. What John is saying here is this: if your life is bound in selfishness and self-will, if you're an introverted individual, then you really haven't been able to say that you have tasted the goodness of God's love. Because the one thing that loves does--as we read down in this chapter--is this: love will set you free from fear. In every one of us--we call them insecurities--and there's not a person in this room that doesn't have a bag full.

We like to put on that we've got our groove together. We have it together. "Bless God, I'll tell you what! Before I was saved, I was a person who felt inferior and I was an individual who was bound in this way and that way. But since I've been saved, praise God, God set me free and I'm absolutely confident and perfect in the love of God." I doubt it. Because the apostle said, "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth [what?] no good thing." It's still there. Now, thank God, by the presence of Jesus and His lordship, by the washing of the water of the Word, by the washing of the blood of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we're able to subdue sin's power and sin no longer has dominion over us. But it's there and we battle with it. We all deal with our insecurities in many different ways, but the one thing that we realize is this: with all of our insecurities, we're always holding up that defense mechanism so we will not become vulnerable. The moment we realize we are loved, all of the defense mechanisms drop. When we receive the love of God, all fear is gone. We can absolutely trust Him. He receives us just like we are. He knows our every thought. He loved us. While we were yet sinners, He sought us and bought us, praise God! The love of God.

We've all been affected by the way we were raised. I've shared some of my upbringing with you, good parents in the "Leave it to Beaver" generation. Not Christians, but just good pagan folks. In that particular generation, as we were being raised up by what Brokaw calls the "Great Generation," love wasn't something that was expressed. Love was something that you were supposed to innately "know" was there. Yet, in many of our lives growing up, because of the sin that's in our members, many of us grew up in different areas. I happened to grow up in an environment, as I've shared with you before, that was a performance-oriented environment. The better you performed, the greater you were rewarded. It was a works mentality. It was an "elder son" mentality, as you read the story of the prodigal. There wasn't the liberty to go out and sow everything into the flesh and know that you would be welcomed home. There was a dutiful performance but there was never knowledge of the love of the father. Father wants that to break down in all of our lives, as we understand the love of God. We spoke toward that aspect as we dealt with the goodness of God a few sessions ago. We talked about the story of the prodigal and how Father doesn't want that works relationship with you. He wants that relationship with you that will be one of coming home totally empty of self. The thing that the prodigal had when he returned home was that his perspective of father didn't change, his perspective of self changed. Because he said, "At my father's house, people are treated this way." He just thought of himself more highly than he ought to think. He was so consumed in selfishness, self-serving, that his flesh dominated and as he went in all his revelry, he abused the glory of God. Nevertheless, he knew he could come home. Do you have that kind of relationship with Father tonight?

As we read through the story here and see the love of God, we see that the Scripture makes it very clear that once it has been partaken of, and once our acceptance in the beloved has been established, not only does our defense mechanism drop as it pertains to Father, but we no longer fear what men can do to us. I don't have to "put on." I can be who I am because I'm content in the beloved. Love, then, as we are seeing, is the intent of good always toward the object being loved. We could go to 1 Corinthians 13; we're not going to that tonight, but we know that love is kind, we know that it's gentle, and we know that it doesn't behave itself unseemly. It doesn't think evil, it doesn't rejoice in iniquity, and all of these things, as it deals with relationships with others. I want to combine all of that together and just say it in this way. Love intends the best for the object being loved. It not only intends the best ("God so loved the world, that He gave..."), we see that there can be no love unless it's active. Love is always involved in the good of that person, the welfare. God chastens those He loves. That's involvement in our lives. God is concerned with us and even as chastening is taking place, it's for our good. The Scripture says, "It doesn't seem good for the moment, but it works in us the peaceable fruit of righteousness." And so we see the intent always actively working. Love then, being seen in its purity, allows us to open ourselves before it and receive the chastening, receive the reproof, receive the illumination of the instruction of Scripture, and to receive the washing of the water of the Word. There can be no opening of our hearts until we really understand how good our God is, how loving our Father is.

Are you still in an older son relationship? What can break that? Not the changing of Father, but the perspective of self. Do you really want to know what it's all about? It's about judging out of your own heart. You're judging God out of your own selfishness. You're judging God out of your own legalism. You're judging God out of your own standards. It's classic fallen man, classic humanism, and so there needs to be an humbling process as we approach the throne of God and believe this statement, "God so loved the world...." That's you, praise God. That whosoever will, the Scripture says, can come. Even the desire for you and me to come is the drawing of the Holy Spirit in our lives, for nobody ever sought God. God is seeking us. The very fact that you have an appetite, an interest, or even an inclination toward the Father, is the fact that you've embraced His love for you. You've realized that God does love you. He's working something in your life because you can't do it on your own. John goes on and says it this way, "Herein is love, not that we loved God [verse 10], but that he loved us... [Love is not static, love is active. Look what it says.] ...that He loved us, [and did something. What was it?] and sent His Son to be the propitiation...." The appeasement is what that word means, or that which satisfied God. There was a debt that had to be paid when man fell, and Jesus became the propitiation, or the appeasement, for that. God loved us and sent His Son. God so loved us that Jesus paid the price for our reconciliation. "Beloved, [He goes on to say] if God so loved us, we ought [we are obligated, we are debtors] also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us.... If we love one another, ...his love is [look what it goes on to say] perfected in us." What does the Scripture say? "Greater love hath no man than this, that [he would] lay down his life for his friends." We've talked about what that means. The "life" there is not the Greek zoe, but it's psuche, it's the psyche. "Greater love hath no man than this, that [he would] lay down his [soul] for his friends." That doesn't mean you sell your soul. What it's talking about is that your emotion, intellect and will--that which comprises the soul--is subordinated. It's not my will; you don't have to live the way I say. You don't have to perform; you don't have to love me this way. No greater love has any man than this, that he puts no demands. His own will and his own purposes are subordinated and he realizes that his ministry is to let God's love flow through him to that object. You can only love when you get out of the way and let God love through you.

We become instruments of love because God is love. What that's saying is--again, it's not a definitive statement--God is the source of all love. There is no love that doesn't have God as its source. That's why even humanists can love. That's why pagans can love. Natural men have affection for their children. That's why Calvin's perspective of total depravity is wrong. He starts with a false premise and ends up with a wrong conclusion. The fact of the matter is that depraved people do good things. Did you know that depraved people dive on hand grenades to save their friends and a lot of Christians would be heading for the hills? Philosophers, and some theologians, have a problem with that. How do I reconcile that? How can bad people do good things as it pertains to total depravity? They don't understand what total depravity is. Total depravity is not recognizing God as the source of all love. It's thinking that somehow in man there is an innate goodness or ability, and there is not. Everything that is good originates from God, though men who are not reconciled to Him and representative of the kingdom of God can use it for their own perverted purposes. So when John is talking about God being good, what he's basically telling you and me is this. Even the heathen will give good for good. Jesus said, "Don't even the heathen do this? Aren't they kind to those that love them?" He said, "What I'm trying to get you to understand is that the capacity is in you to love your enemies." How do I do that? That's another subject, but you do it by dying. You can't do it by saying, "I'm going to love my enemies," because do you know what? In every one of us, it is natural to say, "I'm going to destroy my enemies. I'm going to do unto them before they can do unto me." Natural man will not subordinate himself to the law of God that says "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." Natural man says, "A head for an eye." People that saw the law of God ("an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth") think that seems so barbaric of God. It was limiting what natural man would do. It was the love of God that He restrained what was in man. When we see that that is what's in us naturally, look what he goes on to say, "[Once you have embraced the love of God, once you have received the mercy of God,] ...if God so loved us [verse 11], we [owe it] also to love one another. ...If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby [verse 13] know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his spirit." You can't do it in the natural. So whenever something good comes out of you and you really experience this death to self and the subordination of all of that self-will and selfishness and you do something that's good, don't pat yourself on the back. As you raise your hand to pat yourself on the back, just let it keep going straight up and bring the other one up with it and just thank God. Amen? "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing."

The love of God is perfect toward us and His love is perfected in us when we begin to unselfishly seek.... This is done by the will, beloved, it's not emotions. Love is not an emotion. Love is an intention of good toward another individual based upon God as the source. The "emotion" part of love is based upon the revelation of the worth of that person as God sees them, not just as we see them. So we are moved toward them, and we have compassion toward them. I'm not talking about eros love or erotic love. I'm not talking about lust. I am not talking about physical attraction. I'm talking about phileo and agape love, as He's working through us to the good of those that He died for and we begin to see ourselves as extensions of God's purpose of good toward His body. We become instruments of His love. Why? Because we choose to obey His Word. We choose to involve ourselves in His involvement in the good of others. Love is a choice; I choose to love. I don't have to feel like loving; I choose to love. The moment you get free from thinking you have to feel love, you're going to be able to love more perfectly. The feelings will come when the choice is made to honor God and to obey God. When obedience and humility and submission to the will of God is what motivates the love, the feelings will come and they'll be perfect, praise God. You then have laid down your soul--your emotions and your feelings--so that God's will could be done and then the feelings will be sanctified and God will be glorified in it.

So John continues to speak to us here and he says this, "And we have seen and do testify [verse 14] that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us." That love that God has toward us through the giving of Jesus. As the Scripture tells us in Romans 5:8, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." That's God commending His love. Love is doing something. It's seeking the good, the welfare, and the preservation of that other life. It is selfless in its intention; its motive is to bring about the good of the object of the love. We've got a long way to go, but the Holy Spirit is working that in us and we're seeing ourselves willing. You don't have to feel like it. You just have to do it. You have to lay your life down. You make the choice to obey and choose to love and the next thing you know, you'll feel like loving. Most of us are bound by the flesh. "If I feel like it" and the soul becomes the motivating force. That's the thing that has to die. You lay down your soul that you might perfectly, in the spirit of obedience, love your friends. John goes on and makes this statement, "Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, [God is love] so are we in this world." So we can say, "We 'is' love." God is love and "as he is, so are we in this world." That's how we are to walk. That's what our lives are to be consumed with: to be examples of His love, vessels of His love, and expressions of the love of God. Not the love of man. We don't want people to see how much we love them. We want people to see through us to see how much Father loves them. The fact of the matter is, I couldn't love you unless God loved through me. I'm no good; I'm selfish. I'll sell you out, but God loves you and He's shown the expression of His love to us.

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.... He that feareth is not made perfect in love." He's never experienced the true understanding of who God is. How can the man who has the awareness of the absolute love of God fear what man can do to him when he knows if God's for him, nobody can be against him? When we understand the love of God, there is no fear of man; there is no fear of men's faces. There's no need to please the kingdom of darkness. We walk separate as children of light, ambassadors of God, a royal priesthood, a holy nation that are showing forth the praises of God. Perfect love casts out fear. God is love. He wants to make us fearless. Fearless in approaching the throne, fearless in representing the kingdom, and fearless as it pertains to the sin that's in our own members. Many of us are tormented by our natural inclinations. We've all come to realize that if there were no devil, we would still be sinners. The devil doesn't make you sin, you choose to sin. Jesus said that all of these things come out of the heart of man. The devil doesn't make it happen. They come out of the heart of man. Perfect love casts out that fear. Perfect love allows us to receive the mercy of God and the goodness of God. Perfect love--the awareness of God's love toward us--is the only thing that can make us become selfless in sharing this Gospel with others; as we have so freely received, we can so freely give. "He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother...." He loves his brother less than he loves himself. He doesn't afford the same grace and mercy toward his brother that God's given to him or, as Jesus taught in the parable, won't forgive the debt. He owed $10 million and was forgiven of the Lord and then took the other man who owed him 10 bucks by the throat and wouldn't turn him loose. He threw him in prison. If you don't love your brother, how can you say you've encountered the $10 million forgiveness of God? This is what He's revealing to us in His person.

We've talked about the equity of God, the goodness of God, the fairness of God, the justice of God, and these are all expressions of this larger category called the love of God. His good intentions toward us. Take all of those attributes that we've talked about and realize that what's moving behind them is this force of God's good intention toward you. All of these eternal, infinite attributes have the force of perfect, eternal, infinite love, immutable love. God's love never changes. God doesn't have bad days. God doesn't ever love you less than He's loved you from before the foundations of the world. Anybody have a bad day today? Anybody sin today? Anybody do something you're ashamed of today? Father doesn't love you any less, but He's liable to beat the tar out of you because He chastens those that He loves. He doesn't love you any less. He's never going to forsake His pursuit of you. We're not seeking Him; He's seeking us. His love was manifested. He commended His love toward us while we were sinners. Jesus died for us. So as we rest and are free from fear of judgment--we're not going to be cast out--God loves us. You can run away--no man can pluck us from the Father's hand--you can jump out, but nobody can pluck you.

I've been spending a lot of time recently reading a book titled What Love is This? Calvinism's Misrepresentation of God by Dave Hunt. He's dealing with the classic arguments from a theological perspective of Calvinism and Arminianism and all the hoopla about the Reformation. Whenever you hear people talking about Reformation theology and people want to go to the Reformation, just say, "I'm not interested--Reformation theology has to with R. C. Sproul and a lot of those guys that are heralding these things--in Reformation theology. I am not interested in Luther. I am not interested in Augustine. I am not interested in Calvin. I am not interested in Jacob Arminius. I'd like to let you know what the Apostle Paul said. Go back to the Word of God. Go back to what the Scriptures have revealed and understand that they are simple enough for any child to understand as God has shared His love with us and reconciled us unto Himself. "Greater love [the Scripture says,] hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Jesus laid His life down. He says, "Behold [go back to the third chapter of 1 John] what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.... ...and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." It's a very simple thing. Once you have known the love of God and you've tasted it, you want to know Him more. When you've seen His beauty, you want to be as beautiful as He is. When you've sensed the fragrance of the Rose of Sharon, you realize how much your life stinks. We're doing everything to represent Him who loved us by freely loving those that He died for. Father, we ask that You would make that a reality in our lives; that we would know and taste the goodness of Your love and be able to walk in it. God is good to us.

I wanted to update you tonight on where we are in the battle with Janet's illness. At this particular juncture, we've basically taken her off of everything but pain medication. They've said that there is absolutely nothing that they can do, and they're saying she may have seven to ten days to live at this point. As I was speaking with her this afternoon, we were talking about making preparations for her death, if the Lord doesn't raise her up. Aren't you glad of God's good intentions for us and His promises that are yea and amen? Aren't you glad that He's immutable and that we are a people that are healed by His stripes, praise God!? They say seven to ten days. Seven to ten days is a long time for God to heal somebody. How about on Day One, tonight, Jesus coming back, praise God, and then we're changed in a moment, praise God, in the twinkling of an eye? The dead in Christ will rise first and then Janet will have to wait her turn, praise God, and then she'll be changed in a moment and we'll see Him as He is. As I was sharing with her in some of the preparations, something that I said struck her and she began to cry, which is very painful right now with the cancer. As the oncologist spoke to us, I asked him, "Just tell us really what we're looking at." And he said, "Do you want me to tell you in front of her?" I asked her, "Do you want to hear?" She knows I'll tell her anyway. We don't withhold anything from each other. Ever.

Do you know I've never been an adult without being married to her? (Some people wonder if I'm one yet.) We were 20 years old. Thirty-five years in October. She's been at my side for 35 years. She's done me good all the days of her life, just like Jesus. I can trust her. She's my friend. She loves me and I think, that other than with the Lord, she's one of the only people that I've ever been able to be totally vulnerable with. I stand in awe that she loves me, having known me. It helps me to realize if one of His vessels, a finite being, with sin in her members just like the rest of us, can be a servant of God to that degree, what love the Father has toward us. We are living epistles and she's been one of those epistles that I've read for 35 years. For years you all have heard me sing her praises and you say, "Doesn't she ever do anything wrong? We'd like to hear one thing wrong." You won't hear it from me. Do you want to know why? It's because love doesn't think any evil. I don't share anything bad that she might do. I only see her in love because love doesn't harm. Love doesn't tear down. Love doesn't seek its own way. As we were sharing today--we were talking about the burial--she's 58 years old. We don't have a gravesite. I was expecting Jesus to come. I don't advise you to put off any preparations, but we just hadn't done it. I thought, maybe we ought to look into that. I said, "What would you think about this for a gravestone? You know that picture, the last picture we took? What do you think about having that engraved and put into the headstone? I think we'll just have a double duty thing made and I'm going to put my name and everything except the important part--we won't put the last number over here." She started crying and I said, "What are you crying about?" She said, "I know you love me, but I didn't think you'd ever get on the gravestone with me while you were still alive." I just shared with her that these two become one flesh. I don't know anything else. I believe that as we're able to love one another, Father wants us to move in that type of a harmony and I just can't see her anywhere without me being there. Think about how perfect Father's love is as He expresses that toward us. "I can't see them anywhere without Me being there. I am not going to see Myself separated from them in any way." That's the love of God toward us. Love isn't an emotion.

I've shared with you a little testimony of how God brought us together. I can still remember being saved only two or three days and seeing that beautiful girl sitting at the organ at Northeast Assembly of God. I looked up--I'd been saved maybe 48 hours--and God said, "That's your wife." I wasn't even looking. "That's your wife." We began to go out together. As I was driving to the hospital to see her just the other night--as you know either Kimberly or I pretty much have been there 24 hours a day. She is not alone, except on just a couple of occasions when she was doing very well and very peaceful and she'd sleep through the night on a couple of occasions--they were advertising the Kingston Trio at Wolf Trap. (Singing) "Oh will he ever return? No, he'll never return..." That was our first date. The Kingston Trio. We were heading out on our second date and I had to take her back to the house because the severe Crohn's disease was acting up at that particular time. (If any of you have ever seen pictures of Janet when she was 23 years old, she was beautiful. I look at her and I see her just as beautiful today, though, on three occasions in the last couple of days, people talked about my "mother." Referring to Janet, they said, "Would you and your mother like?" and I said, "That's not my mother, this is my wife. This is my beautiful wife.") We headed out on the date and we had to go back because she couldn't control her bowels and she had to go home to change her clothes. I'm 20 years old. I dated Miss California just a few months earlier. The big shot on campus who had just found Jesus. There is no way in the world that I could have found myself in a situation like that and been unselfish prior to the love of God. It never fazed me. I so saw the love of Jesus in this girl. It so attracted me. Not her physical beauty--she was beautiful--but this love that we're talking about, the love of God, it's like a magnet, it draws people. The genuine love of God affects the lives of those who encounter it.

We're telling this story, Kimberly and I, just kind of talking matter of factly, when Janet was down at the wig shop getting her wig because her hair was falling out. We were just talking about this story and the lady doing the hair went ballistic. She just broke down sobbing and had to run into the other room. Basically what we were doing was sharing our testimony about how good God is. The same thing happened with a nurse the other day. She just broke down and she said, (Men, we make a bad impression.) "There's no man on the planet that would do that." I said, "There's one man, Jesus. It's nothing about me. This is the love of God responding to the love of God." What a blessing to taste His goodness and it's compounded over all the years and should the Lord take her in these next few days.... I was sharing with Janet how thankful I am God spared her in 1980 when they said she had 72 hours to live. Her children wouldn't have known her. Now, we have two kids that have encountered the love of God. In 1990, when God spared her from the stomach cancer and gave her a ten percent chance to live, even with the treatments, thank God for these last 12 years. If she goes home, so much to be thankful for, the gift of His grace and an experience with the love of God.

Why the battle to live? [Steve and I were speaking in the back, the same with Edith.] A desire just to stay around a little longer and serve other people. She's no better naturally then any of us, but her Grandma knew Jesus and was Spirit-filled and her Mama knew Jesus and was Spirit-filled and she was raised up in an environment of faith and an environment of the Word of God and the lordship of Jesus and there was a godly seed that was left behind. She's let her children know the love of God and they've experienced it and now we are into another generation of grandchildren. Thank God for five generations, unbroken. Tasted, and should Jesus tarry, I believe my children and grandchildren will be vessels sharing that same love because that's the whole duty of man. To love God and keep His commandments.

Father, we thank You for Your presence in our lives. We thank You for Your mercy. I thank You for Your grace tonight. I couldn't open my mouth when I walked up on the platform tonight without choking back tears. I couldn't speak, and as we were singing and worshiping, I said, "Father, just give me Your grace to be able to share Your love tonight. I can't talk. I can't do it." I think His grace has been used up.

As Gary plays for us (Chuck, Richard, if one of you would come), and let's just stand and worship the goodness of our God. Let's just thank Him for His love to us, His tender mercies, and His good toward us all the days of our lives. He is good and His mercy endures forever.

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