Good morning. And welcome to Sacramento central seventh day adventist church. It's a wonderful Sabbath and we're excited to be together here this morning as we open up God's Word and we're studying together. And I know that you are going to be blessed. We have a special surprise guest with us who is going to be presenting the Sabbath school lesson and I'm not going to tell you who because I don't want to take Pastor Doug's thunder from him.
So, make sure you keep watching. We are going to sing our favorite songs this morning - that have come in - and the first one is #509 - how firm a foundation. This is from franky in California, jim, dianne, jamie, and buffy in florida, jason and ruben in New York, edrulfo in nicaragua, John, vern, sandie, jenny, and jamie in north carolina, and jael in Oregon. #509 - First, third, and fifth stanzas. How firm a foundation.
Are you glad about that? He will never forsake us when we cling to him. If you have a favorite hymn that you would like to sing with us on an upcoming Sabbath, it's very simple. All you have to do is go to our website at saccentral.org, click on the 'contact us' link and send in your favorite hymn. We hear from so many of you every week, from around the world, and you truly love this part where you get to sing hymns with fellow believers. And I know we can't hear you, but I know that you are joining with us because we have the list of the names and it is very, very exciting.
Our next song - #506 a mighty fortress. We are going to sing all four stanzas of this one. This is from sara sofia in argentina, maureen in bahamas, valencia and abelino in belize, caitlin in California, daphnie and erno in florida, heder humberto in guatemala, alex in hungary, njerie in jamaica, gilenita in Maryland, juleo in Mexico, glenda in Michigan, tajh, zayne, and jordyn in netherlands antilles, una in new jersey, marilyn and David in new york, obinna, Jude, and ugochukwo in nigeria, jamie and jenny in North Carolina, jocelyn in the Philippines, alwyn in saudi arabia, kelvin in Texas, ronell in trinidad and tobago, and denny and lisa in Washington. #506 - All four verses - a mighty fortress is our God. Father in Heaven, we thank you so much this morning - that you are our mighty fortress and the devil can tremble and he can try to mess up our lives as much as he can, but we know his doom is sure and we thank you so much that you came to this world and you put an end on satan and what he can do.
And we know that that day is coming very soon when he is going to be bound and he can't hurt and tempt and destroy any more. We thank you so much for that. I pray that you would just open up our hearts and our minds this morning that we'll be ready to receive the message that you have for us from Your Word as we open up together and we study. I pray that you will be with our speaker, that you would give him the words. In Jesus' Name, amen.
At this time, I'm going to bring - Pastor Doug is going to come up and he's going to introduce to us our speaker for this morning. Thank you very much for our musicians and our song leaders. Happy Sabbath friends. I want to welcome our friends with our extended class that is watching. You probably gathered at this point that there is something a little different about the Sacramento central background that you're looking at today.
And that's because we're involved right now in a very special series of meetings. Right now we're involved in a special series of meetings that are called 'doctrines that divide.' And we're very excited. We're uplinking with 3abn - we're partnering with them, and this is part of their anchors of truth weekend. And so, we are really having a high Sabbath here at Sacramento central and just in the last hours, I am doing three presentations in this series, and when I realized that pastor jim gilley was going to be here - jim has been a pastor, an evangelist, a conference administrator, and now is the president of 3abn - I said, 'brother, all you're doing is introducing me every night, you're going to teach my lesson today.' And so, we didn't give him a lot of warning. Elder gilley, why don't you come on up here? And he agreed to do that, very graciously, and we're so thankful.
And we're so thankful for our partnership with 3abn. And you and i, I think, first met, oh 25-plus years ago. I bought my evangelistic equipment from your company. Yes, yes you did, that's right, and I'll never forget that day that you came over to our office and you were making a big decision to not continue your education, but to immediately go out into the field and begin to do evangelism. And I had a lot of admiration for you, because this was a big step folks, it was totally by faith and Pastor Doug, I think I even gave you a discount, as I remember, but, but i.
.. That's back when everything was ektagraphic projectors (yes) and all of our evangelistic programs were on slides (yes) and tape equipment. Yes, that is correct. And also, we did a lot of the cassette tapes (audio tapes) yeah. What was it missionary tape and equipment supply? Missionary tape and equipment supply.
You see, I still remember. Well see, that was my base for evangelism. I ran that and that financed my evangelism, which we were an asi organization and I held about close to 50 crusades that were financed by missionary tape and equipment supply. So, if I did make any money on you, it went into holding meetings. Oh, it worked out great.
And by the way, I wasn't encouraging people to quit school (no) and go into evangelism, but the Lord at that time, he blessed (yeah) and southwestern was kind enough to give me a degree later. Well, you know, they were and I'm really glad you did quit doug, because if you'd have stayed there, none of us would have had a chance with you, you know, I mean you would have learned too much and so God has really blessed your ministry and we're so happy, at 3abn, to be partners with you, with amazing facts, and we really do value that partnership. And we want to thank 3abn for, you know, every week for years now, they have been broadcasting for free the Sabbath school studies, as well as hope channel and the other networks that carry it. And we really appreciate that and this partnership and elder gilley, we'll be giving you the rest of the time and pray for you as you present the lesson today. Thank you doug, I appreciate it.
Well, it's good to be here and I watch this program - I catch it whenever I can. I catch it on Thursday night, or I find it on Sabbath morning, or I find it somewhere on the television during the week, as often as I possibly can. And I feel like I'm right at home here at the Sacramento seventh day adventist church. And as I look out at you first from being there in television looking at this program, you can't exactly see you as you are right now. And this is really interesting and it's a great big Sabbath school class and I'm just happy to have you here.
We're going to have some texts in a few minutes, that I want you to read, but this lesson is exciting. The road to faith. Now, you know the apostle Paul does not always say things in an easy way, does he? Sometimes you really have to look at it, you have to study it, you have to pay attention to it, you have to go back and look at it again in order to really get what he says. And there have been times when I have struggled with the Lord and said, you know, 'why wasn't the apostle Paul a little clearer about some of these things? Why wasn't he a little more simple?' And then, a thought has come back to me, that for over 2,000 years people have been struggling with these Scriptures. Had they been so simple, they probably would have just walked off from them and left them and not gotten the depth of the truths that are there.
That we have to keep mining to get those. You don't get them just real quickly. And you go through it - every time you go through it you find something else. There's another principle that I have found - and by the way, Peter said that people - that some of the things that Paul says are hard to understand, you know, and also that there are people who sometimes wrest Scripture to their own destruction. And that can be true if you do not really, truly follow what the Word of God says.
If you try to read into it something that isn't there. If you are not looking at the whole word, because the Bible interprets itself and I will submit to you to understand the writings of Paul, you must interpret them through the writings of Jesus. Because if you do, then you will truly understand. If you take Matthew the fifth chapter, sixth chapter, seventh chapter, and you look at those and then you incorporate the teachings of Paul, you know now what Paul is talking about in so many cases. Because otherwise, it can be a little confusing.
It really, honestly can. And it's not always that easy to understand exactly. And, you know, the Bible does tell us that we can get - think that we're going in the right direction and be entirely going the wrong way. Camille and I used to have a little volkswagen and we had several volkswagens early on, and I will tell you that I thank the Lord that we got victory over volkswagens, but particularly the ones in those days - I don't know, 40 horsepower or something like that. And if you had a real big headwind, you couldn't get that thing up to 60 miles an hour, I mean, it was really hard.
I remember one time driving along and trying to get up to 60 miles an hour and I would finally get 60 miles an hour going down a hill and maybe pass somebody and then when I'm going up the other side they'd pass me again and I'm just holding on. One night we were driving because we usually often drove all night long because we didn't have any money to stop and get a motel. In fact, we had those little - we installed these recliners on the chair - a little kit that you put on the seat that you could lean the seats back and we would often just pull in - if we ran low on gas - pull into a station and lean it back until the next morning when the little station opened up and they'd wake us up, of course, when they opened up and we would take a little nap in the car. This particular night we were trying to get to chicago and then on beyond chicago to berrien springs. We were coming from des moines, Iowa.
It was late. Needed gas. Pulled in, filled up - for what you pay for a gallon now, we could fill the whole tank, I guarantee you - and, pulled in there - this service station - pulled out and headed towards chicago. And I'm driving along and suddenly I see - I meet - a bus that says, chicago. Now, if I'm going to chicago, he can't be going to chicago so, I thought to myself, 'you know, that poor guy, he drove right through chicago and forgot to change his sign.
He's tireder than I am tonight.' So, I just kind of dismissed it and then, in a little bit, I saw a sign - des moines so far - I had driven almost 70 miles out of my way without - right back where I'd been. Turn around. Head back toward chicago now. Felling totally wrong. It felt right to be headed the way I was headed, but evidently, when I came out of that service station, I had gotten turned around somehow - and I've got a real good sense of direction, but when it gets messed up, it's really messed up.
And here I was finally after all that time, came back past the place where we had stopped and gotten gas before. If I had been in any other car I would have had to get gas again by that time, but the volkswagen - that's the one good thing - you didn't have to worry too much about putting gas in it, because they did real well. By the way, I wish I would have kept that volkswagen. One of the fellows in our office, randall, the other day, he comes in driving an almost new - I don't know, maybe five years old, but really beautiful cadillac escalade pickup. And I said, 'we're paying you too much money.
We're going to investigate this." And randall says, "no." He said,"I found a" - and I don't know - remember what year but it was about like the one we had - "I found an old volkswagen and then I bought it and I kept it a little while and I found the right Market and," he said, "I traded it even for this beautiful vehicle." And so they're worth a lot of money now. And I didn't know it back in those days, of course, who would have wanted to keep that thing around all these years. But you can get turned around when you think you're going in the right direction. But God gives us the truth of His Word and tells us which way that we should be going. The Bible says in Galatians the third chapter - we're going to be looking at a lot of texts here in Galatians 3 - a number of them.
New king James says, "but the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe." Now, belief is so important. Sometimes we seem to put a premium on doubt. We think if a man doubts, he's intelligent. If he questions, then he has discernment. And that's what society tells us today.
If you believe you're thought to be simple. But let me tell you something. The Bible puts a premium on belief. God puts a premium on belief and trust and acceptance of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for each one of us. So, you should never be ashamed of believing.
You don't have to be a doubter. It doesn't make you more intelligent to question. It makes you more intelligent to accept and believe and trust in the Word of God. And to know that the Lord is leading us in the right direction. Now, the first - on Sunday's lesson it says, the law of the promise, and then - someone have Galatians, the third chapter, verse 21? We want them to read that when they get an opportunity in just a moment.
'Is the law then contrary to the promises of God?' Was our question. Would you read that? "Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." All right. So the law cannot give life. If you remember, you might want to - if you have your Bibles, go back with me to - let's go back to Luke. And look at the mount of transfiguration.
Remember what we saw at the mount of transfiguration. We saw, Moses and Elijah. And they were the two that were there with Jesus. Now, Moses represented the law and Elijah represented the prophets. Could the prophets bring salvation? Could they? Could the law bring salvation? No, but they were to bring us to the one who could bring salvation, and that's the Messiah.
You know, when we look at the mount of transfiguration you see the sum total of God's communication with man. It's difficult for God to communicate with man. It's just really not all that easy for him to do so. And the first thing he did in communication was in giving the law. And the law is beautiful.
The apostle says that it's beautiful - that it's good. It tells us - it gives us the transcript of God's character. It tells us what God is like. It tells us what God wants us to be like. But can it help us to be that? Can it? Now it can do a lot of good things, but it cannot enable us to keep it, can it? Now, Jesus can.
And the Bible talks about that - the indwelling of the Spirit of God. The law being written on the heart, so that it's a heart response, rather than being on tables of stone. And this, I believe, is the real heart of the Gospel, that Jesus Christ came to live, to die, to go to the cross, and then to come forth and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to enable you and me to have a victorious life. Well, let's go back down to the next - the question is, 'what mistaken concept did Paul's opponents have about the role of the law?' You see, they believed that the law could make them spiritual. But the law cannot make us spiritual.
The law can tell me what God expects, but the law is not able to help me to be what God wants me to be. Now, in the next day's lesson, Monday, the phrase 'kept under law' is found. And I want us to read - someone to read for me Romans 6:14, , and 16. We have a reader right here. Romans 6:14.
"For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" All right, now this law, or it speaks about this phrase, 'kept under law', there are several ways in which 'under the law' can be used. It points out here and in Galatians the fourth chapter, that that is an alternate way of salvation, but we know that that is not actually a way of salvation. Because you would have to keep the law completely, totally, without ever having broken it in any manner in order for you to be saved.
And that has happened by only one, and that was Jesus Christ, our Lord, our God, and our Savior. And it is he who is the one that we must depend upon - that his shed blood covers us. And that is the only way that any of us can be saved. 'For sin shall not have dominion over you.' Now that's important because God does not want sin to have dominion over us. He does not want us to be under sin.
He does not want us to be under the penalty of the law. And it is so important for us to let the Lord have complete victory and complete say in our lives. What then? Verse 15. "Shall we sin because we're not under law but under grace? Certainly not. And do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey.
" You need to think about that. Sometimes we hear people today saying, 'look, I gave my heart to Jesus and that is it. I was born again.' I remember one time that I was going into an airport and an area where there was parking. And a young girl, dressed as a lady of the night - evening, in fact, it was early on a Sunday morning and evidently she was working overtime because she was still working. And she approached me and made a proposition and I told her that I declined, but I also said, 'I'm a minister and you need Jesus Christ in your life.
' 'Oh,' she said, 'I gave my life to Jesus when I was 14 years old.' She said, 'I'm saved.' Now this girl had obvious problems other than just being a prostitute. And these were the problems that were probably driving her to this kind of life. And I said, 'yes, but you must give your life' - 'oh no, I'm fine. I'm saved. I'm out of fellowship at the moment,' she said.
But she believed and her church had taught, once saved always saved. Now, I believe that if you want to be in the hands of the Lord, that you can have the assurance of salvation. However, you see what it says here. If you are in that position, even though you may make a mistake now and then, or you may even fall in sin now and then, you are still under the domain of God. This poor girl was under the slavery of satan.
"Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey you are that one's slaves whom you obey. Whether of sin leading to death." It doesn't say leading to life, but leading to death. "Or of obedience leading to righteousness. So, we're not under the penalty of the law, we're not kept under that, but we are under the great message of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. You know, Paul talks here, he's talking about the law, and so many times we think in terms of the Ten Commandments.
But if you really look at what the whole book is about, it's about circumcision. Now, when the jews spoke of the law, they spoke of the entire law - the Ten Commandments, the ceremonial law - they saw it all as one. They saw even the books, all the first five books of the Bible. They saw that as the law. And then they saw the prophets later on.
However, when you get very specific about the ten commandments, they usually would use the term, the commandment or the commandments say this. The whole thing that they're talking about here is circumcision. This whole book was over circumcision. Sometimes I have people that do not believe in the seventh day Sabbath. They get the idea that when Jesus came, went to the cross, you'll hear them say that - you know, Paul speaks of those ordinances being nailed to the cross.
Well, first of all, those ordinances were on parchment, you could nail those to the cross. You could not nail the ten commandments to the cross, do you realize that? You don't have a nail that strong. You don't have a hammer that big. You don't have that much strength to nail those ten commandments to the cross. But the difference, of course, is the ordinances.
And then, on Tuesday's lesson, someone have Galatians the third chapter, verse 23? All right, we have a reader, okay. "But before faith came we were kept under the guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed." All right. We were kept under by the law and under guard by the law. I, my fifth and sixth grade years, I was in a public school. I had - my first, second, and third grade, I was in church school - part of the fourth grade in church school.
Fifth grade, sixth grade, public school. Seventh grade, eighth grade public school, but I remember in fifth and sixth grade, I was the captain of the guard that - at the crossing places. You know, we had the little flag, you wore a little thing that you put on and there were a couple of places that were just flat dull. I mean, you didn't want to be a crossing guard on some little back street. So we would - I would put certain people there and I went around on my bicycle and checked to make sure everybody was in their right place.
But the place I wanted to spend time was up on glenwood street, which was a major street. And we always put the people up there that were sort of the older-type kids and the little stronger up there, because, in addition, there was usually a motorcycle policeman there sitting on his motorcycle, helping us out. And that was what I was really interested in. I'd go up there and talk to mr. Walford about his motorcycle.
He had a beautiful harley Davidson police motorcycle. He kept that thing absolutely perfect. And I remember one day - I would even sometimes help people across the street there too - and I remember one day I was starting out across the street to put a student - and all of a sudden realized that the car that was coming was not going to stop. And I yelled at the student and he ran and I ran and the van drove right through. He never stopped, he never slowed.
And I'll tell you something, mr. Walford was on that motorcycle and he was hitting the starter, he was kicking it on just that fast and pulled out of there with his siren going and light and he had that man pulled over in about a half a block. I mean, he really moved fast and we were wondering what on earth happened. Now, mr. Walford came back and I remember saying, 'did you write him a ticket?' And he said, 'son, I threw the book at him.
' And I guess that meant that he wrote him a lot of tickets. But there are a lot of different things that he probably could have charged that particular individual with. But, we were there to guard and to protect. Mr walford especially was there to guard and to protect. And the Bible says that that is what the law also does.
'Before faith came we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed.' Now, moral aspects of the law as well as every other aspect of the law, because the law was pointing forward. All of these different things that were taking place, even other than the ten commandments, were teaching us about salvation when they did the sacrifice of the lamb. And can you imagine how many lambs were sacrificed from the time of adam and eve down until the time when the real lamb of God came? Can you imagine that every time, every time a lamb was sacrificed it was pointing forward to Jesus? They were seeing that the Messiah would come. Now, they missed a lot of that, but they really realized that there was to be a sacrifice in their place if they were truly understanding that particular service. And, you know, we get the idea that, well, they just grabbed a lamb out of the flock and they took that lamb and sacrificed it and there was nothing personal about it.
That's not true. They would take that lamb - that lamb was to be a pet lamb. A pet lamb. A lamb that had been brought into the house. Now their houses were not exactly like your house and mine.
There would be wood floors. They would come into an adobe mud and sometimes with other type of items that would cover the roof and so forth, and they would bring those in and there, in the house, they would feed the lamb. The children would pet the lamb. The lamb would become like a pet. Now, you think about this.
Some of you have animals that you love very much. A dog or a cat, something of that nature. Something that you really care about. What if you had to sacrifice that animal. You see they had - they began to feel and to know what sin was all about.
So these aspects of the law were teaching, they were leading people along. Now, if they just legalistically did these type of things they probably were not getting the lesson, but even in that, I believe, they were giving the lesson. Now, Galatians the third chapter, verse 24. Who has verse 24? All right, we need the - to get a microphone here. And this is on Wednesday's lesson, we're talking about the law as our schoolmaster and this is where we see the law teaching us, yes.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." All right. In the roman society, and more than likely Paul was raised - though he was Jewish - he was raised in the roman society. He was a roman citizen. And they would take a slave and the slave would be assigned their son - or in almost all cases it was a son - and they were to completely train that individual. They were to teach him and they had to be a very intelligent slave.
But they would teach him, they would teach him discipline, they would also teach him to read. They would teach him all the different disciplines and almost, you would say, at the end of the period of time when the boy came of age, they would present him to his father and say, 'here, I have done what I could to train this child.' Now, this is what Paul says is like the law also was to do. It was to guard us, it was to train us, and it was to help us to understand things a little better than perhaps we had done before. And I really do believe that Paul probably had a pedagogos and that he probably had this kind of tutor. And when he was thinking about this and describing it, he may have been describing the very one that had taught him.
They would do whatever needed in discipline - they were given permission to cane the person, or to whip the person, to apply discipline in whatever way was necessary in order to help them. And Ellen white says here in selected messages, page 234 and the Scripture Galatians 3:24, "the Holy Spirit, through the apostle, is speaking especially of the moral law." So it was not only the ceremonial law, but the moral law. "The law reveals sin to us and causes us to feel our need of Christ and to flee unto him for pardon and peace by exercising repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the next lesson on Thursday, the law and the believer. And Galatians the third chapter, verse 25.
Galatians chapter 3, verse 25. "But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor." All right. So, when faith comes, then we begin to get a picture of obedience that's not pushed upon us by a tutor. But is drawn out of us by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is where the change begins to come in the life.
Romans 8, verses 1 - 3 - another text that I would like for us to read. A very familiar text. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.
" All right. I think one of the - some very good passages from selected messages, I'd like to share with you right here. Selected messages, page 233. "Christ was the foundation of the whole Jewish economy. The death of abel was in consequence of cain's refusing to accept God's plan in the school of obedience to be saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, typified by the sacrificial offerings pointing to Christ.
Cain refused the shedding of blood, which symbolizes the blood of Christ to be shed for the world. This whole ceremony was prepared by God and Christ became the foundation of the whole system. This is the beginning of its work as the schoolmaster, to bring sinful human agents to a consideration of Christ the foundation of the whole Jewish economy." Then she continues, "all who did service in connection with the sanctuary were being educated constantly in regard to the intervention of Christ in behalf of the human race. This service was designed to create in every heart a love for the law of God, which is the law of his kingdom." And then, from page 235, "the law of the Ten Commandments is not to be looked upon as much from the prohibitory role as from the mercy side. It's prohibitions are the sure guarantee of happiness in obedience as received in Christ who works in us the purity of character that will bring joy to us through eternal ages.
To the obedient it is a wall of protection." You know, when we see what the law really requires, if you understand the statements from Matthew 5, when Jesus talks about the ten commandment law, he talks about it as not just murder, but if you hate your brother - you know we can hate our brother in many different ways. He says it's not just committing adultery, but lust - and you know that so many times we get the idea that if we just don't do something, we have not sinned. He says, 'no. If we even have that strong desire that goes beyond temptation to a point of actually entertaining it in our minds, that that is sin.' And when we realize that we are sinners in need of the blood of Jesus, it helps us to know that it's only through him that we have life eternal. I remember when I was a young man, I was going to college - I had come to a real study of Matthew 5.
I really was hit by the fact that just not doing things still did not mean that I was guiltless. And I remember one night I was on the campus of southwestern adventist university now - and I was sitting there - it was camp meeting - first, second weekend of camp meeting. I was sitting there waiting for some of my friends to arrive - coming in from out of town. I told them where I'd meet them. We didn't have cell phones in those days so you couldn't just go on and have them call you later.
I kept waiting, I thought they'd be there by then - sitting on a bench, thinking. I loved sports. I loved baseball and I was thinking to myself, 'you know, I had an opportunity this past year to play professional baseball' - I didn't do it because of the Sabbath. I have had some other opportunities, I didn't do them because of the Sabbath or for other things, and I thought to myself - it was so clear - 'you know, you're going to miss out on this world, and don't kid yourself, you're not going to be saved either. You're going to miss out on the world to come.
You're not going to get either one of them, because you're just committed just enough to be miserable and not to have victory or power.' And I was struggling with these thoughts when a man by the name of leon strickland came by - he was the associate pastor of the church and he said, 'what are you doing out here?' And I told him what I was thinking. And he said, 'you know, you need to understand righteousness by faith.' And he began to explain righteousness by faith and I said, 'listen, I've been in every theology class there is to take here. I've never heard this.' I said, 'this is not what we believe as a people.' At that time, the teaching that I had heard was that you had to be this way and then God made up the difference. But they did not have God doing it all as the Bible really teaches. He will if you'll let him.
If we'll submit ourselves to him. And so I said, 'where did you get this?' He said, "I got it from a book entitled, 'Christ our righteousness' by a.g. Daniels. It's a compilation' he said 'of writings by Ellen white." And I said, 'I've read all kinds of things from Ellen white. I've never heard anything like this.
' He said, 'get that book and read it.' He had prayer with me and then he went on. The next Friday night I was back home in Dallas and I was bored. I was thinking about calling a friend of mine who lived down the street for us to go out driving and we wouldn't do anything bad - we wouldn't do anything good either, but we wouldn't do anything bad. And then I asked my mom, 'mom, do we have that book 'Christ our righteousness?' She said, 'no, I've never heard of it.' And we only had one small bookcase. Mother borrowed her books from the church or she went to the library and got books.
We didn't have very many books - a few spirit of prophecy books and something like 'old yeller' and a few like that and that was about it. And I looked down on the bottom rack - bottom shelf - and there was a book that was wrapped in brown paper, the abcs did that back in those days, and then they would stamp the name of the book on the end. And I reached down, and as I picked that book up, before I even saw what was written on the end, I knew it was the book 'Christ our righteousness'. And I opened it up and I said, 'mom, where'd you get this book?' She says, 'I've never seen that book in my life.' Never seen it before. She must have picked it up at a sale or something at camp meeting and maybe it just didn't ring a bell with her.
Whatever way, the Lord had it there for me that night and I started reading it. That was one of the most glorious Friday nights I've ever spent, because I was reading about the Gospel. I was reading about God writing the law upon my heart and I wanted it there. I knew I couldn't handle it out here. He had to write it in here.
And if he would do that, and if I would hold on to him, and trust in him, then I knew that there would be the assurance of life eternal. I'll never forget that night, in fact, I read that book through eight times before I read anything else. And it impacted my life in such a glorious way. the Lord says, 'I will give you rest' and he will if we will trust him. If we'll rely upon him.
If we will say, 'come into our hearts.' Mommy! Daddy! Help me! No. I don't think so. You didn't do very well on your report card this last quarter so...no. You haven't been pulling your weight around here lately. You want help? Well, I wanted help with the dishes last night.
Help yourself. Huh? Honey, did you bring the marshmallows? (Coughing) thank you for joining us for this broadcast. If you've missed any of our Amazing Facts programs, visit our website at amazingfacts.org. There you'll find an archive of all our television and radio programs, including amazing facts presents, central study hour, everlasting Gospel, Bible answers live, and wonders in the word. You'll also find a storehouse of biblical resources geared towards answering some of your most difficult questions and our online Bible school is just a click away.
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