In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of following God's commands and teachings. They acknowledge that there may not be anything new in the message, as these instructions have been given for thousands of years. The sermon focuses on three principles: the purity of the church, the purity of individual Christians, and the need to spread the gospel to others. The speaker references 2 Timothy 4:1-3, where Paul charges Timothy to preach the word and teach the truth. The sermon also highlights the danger of taking God's relationship for granted and acting inappropriately. Additionally, the speaker mentions the importance of relationships in revealing the character of both individuals and nations.

I always count it a great pleasure and a great blessing to be able to be here among you all. I count you all as dear friends and family in the faith. I'm so very thankful for the help and support that you've given myself and my family while we were in school here, the opportunity to be able to worship with you and to learn from you, to be able to study with individuals who had that same life-precious faith. It has been a blessing that I have come to appreciate more and more as the years go by. And we look forward to the opportunity to come back each and every year with great anticipation in every year. The text that was given to me as the standard for my lesson, that upon which it was to be based, is found in Zephaniah chapter 3, specifically in verse 2, but verse 1 as well gives us a little bit more context. The prophet is speaking in reference of Jerusalem, and he says there in Zephaniah chapter 3, beginning in verse 1, he says, "...Woe to her that is filthy and polluted to the oppressing city! She obeyed not the voice, she received not correction, she trusted not in the Lord, she drew not near to her God." That's Jerusalem, I say again, of whom the prophet was speaking. "...The city which would not hear the word of God, which would not obey the voice of God, had everything in the world given to them that made them God's people, and yet because of that fact, it seems, they began to take that relationship for granted and to act inappropriately according to the will of God." I study political science as one of the things of which I try to occupy my mind on a day by day basis, little things, and political philosophers specifically. There's an individual by the name of Felix Morley, and he wrote that the character of a man is not revealed so much by what he thinks or even says about himself, but rather by the relationships that he has with other men. He went on to conclude that the character of a nation is not revealed so much by what its citizens say or even think of themselves, but rather by the relationships that they have in the international community with other nations as well. I believe that same concept can be applied to our study of the remnant. The character of a Christian is not revealed so much by what he says or even thinks about himself, but rather by the relationship that he enjoys with others of the faithful and with his God. And the character of the church is not revealed so much by what the members of the church think and say about themselves, but rather by the relationship that they have with their God. What type of a relationship do we truly have with our God? Not as we would like to be seen, not as we would like to see ourselves, but rather as God sees us. What kind of a church are we really in his eyes? The topic of my lesson, the title, Will Ye Hear the Lord?, seems like a very straightforward question, but if not, we actually don't use the word the same way as they were used at the time that the King James Version was translated. We think of the word will as a simple interrogative, just something that you say. Will he do this or will he not? But the word will was originally used to mean desire. Is it something that's in your heart? Do you have the intention? Is it your wish that something come about? He says, Will ye hear the Lord? It's something which is individual. It is upon each and every one of us. It's not enough for us to say, Well, the church as a whole is what God wants. Therefore, I'm OK. That's just fooling ourselves. Will ye hear the Lord? We're all very good at hearing the noise, the background. We can hear the babies cry. We can hear the rustling of the pages. We can hear the wrappers of the candy and the gum. We can hear those things. But will you hear with comprehension? Will you listen with understanding? Will you be able to take those things that are taught and turn it around in a 360 degree way, observing it from every angle and making it a part of yourself? Will you hear the Lord? And then, of course, it is the Lord that we are to be hearing. Not what somebody thinks about the Lord, not what we wish the Lord might be, but hearing the Lord himself. For generations, we have been saying that we must speak where the Bible speaks and remain silent where the Bible is silent. Have a thus saith the Lord for everything that we preach and teach. And we have brethren that say that because they're used to saying that, but they don't live that. Because when the Lord actually does speak from his word, when we preach the word, some of those very same brethren are the ones who say, oh, that's that's hard. That hurts me. That steps on my toes. I don't know if I can handle that. I wish you were more of a loving preacher. And I got paid for the number of times I got told that. Will you hear the Lord? So I've taken a few instances that I've seen in the Lord's church, just in the brief period of time in which I've been preaching, just the last ten years now, to be able to say that I'm not sure that we are hearing the Lord. We hear the Lord in relation to the required purity of the church. Now, there are those who suggest that it's not the responsibility of the individual Christian to make certain that the church of our Lord is pure. Some have said that that's a responsibility that lies solely in the hands of the elders, that it is their responsibility to make certain that the church is what God wants it to be. That's funny because, you know, I don't remember that passage. I don't recall that passage which tells us that the elders are to be the ones who are the sole keepers of purity in the Lord's church. Yes, there's no question that when we have righteous elders, we have a responsibility to follow their leadership, to follow their guidance. They being the cream of the crop, having met the condition of being blameless in all of those areas wherein we are supposed to check for blamelessness, we are to follow them all the way to heaven. To that I say amen and amen. But it is not their responsibility and their responsibility alone to guarantee the purity of the church that has been placed upon each and every one of us as Christians. The Apostle Paul, in writing to the brethren of Corinth and in speaking to the congregation as a whole, there in 1 Corinthians 3, verses 16 and 17, he said, "...know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." That phrase, know ye not, which makes an excellent study, by the way, is one that means literally, can you not see, is it not obvious, can you not see for yourself that these things are true? Paul is asking those brethren, can you not see for yourselves that you are the temple of the living God? And the Christian who defiles himself, therefore, is defiling the temple of God? It's not the elders that he's speaking to, it's all of us that have that responsibility. When we defile ourselves, we bring reproach upon the church because we are the church. Others never even seem to get to the point of asking if they themselves are responsible for making certain that the church is pure, because quite frankly, they're not convinced that the Lord is serious about church purity. They tell themselves that God understands us, He knows what we're going to be imperfect, that there are no perfect congregations, and that everybody's doing the best they can. I mean, after all, He knows how busy I am at work, and surely He understands, and He'll just give me a pass. It's okay that I am the way that I am. I mean, I'm just like everybody else. But the Scriptures are very clear. Paul told the brethren at Ephesus in Ephesians 5, verses 25-27, Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. Jesus Christ built the church and purchased it with his own blood, Acts 20, verse 28, not so that it could be an okay church, not so that it could be a semi-clean, semi-dirty church, not so that it could be a church that was like everybody else, not so that it could be a church that was just one of the crowd, but so that it could be holy, which is separated from sin, by the way, without blemish, without any spot, without anything that would make it profane and worldly and mundane. It is to be his bride. How dare we sully it? Paul also wrote to the Corinthians, saying in verse 5, verses 6 and 7, when they were talking about in the past, and Paul had heard about these things, that they had one among their number who had taken his father's wife, a sin which was not even to be mentioned among the Gentiles, and yet these brethren were accepting of it. And not only were they accepting of it, they were glorifying in the fact that they were able to love him in spite of his sin. We hear that today too, don't we? We're just going to love him out of his sin. We know he's wrong, but if we love him enough, he'll come around. Paul wrote to the brethren in Corinth, and he says there in verse 6, he said, Your glory is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth a whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Paul even gives the degree to which we are to be serious about impurity in the church and how we must be separated from it. He continues on there in 1 Corinthians 5, verses 9-11. He says, I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters, for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or a covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such a one know not to eat. We can't just go on like everything's okay when somebody's in open rebellion to the word of God. We can't just act like everything's fine, and I'll shake your hand, and you shake my hand, and here, sit down next to me. After all, we have this dinner, this potluck dinner. We have it every month, and I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings, so come sit next to me in spite of your sin. Paul said, don't have anything to do with a brother under these conditions, not even to eat. Not because we're judgmental, not because we're hateful, not because we're hurtful, but because we want to let that separation show him in a physical sense the separation that he has caused between himself and his God. Isaiah chapter 59, verses 1 and 2. And hopefully it will cause his heart to be pricked, and he will repent. But brethren, make no mistake about it. The Lord requires his bride, the church, to be pure. Will you hear the Lord? Will you hear the Lord? We hear the Lord in relation to the personal purity of the individual Christian. Now, there are those of our brethren who tell us, yes, I'm all in favor of the church being pure. In fact, I'm a member of one of the strongest congregations in our area. Everybody else is just as goofy as all get-out, but we're doing just fine where we are, and that's where I'm a member. And I take my identity from that. Never mind the fact that some of those same individuals are the ones who hold to themselves private sins that they think no one else knows about, that they think that the Lord will overlook, because, I mean, after all, they're listed in the directory of that faithful congregation. God demands that each and every one of us keep ourselves pure for his use in his kingdom, for his glory, not for ours. Again, Paul writes to the Corinthian brethren, this time in relation to them as individuals, in 1 Corinthians 6, verses 15-20, he says, Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid. Know ye not that he which is joined to harlot is one body? For two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body. But he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? This is the important part. For ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Brethren, you simply don't have the right to do everything you want to with your body. I don't care what the Supreme Court says. It doesn't make a bit of difference to me what presidential candidates from either side of the aisle will promise you. You do not have the right to do with your body as you see fit. Because if you are a Christian, it doesn't belong to you any longer. It was purchased with the saving blood of Jesus Christ our Lord. It's His temple now. His and the Father's and the Holy Spirit's. And it's not yours to do with as you see fit. Our God demands that each of us, each one of us, keeps ourselves pure for His glory. In that second revealed letter to the Corinthians, Paul continues to write there in 2 Corinthians 6, 14-7, 1. He says, Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers? For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God. As God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord. And touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and my daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. This requirement that our God has for us is not simply to be judged on that congregational level, as so many of our brethren seem to think, but each one of us individually is going to have to stand and to answer for the things that we have done in this life. Paul says again in 1 Corinthians 5, verses 9 and 10, 2 Corinthians 5, verses 9 and 10, Wherefore, we labor that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. We think of the world standing in front of the Lord in judgment, and them having to hear, Depart from me, ye that work in equity, I never knew you. And we go, phew, glad I don't have to do that. Wrong. You, and I, and you, and you, and all of us, we are going to have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And he, serving as the standard with his word, John 12, verse 48, will be the standard by which you and I shall be judged. And we will either be found acceptable in the sight of God, having had our sins washed away by the continual cleansing of the blood of Christ, 1 John 1, verses 5-9, or we too shall hear, Depart from me, ye that work in equity, I never knew you. You were never really one of mine. What a terrible thought. But God requires individual purity. And that places individual responsibility upon each and every one of us. Make no mistake about it, brethren. If you are not living your life in such a way as to be acceptable to the Lord, walking in the light as he is in the light, you cannot, can not be seen as being acceptable to that same Lord when it comes time for you to give an account with what you have done with your life that he has given you. We read first of all there about that passage, speaking of Jerusalem. And he said, Row to that rebellious and polluted city. Here's people now. Rebellious and polluted city, because they would not hear they'd been given everything they needed to be right in his sight. Have you been given any less? All things that pertain to life and godliness have been given to us through his word. 2 Peter 1 and verse 3. Everything you need, everything we all need to be acceptable in the sight of God has been provided for us. What will we tell him if we stand before him on the great and terrible day of judgment unprepared? What answer can we give? None but weeping and gnashing of teeth in outer darkness. Will you hear the Lord? Will you hear the Lord? Will you hear the Lord in relation to the responsibilities that we have in teaching others? Some have the honor of being able to rightfully tell themselves that they are members of faithful congregations of the Lord's people and that they themselves live their lives as faithfully as they can. And then when they do fall prey to temptation and stumble into sinfulness, they respect the fact of the word of the Lord that tells them that they must repent immediately, that they must turn again from that sinfulness. And they do so whenever it's brought to them. They are not high-minded. They are not above humbling themselves in the sight of the Lord. They recognize their errors. And individuals such as that are to be commended for the good example that they set for the rest of us. But I wonder, how good are they, how good are we about taking the Lord's word to those who are around us so desperately in need? We know full well that the commandment to teach the gospel has been given to all of us as Christians. Jesus, when appearing to the eleven after his resurrection in Mark 16, verses 15 and 16, He said, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. Now brethren, it's hard for me to believe this, and the only reason why I do believe it is because I've seen it with my own eyes. I've had people actually tell me this. Yes, but that was a commandment which was given to the apostles only. Jesus told them to go out into the world and preach. Jesus told them that it was their responsibility. We've not been given that responsibility to do such things. Not me. Jesus was even more specific when he told his apostles as he was preparing to ascend from the earth. In Matthew 28, verses 18-20, he said, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. That's the basis for the commandment, by the way. He has all power, not part of it, not a little bit, but all of it. So when he tells us, that's it. End of story. All power has been given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. He told them, the apostles, Go out and teach the gospel to everyone all over the world. And when you do, teach them to do what I've told you to do. Which, conveniently enough, was to go teach the gospel. We must take courage from the example of Paul and the rest of the Lord's church in the first century who spread the word of God to the point that it could rightfully be said that the gospel had been preached to every creature which is under heaven. Colossians 1, verse 23. The gospel during the lifetime of Paul. Colossians 1, verse 23. The gospel had been preached to every creature which is under heaven. Does that mean that every man, woman, and child had heard the gospel? No. Does it mean that everybody who wanted to hear it had the opportunity to? Absolutely right, it did. Everyone in the first century during the lifetime of Paul who wanted to hear the truth of God's word had had the opportunity by the time Paul wrote that letter to the Brethren of Colossae or he could not have rightfully written what he wrote there in chapter 1, verse 23. I mean without any kind of mass telecommunications, without television, without even the ability to travel the way that we can by great steam liners and by airplanes and jets and even the space shuttle, without anything that we have, let alone the internet, just a dozen men chosen by the Lord and so on and so on to the point that during the first century every person on the face of the earth who wanted to hear the truth of God's word had had the opportunity to say that they had that. I don't believe we've ever accomplished that since. Now when you look at how many there are of us, and granted we are still a tiny fraction of the world's population, but when you look at how many there are of us in comparison to the original 12 that the Lord picked and the things that we have in communications and travel and the abilities and the technology that we have, Brethren, I am serious about this, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. We ought to read Colossians chapter 1, verse 23 and hang our heads in shame. They walked everywhere, they preached, we simply have to pick up the phone, we simply have to send something over the email, we just simply have to help somebody in so many ways that are so much easier. And yet we don't. We are even told why it is that the gospel must be taken to the world around us as it truly must. Paul told Timothy of his responsibility to teach the truth there in 2 Timothy 4, verses 1-3. I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead in his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be instant, in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering in doctrine. For, this is why, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. Preach today while you have the opportunity because it won't always be there. What are we doing today? If today is the day of salvation, when are we going to preach the gospel? And we know that Paul held the same conviction in his own attitude toward the word of God because he so clearly said so in his letter to the Reverend at Rome when he said there in Romans 1, verses 15 and 16, he says, So much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are in Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Brethren, it is not the job of only the elders or the deacons or the Bible class teachers to teach the gospel. You cannot hire the preacher to do your job for you. Even if the preacher were able to go out and convert every single person in your community, none of that would apply to your responsibility to go out and teach the word of God. He would have simply done what God expected of him anyway. Each of us has that God-given responsibility, that God-required responsibility, to go and teach the gospel to the world around us. Will ye hear the Lord? Will you hear the Lord? When I was writing this lesson, it struck me there's nothing new here. It's probably vanity on our part. It's probably conceit. It's probably showing off. But you know, when you come back to preach here in this lectureship, and especially if you're one of the graduates, boy, you want to have a good lesson. You want to just... And not that you want to create some new doctrine. I don't mean it like that. It's not like, oh, they'll never have thought of this, and I'll put this together. It's not that. But you would like to be able to present something in a new way, something that perhaps they hadn't considered before from a different perspective, something which is unique. Each one of us tries to allow our own personalities and our own experiences to shine through. Each one of us tries to be our own man. It was one of the blessings we had in coming to school here, quite frankly. When Oren and I first met, he asked me what I was looking for in a preaching school. I said, the last thing I'll ever want to be is some cookie-cutter preacher. He said, I know where you need to be. And he was right. But you know, there's just nothing new here. And at first, that just bothered me. I said, you know what? Not altogether, maybe, but I've taught this before, and some of those brethren there have heard me teach this before. And then it struck me one morning, that's kind of the point. There's nothing new here. We've only been told this for 2,000 years. We've only been given these instructions over and over again in so many different ways. I mean, I had to really cut it down to get the verses that I chose in this lesson because there are so many other passages which deal with these three principles. The church must be pure. Individual Christians must be pure. And we have to go teach other people to join us so that the remnant can be secured and grow and be acceptable to God. Over and over again for 2,000 years. Certainly in everybody here, your lifetime, you've heard these lessons before. And yet, we don't do it. Not like we should. So many Christians see the whole concept of being a child of God as being a series of thou shalts and thou shalt nots. And they fail to see the big picture. God is not interested in automatons. He's not interested in individuals simply doing what they're told because they have no options. If He had wanted us that way, He would have created us that way. Instead, He gave us the right and the ability to choose whether we would serve Him or not. To choose whether or not we would truly hear Him or simply go through the motions. And unfortunately, on a day-by-day basis, our brethren make that choice and many of them sadly choose wrongly. Three weeks ago yesterday, one of my very best friends was involved in an explosion in his own backyard. He'd been working with a chainsaw and he'd spilled some gasoline on his clothing. And then when he went to work, he finished that and he went to work on a backhoe that was in his backyard. And he tried to start it and when he did, the engine sparked and the arc hit his coat that was soaked with gasoline and he just... And he died a week later. Two weeks ago today. And I'm going to miss Wayne an awful lot. We hit it off almost from day one. My corny hillbilly sayings reminded him of home in Louisiana. And I appreciated everything that he did for the cause of truth. And he reminded me of my granddad, quite frankly, because my grandpa died when I was four and I only remember him as a young man. And so we were friends from day one. We did not agree on everything. He never did like the fact that a preacher would have a beard. It kind of bothered him all the time. I see some of you nodding. That's okay. You can dislike it all you want. I've dealt with that for several years now. It's all right. It doesn't bother me anymore. I never did like the fact... I mean, he was from Louisiana, so he'd eat stuff that I only used for bait. And I never did understand sucking the heads off them crawdads. I'm sorry. I never did understand that. So we did not agree on everything, but we did agree on that like precious faith. And Wayne was not the type of Christian that asked why from a rebellious nature, but Wayne asked why about everything so that he could understand it, so that he could get that three-dimensional full picture and understand it and comprehend it and make it a part of himself and be able to teach somebody else. Wayne was just one of those fellas that just worked hard for the Lord. I told Oren the other day, and Kevin and Mark as well, that Wayne would work all day as an electrician. He'd come home. He'd play with his grandkids. And then at night, he would go out into the garage by himself and sit in this hard school chair that he got from the old schoolhouse, wooden chair. And he'd sit out there with a lamp and his Bible. And I mean, it'd be February. It's colder than a wedge out there. And he's out there studying all night long. And he'd call me about 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning and say, Are you up? And I said, Well, I am now. And then we would talk about whatever it is that he'd been studying for another hour or two. And I loved him just exactly like David loved Jonathan. And I'm going to miss him. But I don't weep tears for him any longer. I cry for his family still. But I tell you what, brethren, I cry for the church. Because this man was a leader. This man was an example as a Christian. He was a worker. He was somebody who understood these things that we've been discussing all weekend long. He would have dearly loved this lectureship. And he put it into his life. He was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But he wanted so much to be. We have to want to be. We have to have that desire, that will to hear the Lord. Brethren, the choice has to be made. By you, I can't choose for you. No one can. You have to choose. It's like Joshua told the children of Israel after he had brought them across the river into the promised land. He said, And if it seemed evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24, verse 15. Will ye hear the Lord? Finally, once and for all, brethren, will we hear the Lord and seek to serve Him to the best of our abilities every day He grants us life in this world? Because, folks, this is not it. This is the test to get to it. This is how we reach life. By obeying our God here. Being willing to hear Him and following His commands. These lectureships are designed to encourage and to support our brethren, the remnant. And I myself have been encouraged and supported and had my hands lifted up by the things that have been taught here. And I hope that that's been the same for you throughout this entire process. But I also recognize that there may be some here today who have not become a part of that remnant. Some of you who are not Christians. Some of you who have not obeyed the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some of you who have not freed yourself from the sins that hold you back by submitting yourself to the will of God and being plunged into the saving blood of Christ through the waters of baptism. It may be the case that someone here tonight has been a part of that remnant, but you've turned away and you've gone back into the world. Or perhaps you've not gone all the way back into the world, but you've just kind of settled down in the church. Whatever your need might be, whatever way that we might be able to help you, please don't leave here tonight without an answer to your questions. Don't leave here tonight without the solution to your problems. Don't leave here tonight unless you can say for certainty in your heart, I am part of that remnant because I will hear the Lord in every aspect of my life. If you're in need of the Lord's invitation, why don't you come forward now as we stand and as we sing.