In this sermon, the preacher discusses the importance of having the right motives in our service to God. He refers to a text in the Gospel of John where Jesus speaks about doing the will of God. The preacher emphasizes that our motive should be to bring glory to God and to fulfill His purposes. He also mentions the need for personal holiness and a desire to be like Jesus. The sermon concludes with a reminder that God is at work in the world, saving people by His grace and power.

I don't like that fellow Baker, brother. MacDonald and I were nice to him, especially, but for MacDonald, I didn't go over to the islands a couple of years ago, and we both agreed we were never going to be on the same platform that day again, but it would be the sprinklings of that. Here I am, trying to follow it. In the early 1950s, I never can remember, it was 12, 14 years ago, we had what I suppose was the first conference in America around the grace of God over in the Holy Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky, and this fellow Griswold came rolling out of Alabama, and I said to brother Mayhan, brother Hughes, and some of the brethren, we just will take out, let him do our thinking for us from now on. I rejoice in these young men, don't you? Say amen. Let's stand together and just say praise the Lord. Just a moment. Praise the Lord. Aren't you glad he's raising up these young men? I just rejoice. Thank you so much. You've been listening to this, I asked brother Mayhan, how he'd like to try to preach now, and he said, if it was him, he'd get up and dismiss the congregation. I don't know what to do. Brother, it's blessed. It's Christ's blessing. Somebody here tonight could render real service. Brother MacDonald lost his marbles, and if you see them around here, please, he came down here this morning and said I've lost my marbles. Brother Jackson said that several years ago, I did my first interview last evening on God's glory and our motives, and I seized upon a text in the fourth chapter of the gospel of John at verse 34. I do not know whether this is a best from the not, but this seems to me to set a challenge for us to look at, for it is certainly true that as we examine our motives, that's about the best discoverer. That separates the man from the boy. It's about as good a way as anything I know. And there, the Lord Jesus saying when he was here in the days of his flesh, he said unto them, my pleasure. The King James Version says, my meat. The better ending of it is that which gives me a kick or a thrill that satisfies me. That language of the day. My pleasure is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. And to finish his work. I had a dear brother, almost a father in the ministry, although I didn't meet him until a few years before he went on the glory, Brother A.B. Mews. I loved him as I love no other preacher. We have our people with our hearts a-knit, life-loving in the flesh. You pardon if I say there's a man here tonight that I love in the deepest bonds perhaps of any human being. I have my love in that way with many hands. We've sat and bled and suffered together. He's been a rock for the gospel of Christ these many years. A true brother. He can beat all of us preaching. I don't like him much for that. But I love you, Brother A.B. Mews. And Brother Mews used to preach and storm that we are elected unto salvation. And then he preaches famous sermon, we're not saved to serve, we're saved to bring glory to God. He was right except he was wrong. One of the tragedies of our ministry who is seeking the recovery of the gospel which has been well and I lost in our day. One of our weaknesses is that we have made a difference between God's election unto salvation and God's election unto service. Their life justification and sanctification are different but they must never be separated. And thus we have a generation of men and women, earnest men and women, sincerely deceived men and women who have been led to believe that a man can be saved without being a disciple. That a man can be saved without receiving commission and orders from King Jesus. It is desperately true, it is true that there ain't no such animal as a Christian who isn't divinely commissioned as a sent one to so represent Christ as Christ represented himself. There's some passages of scripture that used to get around me crazy and still bother me some. One of them was the scripture in John's gospel, the chapter 20 where our innocent Lord said, as my Father has sent me, even so send I you. You look at that not just like a fundamentalist believer without ever finding out what it is. It'll never drive none of you crazy. How on earth should I, could I be given with what audacity would the Lord Jesus Christ even set me about the business of so representing him as he did before. And I got a little relief. I don't know Greek but I make out like I do now and then and I looked at it in the Greek, the original. And there's two different Greek words there. And the one where the Lord said as my Father has sent me allows him to tell the truth when he says I represent the Father so that as our attention has been called here he that has seen me has seen the Father. And the next Greek word, even so send I you, is a weaker word that lets the rough one get in on the, in the war. Stand in his place, but I can stand in his place. Constance always saying I can't preach perfectly but I can preach, live a holy life. Oh, when will we ever but rejoicing in a Christianity that isn't in the churches involved in this awful, hellish, satanic rebellion and conspiracy as Griswold says. Where are we going to, where to attend in a public place of worship. He was sent, now we're in this, that there's a theologian here that can even commence to start to begin to explain and unfold how God, God could receive a commission and be placed in subordination to the Father, because he is what he was. And he was given a job to do and he didn't run for office. He was appointed unto him. And we didn't run for office. We've been made a kingdom of priests unto God. We do not have a choice about being a witness. We are his witnesses. We do not have a choice of accepting salvation and refusing service. We're called into that. We're called into it. Surely if we examine our motives with reference to God's book we shall have to be challenged by his motive for all his mission for he was a man with a mission that was to do the will of God and finish his work. Now the older I get the more I realize one preacher here has made about all the mistakes that can be made in trying to say something that would affect a return to a God Christianity. When all the days of my life from every direction as our first speaker has mentioned with what we can see in one sentence that God is absolutely no use at all except as he can serve man. Our bargain proposition of salvation our telling God if he would do this we would do that is a product of that. You were farmers and Puritans and Quakers and Separatists but they did see one thing that in that classic expression perhaps it has to do humanly speaking with our motives with reference to God's glory. Mr. Burns the evangelist under whose ministry the revival fire broke out in Holy McShane's parish knew when he was about to embark on ship to China the reporters there were there and they asked him Mr. Burns we suppose you're going to China to convert the heathen and he said no I'm going to China to glorify God. Now that's too deep for me brother but he is shooting at Bible truth. I like to read every time I get an opportunity especially the last words that David Brainerd perhaps the saintliest man of American Christianity the last words that he with his own hand penned in his diary the man to whom you who are seeking the lost note of the gospel needs to appear more than perhaps any man who's gone on before said something like this that any conception of the gospel of the glory of God that would produce and give to God's church in any given generation a man like David Brainerd was certainly worthy of our study and our proclamation. And just saying Jonathan Edwards saying of David Brainerd that he was so thankful to a merciful providence that David Brainerd died the last two weeks of his life his two weeks of dying were spent in his home where they could be in the atmosphere of a holy man crossing the river church. The last words that David Brainerd penned in his diary were these who went with fresh minds to think of former things of desires to glorify God when the only refuge a man like Brainerd can take is that it's the object of faith and not the strength of it. When our faith is so weak that perhaps all we can do is touch the hem of the garment of Christ when we face the fact that we really do not have real faith as long as we're trying to strike an expression like this who went with fresh minds to think of former things of desires to glorify God and the last words penned in David Brainerd's diary by the hand of his brother the last words that came from this dear man as his brother penned them down read like this my soul was this day at times sweetly set on God I long to be with Him that I might behold His glory O that this kingdom might come in the world that in my love and glorify Him for what He is in Himself and that the blessed Redeemer might see me of the trouble of His soul and the satisfaction O come Lord Jesus it is meant for Him and I'll let you out of this as quickly say this this is a subject that baffled me I told MacDonald he's got to pay me a hundred and fifty dollars a message because he assigned them and he assigned subjects there were one of us who don't know nothing about our motives and the glory of God let me bring you three things that I believe are implied or at least are challenges to me that go out of a statement that will be the basis of a message is it not true and I can't even understand this that the chief the purpose or not put an adjective the chief the purpose of a of crying God is to promote and make manifest the glory of the Son of His love that makes this the whole order the only thing that will factor and bring the Bible together and the whole scheme it seems to be is that mystery of the incarnation when God was made man purpose in everything in the salvation of souls in the redemption of this world for this world's vulnerability majesty and the glory of God whom he could save this is the Son of my love if that be true three things occur to me that my motive my batted record will be determined by my ability to enter in somewhat to His motive if His motive was to do God's will if His motive was to finish God's work and God to be chosen and appointed not as a public creature but as a child of God to be His messenger boy and His witness three things occur to me I don't know whether this is right or not best I could work out first I think it's the motive of our service and our response relative to the glory of God I think we ought not to be surprised but what in what seems to be a selfish matter one thing that will determine our motive or our motives is the desire to hear what Christ heard and what motivated Him if you please to hear the Father's well done you've done a good job I'm satisfied with what you've done do your will and finish your work and the scriptures are so blessed they tell us of that blessed scene when the Lord Jesus Christ received the benediction and the commendation of the Father again this is mystery how God is one and yet three I don't understand it but it's so when the scriptures tell us that not by the blood of boars and goats but He entered eternal redemption surely surely this is something of what was said before the man Christ Jesus the book of Hebrews will tell us that we got a lot of folks who've gone on before piles of witnesses that our task our challenge is to look looking unto Jesus we are what we look at we become what we look at that's sanctification and finally glorification big word looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before Him I don't know whether I understand that or not who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross this is a commission subordinated in glory son of God who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross and despised treated lightly paid no attention to authority in the mouth to much and is set down on the throne of the majesty on high hallelujah that coronation scene is described as giving us in Hebrews 1 and 3 who when he had glorified and all of us should be interested in what took place there because unless the father receives him the working been well done and the father said sit down son from henceforth expecting till your enemy be made to go astound well if he had something set before him surely it would be if one thing Ralph Barnard had as a motive as his dear child as his commissioned one as his sent one under the sovereign commanding chief I guess that's selfish but it was set before Christ he shall see the travail of his soul he'll say I sure am glad I died you know I wish you took a good look at me I'm somebody oh I am a part of the inheritance of the Lord oh he might found me he's my brother Kendall adopted a little boy the other day and wife and I we rode and said we gonna put a quarter in the bank every week from now get him out of the penitentiary when he gets grown cause they just like to his wife said R.T. won't let me do nothing he changes the diapers and everything else and I don't know who's gonna make a living from now that boy oh it's pitiful for the name he's got R.T. too maybe he'll stay out of the penitentiary oh the father of God he's so proud of me oh I'm the apple of his eye I'm his magnificent obsession I ain't no worm in the dust I was I'm a child of the king and that makes me want out on the plains of Texas when I was 14 years old a section of land my father got a job traveling and he left me in charge I was 14 years old of that farm I hide all the hands I set all the plows I sewed all the cotton I worked like a dog I worked like a dog be in charge and when my father came home on Christmas time the crop was all in everything was sold my father came back and he spent two whole days looking around I followed him around while I let him know he examined the mules shoulders see but kept them in good shape the wagons see but kept them greased the fence rows see but kept the weeds out of there he examined the books he went over my labor and when he made his he came and put his hand on a 14 year old boy's shoulder and said son you've done a mighty good job boy that is worth everything my lord can have the fathers well done we can too that would be a good motive to me as it touches my motive and your reference to the glory of God is that I must look squarely in the face this fact that in the dreamer of redemption God has put all his eggs in one basket in the spotlight he is for time and eternity on the son of his love and nowhere else oh even though it's too deep my beliefs my convictions everything must be turning men's eyes away from everything and everybody and say put your eyes on Jesus nobody that God could be so zealous and jealous of his glory what God abrogates for himself would be terrible for us he says of my glory I will not give to another he gives it all to Christ in the economy of dispensation proven by at least three truths that I mentioned and we'll have time to develop first it is desperately true that God almighty the father has lodged in his well beloved son the son of his love the conduct not only of creation but of all creatures all authority my Lord said has been given unto me in heaven and on earth when we lost that we made of the verses following the great commission of shambles that had no use for God except as a man had use for a milk cow to get milk out of and we began to lose until we come lost at all conception high as it may be that Christianity is centered in God in poor God and not in man all authority as thou hast given him excessive authority over all flesh we lost that and now nobody in America is supposed supposed to be governed by King Jesus except Christians he's been given authority over all flesh why out of that we developed this foolish preaching that a Christian ought to tithe why everybody ought to tithe that ain't a thief and the thief ought to tithe my Lord Jesus nevertheless we've got the little nice doctrine now that whatever your interpretation of the Sabbath or the Lord or the days of the Christian ought to keep it holy my soul everybody ought to keep it holy now if the overall flesh of all Hitler couldn't weaken our flesh without God giving him the strength to human beings of the animals of all creation it's been turned over to the man who's now in glory enthroned forever and all hell can't un-enthrone him no matter how hard they try this is evidenced by the fact that all of his love and favor toward a lost race of men is channeled in and through the son of Israel when we lost that we could no longer preach the wrath of God upon men and we began to go out and preach that God that's so everything's alright but the love of God in the economy of redemption is as wide as Christ in the way and it does not reach savings any in to rob men of all hope of the favor and love of God except as they're united to the son of Israel this truth is further evidenced by the fact that the power to a weakened faith in dead sinners has been turned over exclusively to this enthroned Lord some of you've heard me tell it, I'll tell it again I think it's vital it has been for me in the New Testament where salvation is affected in lost men and women by means of God's call that is stated 167 times in the tragedy that for two generations we have substituted decision for God's call dead spiritually active morally in their deadness active alive to everything except God dead like Lazarus in the tomb responsible so get out unable totally how can they be saved by waking up themselves to something that can't they have to be saved by hearing a voice that's got authority to speak and give life to dead men and all of that has been turned over to this living risen man in glory one day I went to church in the next and then after I'd been in the pasture 26 months I said I ought to go to school I've been getting littler ever since and I went down to southwestern seminary I ran right smack dab some of those old giants and they sprang this stuff about election and God calling and what saving faith was and all these things we were grounded whether we could take them or not and the great truths of the word of God and all those teachers' beliefs all I knew was that man didn't repent and believe the gospel he's going right smack dab to hell and I wish we knew that not so much more that's a pretty good start but I went down and ran right smack dab into this business I've been hearing about and of course I tried to help my professor it just couldn't be sold and I couldn't understand it and I argued and I swept and I slobbered and I cried and I was the most miserable fellow you ever saw and one day I went down to second hand bookstore and bought a book of sermons by old Dr. B.H. Carroll and I read a sermon the voice of authority and his text was in the 5th chapter John Beryl if ever I said to you he that heareth thou is coming and now is when the dead that spiritually dead shall hear the voice of the son of God and they that hear shall live and I read the sermon and the thing that fractured it and was something that so I knew what those guys was talking about and right from then till now Dr. Carroll I can quote it verbatim he said listen well know that if in this congregation tonight you hear only my feeble voice you will go away like a cave but if in the providence of a suffering God you shall hear his voice speak to my voice all hell has to give way at the command of the risen Lord election of predestination all that stuff I make a stab at it but that's it brother that's it oh my soul God raise up a generation who call men back to stripping everybody of any hope except that faith cometh by healing and that's not by memorizing the scripture faith cometh by healing and healing by the word of God and that's the word made fast quickened by the Holy Spirit until Jesus Christ leads us from the pages of the new testament and confronts you in a vital encounter and with the air of faith that he gives you hear that voice that has power to give life to dead sinners say one more word it seems to me that when we look at our motives in the glory of God that salvation, God's salvation is the bringing of many sons to glory in Christ that what salvation really is is Christ reproducing himself it is the reproduction of Christ in mankind one morning the father got up for breakfast and took another look at the son of his love in all glory before his humiliation and he sat down he determined come hell or high water to have a whole family of boys just like his son he wouldn't settle for anything else let me preach it again salvation is making men Jesus Christ it begins with a crisis it continues with a process it'll end with a crisis one day I shall be satisfied when I awake in his likeness when did we lose the note of holiness when we lost the heart God's gonna have a family of people little old tadpoles when nobody else would have been set apart we hoped at least through many women who all were there bringing they were simply a fire steeped from hell no note his son in men and women phoned me up I was being entertained in the hotel on the night I was in a bible conference and I said I think I'm gonna teach the people that asked me to talk about predestination oh he said oh he said I got a lost man in my community that I've been witnessing to and I believe the Lord's dealing with him said if you preach on that place it'll scare him away and I said affected would all the boogaboos and foolishness about it and he said let me change your message I said maybe I don't know I won't promise but he came along and I bought a bible message on it and the service was over and the preacher got his friend in their car and headed back to a neighboring town and the unsafe man was driving the car and he pulled over the side of the road and cut the engine off said I can't see his eyes were full of tears and the preacher said what's the matter he said did that preacher tell the truth tonight the preacher said yeah I believe he did oh he said Jesus the candidate for the throne of Christ for the Holy Spirit nobody else in the world makes Jesus a fire escape and he's gonna get the job men and women are gonna sing the praises of their redeemer world without end to the praise of the glory of Christ Jesus yes since then I was close I was in New York sitting in a meeting and the pastor said I want to take you to see something I think maybe you ought to see it and he took me out in one section where they were piling millions of I reckon tons of dirt on maybe a place that had been the garbage heap of New York City for years he said that's where they're gonna build the world's fair world's fair he said does that bring up anything I said yes bless God yes bless God oh someday he's gonna show me off ha what what can Christ do pick a man up out of the dunghill and crown him with glory world without end and that will be to the praise of the glory of his grace let us pray speak to hearts and draw men to