In this sermon, the preacher discusses the story of a man who had a difficult life. He was sent by his father to his brothers, but they betrayed him and sold him into slavery. He ended up in Egypt, where he was thrown into a pit again. The preacher draws parallels between this man's story and the betrayal of Jesus, who was also sold out of envy. The sermon emphasizes the importance of spiritual self-reflection and the need for mercy and love in our actions, as demonstrated in the Sermon on the Mount.

Looking for some Thursday nights anyhow into the fifth chapter of the Gospel as recorded by Matthew which is the long edition of the Sermon on the Mount. It goes right through the second chapter and again the eighth chapter begins there by saying in verse one, when he was come down from the mountain great multitudes followed him. As though that this is the exclusive property and I believe it is just of the believers. It was interesting tonight as I was getting ready the TV was on and I'd wanted to hear this thing that's being given tonight, this electron mind control by the Russians and it was very fascinating. There's evidence on both sides and evidence from people who defected that Russia has a system now whereby because the human mind does, I don't know what you call it, eject or give out rays of electricity and that right now Russia according to the American government, right now Russia is bombing America with low frequency waves which will have some effect on our minds. They have, they had a witness there who said it's possible for a man a half mile away to so control certain frequencies that he can neutralize your walking, he can neutralize your spine from a half mile distance or they can alter our thinking. Well I don't doubt that most thinking needs altering but I don't think it needs altering that way. And as you see this is, this is, I know it's a diabolical thing and I know that what they want to do is to turn everybody they can, Americans rather than the zombies, make us subjective. I was I watched a TV thing the other day in the news where an unborn child has some deficiency of mind and they had put a syringe through the womb of the woman into the child's brain and taken out six, I think it was six ounces of fluid, not all at once but repeatedly, they had taken that fluid out of the mind of the child because it's going to be born retarded. And I thought yes well that may be wonderful but supposing they turn it the other way, supposing that the government got control and they could inject something into the mind of every unborn child. It's a strange day that we're living in. Now the Bible admits that we need a change. The scripture says we shall all be changed and I often feel like saying don't we need it? But it means that we should be changed from this style of living, we should be changed from this body into a body like unto his glorious body, which won't have any blood in it as far as I understand it because he left all his blood at the cross. And you remember at the resurrection he said you can come and touch me because a spirit hath not flesh and what? Bones. He never mentions the blood. So I consider there that the fact is that the glorified body doesn't work like this body that we have. But that's God's last gift to us, that's a way way way in the distance. But if anything is true at all it is true that if any man be in Christ, and it does include women, if any man be in Christ he's a new creation. You see God isn't a tinker, he doesn't patch you up in the weak spots, he gives you a new heart and a new spirit and a new mind. If he didn't we're not saved. If your behavior pattern isn't changed, if your desires are not changed then you better check up because there's something very definitely wrong. Now this this sermon on the mount again I I think is given exclusively to the disciples. Again to recap for those who are not here this this there are 39 books in the old testament therefore Matthew the first book in the new testament is the 40th. Well 40 the number 40 is typical of a period of probation or testing. Moses was 40 what days on the mount, Israel was how many years in the wilderness? Okay a bit Jesus was tempted wherever there's 40 it suggests that you're in a kind of a captivity to to a testing a probationary period. And and the 40th book you say well well what probation is there here? What testing is there here? It was Israel being tested with a living God in the midst. They had believed for years they'd recited for years the 35th of Isaiah that when he is come he will open the eyes of the blind and so forth and so on and they were tested with the Christ of God with a living God in their midst and what did they do? They they they fell. Again going back the first Adam came into the world a perfect man he must have been something. I kind of figured he was maybe about six feet six tall and handsome naturally because you can still see that in many of us men. I mean he hasn't quite worn out but I think he was very attractive and I think he had a super brain and I believe he had a perfect spirit and a perfect mind and a perfect will and yet in a perfect environment he failed. There was nothing nothing at all that should have caused him to fall but he fell. Now Jesus the last Adam again not the second Adam he's the last Adam came into an imperfect world with everything that had gone out of kilter that could go out of kilter. He was born in a slave system he parallels very much the life of Moses. Moses was born in a slave system. Moses went down to Egypt Jesus went down to Egypt you you read the two stories they're very very parallel and uh and yet when Jesus came into the world and we we need to notice this because we skip over it so much there's a lot of yeah kind of sloppy talk about the baptism you know get this get that get the other. If you claim to have that and you haven't had a yet a head-on collision with and I think there's something wrong because immediately Jesus was anointed of the spirit he was uh pardon me anointed by the spirit he was led of the spirit not some people say then he was led of the devil no he wasn't he was led of the spirit and he had those 40 days of encounter in which he was tested on all points like as we are. Let's get this clear in our minds there's no finality to the Christian life this side of eternity. We're never going to get a graduation certificate from God because he says now look you're spiritual enough now you can just relax you know you know enough of the bible and you've got all the experience at last days and you're you're you're ready to you know just just wait till the Lord called you home and you know like when you wake up in the morning you keep feeling at your back to see if your wings are sprouting or if your pillow is a bit uncomfortable you'll feel to see if your halo dropped off but there's none of that business in it. It's encouraging isn't it to to realize that however mature these men and women of God became they were once like us they had nothing extra they were like us spirit soul and body and mind and faculty and will and everything has to be brought into subjection to God. Now again this sermon on the mount I think is showing us the man or the woman who comes to maturity. I think the reason now we have no revival in the church is we have no maturity. We're not mature enough to handle it. We get caught away with any novelty we get switched off from spirituality to worldliness to you know some some Christians haven't smiled for the last uh about 30 days you know since the baseball strike was on. I mean good night you come home from church bored Sunday morning and you did have the joy of watching a baseball match Sunday afternoon now there's no baseball. I mean how bad can it get? There's even the threat of a football strike that will end the nation. We better dig our grave. I mean we can't put up with these trials and tribulations. I mean children of Israel never thought like this and Paul didn't. But you see if if this teaching as I understand this marvelous teaching of the Lord Jesus here is that the master preaching the master sermon nobody's ever superseded this sermon. What he's showing us is that the true Christian life doesn't need any props. That the joy of the Lord is internal it's not external. We're not depending on happiness which is which comes from the word hap which means chance. We don't go up and down like a at least we ought not to like a yo-yo when things are dark. Well anybody in the world can go that way. You know many Christians react exactly as the world reacts. Now here's a simple question um do I do I control the Christian life or does the Christian life control me? I mean do I get my tea and say well I suppose I'll have to you know I'm a Christian I better just try and get through this thing uh it's pretty tough and huh. Or is there the gentle flow of the spirit that that there was in the Lord Jesus Christ? Is the spirit in control? Paul Paul goes on to one of the most massive statements anywhere when he says I am crucified with Christ not I was I am. You see you can go make a deal with God at the altar and then in two weeks after you could have reneged on all the things you said. I say again that one of the I think the most strong temptations to many Christians is come down from the cross and save yourself. I mean after all other Christians are getting away with it aren't they? Why shouldn't you do the same thing? And the temptation to think is to think that if I say gossiped and slandered like like Moses sister did and God doesn't strike me with leprosy or what is a very famous man everybody here knows his name said to me one day. He said well then I I know that wasn't right the thing I did but after all God hasn't sent any judgment. Well in the Old Testament he used to do that. Miriam gossiped she became as white as snow as a leper. Cain slew Abel his brother immediately God put a mark on his forehead. Doesn't do it anymore. Well there's a difference you see between between justice and mercy. Oh no oh no don't don't fool yourself. No you better stay by the book he has appointed a day. He's keeping an account he's keeping a tab on your life he's keeping a tab on my life. He's appointed a day in which he's going to judge the world. I haven't got by with it I've excused myself I've tried to forget forget it but I'm I should have put that thing right with God. Now the way again the entrance to the kingdom here and Jesus had been talking about the kingdom in the previous chapter in chapter four it says there in verse 23 Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and preaching he makes a distinction between teaching and preaching the gospel of the kingdom healing all manner of sickness no manner of disease among the people and his fame went throughout all Syria and they brought unto him all the sick people that were taken with divers or different many diseases and torments those that were possessed with devils those that were lunatic those that had palsy and he healed them. There followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and from Judea and beyond Jordan. Now he has manifested to me he's saying this is the full cup I mean this is the full content of the kingdom of God. I know it's very interesting about a month ago some of you were there when when um what was his name Dean what was his name Sherman thank you yeah Sherman Dean Sherman gave us that talk and he began by saying right now you know he said I'm a bit of an analyst and what I'm trying to find now what is the secret wasn't that what he said the secret of the kingdom of God what is it well that's that's what it's all about you see we're looking for a for a kingdom to come no Jesus says the kingdom of God is within you and the kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness and joy and peace in the Holy Ghost. Now if God has set up that kingdom within me I think of a phrase of Wesley's there when he says thy nature gracious Lord impart come quickly from above write thy new name upon my heart thy new best name of love poor Peter says we have made partakers of the divine nature one of the most staggering things I think that the word of God says I think John says both of them is when Jesus says that that the prince of this world Satan cometh and he findeth nothing in me and then John complements that in his epistle by saying as he was so are we in this world you know there's a man in what was it was it Norway that during World War II and he was called Quisling and he let his government down very badly he was corresponding with the Germans the government didn't know and he was giving away secrets giving away secrets he was in constant contact with the enemy and he was serving the enemy very well now is there a Quisling in us I mean am I doing things because I have to do them or because I want to do them that cuts both ways people say sometimes oh I can't help myself I have to do it because I'm sinful you don't have to do anything because you're sinful you do it because you want to do it now conversely even here it's possible for you to say well you know if I hold back a bit so and so take the big load and I'll get less to do you know if you've got three jobs to do them one's a real rotten job you say I'm going to do these two and leave the other two last that's that pure nonsense that's silly because you're going to be dragging on your mind all the time why not kill the thing do it first and then you feel very easy to do the second but we're prone rather to put off the evil day put I don't want to do that I wouldn't like to do that's a lousy job they should have given someone else it why why should they I mean it's easy to get brave with your eyes closed and the meetings running high there's all the emotion yes lord we're the whole realm of nature man I'll give you that and you won't get out of bed half an hour earlier in the morning or do you think it takes any notice of you you see the Christian life is a life of discipline now if we're going to enter into this kingdom we come again as it says here let's look at it now in the fifth chapter of Matthew he opened his mouth and taught them saying blessed are the poor in spirit poor in spirit and again to emphasize the words of David he repeatedly says this poor man cried now he how was he poor he's a king he's got servants he's got soldiers he's on the top of the charts musically he'd written more psalms than anybody else why is he poor but he recognizes that is the way to God blessed are the poor in spirit and then blessed are they that mourn they mourn over their poverty they mourn over their inabilities and then right after that blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled and then tonight's verse is verse seven blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy we don't live in a very merciful world do we and you know what people usually say well thank God for mercy because if we don't have mercy we'll have judgment now I don't justice I don't believe that just mercy is the opposite of justice I believe that mercy is the opposite of revenge you see God is a God of justice some people would like that don't like the Old Testament they say oh there's so much justice there and there's no mercy and some people want all the mercy of the New Testament without the judgments of the Old Testament but remember the word says you can check it yourself find it do some a little homework that at the cross mercy and truth met together and righteousness and peace kissed each other again the greatest penitential psalm poor pardon me David wrote at least eight penitential psalms and the greatest of all surely is the 51st psalm where he begins this king this nobleman this man that's done everything for Israel is their superman they've even changed the the music you know they were singing Saul has slain his thousands but now they've changed that they've made it bad Saul can't bear it they're singing Saul has slain his thousands but David is tens of thousands oh handsome David I have a a head of David not not his real head but a stone head in my in my room I look at it very often it's that of Michelangelo's you know that noble face curly hair such a fine-featured man and then he comes groveling he comes groveling he doesn't say now Lord look at it this way you know I've written more psalms of praise and adoration I mean I've made one blunder now don't be too hard on me I mean let's have a bit of mercy around no no it doesn't come that way he comes he's crumpled up and he pleads he begs he whines he says have mercy upon me oh God and uh Paul says the same thing right into Timothy I was an evil doer but God who is rich in mercy in his great love where would he have loved us there's a great old hymn it wasn't written as a hymn it were there were parts extracted from letters of Samuel uh the thing is called the sands of time are sinking and he says in it with mercy and with judgment my web of time he wove and I the due uh uh and I the due of sorrow was lusted by his love I bless the hand that guided I bless the heart that planned when thrown where glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land you see you can't have judgment without real judgment without mercy and you can't have mercy without judgment now if you go back go back here into uh one of the wisest books ever in this book of wisdom into uh Proverbs chapter 11 and verse 17 see what that verse says there okay Proverbs chapter 11 verse 17 the merciful man doeth good to his own soul but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh now step back while you're in that chapter the verse 14 because you need to rivet this in your mind I think you know what you should do to be kind to yourself because we're all prone to be lazy there aren't many of us that that that are not lazy we have a streak of laziness in us we get by with the least if we can I think the trouble with most people in the in the service of God is we we get by with minimum spirituality I mean enough I want enough spirituality to keep me out of hell and but I don't want to strive I don't really like the apostle Paul you know that poor guy never gave up when he's in prison he's as happy as when he's anywhere else in fact he says while writing his prison epistles he's writing to folk who are at home living it easy and putting their feet up and snoozing and and he says rejoice in the Lord and again I say rejoice and then it seems to me and I'm confirmed in this that that most people want to go to heaven on spirituality now you may not have that much education I don't know if you have or you haven't but I'll tell you what education is one thing wisdom is something else we live in a world that's overburdened with knowledge it sure isn't overburdened with wisdom and we need that wisdom the scripture says that Jesus Christ is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption and so if you're going to be wise you know you do you could do this at least you could memorize one verse of proverbs a week I know home and they're pretty wealthy folk I believe they have their own plane and I don't know how many cars they have and the wife is a doctor and the husband is a heart specialist there's open heart surgery and they have three children and they have a blackboard um as long as this mantel shelf and when they sit down for breakfast daddy has chalked on the scripture that's a scripture for the day let's all recite it they all recite it when they come home at lunch they all recite the scripture before they go to bed at night they recite the scripture a verse a day and after he taught them that when they were still children he wrote up strange things alpha beta gamma delta yeah I want you to learn now I want you to learn the greek alphabet and when they got mad he put up the hebrew signs and he taught them hebrew and instead of buying them toys he bought them uh things well well when they're still in about 12 or 13 he he sent them to have a course in uh radio knowledge technique technicalities and then when he got to 15 and 16 he sent to ford's and he got all the books that ford's have for years and years and years and uh he went down and got a set of tools he got a jack and he did all his own car repairs with the children on a saturday instead of fooling around you know those three guys now one of them is stim in his teens can pilot a plane he radio he's smart at radio he can do quite a lot with tv why I don't believe any more brains than anybody else but he used them better you see we've got the idea that our job is to keep our children happy and we'll entertain them if we make idiots of them I don't believe that's the thing at all I I'm believing more and more and particularly this generation in which I'm not drunk it's just that this isn't steady uh I believe in our day it's the hardest day ever to raise children and to what it's going to get harder and harder it sure is there's all kinds of devices coming up to seduce the minds of children to keep them away from spiritual things now there's no greater wisdom I don't care how smart a man is I don't care if he's 50 dds or phds or what he has if he doesn't know the word of god he's still ignorant and on the other hand if he has no degrees and knows the word of god he's very wise because he's not going to slip into the pitfalls of other people's I believe that god has given us everything as his word says that we need regarding spirituality that everything as peter says isn't it peter everything that pertains to to life and to holiness come come down to the back of the book here now come down to james let me see chapter chapter 2 and verse 13 he shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy and mercy rejoiceth against judgment now there's something for you to there's something for you to chew up he shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy and mercy rejoiceth against judgment you see part of this great sermon on the mount is this with what measure ye meet it again remember the story what in the 18th of matthew where a man met a friend one day and he said hey you owe me so much and you better pay up he was only trivial if you don't pay i'll cast you into jail and so he did the worst thing for him that no the but he owed his boss pardon me let me get it straight here the boss he owed money to and and his boss forgave him everything he went away feeling on cloud nine as we say and he comes to his friend who owes him a dime and he says listen you better pay that i'll get you in jail and so he he exacted the full total of the law on him what happened the boss came back and uh beat him up for it sent him to jail for it you see with what measure you meet it should be meted unto you again listen when something comes in your life don't start grumbling complain say wait a minute let me go back let me track back in my mind did i once give somebody else a raw deal like that did i did i once let somebody else down with a bang i mean am i is it really that i reap what i sow you know what one of the greatest things of all is is in this life i think is forgiveness and that amazing man spurgeon the more i read of him the more he startles me a man that was comparatively illiterate that built the greatest church in london in the day that he was there preached to six thousand people every sunday morning another six thousand every sunday night he ran a a college for for young men that were not privileged like some other young men he also ran orphanages and one day he asked for a boy to take a bag of gold they used to have little uh like a um a wash leather bag you know we used to have one at our house doesn't much gold in it but they put gold in it and and he said to this boy now you take it across london bridge to so-and-so and the little boy went but on the way he saw something in a shop and he thought well now oh mercy i better i i could buy that i've got lots and the little fella fell for the temptation he went and he bought what he wanted then suddenly realized the mess he was in he had to go back no i think he ran away but finally he was brought back to mr spurgeon and mr spurgeon said what did you do and he cried and whimpered and said what he'd done and so forth and that now mr spurgeon said that's the first time you've ever had a blemish on your record while you've been in this orphanage and i freely freely forgive you and the big man hugged the little fella and the little guy ran away full of joy the next week the same errand had to be done and mr spurgeon sent for the same boy and he said now here's the bag of gold just like you had last week hold it tight keep it in your trouser pocket and off you go over london bridge and go to so-and-so the same place you went last week and little boy cried and blurted out he said but sir i'm i'm the boy that that did the wrong thing last week yes spurgeon said that i've forgiven you i've forgiven you that's all forgotten we used to sing a chorus years ago when god forgives he forgets but you know we're not all like that and you see sometimes when god has forgiven our sins the consequence of sin still stays there for instance i know a man who slipped from his ear right down under here because he was in a brawl and somebody pulled a razor something and slashed him now he'd been a wicked man and god forgave his sin he's one of the most charming men you could meet but the scar is still there sometimes we've done wrong in our lives god forgives i think particularly in the area of sex a girl gets into trouble and maybe she takes it has a baby and she's left without baby for years and the guy who gave her the baby's gone off and maybe done the same thing to 20 more girls he doesn't have to suffer and there's no way though god forgives her and she becomes a saint of god it does happen she still feels that sense of reproach or sorrow or wishes she's done some other thing like that it's still there and the same thing works out for men in so many different ways but god is rich in mercy he's rich in wisdom he's rich in knowledge he's rich in power let us say again as i said at the beginning there are not many merciful people this is a merciless generation in which we live one great writer in america says we're the most cruel generation that the world has ever known we're the most scientific we're the most cultured we've lovely homes we super intellects man alive when i when i see one of those great converters like they had in on the on the news at six o'clock tonight showing how they could transfer what what is it radium and so forth and all the other stuff and make atom bombs out of it and i looked at that huge thing and thought who in the world has brains to put that together or getting that thing that they were shooting through the sky the other week that has a million parts in it and they all function well i can do a thing with it i wouldn't know where to start and yet despite that we're cruel we're lawless we're relentless there's never been more cruelty you know people always say there's so much crime there's so much freakiness i hate to read about rapes i hate to read about and then they sit down and watch it for three hours on tv at night if we showed the brutality to animals on any given radio and any given tv station at night if we showed that brutality about animals we'd be having every weekend without people parading through the cities objecting to the way we treat animals but we let it all go by on the screen i mean it's the way of life cruelty injustice wickedness crime whatever you want to call it and you know when it comes down to the nitty-gritty there's not a great deal of mercy i think as in the amongst christians you know what mercy does i believe that mercy is an attribute of love you see in the first part of this study that we've been taking in in matthew 5 the first things that are mentioned there it shows the sinner as it were in a in an attitude of subjection an attitude of pleading before god these are the things he wants but there's a turnaround in this verse this is where action comes in it's something that flows out of me blessed are the merciful what is mercy i would say mercy is compassion on somebody on over you could exercise power and authority because they've done you an injury and you could treat them and get out of them what what you deserve what you want on the other hand you could say well wait a minute what what you see this is the whole argument of this teaching of jesus isn't it as you would that men should do unto you so do ye unto them or don't go the second mile can you remember somewhere in your life when you somebody came in your life you didn't like and before long you find an excuse to dump them now what if god dumped us as quickly as we dump other people supposing he were as short in patience and love and mercy as we are most of us were in bad shape mercy i believe is is it's active it's pity in action there is a sense in which you can't just believe in mercy you've got to act in mercy it demands activity it's not like saying well i believe i'm one of the most merciful man in the world you know i always believe in mercy and i always shall and i want to be more merciful and never do a thing about it what good is it you see the older you get the more you realize you're uh you're very smart not to shout every conviction you have from the housetop because it might catch up with you next week you know i i said the other sunday i've got to preach this sunday morning so pray for me i'm going to go down again into that chapter it's the most awesome chapter in the bible john 17 and i said let's remember the framework the framework is to me shattering mercy mercy read that 16th chapter and run through the 18th and 17th and start at the 18th immediately jesus goes to the book over the book kidron away into the garden of gethsemane but the last verse in the in the 16th chapter says and i remember stressing this and as i stressed it saying to myself well i got it pretty easy lately in the world you shall have tribulation and i remember if i thought i thought well man i've had a very comfortable time this year last year was rough i had surgery twice was in hospital all of this been a good year and uh felt real good next morning we went to town half past nine came back at half past eleven the house was robbed stuff was thrown all over the place and uh guys had stolen our stuff and immediately came back well you said it yesterday didn't you now that's a mild form of tribulation that's surely it is i can live without it but on the other hand you see if all i do is sit in a chair and write to others then immediately i become a philosopher you can say what you like but it's like there's an old ditty it was you know the great hymns were written in england this is a ditty it was written in america and uh remember what it what it uh what it says what they're not uh they're watching how you walk not listening to your talk isn't that true people read us by our actions not by our lips you can say the bravest thing in the world and be his coward going you can talk about love and be cantankerous you can talk about being long-suffering and being impatient you see the as i say again and as i see it again mercy is is loving action it's when you could screw the other fellow's neck around instead of that you say this and guy i'm gonna let you off because now it doesn't mean you are it's not doesn't mean you can don't sin um you can't you couldn't translate it or transliterate it like we do some of the scriptures and say for instance um well it says blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy well blessed are those who um cover up their faults and their faults will be covered up it doesn't say that the supreme example i think is the is the case of the man going down from jerusalem to jericho you know the old samaritan story fell among thieves what happened well there was a priest and a levi a preacher in ireland was teaching this and he said well why didn't the priest go over and help the man and the little boy said because he'd been robbed already but uh why didn't he go help him i was in too much he was just thinking of theological thing out they just had a discussion up in jerusalem and uh don't get your hands all bloody anywhere there's nowhere to wash and he i suppose he's dead i won't bother to go so he left him and the levi came down and uh and he didn't bother with him but a samaritan and the samaritans were dogs in the eyes of the jews lord you're not going through jerusalem you're not going through samaria yes i'm going through samaria oh oh no samaritans they stink and it was a samaritan the most despised man that said well i can't leave another fellow at the side of the road he's a human being whoever he is and he goes you remember and he he bound up his wounds and he poured in oil and wine and he put him on his own beast that was risky why didn't he say my goodness there's there's there's thieves around here come on get up get up get up let's get down as quickly as we can to jericho it's dangerous being around here instead of that he gets off the beast he puts the other man on and he slugs it on foot and he gets down to the city and he says to the man now here take care of him and he took out two pens the holiness people said that was the first and second blessing i'm not sure that's right but anyhow he took out two pens and say take care of him and whatsoever thou spendest more when i come back put it on my bill i'll do it now that isn't mercy what is i'll think of the story i was reading it today it's it's a fascinating fascinating story we man we should read these stories over and over in what the 42nd chapter of genesis remember what it is without looking it's the story of a man who had a very very raw deal he lived up here and from there his father sent him down to dolphin with uh food for his brothers and when he got to dolphin they put him down in the pit and then they lifted out of the pit and they sold him to ishmaelites and took him down to egypt and when he got to egypt they put him down in a pit again i figure it was about 17 years of age and he stayed there until he was 30 years of age pretty long while isn't it good time to dry out his brothers sold him for what well the same thing that jesus was sold for they sold him for envy you see if you want to know where you are spiritually you don't have to necessarily listen to me or somebody's tape all you have to read is is the sermon on the mount and when you've read that read 1 corinthians 13 and instead of putting love suffers longer this kind love envious not love wanted put yourself in there i suffer long i'm kind i envy nobody i'm never rude i'm never resentful i'm never glad when others go wrong i'm always glad joyful to believe the best i hope all things i enjoy all things come on how are you getting on i feel good comfortable see the trouble is we we we rejoice in sins forgiven sure we should some of us enough to some of us have sinned enough to damn a dozen people behind ourselves but god in his infinite mercy he forgives and he forgets i remember about two years ago it suddenly struck me that never once did god throw up in the face of moses you better watch your step you're a murderer nobody knows where the body is i know where the body is i know where you put him down and you smooth the sand over i could i know the place all that so you better watch out because i'll be after he never never once threw his sin in his that when he got angry for 30 seconds he got punished for 40 years you see we think all we have to do is be nice and sweet even if you have a rebellion inside if there's somebody you hate and you let that cancer go and and then you become dispirited and heavy and get into bondage we wouldn't do that if we read the word of god very closely now what happens this this fellow goes in prison and when he's there the butcher and the baker or somebody were there and and he interpreted their dreams and he said you're going to get out and they got out and he's left holding the bag as we say why does god let the other rascals out let him stay there but then you see he goes down down down down down down and then god starts he goes up up up up up until he sits on the throne with the king and he takes the king's throne over when the king goes out of town and here he is god has exalted him now what does he do pardon me uh genesis 44 says he that is joseph commanded the steward of his house saying fill the men's sacks with food as much as they can carry and put every man's money in his sack not merciful he could have run them all off into jail these were all his brothers cringing at his feet saying we're starving we're starving where we live can you can you give us some food he could have and he put their their money back in their sack and then he put the king's cup in the sack and let them go and then they they ran after them and when they got there it says with whomsoever of thy servants the cup be found both let him die and we also will be my lord's bondmen that's what one of the one of the sons said one of the brothers said we we haven't done it you can search our bags you're wasting your time we we don't have a bag we we brought money with us and we left the money in your office and we just went to get our asses and all we did was put our sacks on the back of the asses and and you're accusing us of stealing that and the king's cap not only alive i'll tell you what if you find it anywhere just kill us that's a merciful thing the man didn't take them at his word that was mercy wasn't it because they found it what do you want us to do now verse 19 says my lord asked his servant saying have you a father or a brother we said unto my lord we have a father an old man and a child at his old age a little one and his brother is dead and he alone is left of his mother and his father love of him verse 26 we cannot go down if our youngest brother be with us then we will go down for we may not see the man's face again except our youngest brother be with us this is what they're saying to the old man to their father now they've got back home verse 30 says now therefore when i come to thy servant my father and the lad is not with us seeing that his life is bound up in the lad's life well uh if we if we ask uh you see what what happened is this that we we did have another brother and and he went out and he never came back we think maybe the the beast devoured him and they don't know they thought this man who is a king is their brother joseph could not refrain himself before all of them that stood by him and he cried let every man go out from me and there stood no man with him while joseph made himself known to his brethren and he wept aloud the martin says with his voice weeping in other words he wasn't silently sobbing he was uttering great groans of sorrow remember later he said he meant it for evil but i meant it for good now now how do you think they felt you know it's so easy to read these stories and you don't get any emotion or anything out of them that these guys that sold this little guy away he'd lived in misery and had nightmares he he'd been living in a lousy prison he'd had years and years maybe 17 years of misery and now they face this man who has all this power and he suddenly sends every servant out get out of here a minute and he sends all the servants out and he takes off his crown and he pulls off his beautiful garments he says look i i am your brother that you lost the brother that you were treated the brother that you sold into slavery well that's surely mercy he could have said well i've i've teased you now for a few months because it took them months to go back to the father and come back again and they know they didn't happen to catch a jet they went on the back of donkey i'm going to take it out of you that you hide this time you're all going to jail for the same period of time you put me in jail or i'll give you half a cent instead of that what did he do he showed mercy there's another great story do you remember the time when according to his own word david was hunted like a partridge in the mountains and one night he went into the cave and there was the king asleep and his servant says there you are god's delivering him into your hand just just let me take my knife and stab him he won't know anything about it he said get his chance you've ever had you can end all the misery you can go back and take the throne he says no just just cut a bit off the end of that long robe he's wearing you remember he went across the valley and they hollered hey hey is the king there well uh here's a piece of his uh look at the bottom of his he's talking about coming to the place where where there's there's nothing in the world with all its vanity all of its pleasures pomp and its pride give me but jesus my lord crucified but he realizes all right in american language ab simpson talks about the perishing things of clay born for one brief day oh what a lot of false values we have if we have a big house if we own this if we own a yacht if we own a plane if we own something else so what so what am i better off if i have 50 acres more than the other man if i have a roll royce while he's only got a scruffy little mercedes uh i've got a big jet and all he has is a cessna or something uh what what where where do you stop with your stupid comparisons you see it's it's not it wasn't difficult i used to wonder why my old granny and she was a precious woman i used to wonder why uh she was content in a little cottage oh it was spotlessly clean and she polished the furniture and my goodness you know those days they had great lace curtains you had to take them down and wash them and iron them and oh murder i don't know what modern women do honestly i don't you know they've got bedsheets that don't need ironing husband shirts don't need ironing the bread doesn't need cutting goodness me all they do is press buttons they're tired at the end of the day pressing buttons i remember coming home from school monday mother's back was nearly broken over a rush rubbing board you know rub rub rub rub rub you put all those heavy things on a line outside the house and you know when a blanket's full of water because because they used to squeeze them with their hands and you hang it up and then what you're looking oh the whole thing had come down in the mud take them all back again into the house and wash them all again and then the next day was a day to dry them the next day was a day to iron them oh mercy all those things have gone you ladies have missed a lot of joys uh what are the chores which whichever you want to call them you know i i realized i was thinking over this recently my granny just about lived on the shoestring she was always immaculate there a lovely gray hair there and she always had a kind of beautiful little pinafore on and she used to sing rock in a chair sing take time to behold in all the rest of the things you know i suddenly realized that she got all the treasures on the inside see some people wear all the treasures hanging from their ears or around the neck or some other way and usually the folk that have most treasures outside don't have the most treasures inside it's easy to say let the things of earth grow strange within but we happen to live in the competitive world even in church circles you see mary jane's ring hmm i guess it's not more than a quarter of a carrot i'm not sure if it's a carrot or a turnip but anyhow it's a shuffling little thing there i mean you think any fellow will be embarrassed of eyes oh yeah i've always admired what is yours yours is a carrot is it really yes a whole carrot so what are you going to suggest the guy loves the girl more because she's a turnip on a finger or something else on her finger a cauliflower or something he if he's any sense that's no value she's any sense that doesn't persuade her at all is he i love that 45th psalm that says the king's daughter do you remember it can you finish it is what is all glorious within the king's daughter is all glorious within have you ever tried to figure what kind of demands judas made on jesus all the other disciples because the heavens knows they i think they were all dds you know they all had a dd they were dumb disciples they had to be they couldn't have finished up the way they finished it i've told you more than once if they if they'd really believed him they'd all have been lined up that resurrection morning at the tomb waiting for him the only one of them there they didn't believe him and even when they got the news that he was resurrected oh come on you're not saying oh that woman woman running up the road screaming he's risen he's risen he's risen but you know women are emotional you can turn them anyway and sometimes god takes it as our word as the word that we utter again thomas says well look you you guys are as emotional as the women you say he's risen you know what i believe when i put my finger in the nail print and i lift his shirt up and i put my hand in his side then i believe within a few hours jesus comes in the room how do you think thomas felt do you think he said hey lord i know it's you hey come on i want to shake hands with you i think he did that's all right don't don't make me prove it come on thomas come on thomas come on thomas all the other disciples looking at give me a finger there it is now now that's where the nail went through here's my side see where the sword went through you know sometimes if we really check up on our lives somewhere in your high peak of excitement or emotion or something you made a vow to god you can have anything you like in my life oh and he comes and asks you to pay the bill oh i was mistaken after all mary there in doing it well mary didn't make a vow like you did see there's no there's no such thing as getting on the belt line like you like to do ford motor cars i went in ford oh i don't know about 1955 maybe i looked through that great system in detroit staggering thing you know metal at one end and a ford comes out at the other end and about 20 of us had a guide and he explained everything and i knew no more when i came out than when i went in about the metals and other things and then he said now you've had a superb tour and all this he said any questions nobody asked a question why that's strange he said usually i get a dozen questions now if you have a question would you raise your hand no question i raised my hand yes sir what is your question i said do you give samples he said no no you know whether you whether you're here or whether you go to y1 or whether you go to agape or whether you go somewhere there's no such thing as an assembly line you can all have the same instruction and some of you are all out in one ear and out at the other and some of you will assimilate it and some go too deep and get too introspective and others just say well our god doesn't expect us to be perfect down here and most of us you know we we may not like to wear secondhand clothes too much though that wouldn't worry me that much but i'll tell you what most of us wear secondhand theology somebody else's opinions now you'll change your opinions often but you don't change your convictions very often and it's convictions that keep us steady they keep us anchored down and i know this that day by day every day i need that gracious mercy of god he he could do so many things with me but he doesn't do it not because i deserve it because he's merciful what does the old hymn say he's slow to chide and he's swift to bless you find yourself always you know that one person that somehow ages you and you're always trying to jump on them and get hold of them for every fault they have or do you say wait a minute wait a minute i used to be cranky like that god have patience with me i mean uh you know as again sanctification is a process and a crisis a process and a crisis except it's not on the level it's up hill come on you sang it tonight you fell in the trap i'm pressing on the upward way new heights i'm gaining every day will you be higher up the hill those hills always challenge me there i could climb those hills but i couldn't climb the real ones but is it really true or is it just a poetic beautiful thing new heights i'm gaining every day when i get up in the morning is it oh oh uh we're going to so-and-so man then we get down to pennies they have a sale i saw that verse before and now there's ten dollars off it i'm going down there a guy's going now what what fills my horizon after all we don't live a year at a time or a week at a time we live a day at a time what's my what's my ambition today not will somebody send me a slip of note under the door send me ten dollars i'll tell you i'll give you this is my ambition today first of all not what i'll get out of it but what he will get out of me that i will be pleasing to him that there's no discord in my spirit that he can order me around as he likes and i say yes faith shall cry a joyous yes to every dear command of thine now next week we'll no i don't teach next week week after if i'm home i'm not sure i'll be home but we'll come down to the nitty-gritty the center of the whole thing blessed are they pure in heart well that's a whopper isn't it blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god that's not a very good translation for they see god they see god in everything adversity calamity prosperity it makes no difference they see through it that the hand of god is in this thing that again god is not capricious god doesn't pull tricks god isn't giving me hurt twice as much as he gives to her no no no no if he is do you know what because he's got more confidence in her he'll not put upon us more than they're able to bear you see it's easy to get a kind of prefabricated theology this is what we believe here at agape force this is what we believe at wyvern this is what we need somewhere that's easy but again when it comes to the nitty gritty it's work out your own salvation with fear and with trembling not well that's a nice job she's doing i you know i wouldn't mind if she left i'd like to fill that post i remember a lovely look that in fact the first american girl i think i'd ever seen she came to the worldwide evangelization crusade in london oh she was a stunner she was charming she was a beautiful blonde she was a brunette and a very lovely face lovely features and uh i'd heard about her coming to london and i went to a convention and sure enough they called on the platform oh wow what a girl i don't mean sex appeal i mean she had charm and charisma and looked so lovely and everything else you know she seemed to float on the platform i thought mercy all american girls like this and she said well i want to tell you very humbly the lord's been dealing with me after all i came down to a school in london i think i was the only girl with double degrees and i thought surely oh they'd have a lovely place for me in the office they'd see my talents my ability i've never felt that the church doesn't know what it's doing with you all that latent ability and nobody's discovered it yet i mean you know how important you could really be what a lot you could so she said um i looked around and thought yeah well that girl doesn't type very fast and girl over there isn't doing a very efficient job and man i've got all these techniques and i mean we're ahead of you you know in from america i can i can really get this place going and she said i said well what uh do i have an assignment tomorrow yes um we the the rising bell is six o'clock of course and then nobody speaks everything's total silence like a monastery you must have one quiet hour we've got and then at seven o'clock uh we meet and sing a hymn and we have a scripture reading and then at half past seven we have breakfast and then at eight o'clock we begin our various duties yeah your uh assignment tomorrow is and it was a big old house it isn't there anymore but i'm glad i did go in it when norman grubb was living there and uh your job is you know all on the how many were the one two three four stories i think and two on each story your job is to uh take care of the toilets take care of what yeah just go scrub the toilet bowls and see that everything's in order and and you know she had one of these royal kind of dresses on she hadn't come with some old gear like some of you girls wear around the farm which is all right she got pretty almost party dresses on and she said there i was next morning with a bucket and a big scrubbing brush i i could hardly hold it with two hands and a big bar of that carbolic soap that poo you want to work a bit like this you know it's so strong it cleans your sinuses out and the water's so hot and and the toilets my goodness she said i was having the battle of my life god here i am saved sanctified talented down on my knees with all this junk all this muck i must have missed it i could have been used in so many ways in so many other places and and she said the lord said no no i couldn't use you anywhere if i can't use you here i can't use you in the lowest job and the most menial job gordon olsen tells a story he didn't tell me someone else told me he went to the induction of a young man who had graduated with some honors and he was going into a church where you have to wear your collar backwards i used to wear that you know when i was going backwards but that this young fellow came in his immaculate suit and his collar there you know and his grandmother was at the front weeping and oh is my grandson graduated what a lovely fellow sure was everything was right and she put him through college and on through seminary and they were prepared for this great wonderful induction i think a bishop was there to do the celebration but they'd asked gordon to speak because he's a reputable theologian and if you see a bishop in the church of england he wears a yard of cloth a yard wide a yard deep on black tape and he puts it around his waist that's at his induction if it's awkward to walk around him but he wears it why well it's in memory of the time when jesus took a towel and girded himself and the speaker said about this young man you've come up through college you've kept yourself unspotted from the world you've graduated in seminary and now we're going to confer this honor upon you and whatnot and gordon just stepped there and said you've just signed your life away to be a servant that's what jesus was a servant great to have a servant's heart i think it was isaac watts that wrote the hymn my heart and voice i raised and the second standard is a servant's form he wore and in his body brought our dreadful curse on calvary he like a victim stood and poured his sacred blood to set us guilty captives free a servant he needs a lot of grace to be a servant a lot of patience to be a servant anybody can be a boss you do this you do that you do this in the house anybody can give orders but sometimes taking them from somebody who's mentally you're inferior or socially you're inferior or spiritually inferior fancy letting her boss over me i mean good night what's going on here huh oh how beautiful it is when we have what the good book says the ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit when i'm always willing not to condone the sin of the other man but say wait a minute i want to be patient in this i want to show mercy god has shown mercy unto me i want to be a merciful person because mercy is an out attribute of love it's the activity of love it's compassion that's finding an excuse to as we would say fall over backwards if you like i'll do anything in my that's possible to give that guy a second chance the danger is you see i can look at you as a class just you just float you've flown in from here there and everywhere you're saying no no no i don't see you as that i see you as sheep not suggesting you're stupid as sheep but uh we're sheep that's what the book says we're the sheep of his pasture you're not my property you're not uh you're not i was going to say team challenge you're not uh last day's property you're god's property i can remember when it dawned upon me once my wife wait a minute she's my wife yes but first of all she's she's god's property how would i treat the wife of jesus if she lived in our home that's how i should treat my wife i tried to do that i hope i don't see we live in a rough and tumble world a world of competition a world that's full of avarice a world that's full of grudges a world that's unkind a world where if you touch some people they shake hands you almost bleed they're so severe so critical so harsh so unforgiving so impatient but when the lord really comes and cleanses that heart it it's not that i'm striving to live the christian life it's the christian life controls me not that i control the christian life except that my will is in harmony with the will of god that when self has been dethroned and he is on the throne then it's comparatively easy because if you love anybody you you never say well i'd like to do it for you dear but you know i'm sorry it's a bit too difficult love loves a challenge love loves to do something that will make its lover happy and if charles wesley was right in his head he's a lover of my soul and he is the lover of our souls and you can look up into his face every morning and say lord today i want to love you more when i end the day than i did at the beginning or you can get up and just say well let's see what are we going to do today pennies or oh the cow's going to calf or i have a bundle of things to take to town or there's a wheel off a tractor or something come on wait a minute let's get everything in gear let's let's get my mind that will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on the i've got to stabilize my mind and my heart and my spirit i've got to drive stakes in the ground and there are things i will not do and things i will never do i think i find that men like wesley men like um david braynard they they they uh they made a kind of ten commandments of their own wesley said he would never stay in the presence of people more than 15 minutes if he visited a home because he said so often conversation becomes gossip and i don't want anything to do with it he would be in bed every night by nine o'clock so that he could always rise by four o'clock he vowed he wouldn't buy a powder to powder his wig which they did in those days because that money could go to the book you make your own commandments it's an operation between you and god it's not a it's not a pattern where everybody's squashed into the same mold even if you're saved if you're sanctified if you're spirit filled if you have a ministry we're also a variable and yet the one supreme thing is we're going to love the lord our god with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength let me say one thing a friend of mine his family left england and went to um they went to south africa and they uh they left a son behind who was about i think it was about 12 or 13 and amazingly enough when they got to africa they'd been in africa about a year when the lady found she was pregnant again she couldn't believe it i got a 12 or a 13 year old boy in england well that's that's about 40 50 years back nearly 40 years back and there was no quick communication no there's no radio i'm not sure if there's even a radio telephone in those days and it was decided that the youngest son in uh south africa would come to a school in london oh that's great because his his older brother his eldest brother is in london and so there were no planes he got on the ship and the ship came up the thames estuary and it actually docked in london but the point was that the boy that was coming he was now about say 14 i'd never seen his brother who was uh about 27 or 8 something like that 26 or something and you know when the boat when the boat came in that tilbury everybody's you know everybody's shouting and he's standing there moving up the boat you know there's hundreds of men and oh hundreds oh massive massive and he waited and waited and waited and the crowd filtered away so there were just two men leaning over the side of the dock on the on the rail there and he thought i can't be my brother neither those are my brother well i'm in a mess here i am thousands of miles away from home i've no address to go to what will i do go to the police what will i say and he's working this out when suddenly one of the men turned around and put his hands behind his back and he walked down the thing hey shouted his name was jack jack hi he said well you've been watching me for about 10 minutes or 15 minutes and you didn't give any signal no but when i turned my back and walked away you recognized me how in the world did you recognize me he said because you walk exactly like your father well that's a convincing thing isn't it it's not if you have more pretty dresses than she has or this guy's more muscle than he has are you walking like your father and god says to abraham walk before me oh we talk about enoch walk with them but god says to abraham walk before me and be thou perfect oh now come on well the hebrew word there is be walk before me and be unblemished doesn't sound quite as tough does it walk without a blemish you know these ladies many of them not uh some ladies have to get on the scales now and again for certain reasons but uh some ladies get on the scales every morning faithfully every morning all at night gained a half ounce this week oh mercy oh ain't that terrible gained a half ounce my dress wouldn't button cry oh i'm gonna have to do something about that and gabriel doesn't care a hill of beans if you weigh a ton more than he did you shouldn't weigh a ton more of course but are we are we as careful about our spiritual condition do we check up on our spiritual life without getting into bondage over it am i really walking as he was i mean today has my speech been unblemished if i could take my heart out and wear it on my sleeve and somebody could see it would it have scars in it would it have bitterness would it have enmity in it would it have a a grudging disposition would it be that there's somebody here i don't like that you know and there's a little girl said that her mother and daddy liked the doctor she said i don't like him you don't know she wrote a little poem i do not like you dr fell but the reason why i cannot tell but this i know and know full well i do not like you dr fell well that's about the logic some people have why don't you like her well i don't like her hairstyle or i don't like him for this come on are we judging by worldly standards are we offering mercy where we have to offer it are we being generous in our compassions in our thinking am i walking day by day like jesus would walk if he wore my gear am i able to say as jesus said i do the all those those things which please the father you know if you're not careful even in the christian life people live by events you know where we're going we're going to a big conference soon at so-and-so i got a call the other day to go to this conference that billy graham and all the big shots we'll be having in kansas city i think it's next week oh my at one time say yeah yeah sure i'll be there you know i actually sat next to the table in fact i've got one near that shoulder because i happen to rub my billy graham with his coat on so i have a shield on it you know so nobody will touch it you know shook hands who did it you know i shook hands with so and so that's great celebrity i'm going to watch that happen for weeks we get if you're not careful we get into the traps that other people get in we judge the lord by feeble sense we judge by this event where we were invited they weren't so what when i hear people are invited now i praise the lord thank god it saved me having to refuse to go it gave me more time to think on the lord or work for the lord or meditate on the lord you see character built you're born with a disposition i'm through with it you're born with a disposition you built character you built character and we build it by knowing god's word and we build it by not only as mrs wesley said there are two things to do with the gospel believe it and behave it and we've been very strong on the believing you don't mean to say that you believe in a post-tribulation rapture goodness me my goodness you must have been brought up somewhere in the boondocks you don't mean to say you believe in a pre-tribulation rapture do you oh what triviality is divided we get into little camps and little prejudices god wants us to grow up it's too late when we get up there it's too late then there's grace abundant for all that we need to do there's wisdom for the asking there's patience and all the fruits of the spirit if the if the spirit is resident and has his authority that he'll do some pruning he'll do some correcting that he's not capricious he doesn't do it for fun he does it that i may be made perfect in the sense of perfect obedience and perfect submission and perfect love before god and god wants to put us on exhibition that's what he says he says he says that he can we are his workmanship and he says we're made a spectacle to the world and he puts you somewhere so all the grace of god can flow through your life and somebody else can see in a wicked rotten perverted world like this you can live straight in a crooked world you can live pure in an impure world you can live in a world of love where there's so much hatred and show forth the praise of him who call us out of darkness into his most marvelous light let's pray father tonight we thank you for the redemptive work of jesus lord we would have this patience this love this grace in our lives that like joseph if we're sold into bondage and forgotten and neglected and we have to suffer because of the envy of others that lord we may have grace ultimately to bestow blessing on them not revenge that without our enemy we could subdue them destroy them and yet we show patience and love we're asking again that the beauty of the lord our god may be upon us but each day we shall grow in grace and in the knowledge of our lord and savior jesus christ i'm going to give you a praise in his name