That's a good Song reminding us to want to be closer to God I think sometimes we get off track don't we sense and be mindful of those things as we're going through our day-to-day Issues and the strife of life and life sure can be challenging can't it I? I always look forward to a time to come together on a morning like this and to set aside the cares of the world for a little while and to see what God would have for us. We're in the Beatitudes part of the Sermon on the Mount and we're going to read the passage again this morning from Matthew chapter 5. We're just focusing on one beatitude per Sunday, so we're going to be on number three this morning. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the meek. So let's look at this this morning from Matthew chapter 5 and verses 1 through 12. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain. And when he was set, his disciples came unto him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, 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. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." And everybody said... Father, we're so thankful to be again in your house this morning with your people and having your word for our sole authority of faith and practice. And Father, we do pray that you would just use the word this morning to speak to each and every heart that's chosen to assemble here this morning. I do pray that when all is said and done, that we will have been able to worship you in spirit and in truth. Father, do you pray that as we gain more understanding to this beatitude, this blessedness of the Christian faith, that we would have a desire to apply these things to our own walk with you, that we would draw nearer to you? Do you pray this morning, Father, that there'd be somebody this morning who's wandering, that they're kind of going the wrong way or they're on the wrong path, that you would draw them back this morning, get them close to you again, and watch great things happen in their lives. And Father, if there's somebody here today who does not yet know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, that today would be their day of salvation. Father, you know the hearts and you know the work that needs to be done, and we're trusting you to perform it all. And we ask these things and pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. If you were to take time and to read the Sermon on the Mount, and Matthew chapter 5 and 6 and 7 is the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus preached during his earthly ministry in that three and a half year span when he had an active earthly ministry, you would discover that the truths that Christ was teaching were, they would be considered radical to the religious mindset of the day. The Pharisees and the Sadducees and there were other groups of Judaism who were very strict in some instances and in some other areas not so strict, but they had a very strict adherence to the law. And when the Pharisees looked at the law of God, They like to talk about what they call the letter of the law. And they even went through and over time added things to God's law and made it very burdensome, very heavy, very difficult for anybody to even keep or even have a desire to want to keep because it was so difficult and such an onerous task for people to measure up to. When Christ came, he took the same law, but instead of teaching it, quote, the letter of the law, he taught people the spirit of the law. In other words, what did God mean? What was God's intention when he gave this portion of the law, and that portion of the law, this tenet, and this precept, and on and on and on. And so the religious establishment of the day, found his teachings to be very radical. I mean, very different from what people were used to or accustomed to. And so, we should be thankful that Christ has come. We should be thankful that Christ has given us the ability to understand God's Word, especially the spirit of the Word. Because if you know this about the Bible, the Bible is a spiritual book. It's a spiritual book and we have to understand it with spiritual understanding and spiritual insight and spiritual discernment. We've been talking about the Beatitudes on Sunday morning and we've been talking about emotions or character traits or positions you want to put yourself in, and you know, none of the things so far that have been talked about are things that we would go out and try to seek after or try to become in and of ourselves. Like, we don't want to be poor, but Christ taught about being poor in spirit. And I don't know that anybody likes to mourn or grieve, but those who are willing to mourn or grieve, Christ said, would be comforted. And this morning, we're talking about being meek. And meek is not a personality trait or an attitude that we would want to go after on purpose until we see the blessing and the meaning of meekness and come to a better understanding of what it means to be meek and the blessing attached to it. What does it mean, Pastor, when they say, or when Christ said, for they shall inherit the earth? So we're going to try to talk about those things this morning and get some help from God's Word. And I do hope it's a blessing for you this morning. The way that I want to present this to you is like a kind of a real life situation. And we can just imagine a couple coming to me for counseling. And we've set a time and a place and the setting and all the different things. And you hear from both sides of that relationship. And there's going to be a couple of different sides and a lot of different stories and perceptions and all those different things. If I were to say this, and I don't know that I ever have, but if I were to say to both the husband and the wife that my suggestion would be for both of you to inject more meekness into your relationship, there would be automatically some things being thought. And the man would think this, and I know for a fact they would think this, well, pastor's asking me to be weak. because they associate meekness with weakness, and the wife is saying this in her mind, well, the pastor expects me to be mousy, because they will attach meekness to the definition or the thought process of being quiet or subjective and silenced in the house and things of that nature. But if I were to say you both need to be more meek in your relationship, neither one of those definitions or thoughts would be correct about what the Bible says meekness is and how we can attain to meekness. Make sense so far? So we're going to try to redefine some things and understand some things. Meekness is not about taking on the posture and position of a doormat and letting the world walk all over you. It's really quite the opposite of that. And the thought I want to bring this morning is meekness is stronger than you think. It's stronger than what you've defined it as in your mind. One of the men in the Bible that you might have heard of Let me just make sure you have heard of him. How many of you have ever heard of Moses before? Moses. Good number of you have. Moses was labeled as being very meek. I have the verses here. The book of Numbers talks about this. I'm just going to read a couple of verses. You don't need the context. You just need to know the description here. And they said, hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath he not spoken also by us? And the Lord heard it. Now the man Moses was, what saints? Very meek. How meek? Above all the men which were upon the face of the earth. And so God's Word is saying this about Moses. He's the meekest man I know, God is saying. There's no one more meek than Moses. He's saying, well, That must mean that he was a doormat or a pushover. Nobody respected him. Quite the opposite is true. There was a scene that went on. If you know a little bit of Old Testament history, when God originally gave the law to mankind, it was through the prophet Moses. Moses was up in Mount Sinai. There was a lot of things that were going on there during this time, and God was giving the law to Moses. Remember when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he had these tablets of stone. And on two of those tablets were what we call the Ten Commandments, right? So that's part of God's law. So Moses is up on Mount Sinai getting the law from God, and while Moses is up on Sinai getting God's law, The camp of Israel has kind of lost their ever-loving mind, somebody say amen. And they're having this wild party and they start to take some gold jewelry and they melted it down. And to have them tell it, they melted down the jewelry and out from the fire popped this golden calf. I mean, absolute miracle. So they have his golden calf and they're making a lot of commotion and nonsense going on around the golden calf and Moses comes down and he sees it and he's so angry and so incensed he can't believe how the people are acting while he was away and God was communing with him and speaking to him and blessing him in all different ways. And he really kind of gets, what I would say, a very strong leadership vibe. And he takes the golden calf, and he grinds it up into powder, and he takes that gold dust, puts it in water. Now get this, saints. The meat guy did this. He took the gold dust, put it in water, then made all the people drink the water with the gold dust in it. Wow! That's like when you have a puppy and you rub his nose in the stuff. Somebody say Amen. You don't want to do that again. You don't want to do that again. And so he did that. It even says so. In Exodus it says, And he took the calf which they had made, and burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it. Not exactly doormat material. Somebody say Amen. Meekness. What does it mean? If you try to define meekness with one word or one thought, you're going to fall short. Because it really is a multi-faceted meaning to understand what meekness is. Let me give you a few words that are similar but yet very different. Meekness can mean gentle, considerate, mild, humble. There's four right there. Gentle. considerate, mild, and humble. That's just four words, and even though they're similar, they're not exactly the same. Then there was the, out in the world, they would use the word meek, and it would have different meanings with different, I guess, soothing properties, or the property of control, I'll give you that here in a second, but they had this thing of meekness where They would use meekness to describe a soothing medication. A soothing medication. Now, I grew up in the early 1970s. I know it's a long time ago for some of you. I mean, yeah, the 1970s, back in the 1900s. That's when I grew up. And I spent a lot of time at Grandma's house. I mean, a lot. She was kind of my babysitter growing up for my daycare, I guess, growing up for many, many years. And, you know, at Grandma's house, There was two ways that she would treat an injury, right? She had two, what I call concoctions in the medicine cabinet, that if I got a scrape or a cut, she'd put stuff on it. And the first one was called Bactine. Anybody remember Bactine? It was mild, it was. It was the mild stuff, it was clear, didn't hurt. It was nice. Then there was the other one called Methylate. And that even sounds violent, doesn't it, saints? And it was red, and it had a dropper. I mean, when she put that on my cut, it hurt worse than the cut did. Right? I would call bactine the soothing medicine, but methylate not so much. Make sense? So there's this idea here of meekness being applied to a soothing medication, like a balm that feels good. Like when you put aloe vera on a sunburn. That's what meekness is in that sense. Also, meekness can be referred to as a gentle breeze. Now, those of us who live in Arizona, we appreciate a gentle breeze in the summertime, when it kind of cools things off and you get that refreshing, you know, that feeling of maybe even that's more energy because that you have experienced that meekness in life. But, you know, or I'm sorry, that gentle breeze on a hot day, but that meekness of a gentle breeze in life. My personal favorite is meekness means this, power under control. Power under control. There's a phrase that maybe we don't hear so much in the 21st century, but it was used for a long time. They would say this, the horse has been meeked. What that means was there was once a wild stallion that would buck and snort and kick, and if it had its way, would throw a rider into next week. But through the process of saddling that and breaking that horse, if you will, now a rider can get on top of the horse and ride the horse and direct the horse and command the horse, right? Here's the thing, that the horse didn't lose any power. It was still the same strong stallion it was, but it was wild. But now that power has been brought under control, that horse has been meeked. Make sense? So meekness means power under control. We see Moses exhibiting power under control when he ground up the golden calf and taught that very difficult lesson to the children of Israel all the way back in the book of Exodus. So we're going to talk about meekness this morning. power under control, a soothing medication, a gentle breeze, gentle, considerate, mild, humble, a multi-flavored definition covers the word and the precept of meekness. And so it's going to be a practical thought this morning, a lot of application here. I hope that you can use this and put it into practice again in your own individual walk with the Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ. How do we get meekness? Well, I got a few points here about how we come by meekness. Number one, Neatness comes by yielding ourselves to Jesus Christ. Neatness comes by yielding ourselves to Jesus Christ. Tom was using this in Sunday school this morning, and I thought, that's perfect, because he taught it with one application. I'm going to teach it with a completely different application. In Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 to 30, the Bible says this, Christ said this, come unto me. all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me. When are we going to learn? For I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. So meekness comes by yielding ourselves, or we can even use this term, yoking ourselves up, to the Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. Learning to walk with Him, learning to deal with things the way that Christ dealt with things in life. It's His yoke, it's His way. The way I like to look at the yoke of Jesus, and I think you know what a yoke is, it's when two animals are yoked together, they're going to pull a plow or do some work, whatever the case may be, it goes around the neck. The yoke of Christ is easy and it fits well and it's not uncomfortable if you don't fight against it. If you fight against it, not so fun. If you fight against it, it's going to rub you raw, there's going to be friction, there's going to be pain, all the different things. So you don't want to go against it. I was learning this, I was actually going to preach about this thought down the road, but I learned something about the yoke that I did not know previously a few months ago. It was very common, well, it was expected in the culture when Christ was walking on the earth that a Jewish believer, a person who practiced Judaism, would yoke himself up with a rabbi. He would yoke himself up with the rabbi, and the rabbi then would lay the yoke or the burden of the law on his student, on his pupil, on the one he was teaching. And it depended on how severe the rabbi was, how much he was more letter of the law versus spirit of law, as to how heavy or how burdensome that yoke would be on this believer, on this one who was trying to learn the different tenets of the faith. And remembering this, the Jewish law isn't just the Ten Commandments. There's a whole bunch added to it, and they've come up with a number of 613 commandments. So you think about that. The Ten Commandments are hard enough, somebody say amen, but add another 603 or so to that, and you've got this very heavy, burdensome law. And depending on where your rabbi stood on these things would depend on how heavy or how burdensome that yoke would be. on your neck in the spiritual sense. And so, aren't you glad this morning that you don't yoke up with a pastor or a preacher, you yoke up with Jesus. Amen. And He's a lot more gentler than I would be. Amen. a lot nicer than I could be. So that's what happens here. So you yoke up with Jesus, you yield yourself to Him and He begins to guide and direct on things to do and not to do. A lot of times the scripture is very, very clear on things we should be doing and not be doing. And we don't shy away from those things here at Liberty Baptist Church. But I want to just take you to one verse over in Romans 6 and verse 19. This shows you something very quickly here about yielding yourself to the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Romans 6, verse 19. Paul, writing here to the believers at Rome, says this, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. He understands, as well as anybody does, that the flesh is weak and has to be brought under control, under subjection. For as ye have yielded your members, servants, to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity. When Paul's talking about members here, he's talking about the member of your body. Anything external, hands, arms, legs, nose, eyes, mouth, whatever it may be, He's saying you have used that member for something that would drive towards iniquity and uncleanness, that would not glorify God. Make sense? What he says though, even so, now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. So the same hand that was caught doing something it shouldn't be doing can be used to give God glory, can be used to exercise holiness and righteousness in the Christian life. The hand didn't change. But how I decided to handle the hand has changed. Does that make sense? And so now instead of the hand going in for stealing, now the hand is going in for giving or being gentle and mild and all those different things. Considerate, as we talked about with meekness. And so that's what we're talking about here when we're yielding ourselves to Jesus Christ, it's the same person, it's the same soul, but now we're under new control. Still have all the same power as that wild stallion did, amen? But now you're a new creature in Christ, the power is still there, but I'm giving that power to my Lord and Savior because I think that He can handle it better than I can handle it. Amen. Number two, meekness comes by responding to God's word. Meekness comes by responding to God's word. Wherefore, James chapter one, wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, watch this saints, and receive with what? We're seeing with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls. And so, the Word of God, it's amazing what this... It's amazing to me, I've been doing this for a while, about how powerful this Word is. It's not just black letters on white pages. It's absolutely alive and has the power to afford and effect change that we never saw coming. And James would say here, that same word that saved your soul, and I've got a question for you before I move on. How did the word do in saving your soul? Pretty good? The same word that had the power to save your soul has the power to change a lot of things in your life if you'll allow it to do it. And so that's what we're trying to talk about, receiving the word of God with respect, with reverence, with honor, trying to do what it says and making sure that we're being more of a doer and not a hearer only, next verse, but be doers of the word. and not hearers only deceiving your own selves. You know, we talk about that a lot. My son was excellent at memorizing scripture. I mean, he was a brainiac at memorizing scripture. And he could quote it at the drop of a hat. But I talked to him about that recently. I said, isn't that amazing how much Bible you knew and how little Bible you practiced? He laughs about it now, but he knows it was true. And the same thing can be true in our lives. You don't have to be a teenager for that to be true in your life. You can be an old ager, somebody say amen. Sure, there's a handful of you in here that's born in the old agers, right? So it can happen, and so you keep those things in mind. And so when you receive the Word of God with meekness, You're welcoming it into your life. I want this to come in. I want to, with open arms, receive it and let it afford and affect the change that it wants to have down in the depths of my soul. So meekness comes by yielding to Christ. It comes by responding to God's Word. Meekness comes also by the power of the Holy Spirit. It comes by the power of the Holy Spirit. You've heard of the fruit of the Spirit, right? But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. What, Saints? Meekness. Say it, Saints. Meekness. Better. Come on, come on. Thank you. You just got louder, I know that. But anyway, meekness, temperance against such, there is no law. Those things can only be in our life if the Spirit is in our life. If the Spirit is actively working in our life, then we can have this spirit of meekness down in the depth of our soul. And the fruit of the Spirit is not something that we produce, but it's something we bear because we know Christ as our Lord and Savior. It becomes a part of us. He's the vine, we're the branches. We don't have any power in and of ourselves to do these things. It's the work of God in us that makes it a distinct reality. A meek person has come to terms with the reality that they may never see respect, they may never feel honored in this life. I was taught this at a very young age. If you demand respect, you're not really getting respect. You're making a demand and so people are doing it because of fear or because they don't want to have a fight or whatever the case may be. So respect is something that's freely given. I believe this, a good leader is a meek leader. A good leader is a meek leader. It's taught about that in the book of 2 Timothy, one of my verses and passages I use for the philosophy of ministry, the way I try to lead here at Liberty Baptist Church. And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men. And I'll say it right now, men, it's not always that easy. But be gentle to all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God, perventer, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." And so, you know, it's a teaching moment. You've got somebody who's off the rails and, you know, the easy thing to do is to pick up a two-by-four and give them a good whack. Easy, but not always right. But the right thing to do here, according to the text, is to be meek about it. Teach them something. Be patient with them. Like, remember how, and how he still is, how patient God had been with you? Take that same reality and begin to apply it in real life and work on things that way. So a good leader is a meek leader. And meek believers understand that God is in control and God does not need our help. Make believers understand that God is in control and God does not need our help. We talked about this a little bit in our forgiveness series Earlier this month in the last month dearly beloved Avenge not yourself, but rather give place unto wrath for it is written Vengeance is mine. I will repay except the Lord and So we have to trust those things to God. We got to trust that God knows what he's doing We got trust that God will All these things will come out when when all is said and done and God will deliver justice where Justice must be delivered. We have to believe that God is in control and he does not need our help I know that for me this Well, I'll go on, I'll talk, I'll come back to that thought at the end, but I'm just telling you this, there's just no, there's no real room for revenge in the life of a blood-bought believer. Number whatever number I'm on now, the meek Christian is not sensitive or easily insulted. The meek Christian is not sensitive or easily insulted. One of my friends here in the church has a quote he likes to offer every once in a while. If you don't want your little feelings to be hurt, don't have little feelings. Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. I'm not sure that I'm all there yet, but I'm getting closer. Amen? I mean, are you to the point where nothing offends you? Right. I mean, again, I don't want to get... But anyway, there's things that rub us the wrong way. There's things that raise a red flag, that get our danger up, that will come across our radar and say, I've got to deal with that, I've got to say something about that. But the more we are, again, receiving God's word of meekness and letting it do its work, the less offended we'll be in this life. And we have to remember how important it is to look to our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, who didn't let anything offend Him or rile Him or cause Him to be mean-spirited towards people, right? He was perfect in Not demanding respect and he was perfect in understanding that the father was in control And he was perfect in not being sensitive or easily insulted and we we can kind of get that in a in a in a microchasm here in first peter chapter 2 verses 21 and 23 where it says this for even here unto were ye called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps. I remember the little bracelets, WWJD. That's where those bracelets came from, right here from this text. In his steps, that he should follow his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. Do you know how hard that is for a man who's alive? Has somebody said something to you? And as soon as they said it, you had something to say back. I mean, you had it right. Could have been sarcastic. Could have been right. mean-spirited, lashing out. He was reviled, and we saw how reviled he was. We go to Calvary's cross and the trial leading up to the cross. He was reviled again and again and again, and he never was sarcastic. He never was mean-spirited. He never did bite back, did he, saints? When he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened none. Instead, when he was suffering, he said this, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Father, into thy hands do I commend my spirit. It is finished. We can go on and on and on. He did not bite back. He threatened not. but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. We can just say this, I know it's Christ, but he made the right choice, didn't he? Three days later, he was resurrected. 40 days after that, he ascended up to the Father's right hand, and he is still seated at the right hand of the majesty on high this morning as we meet here at Liberty Baptist Church. Amen, saints. He was our supreme example in meekness. A lot to live up to, a high bar to measure ourselves up to, but yet a worthy bar for us to consider as we're trying to develop this character trait of meekness in our Christian lives. And then the thing that it says here, the blessing attached to it is this, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. That's a pretty sizable inheritance. Amen? But first, you've got to figure this out. It's not just for you, you don't get your own earth. You've got to share it. with the other blood-bought believers past, present, and future. So we've got to keep that in mind. But it's a sizable inheritance. And this is a quote from a verse that was given in the Psalms a long time before Christ walked the earth. It says this in verse number 11 of Psalm 37, But the meek shall inherit the earth, And so delight themselves in the abundance of peace. I have a question for you. How many of you, I guess you don't have to raise your hand, but you can nod your heads or you can take a tambourine or whatever you want to do. How many of you think like right now the world is kind of going crazy? Troubled by some of the things you see. You know, somebody asked me recently, they said, Pastor, doesn't it bother you the direction of our nation's going in. I said about the direction our whole world's going in. It's not just our nation. It's a mess out there and you can see more and more godlessness, you know, rearing its head as time goes on and all the different things. But the Bible says it's blessed are the meek. the humble, the gentle, the mild, the ones who have discovered they have power, but their power's under control. They've yielded it to Christ. They've been receptive, responsive to the word of God. They've come to term with the fact that they're not gonna be respected or revered in this life. They're okay with that. They know it's okay to humble themselves before the great hand of God and that God will exalt them in due time or due season, whatever the case may be. They understand those things. You know, it's a sizable inheritance to think about getting the earth as your inheritance. But again, you'll enjoy it with all the believers, past, present and future. And the way that you'll realize this inheritance is when Christ comes again. I'll tell you this right now, He is coming again. I don't know when, and I don't know exactly how it's going to pan out, but I'm telling you this. He's going to come again, and when He comes again, I want you to understand this about Him, He will be King of Kings and Lord of Lords, no negotiation. And every knee will bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That is the truth. And when He comes again, and we're not going to go into great detail here, because it would take a long time. When He comes again, He's going to establish His kingdom on the earth for the span of 1,000 years. We call it the millennial reign of Christ. Do you know about that? The 1,000 year reign of Jesus. And so when He does that, what's going to happen is because you know Him, because you are saved, because you've been bought by the blood of the Lamb, You are going to reign with Him. And again, I can't give you all the details and all the ins and outs of what that means, but I know it's going to be a great blessing, because you'll be ruling and reigning with your Savior for that 1,000 year reign. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, And judgment was given unto them, and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God. I believe these to be those who were saved during the tribulation period. There'll be lots of folks saved during that time. It was had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ. How long, saints? Okay, keep on going here, verse number 5. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. On such, the second death hath no power. That's really good news here. I'm going to get to that in a second. That's really good news. On such, the second death hath no power. But they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with Him. How long again? A thousand years. Again, I'm not going to go into great detail. I can't develop it in the next few minutes to help you, but I'm telling you this. Christ is coming again. He's going to establish His throne on this earth. He will rule and reign as Lord of lords and King of kings for 1,000 years. And if you know Christ as your Savior, you have some part in that millennial kingdom of Jesus Christ. I don't know. I don't know what your job is going to be. Paul talked about the fact that we're going to judge angels during that time. And I can't even begin to fathom how that could be something that could come into my life as a potential privilege or honor as being a child of God. But that's things that the Bible says that we'll talk about at length on a different day. But the important thing to remember here is the second death. have no power on those who were in the first resurrection. The first resurrection is all the saints of God, past, present, and future. All of them. And what happens, the way they became a saint was that in this lifetime, while they still had heartbeats, while their lungs were still breathing God's good air, at one point in their life, they realized they were a sinner, and they called out on Christ Jesus to be their Savior. And at that moment, He saved their ever-living soul, and He gave them this wonderful reality called everlasting life. And if you have everlasting life, that means this, the second death hath no power on you. You say, what's that second death about? It's very agonizing to read about. It's a sad narrative at the end of the Bible. The second death is going to fall upon all of those who have rejected God's grace, who have said no to His unconditional love, who have said no Thank you to everlasting life. And they're going to be all taken up in one great bundle and thrown into a fire. The Bible describes this lake of fire that burned up with fire and brimstone forever and ever and ever. That's the second death. But if you know Christ as your Savior this morning, the second death hath no power over you. And the way you do it again is by coming to Christ and putting your faith completely in His finished work. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. And everybody said, father, thank you for this time this morning. Thank you for this thought about meekness that I know that I needed to study and needed to hear myself. And father, I do pray it was a blessing and a help to those who've assembled here this morning at Liberty Baptist church, help the believer to put these things into practice in their own Walk with you and father again if there be anybody here today who does not yet know Christ as their Savior That today would be their day of salvation That they would be able to get out from the bondage of that second death of eternity in hell and torment and follow things that we don't even like to talk about much, think about much. Because the alternative is your heaven. And it's glorious and wonderful and sublime. It's full of light. It's full of your love and it's a reminder of your forgiveness and it's a place where we can enjoy the blessing and privilege of everlasting life. Father, you know the hearts and you know the needs. I pray that you'll meet each one of them in your perfection. And we ask these things and pray them in Jesus' name. Amen. It's all standard. It's time for us to respond to God's word now. If God has spoken to you, would you please take some time and speak back to him? If you want to talk him about meekness about maybe some attitudes that work on in your life That'd be a good time to do that right now. But most importantly if you don't know christ as your savior Would you come this morning and let it let us take the bible and show you some great truth about salvation? And point you to a loving savior who wants to save your soul before it is? Eternally too late. We're going to sing christ live within me and number 268. So sing along brother russell melinas In God's word, the light I found. Now Christ liveth in me. Christ liveth in me. Christ liveth in me. What a salvation this, that Christ liveth in me. And rays of light from yonder sun, the flowers of earth set free. Light and love came down from Christ living in me