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You know this world is full of
preachers, but just a few were chosen. Stay tuned for Treasured
Heritage, a preaching program spotlighting those servants who
have gone on to glory. Isaiah 5417 says, this is the
heritage of the servants of the Lord. And now, Treasured Heritage. I raise the question, As I begin
the message, you reckon how many people will cry themselves to
sleep tonight? Tears can be a wonderful blessing,
but there's a lot of unnecessary tears. I want every one of you
to tune in tonight now because you're going to need this message,
all I do. And I don't believe there's anybody
here but what needs this message. I'm preaching on one of the finest
virtues of the Christian life, The fact is, I believe by this
you can tell whether you're really right with the Lord or not. And
I hope you'll take the measuring rod of the Word of God tonight,
and I'll do the same. And we'll put the plumb line
to our Christian experience and life and our living every day. I do not expect complete perfection
as long as I live in the body that I've had for 57 years. But
I do not expect to be satisfied for less than perfection. I could
never be satisfied to be less than what the will of God plans
me to be and what God by His grace could make me. I have some
passages of scripture that I want to share with you tonight. And
the first one is one of the psalms that our girls sing so much,
Psalm 48. Psalm 48. I'd like to caution
the girls, and I'm going to caution me too, because I think what
you need, I also need. And the members of our church,
you know one of the dangers is to get used to something good
and just take it for granted. The 48th Psalm, we sing a lot,
great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of
our God. In the mountain of his holiness,
beautiful for a situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion. On the sides of the north, the
city of the great king. God is known in her palaces for
a refuge. Verse 9, We have thought of thy
lovingkindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple. Turn to Psalm
42 and verse 8, Yet the Lord will
command his Loving kindness in the daytime,
and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto
the God of my life. The Lord will command his loving
kindness in the daytime, and in the night his song. Loving
kindness in the daytime, and we'll be singing at night. The
dark won't frighten us at all if we have his lovingkindness
in the daytime. Psalm 51, have mercy upon me, O God, according
to thy lovingkindness. According unto the multitude
of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Psalm 117. This is another one
of our songs, our psalms to sing. I still believe that the singing
of the scripture and the memorizing of the scripture is one of the
greatest ways there is to get the word retained in the heart
of a Christian. I don't expect the devil's crowd
to sing the scripture. Oh, praise the Lord, all ye nations. Praise him, all ye people. For his merciful kindness is
great toward us, and the truth of the Lord endureth forever.
Praise ye the Lord. So that'd be a good chapter to
memorize, wouldn't it? Just about anybody could memorize
that one. And I promised the Lord this week that I'm going
to get busy again working on the scripture. And I notice when
I work on the scripture, it works on me. And that's good. The scripture doesn't need me,
but I sure need it. The Lord can get along nicely
without me, but I cannot get along without him. Psalm 141,
verse 5, let the righteous smite me. Let the man that's right
smite me. It shall be a kindness. And let
him reprove me. It shall be an excellent oil,
which shall not break my head, for yet my prayer also shall
be in their calamities. Let the righteous smite me, it
shall be a kindness. Turn to Jeremiah chapter 31. Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 3. The Lord hath appeared of old
unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting
love. Therefore with lovingkindness
have I drawn thee. God draws us with his lovingkindness. According to thy lovingkindness,
he said, I want you to blot out all my iniquities. Proverbs chapter
31, this is that last chapter of the book of Proverbs, has
to do with a precious wife and mother. And I'd never seen this
till this week when I read it to our early morning prayer band
that meets with us at 6.30 at the office each day. The 31st
chapter in verse 26, she openeth her mouth with wisdom,
and in her tongue is kindness. In her tongue is the law of canyons. Now, what law is that? What is
the law of canyons? Did James talk about the royal
law? What was the royal law? Love. Oh, tonight, how different this
world would be if I could just get every one of you to practice,
and if I could practice myself, this sweet and blessed truth
that we've got for your heart tonight. I feel like we ought
to stop and pray now. Everybody pray. Our Heavenly
Father, we've come to another supernatural challenge and an
impossible task without the Holy Spirit. And dear Lord, tonight
I pray that you'll give us a real glimpse of what this great truth
could mean to this home. and our work, and the girls,
and the boys, and all the people that come this way. And dear
Lord, help us not to be difficult. Help us to be kind. Help us to
be gracious. Help us to be like Jesus. Father,
we've read your entire book many times. We never did find any
unkindness in any action that you ever took. We followed Jesus
all the way from Bethlehem's manger to that old hill called
Golgotha. And we never have found him being
unkind, not even one time. And Lord, that indicts us and
rebukes us and shames us. It really does. And dear Lord,
I pray that tonight you'll put just a load of love and gentleness
and the law the law of kindness in our mouth. And then we believe
that if we have the law, we'll have the love, and then we'll
have the kindness. Our Father, bless tonight every
home, bless my own home, and bless my loved ones tonight.
And Father, I pray for the people who belong to this church. Help
us to know how to conduct ourselves in holiness, knowing that We're
being watched every day. And dear Lord, as the leader
of this unusual opportunity, I really pray tonight that you'll
help me not to live a threadbare life. And I'll not be a needler. And I'll not be unkind. But Father, I pray that I'll
be like Jesus. and I'll be like the Holy Spirit
can make me through his wonderful word. And Father, now as we wade
off into this message tonight, we pray for our radio friends
and just so many little children who cry themselves to sleep this
night. Wives will weep tonight because
of an unkind husband. Husbands will be greatly disturbed
because of a nagging wife. and a nervous, neurotic, screaming
wife and mother, dear Lord, remind us it's going to take more than
a little tranquilizer from the drugstore. It's going to take
more than counseling down at the courthouse or a divorce. It's going to take Jesus Christ
to make us right with him. I pray tonight that you'll speak
to our hearts and may we preach with love and with power and
with spiritual understanding. In Jesus' name, amen. She openeth her mouth with wisdom,
number one. Her tongue is the law of kindness. God has a divine law that he'd
like us to abide by. I have a few more verses before
I come to the main text, Isaiah 54. Isaiah 54, verse 8, In a little
wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting
kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter
6 and verse 6. 2 Corinthians 6 and 6. In this chapter, he's
saying we need to be approved. We need to be approved. And this
is why he said you need to be approved. In much patience, in
afflictions, in necessities, verse 4, in distresses, in stripes,
in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings,
by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness,
by the Holy Ghost, and by love unfeigned, by the word of truth,
by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right
hand, and on the left by honor and dishonor, by evil report
and good report, as deceivers yet true, as unknown yet well
known, as dying and behold we live, as chastened and not killed,
as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich,
as having nothing and yet possessing all things. Now turn to Colossians chapter
3. Colossians chapter 3, verse 12,
forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If
any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you,
so also do ye. And above all these things put
on love, put it on, which is the bond of perfectness. Turn to Ephesians. This is the
text. And be ye kind, one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's
sake hath forgiven you. Now, if you'll go back a little
piece in that chapter, the verse 29, let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use
of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers, And grieve
not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you're sealed unto the day of
redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you
with all malice." And then he said, I want you to be kind one
to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just like God for
Christ's sake had forgiven you. We're living in a time of ruffled
feelings. We're living in a time of nervousness
and threadbare, and people are on edge. I mean, all over the
country, don't make any of it, preachers are. I've never seen
the like of preachers in my life that are jumpy and nervous and
quick to judge and criticize and impatient. And a lady just
called me from a distant state a moment ago. In fact, these
five long-distance calls came in about five minutes. One of
them said, I went to the pastor. I desperately, and I told her,
I said, why would you have to call so far away for this particular
kind of help? Don't you have any friends? Don't
you have a pastor? Well, she said, I went to him,
and he told me he didn't have time for me. He said, I'm too
busy. and said, why don't you go to
the welfare department? Let them help you. And that's
one reason people are losing confidence in our churches and
pastors today. The Bible said, if you do not
take care of your own household, you've denied the faith and have
become worse than an infidel. Now, as far as I'm concerned,
that includes the church. That includes my home. And that
includes, for instance, a man said to Jesus, who's my neighbor?
He said, a man in a ditch. Find a man in a ditch, that's
your neighbor. He's your next door neighbor right there. If you find him
in the ditch, he's right next to you. Go pick him up. Get him
out. But you know, we'll never have
kindness until we have the law of kindness, and that's love.
Love is the law. for the Christian. We live under
law all the time. We sing the song, I'm a Prisoner
of Love. I'm a Prisoner of Love. The song,
Chains of Love. Chains of love all around. Chains
of hate, chains of sin, and then chains of love. But you'll never
in this world be able to practice kindness and be consistent You'll
never be able to stay in this kind of work without a double
portion of the love of God. You'd never make it. You're going
to wear out. You watch and see. You'll wear
a threadbare. And the first thing you know, when you lose your
resistance, then sin will set in, and down you'll go. I've
been in this 38 years. I've been in rescue work 20 years
now, 1 5th of a century. And we must never get mechanical,
or cold, or hard to get along with. in this work. And that's the reason I've asked,
and I've had special meetings at times when I've asked people
to pray. There must be complete kindness. When you get saved,
you're to be very kind and very easy to get along with. You're
not to present any more problems to Mount and Vanguard if you
get saved. You're to grow in grace. I've been back home today,
and I've had a lot of emotions and I've walked that old field
today, where I walked as a lad. I got up in the hayloft, where
I was when I was a boy, and went down to the tank where I used
to go swimming. And a lot of changes have taken place. The old homestead's gone. I only
saw the cistern, the curb there. And the water was stale on the
inside. And I've thought about a lot
of things. I've wept a bunch of times today. But I long to be kind. I really do. To me, kindness
is the expressions of Christ and his love. And I have to guard
day and night lest I become fractious. People could irritate me on the
phone. So many calls, many of them unnecessary,
and then too lengthy. And the other phone's waiting.
And all that, yet I've got to be kind, and you've got to be
kind. In this kind of work, it's just love all the way, or we'll
grow mechanical and difficult. And unkindness, to me, is as
bad as adultery. It's as bad as murder, because
you can kill somebody with your unkindness. You girls have killed
your mother almost with your unkindness. I know of boys that
have killed their loved ones with unkindness. I know some
people now that are dead and buried, and they were killed.
But girls and boys and men and women, I'm preaching on something
that's as practical as a work glove. You're going to have to
learn how to be kind. Learn how to be kind. I think,
really, I think the most difficult task I've ever put on people,
I've put on our workers out here. And they're gonna need God's
supernatural strength and health and power and love, lest they
become mechanical and threadbare. I was thinking about a preacher. He just sure didn't have any
education. And he gave me a report one night. He called me on the phone, he
said, he called me, he called Brother Luster. He said, Brother
Luster, He had a great meeting. Said, I had a great meeting.
Said, I tell you, I had a great meeting tonight. He just went
on and he said, I tell you, he said, we had seven saved and
about 15 come get rewound. Well, bless his heart. I knew what he's talking about.
They came to rededicate their lives, renew their vow, and get
fixed up with the Lord. But oh, tonight, my plea is for
God's people to be kind. Listen. The husband or wife that
has never apologized is not right with the Lord, because they've
got to be imperfect enough to need to apologize. I've had to
apologize to my wife. I remember one morning, I beat
it down to study. Many years ago, I was passing
a church in this city, and I've had to do this a number of times.
And my imperfections haunt me. They work me over. They trim
me down. And I got down to the study,
and I I got my Bible, and I was getting ready to preach, and
there wasn't no sermon in the book. I mean, ordinarily, it's
just full of them, you know. I said, wouldn't it be good to
preach on that? And I said, that's right there. Oh, me, that'll preach right
there. But not that morning. And that was before I really
learned to preach by faith. I mean, I just felt like I had
to have at least a text. And I couldn't find it. It wasn't
a text in the Bible. I was in bad shape. And I said, Lord,
what am I going to preach? And the Lord seemed to say, I
don't think you are. Well, I said, why? He said, do you know your
home number? I said, yes, sir. He said, how did you leave everything
at the house? I said, pretty bad shape. He said, I believe
I just called home. So I dialed TU47925. And you know who answered? The
very one I was supposed to talk to. And I said, honey, I'm sorry. I'm just sorry. Well, she said,
it's all right now. I'll forgive you. And everything's
fine. And she said, really, it was my fault. See? And then we
nearly got in a fuss about whose fault it was. Yeah, I really
did. I said, no. I said, I was just
plain mean. I mean, I was ugly. And she forgave
me. And you know, the text began
to jump at me. I mean, it just, Bible's plumb
full of preaching, see? That's right. I got a preacher,
friend. I'm talking to you about something
simple. This works in everybody's life. Just make the application
right where you are. Don't expect God to bless you.
Don't expect to get your prayers answered as long as you're unkind.
We got girls in the home. You just plumb hard to get along
with. I mean, you just ought not to be that way. We got people
that are just hard to get along with all over the country. In
church, preachers, I've gone in the homes. A preacher that
I know of, he goes to bed at 10 o'clock at night, about that,
and he fills up with pills, sleeping pills. You walk into his room,
he's so nervous and keyed up, and if you go in there 15 minutes
after he goes to bed, brother, you're too late because he's
knocked out. His tongue is thick. He can't talk with you, he's
full of dope. And yet he'll go up in the pulpit
and just preach to the people and talk about how big God is
and how great the Lord is. It don't mean much to me anymore.
If you can't practice what you preach, then I believe I'd stop
preaching until I could get caught up with my practicing. Kindness. You know, grace is the father
and the distributor. And then on the string of grace
are the links of love. And one of the links is kindness. But you'll never have kindness
until you have love, L-O-V-E, love. Love suffereth long and
is what? That's what I thought it said,
kind. Don't talk to me about how much you love me when you're
unkind. I think I've enjoyed the kindness of God's people
today. I don't know how many people kissed me and hugged me
and squeezed me and shook my hand. I mean, oh, the sweetest
people in all the world. I hadn't seen them in many years.
One of my dear school teachers 40 years ago, and there she is
still going strong for the Lord. Been sweet ever since I knew
her. Just a great Christian. Must be 80 or 90 now. And she's
so precious. And I just looked out across
the congregation, and there sat my first convert, first one ever
gave his heart to Christ. I don't know who's happier, me
or him, that morning. I tell you, I got so excited, I didn't
know how to vote him in or vote him out. I mean, it didn't make
any difference. I'm telling you, he came down on that cold December
morning, and the old stove wouldn't draw, you know, and it wouldn't
heat, and it was cold. But I tell you, when old Cullen
Neesmith came down the aisle and gave his heart to Christ,
And there he introduced me today. My, how precious. To see him
just walk with the Lord all these years, and kind, and everybody
in the community knows he's one of the most consistent Christians
that ever lived. And you know what changed it
all? The love of Jesus. Kind to his family. His family's
kind and sweet and precious. That's the way it ought to be.
You know, while children leave home, mothers and dads are unkind.
You know how to make a child run from home quicker than anything
else? And that's nagging, fussing, backbiting, criticizing parents. Mothers and dads need to constantly
walk together. And listen, I don't believe it's
possible for a husband and wife to get together and stay together
and walk together except through prayer and the Bible. I don't
care what I do up here at this church house. And on the radio,
that's no substitute for a spiritual relationship with my wife. She
and I are going to have to pray together and read the Bible together.
And some of you look on me as a mature Christian. I don't feel
mature. I mean, I don't feel my maturity. I just feel like I'm still in
the kindergarten. But I'll tell you one thing, as long As I live,
I believe I'm going to have to take the Bible, and my wife and
I are going to have to read together and pray. Not any problem we
face, and that goes for all you men and women out there tonight.
And I want to say this, if I've got any men and women that don't
pray together, husband and wife don't pray together, as far as
I'm concerned, if I could give a command, you get at it. You
just get at it. If we got a member of this church
and you don't pray with your wife, you don't pray with your
husband, as far as I'm concerned, you get at it. I don't believe
you can make it without it. And I don't believe you can be
the challenge to your wife or to your husband without praying
together and reading the Bible together. I'm at home so little, probably
less than most any preacher of this generation. so far as time. But I tell you one thing, when
I go by that house, and it might be at noon, or it might be in
the late afternoon, or I might run by in the morning, but I
tell you what, we got a big old Bible over there, and I said,
honey, let's read and pray together. And she's always willing, always
willing. Don't make a difference what
she's doing. I mean, everything stops right there. because we've
got a chance to read one chapter at least and maybe two or three
chapters and sometimes she reads and sometimes I read and sometimes
I read a verse and she reads a verse and sometimes I just
lay straight out on the floor and I said honey you just read
to me a while and let me listen and there have been times and
I'm just like a little child I know a lot of times and I've
gone to sleep while she's reading to me and she'd just quietly
ease out and let me sleep and I was a little embarrassed And
there have been times in our family order, and I know this
is just childish, but there have been times when my little children
went to sleep on their knees while we were praying. And sometimes
I pray too long, maybe, and I try to pray all my long prayers by
myself. I really do. You remember the
preacher, never forget this, he became a He became really
one of the great Christians, one of the greatest Christians.
Wilford T. Grenville, he was an unsaved
man. He became the Labrador doctor
that went away to the mission field and had some tremendous
experiences. And he was in his spice of business,
and somebody said, I'd like you to go hear the evangelist. Ah,
listen, he's a great preacher. He'll preach. No, he said, I'm
not interested. He said, when you see one, you've
seen them all. When you hear one, you've heard
them all. They all got the same tricks, the same pressures, everything. I don't care for him. But he
said, I just wish you'd go one time. And I tell you what, if
you don't find him different and refreshing and exciting in
the message that he brings, I'll never ask you to go again. Wilford
T. Grenville said, OK, I'll go one
time, and that'll wind it up. I just get this off my chest
right now, get it out of the way now, right here in the beginning
of the meeting. And so sure enough, Wilford T. Grenfell walked up
under the tent of the tabernacle, and the pastor got up and said
in his whang-doodle-ton, brother so-and-so, will you lead us in
prayer? And the dear brother got up and
prayed around the world. He stopped in Africa. And he
headed for Europe and England, and he paused in Russia. He landed at every airport, crossed
every sea, waded the oceans. And everybody's kind of getting
restless, you know. And finally, the evangelist jumped
up and said, brother song leader, lead us in a song while this
dear brother catches up on his praying. Wilford T. Grenfell had gotten up to walk
out. And when that evangelist said that, He came back and sat
down. He said, what kind of fellow
is that? And he heard him preach. And you know what happened? He
got saved. He went every night, and God laid his hand on him
and sent him away to Labrador and back to the coal regions.
And he gave his life for the Eskimos. He sent their broken
bones. and helped to heal their bodies
and was used of the Lord in a magnificent way as the beloved doctor of
the Eskimos. But he ran into a preacher that
was a little different. I tell you what, the Holy Spirit
will make anybody different. He never makes any two people
alike. What I'm saying tonight, there's no substitute for kindness.
It's the law that brings about the love. And apart from that,
every time you get up to testify, here's what you say. I was looking
for love, but I couldn't find it. I've heard that 1,000 times
already. And I guess maybe you're right
about it. But I tell you what, when you
got to Jesus, you didn't look any further. You found what you
were looking for. There's not any love outside
of Christ. It's impossible for me to love the people that I
work with apart from this book and the Holy Spirit, because
he sheds abroad the love of God. I hear people say, well, I tell
you, he's just so mean, it's hard to love him. Well, that
ought to be the easiest person in town to love. Just think how
much he needs loving. I tell you what, I can love these
old rough, rowdy boys. I can love them more than I can
love some of these little sissy goodies. These little church
members, you know, that are just no excited about anything. He's up today and had a great
crowd. Business as usual with a lot
of them, though. I've known them all their life. They've known
me all of my life. And yet some of them came into
the altar. God spoke to hearts and blessed
them. There's just a lot of people
that never get moved about anything. And I want to say to you folks
out there, and you adults, you mothers and dads, I don't think
you need to go too long without you beating the trail down to
the altar yourself. I mean, I don't know why I'd be so much worse
than most of y'all. I don't know why the Lord would
have me on my face in this altar, and down on my knees. These little
old girls come and trotting down the altar, and a lot of you old
coal-backed, slidding moss-backed outfits, you don't feel led to
come. I believe sometime God ought to just stir you up out
of your silly nest and make you run to God. I believe that the adults ought
to be the examples for these girls right here. Now, I don't
see how you can go very long without getting your private
altar and coming to this altar and praying and seeking the Lord's
face and helping these girls and helping boys and witnessing.
How long to see a real church built out here? I'm not talking
about a conventional. I'm not talking about a traditional.
I'm not talking about a customary. I don't care anything about that.
I'd love to see a gospel preaching soul in I mean a church that'll
build homes, that'll make them just congeal and gel together
for God. And Jesus will hold us together
and give us the love, just give us the love for each other that
we ought to have. My, listen, I cannot, I cannot
put up with unkindness. We've got to be kind. Be a kind
one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as
God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. Kindness. Oh, the patience that Jesus would
give his children if we just let him, if we just let him. We'll never bless till we bleed,
never will. And somebody's unkindness to
me ought not to precipitate unkindness on my part, not at all. It ought
to bring about a brokenness. I see my good boy back there,
our missionary down in St. Thomas, and it was so sweet to
see them when I landed. I'll tell you, You never appreciate
your friends like you could until you land on a foreign field.
And then you just see it less. Twice he's met me. The only two
times I've been down there. He's the one that met me over
on Beef Island that dark night. And I tell you, that plane let
me out. And I started walking down that
dismal road, and there wasn't a soul on the island except me.
more funny sounds and crickets, and I don't know, I never heard
that kind of sound over here. Of course, I know that my imagination
magnified their sound, but I was walking along, I left my suitcases,
wasn't nobody to bother them, I couldn't care of them, not
all the stuff that I had, and to hear his voice ring out across
that water and said, it's Leslie, and I've come to get you. And
then to meet him over there, and this time, all my keys I
planted in the Caribbean Sea. Every key I had on the string,
I left it, I think, in the baggage compartment. And somewhere between
Nassau and St. Thomas, those keys went swimming. And we didn't go back to look
for them. But we couldn't get anything open. And Leslie, I
guess, is a good deal like his dad. His dad can fix anything
on earth nearly that needs to be fixed. I mean, he's the greatest
mechanic that I've ever seen in my life. I mean, it doesn't
make any difference what it is. He can just sort of look through
a motor and tell you what's wrong with it. My, that's right, Leslie. He really is. He's just some
mechanic. And, uh, fix anything. He could be down in the coastal
and an outboard could just look like come unwound and he'd stick
it back together and run in with it. I'm telling you, I guess
some people are gifted like that. I think old Jerry is learning
a little bit and it won't be long. He's had too many experiences,
you know, working on these things. But Leslie reached in his pocket
and pulled out a bunch of keys. And so help me. He kept jiggling
the key and open came the baggage for all of our lifelong savings
were and all of our stuff that we needed. And I use that key
all the way on that trip and then send it back to him. And
the Lord provides, doesn't he? Yes, that was a kindness on his
part, wasn't it? Did you know that when you're a real Christian,
you'll be looking for somebody to be kind to? Did I ever tell
you about the man that just exemplified the very truth and it just popped
in my mind? A little boy came down one day to the store and
he ran in the store and he came out in reverse. I mean, he was
really squalling and aballing. I mean, he stood outside that
store. And he just pushed the panic button. He was just trembling
and crying. And a great big old fine businessman
just walked up to him and put his big old arm over on his shoulder
and pulled him up. And he said, hey, bud. He said,
what's the matter? He said, it's terrible. He said,
what's happened? He said, I'm going to get a beating. He said, you're going to get
a what? I'm going to get a beating. He said, when? He said, when
I get home. He said, well, what have you done? Oh, he said, I
lost the grocery money. He said, my daddy sent me to
store. And he said, I run across the
lot through that grass out yonder and said, I guess I had a hole
in my pocket. I'd come out, I lost it. And
he said, you'll beat me when I get home. Oh, he said, son,
not your daddy. He wouldn't beat you for that.
I mean, wouldn't he give you? Oh, no, said he'd beat me when
I get home. The man said, well, son, how
much was it? He said, $0.87. Oh, he said, son, $0.87? Yes, sir. He said, that's what it was.
He said, that's what he sent me after. He said, I lost every
bit of it. It's gone. And little old fellows are sniffing
and snuffing. And he was having the time. And
the business man reached in his pocket. And he said, you know,
I might have some money. The little boy looked up at him.
And he pulled out some money, and he said, well, look at that.
That's $0.50, and there's a quarter. And look at that. There's a dime,
and there's two pennies. Is that it? Yes, sir. But he said, that's not mine.
That's yours. And he said, I couldn't pay it back. He said, just suppose
I give it to you. Just suppose I give it to you,
because I believe I'd give $0.87 to keep you from getting a beating.
And he said, you know, I don't have a little boy myself. I've
always wanted one. And he said, hold out your hand.
The little boy held out his hand. He put 87 cents in his hand. He
squeezed it down and started in the story to turn around and
said, say, mister, I wish I had a daddy like you. And the man
said, you know what I did? He told his testimony. He said,
I walked around the block looking for another boy that lost his
grocery money. Fine. He wanted to be kind to
somebody else. He got a blessing out of it.
Folks, you've got to come to the place where you enjoy being
kind. You don't do it just because, well, I've got to prove I'm a
Christian. After all, that's my duty. No, that won't get it. That won't get it. Suppose I
go in and tell my wife, I said, well, I'll bring you some groceries
because it's my duty. I mean, 30 some odd years, what
a tremendous burden you are. But oh, no, dear friends, that's
not it. Are you going to be kind one
to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another? even as God for
Christ's sake hath forgiven you." I'd never be able to understand
how a Christian could say no when I say to him, will you forgive
me? It's a blessing to me for people
to ask me to forgive them, but it's also a blessing when I have
to ask for forgiveness and God gives me enough grace to do it.
You're not growing in grace until you've gotten to the place where
you can ask somebody to forgive you when you do wrong. And when
you're unkind, you must ask forgiveness as soon as you can. Now, don't
talk about praying. I know this. I can be unkind
and ugly, and I can cheat and do wrong. And just as soon as
I kneel down to pray, as it is on the screen right up there,
I had my eyes just closed as tight as they'd go. I still,
there it is right there. And the Lord said, don't ask me for
nothing. I mean, you better never sin again, because the Bible
said, if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will
I forgive you your trespasses. That's the one sin. Unforgiveness
is the one sin that will block your spiritual life. When you
will not forgive somebody else, God will never hear your prayer.
Just quit your praying. No need hollering. You can holler
as loud as you want to, and you can memorize some scripture,
but God will never hear your prayer as long as you have unforgiveness
in your heart. And as long as I'm unkind to
the workers in that office over yonder, and they dread to see
me come walking in that door, and they rejoice to see me walk
out the door and take a long trip, and the longer, the better
they like, then there's something wrong with my Christianity. The
older I get, the easier I ought to be able to get along with
people, and you ought to be able to get along with me. If you
grow in grace, I'm talking about kindness tonight. You know where
it starts? It starts right in your home. I told you about this
preacher a while ago. He said he had a terrible home
life. And he said, and he lived a discouraged
life. And his wife, he and his wife
could not get along. And he said, Brother Olaf, there's
one thing I can't preach over, and that's an unhappy home life. I cannot get over that. It saved
my life. I can preach, I just preach.
And he told me something else. He said, I never preach on soul
winning anymore. I said, why? He said, because
I don't win souls. And I just can't be that kind
of hypocrite. If I'm not going to be a good
witness, how can I preach to other people about being a soul
winner? I'm challenging every worker
I've got is going to hear this message, because it's going to
come to every home that we've got. There is no substitute for
kindness. Every one of us is to be kind.
We're to be kinder to each other than we are to anybody else.
But this whole thing, when it gets honeycombed with unkindness,
will cave in and down she'll go. There's no substitute for
the law of kindness that ought to be in our mind. Did you notice
where it said, the law of kindness is in what? Her mouth. Where
does the expression of kindness come from? It can come from your
eyes. It could come from a smile. But
it must come from your lips and your tongue. You must talk kindness
and you must walk kindness every day. Oh, don't think you can
get along with God now and have his power and help people in
trouble until you learn how to treat Christians. We must learn
this, and this is for every one of us. Who's gonna preach the Bible
and never compromise at all? Who's gonna give their heart
and soul to spread the gospel? We appreciate you listening to
Treasured Heritage. Tune in at the same time every
weekday to hear God's Word.
The Law of Kindness
Series WZYN Treasured Heritage
| Sermon ID | 415251219344934 |
| Duration | 59:10 |
| Date | |
| Category | Special Meeting |
| Language | English |
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