I love that dear pastor. He's a good man. I'm thankful that the Lord has blessed this body with someone to love them, feed them, care for them. In your Bible, the book of Jeremiah chapter 12, that psalm is also the title of the message for this afternoon. The great speckled bird. I wanted to preach that sometime while I fasted here and the Lord never gave me the liberty, but I'm back and hopefully that shall be. I do want to take the time to thank everyone. Some churches, some individuals have communicated with us during the time of Judy's sickness, especially, and the battle with cancer that she's still going through. My surgery and infection and the things that I had earlier this year. The prayers, only God knows how much they mean to us. If I could hug you all, wet you with our tears, you wouldn't understand until you're there, what they mean. I love you dearly, and thank you from the depths of my very being. Jeremiah 12, verse 9. Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird. The birds round about or against her. Come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour." The thought contained here is not unlike Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale of the ugly duckling. You remember that story? If I have it correct, there was a swan that thought it was a duck. And it never did really fit in and it was different and unique from all the other little ducklings that followed the mother duck around. But in time it revealed that it was much more beautiful than a duck because it became a glorious swan. This speckled bird that is spoken of here God uses this description to distinguish that this one is different from the others around it. And certainly, we need to acknowledge and recognize that whenever Jesus Christ is portrayed in the Bible, He is who should shine. C. H. Spurgeon wrote in, I believe, lectures to my students. It's been so long since I read it, I don't remember, and it really doesn't matter. And he said something to this extent, whenever and wherever that Jesus Christ is seen, let him shine. And if you do not agree with that, you've got the wrong preacher here. Because that is my desire from the depths of my soul, that whenever I can show Christ That's my longing and that's my desire. Most assuredly, this is true of the only begotten Son of God. He was not only different from all the rest of humanity, He is completely unique from all the rest of humanity. There was never one like Him before. There has not been one like Him since. There will never be another like the Lord Jesus Christ. He is so far above any other mortal human that ever lived upon the face of this earth that there is no comparison that would be worthy of His majesty. He is one who never a man spake like He did. No man ever opened the eyes of one that was born blind, but Jesus did. Never! Did anyone teach with the same authority, the same knowledge, the same power, the same surety, the same certainty that Jesus did? He spoke. Not like the scribes or the Pharisees or the religious leaders of His day. He spoke with one having authority. And you know why? He spoke and was the Word of God personified. When He spoke, He spoke the Word of God, because the Word of God was speaking. And everything that He said was in perfect harmony with the will of God. And we can know that no one was like Him. Jesus Christ caused the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the dead to live, He forgave sin, fed thousands, raised the dead, and did so much that if all the things that he began to do were written, the world itself should not contain the books that should be recorded of the record of the things that he did in just 33, a little over 33 years of life. You can wrap my 70 up in two or three paragraphs. Indeed, he was different, unique, as this speckled bird. that we read about. I'd like to identify from the text also as well as the other portions of God's Word this speckled bird first. He was one whom God loved so dearly that he spoke of him by endearing names. He was called the dearly beloved of my soul. Verse 8 and 9 and 7, He is called my heritage. God the Father identified Him as His heritage. And He was indeed God's heritage. All of God's people are in Him. Without Him, we are not God's children. And we never could be. We will never be fit candidates to enter heaven unless we're in Jesus Christ and have faith in Him, have His righteousness imputed to us. We don't have it. None of us have it. And so He is the embodiment of God's people. They're all in Him. He is the totality of the heritage of God. He is called my portion. In verse 8 and verse 10, He's called my present, pleasant portion, or desired, delightful, precious portion. He is indeed the one who 1 Peter chapter 2 speaks of as the stone that was disallowed of the builders, elect, precious. chosen of God, His only begotten Son. On earth, the Father declared of Him that He was His well-beloved Son. He loves us. God the Father loves us. But He loves us because of His well-beloved Son. There is nothing about me or in me, nor you, that would attract God to us apart from what He sees in His Son, Jesus Christ. He makes us all together lovely, for without Him we're all together corrupt. Oh, how we need Jesus. He was the one of whom He said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. You've searched the Scriptures in vain to hear that said of Gene Kiger, or even Troy Sheffield. or any others that might be here, or anywhere else. He is the only person to ever have human flesh that God said, I'm well pleased in everything he does. Every word he spoke, every thought he had, everywhere he went, and with everyone he dealt, God said, he's all together, perfect. This cannot be true of any others, and so we identify this unique, different one as the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we need to inspect the treatment of the other birds around him. Isn't that what it says in our text in verse 9? My heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds the other people around him, the other people of humanity, the other humans on this earth, understand that Jesus Christ became light unto us. He was a man. And He was the God-man, but He was man. The only difference between Him and the others of humanity is He had no sinful nature, nor tin of sin about Him. He was conceived in a supernatural act of a God the Holy Spirit overshadowing a virgin named Mary, born to the seed of woman, not man. And because of His holy purity that condemned all around Him, He was hated without a cause. He was despised. He was rejected. No reason, but he was. Word of God declares to us that they treat him, the birds round about, the other humans that lived in the days of Christ and with whom he came in contact overwhelmingly were against him. He declared, I went unto my own. But my own received me not. He went to the Jewish nation. As a matter of fact, he sent his apostles to the Jewish nation and told them to go not into the way of the Gentiles. He said, I am sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But his own said, no, we will not have these rule over us. No! We have no king but Caesar! No! All of those around him hated him because his holy actions condemned them in their actions. Even the scribes and Pharisees of his day. Politics, it is said, makes strange bentos. I won't argue that, but religion does too. Religion does also. Acts 4.27 says this, For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both that bird Herod, that bird Pontius Pilate, And those Gentile birds and the people birds of Israel were gathered together for to do. Verse 28 says, whatsoever thy determined counsel, whatsoever thy hand that determined counsel had ordained before to be done, determined before to be done. That's what it says. The Jews of the first century and the Lord Jesus Christ utterly hated him. Utterly hated him. Why? Do you know that he never mistreated a person? Do you understand that? Even those who just totally refused to hear or eat anything he had to say. and set traps and snares and tricks to try to bring him into being something that they were. Sinful liars. They could not. And because they could not, they sought ways to kill him. The Lord Jesus Christ lived a life that all of the religious leaders of his day claimed that they could live, but they could not. And his life rubbed them the wrong way. Now can you wrap your brain around this? The nation of Israel and the Gentile nation of Christ's day, particularly the Roman Empire, and the slave Jews being bonded together, they were against Christ. They had a common enemy, the great speckled bird. He was different. And as the last part of this says, from verse 9, In Jeremiah 12, the birds round about are come against her. Come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field. And what did Christ say hanging on the cross? The bulls and the dogs of Bashan come against me. The beasts of the field come to divide. If you read this in your context, you'll find out that this is about Christ. It's about Christ. Pilate and Herod are arch rivals for power. They were enemies prior to their union against Christ. It brought together political rivals. Can you imagine the Americans who are real true Democrats and real true Republicans getting together and uniting as one? That's what they did against Jesus. Because they saw him as a greater enemy than they others were. Even though he was the greatest that had ever lived or ever would live on the face of the earth. The Lord Jesus Christ was taken to Pilate by the high priest, Cephas, and the Jewish leaders of the Sanhedrin of his day. Pilate listened, sent him to Herod. Herod would dress him in a purple robe, plant a crown of thorns upon his head, mocked, laughed, had him slapped, beaten, sent him back to Pilate. We'll try to release him. But the Jews said, if you release him, you're no friend of Caesar's. He's not our king. The only king we acknowledge is Caesar. And if you don't put him to death, we're going to tell Caesar on you. The Jews, Pilate sent him to be scourged, condemned him to be crucified. The Lord Jesus Christ went to that place called Golgotha. I've seen that spot. Now there is a bus stop at the spot where they say at least Golgotha or Calvary was at. I don't doubt it. The world has never been a friend of Jesus, and it never will be. He continued to be crucified, and there the Lord Jesus Christ gave Hisself. These soldiers were no more in control of what was taking place than Pilate was. Do you know what Pilate said when Christ didn't answer him? Knowest thou not that I have power to take thy life, or give it back, release thee? What did Jesus say? Oh no you don't! You have no power over me at all except be given you of my father. I have power to lay my life down and I've got power to take it up again. You can't even touch a hair on my head unless God in the heaven says you can. He wasn't worried about it. You say he was standing there to be condemned. He didn't care. Inspector Burt was here to do what his father wanted him to do. And that was all. He gave his hands and his feet to be nailed to the tree. You say, well that was just small nails, wasn't it? Let me ask you something. What size nail would it take to leave a hole in your hand large enough for a man to put his finger in. Huh? It wasn't a roofing tap. You understand, the Lord told Thomas, reach hither thy hand, put your fingers in the nail prints in my palm. Didn't he? It was not a little beast's nail, it was a spider. We might think of it as a railroad spike today. After it was out and the flesh had cleared up, whatever it did, to come back together, it still was a big enough hole for a man to put your finger in. His side was lanced, and that spear went in deep enough to cut the pericardium sac. envelope of water surrounding the heart. So that when the spear went in, it would pierce that sack and the water from that sack would flow out with blood. Blood and water. That's right. Flowed out of his side. What size hole was in his side? Enough for a man to put his hand in. Right. Oh yeah. They, do I, The Son of God. The Word of God says of Him that His visage, His visible appearance, was more marred than any man. Now that doesn't mean He was more beaten than any human had ever been, but more than any human had ever survived through. No one had ever gone through what Jesus did and lived, but He did. until he gave up the ghost. He did it. No one took it. Lifted between heaven and earth, where he would be laughed at, mocked, ridiculed, put to an open shame. Six hours. Three of which humanity did. everything that they could to make a mockery out of him. I can never wrap my brain about how much God the Father loved me and you, for your sake. For him to hear from the lips of those walking around the foot of the cross and stopping and looking up at him and saying, Oh, you saved others. You can't even save yourself. Let God save you now, if he'll have you. What if someone comes and says to you about your son, if he'll have you, go ahead and get him. Deliver him from me. That's what they asked God the Father. If you'll have him, if you'll claim him, go ahead and deliver him. That's how much God loved us, that He would leave His Son in such agony. Such shame, such ridicule, there upon it. He died. upon the cross. Let's immerse ourselves in the sufferings of the great speckled bird. We've identified him. We've looked at his treatments. You want to be a partaker of his sufferings? Isn't that an honor? Wasn't that where unto we were called? I wonder why it is that I, and I venture to say we, expect to float through this life on a calm sea. Shall we be carried to the clouds on glorious beds of ease, while others fight to win the prize and sail through bloody seas? No, I must fight if I should win. Increase my faith, O Lord. Do we want that? If we suffer with Him, we shall also... Did you hear that first two-letter word? Huh? Now we love that part of hearing about reigning with Him, don't we? But it is preceded by if we suffer with Him. I want to ask you something. Is this world falling in love with God's people when they act like Jesus Christ? If Jesus Christ were here today, would the political world and the religious world embrace him and say, Glory, we've been waiting on you. We're so glad you're here. We're honored to have you. We love you. Is that what they'd do? No. Of course not. Amen. Politicians would try to kill him just like they did. The religious world would denounce him just like they did. And the world system, those gentiles, would do all they could to get rid of him. We want nothing to do with him. But how do they treat me and you? How does the world think of you? We need to immerse ourselves. Brother Shepherd said, oh, to be like him. If we're going to be like him, we're not going to be the favorite people in the world. If we're going to be like him, we're going to have some rough, hard days ahead. If we're going to be like him, we're liable to get beat. We're liable to get stung. We may get imprisoned. We may be put to death. Would it be a horrible thing to die for the cause of Jesus Christ? You know, I've said before, and maybe to hear, I don't know. As one old preacher said, I've got so old I don't remember where I said whatever I said, so it don't make any difference. If you heard it, that's OK. You get to heaven and you see John the Baptist and he had his head cut off for standing for righteousness. Why don't you ask him if he's sad he didn't have it? Why don't you ask Stephen if he wishes you to just quit preaching Jesus when they started to stone him? Ask him. You know what ugly little brother John would say? John would say, my only regret is I didn't have but one head to give for it. If I could have twelve, I'd have given them all. standing with my Lord, for my Lord, for God's Word and His holiness. And what's right, the world hasn't changed, we have. We don't want to immerse ourselves in the sufferings of the speckled bird. We want to be so much like the world that the world is glad to have us around. That's the truth. They would say, Preacher, are you just trying to get me? No, I'm just trying to stir up some emotions that would do something for us. You say, how do you know that? Because I am that way. But I am not alone. That's 10 CR's. John 15, 18 says, if the world hates you, Jesus is speaking. Do you know what happens if the world hates you? You know it hated me before it hated you. If you robbed the world, the world would love you. Let me ask you something. When's the last time somebody said to the world, I hate you because of your stance for Jesus Christ? When was it? When was the last time someone told you, get out of my old house, get out of my basement, because you tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ? When was the last time you suffered that? When was the last time you shed blood for his name's sake? Huh? When was the last time that anybody did anything against you or me? Might as well be honest. We might put on good pictures and faces at a Bible conference, but when we get back to where we're going, what's it going to be then? It's awfully easy to be everything that's here and in church. But when you go out, what are you going to be? Jesus Christ said in verse 20 of John 15, remember, the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. Why do we think that the world would hate Him and love us? Or better, more importantly, why do they? They didn't tolerate Him. They wouldn't put up with Him. The beast round about him devoured him. Believe me. They did. 1 John 3 verse 13 says, Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. You know what we ought to marvel at? We should be amazed. We should be astonished. We ought to stand back grasping for breath with our mouth hung open if the world doesn't hate us. Because we're doing something wrong. You say, I don't want people to hate me. Why? Oh, I know. You don't want to be like Jesus, really. You want people to just pat you on the back while they go to hell. And we seemingly do not care enough to even tell them about a Savior. about the only power that can cleanse them from their sin, the precious blood of the Lamb of God. We're forewarned by our Master. I send you forth as sheep amongst wolves I do not know a whole lot about wolves and I really know nothing about sheep. But I'll tell you one thing, I know something about egg sucking dogs. And chicken killing dogs. I know something about that. And I expect they're related. Wolves and dogs. Somewhere in the same family. And they are not in love with one another. And they don't get along. And we, if we will be like this great speckled bird, the world won't say glad to see you any more than it did to our master. They hated him. Why do they not hate me? Brother Peter says in 3.14, but, and if. You know, I like the way the Bible just puts conditions upon it, don't you? But and if. You suffer for righteousness sake, happy are you. Something's wrong there. You know the Lord got that wrong. You know what He said. You're going to believe you have to suffer. Well, if we suffer for our sins, You know, chastising is what we needed. But if we suffer for righteousness sake, you know what we ought to say? Praise you, Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. We're like He who we love. And we do love Him. If you know He died for your sins and buried and rose again the third day, suffered and shed His blood for you, you love Him. But we need to share it. We need to live it. We need to be like the great Speckleberg. God bless you. Thank you, Pastor. Challenging message once again. All God's words are challenging. Because when we realize who we are, We're just sinners saved by grace, and we all fall short. But praise God, he is patient, he is loving, and his grace is greater than all our sin. So I want to thank you very much for attending the entire conference and able to do that. And I hate to say it's over. But I hope in a way it's not over, that that word which has been preached throughout the conference will continue to work that word in us, both the will and the do of God's good pleasure. So let's go ahead and go to the Lord in prayer, brother, please. I hope that you hear me. I hear you. This man was at our church visiting. Our pastor Joe Wilson preached on the church. He walked down the door, this man did here, and said, I'm never coming back. Well, the Lord taught him the truth on the church, and would you believe, for 28, almost 29 years, he pastored Grace Baptist Church, and preached the church truth, plus the gospel of Christ, and the whole counsel of God. And I just had to pass that. Amen. God can change people, and Lord Jews tend to perish. in my life in that respect. And I know that God can save those who are in the valley dry bones, as our brother preached. And it does seem like we live in a world where so many dry bones out there. But we're not, as our brother said, we're not there to get results. We want results. We'd love to see good results of people being converted, but that's God's business. We're to be faithful. to preach the word. And however the chips might fall, they fall. But we must be faithful, having compassion as a brother also mentioned, as we tell others about the way, the truth, and life in Jesus Christ. We want to go ahead and close right now on the word of prayer. Our great God and Father, we come to you. Thank you so much for the goodness that you've shown us. we're not worthy of the least of your mercies and yet you have truly blessed our souls as we've heard your word being preached lord help us especially as your preachers that we will speak as Micaiah that which the lord says unto us that is what we're going to preach that's what we're going to speak help us father We know in and of ourselves we can get intimidated like Jeremiah. My God, you are a helper. We want to because you planted the Holy Spirit within us. We have the desire to be faithful. Help us, God, to overcome fear, to overcome whatever may turn us aside, Lord, that we would just be faithful. Help us, Father, as we go along in our travels, give safe traveling mercies to those who are traveling and God that they would receive your grace to reach their destination safely. Lord, we do pray for those who we miss being here. Sister Judy, ask Father for your grace and your healing upon her. And others, Father, who couldn't make it, Father-in-law. And Mother-in-law. Thank you, Lord, that they could hear and watch. Pray God it bless their souls. We look forward to that time when we will part no more. We evermore together with you and with one another. How good is your word. It blesses us more than even our necessary food. Thank you so much, Father, for your grace upon each speaker, each one who sang specials, everyone that sang out in the congregation and prayed, and the fellowship is so much more than we could ever think or imagine. We ask now, Father, you would forgive us our sins and our shortcomings as we were certainly reminded of them during this conference, and may we Lord, not just forget about it, but when we be more and more like Christ, more and more conformed after the image of the one who loved us and gave himself for us. God, we pray that you'd help us to even be willing to bear in our body the marks of the Lord Jesus. mortified David, for the sake of the cause of Christ and out of love to others. We ask now, Father, you'd hear us. We ask these things in the mighty, matchless name of the King of Kings, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.