Are We Following After Peace and Holiness?

Well, happy Sabbath, everybody! Good to see you all. Hope that you've had a great week or a couple of weeks. It seems like my wife and I have been gone for a month. You know, we went to Hawaii, as I think I mentioned to you before we left, and got a lot accomplished by going over there. We prepared for the feast in 2013. Hard to believe we're in 2013 pretty soon. And we were able to see all the brethren, some of which I hadn't seen in three years. So, you know, what happens sometimes when we go over, we are hooked up by telephone, but we're not hooked up so that we can see each other. So, we, in fact, went to Kona, the big island, and we're able to visit with Gary Bird up near the Hilo area, if you're familiar with the big island. And anyway, showed us around as many farms he has there. He has a lot of fruit trees. If you ever get to go up to see Gary, he's very proud of his fruit trees that he's got. Although they're not producing any fruit yet, he hopes they will someday do that. They're small ones. He showed us some of the fruit was about this big. So, anyway, I said, I don't think you'll market that, Gary. You can't sell these apples this big. You know, but of course, I was just joking with him. But he showed us around all the volcanoes and showed us around that area. Then, prior to that, we actually spent a couple of days with also Brad and Sherry Ellis, who live down in the Kona area, and visited with them. And they're doing very, very well. And hopefully we'll be able to continue to do well. I know that we had a wonderful Kingdom of God seminar also on Oahu in Honolulu. We had seven new people that came, and they were very enthusiastic as well. If you saw the write-up that we sent around, I think it was last night. It probably went around that Mr. Roram sent out. We talked about in there about the enthusiasm. We had two seminars for them, like you do here.

And all seven were there, just faithfully sitting for both of those seminars. And not only that, but that we had a Q&A afterwards. Now, last time I did a Q&A, and I was a little regretting it, because we had somebody show up there, a couple of people who showed up that had some pretty bizarre ideas. Interestingly, one of the same people showed up, and his attitude has totally changed. Totally changed. Now he's on board with the truth. And I was just enthusiastic about it. And I asked him, I told them, I said, you know, we do not have a congregation that meets regularly in Honolulu, but that's our goal. We would like to someday have a congregation, a church over here. And one of the individuals that was sitting there said, well, we are the church here. And he was very enthusiastic. He had a small son with him. And I believe he came to the last one as well, and he had his wife with him and a daughter, if I'm not mistaken. But, you know, I could be mistaken about that. But I'm hoping that we will be able to go back in a few months, and maybe have another meeting there. Because I asked them all for their email addresses, and they gave me their email addresses. And I said, I promise you, I will not market your address.

But anyway, they seemed very enthusiastic about it. Had one fellow that was there that looked like he was a hippie from the 60s. You know, a lot of people go to Hawaii, by the way, and they went there in the 60s, and they never got out of the 60s. They're still there. If you go to Oahu, some of you, if you ever get a chance to drive out, I think it would be west of Honolulu, along the coast, eventually you run out of road. But as you are nearing the point where you're going to run out of road, you're going to see all of these shacks that are made out of cardboard, plywood, metal, plastic, tarps. And it's like a mini city. And they are hippies that came in the 60s and never left. And the government let some camp out there, 24-7, 365 days a year. And it really is quite a sight to go through and see that one right after another. I mean, they've got a real party been going on there for how many years now? 50-something years?

And I'm sure they are in the pot, and who knows what else that they're in for. But anyway, Hawaii is an interesting place to go. If you have never been to the feast in Hawaii, you really need to go. And take some time to look around. Take some time to look around.

And some places you may not have seen that I would encourage you to go to see on Maui if you haven't seen them. But anyway, it's one of those places you can keep going back to again and again. And by the way, we flew back on the 20th. The world ended on the 21st.

But, you know, as we were, it was about, I think, about 730. And as we were getting close to the time when we were supposed to land in San Jose, I said, Joan, do you see any lights out there of the city? She said, no, not yet. I don't see any. I waited about 15 minutes. I said, do you see any lights yet? She said, no, I don't see any lights. And they said, it's happened. It's happened. The world has ended. And we're up in this plain, and there's no place to land.

And we got closer, and I said, do you see any lights yet?

She said, no, I don't see any lights. But she said, it's foggy outside.

I said, you should have told that to begin with. But anyway, I'm just joking about that. We had one man that was at the seminar. He was really concerned that 21st will be the end of the world. And I said, don't worry about it. You and I will be here, you know, on the 21st and 22nd. And I said, guaranteed, we're going to be here. And I don't know, maybe that's why he didn't want to leave. You know, so long as we stay with these people, we'll be all right. But well, all of us, of course, are in that time now where Christmas is all around, isn't it?

It's hard to go anywhere without hearing that music. And it's catchy. I mean, they've had their best artist working on music for a long, long time. And some of it's very catchy. But everybody, it seems, is just caught up in that, as they call it, the Christmas spirit. Now, most never consider that this pagan custom originated from ancient pagan days that were observed 2,000 years before Jesus Christ ever came along.

And that was believed, by the way, in the first century. Nobody questioned where these, some of these, customs came from in the first century AD. In fact, it was not observed in the Catholic Church until, I think, the first observance of it was about 354 AD. Remember, Christ was crucified in 31 AD. So, over three centuries after the death of Christ, even the Catholic Church was not observing Christmas. And actually, the December 25th designation did not come about until a monk first said that December 25th was the birth, you know, of Jesus Christ. Of course, we know that Christ was not born on or anywhere near December 25th.

I heard on the radio a man was talking about it, and he said, he said, we can't really even know when Christ was born. I guess the man had never read his Bible, you know, that there were shepherds abiding in the field when Jesus was born. And so, we do have some evidences of it, of when Jesus was born, and we, of course, have a whole lot more than that, than it was probably in September, October, our time. In other words, on our calendar. And, of course, what happened is that, you know, with the keeping of Christmas and why it's called Christmas, you know, there was a mass that was for Christ.

It was to attract the pagans who were observing Saturnalia and the Brumalia in the ancient Roman world. And remember, the Saturnalia in the Brumalia basically was a throwback that came from Baal worship. So, it really shouldn't be called Christmas, it should be called Baal-masks instead. And so, anyway, you know, this is where, of course, Christmas came from. And it was one of the first things I remember as a Bible student that I discovered, you know, along with the Sabbath and some other things. You know, the truth is a wonderful thing.

You know, it rescues us from ignorance, obviously, because, you know, you've probably heard the saying, ignorance is bliss, but ignorance is not bliss, and ignorance is not happiness. Remember, when you did not know God's plan of salvation yourself, when you didn't know that Christmas was pagan, as you know now, and that know that you should not participate in that and do that, remember when you did not know the plan of salvation? Remember, when you did not know about the Sabbath? Remember, when you did not know about the Holy Days?

That you weren't aware of the resurrections? Maybe you'd heard the word resurrection. Maybe you had heard of these things, but probably you believe, like everybody else, that when you die, you go to heaven, and if you're bad, you go to the other place, the other bad place, which is amazing oftentimes, even though many people are locked into that kind of thinking.

They believe you go to heaven if you're good, and you go to the other place if you're bad. You go to Gehenna, or hell, as if they, I don't even think they realize there's a word in the Greek called Gehenna, but that you go to hell if you're bad.

But how many people do you know, by the way, in your life that ever thought they were bad?

That they deserve to go to that other place?

You know, remember, brethren, when you knew you didn't know why you were born, why you were brought into existence? Remember when you didn't know anything about clean and unclean meats? Remember when you didn't know anything about God's family? God's family. That God is a family.

Remember when you didn't know that Jesus Christ pre-existed, that He was the Word, and He became flesh and dwelt among us, and we know He was born from Mary, and His name was Jesus, and called Emmanuel. God with us. Remember when you did not know about law and grace? Remember when you used to think that it didn't matter what you did, you know, because you were all under grace? You know, I could continue going through this list. It's a long list of things that we used to not know, that we used to not know about, that have been revealed to us, and it has to be revealed to you. If you don't see it, it hasn't been revealed, and you know, our minds are cloaked if we do not see it, so that we cannot see it. However, knowing the truth, brethren, sometimes, and unfortunately even some of us, could think this way, knowing the truth can be equated with being holy in God's sight. And this is a great fallacy, because you and me, brethren, just knowing the truth is not enough. And unfortunately, sometimes people can know entirely too much for their own good, because they know and they do not. What makes us holy, brethren, is the application of the truth that we have learned, and of course, God's Holy Spirit that is placed in us, which is given to those who obey God. Where does it say that in the Scriptures? Remember that? Acts 5 and verse 32, that the Holy Spirit is given to those that obey God. Let's go over to Hebrews chapter 12. I want to show you, brethren, that holiness is just not knowing the truth. That's not enough for us to just know the truth.

In Hebrews 12 and verse 12, notice it says, Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down in the feveled knees. I'll tell you, if you were one of the parents of those children that were massacred in Connecticut, you know, you would be very, very much in this state. Imagine the fact, brethren, that they don't know the truth. They're not aware of the truth. I saw, by the way, recently that Mike Huckabee—I don't know if any of you ever watched Mike Huckabee. He's a pretty straight shooter. A talk show person now ran for the President of the United States. But, you know, one of the things he said not long ago, he said, at least with a massacre of the children in Connecticut, people won't blame God for that. And he said, the reason I won't blame God is because we kicked God out of the schools. And you know what? His saying that caused a cure among people. Because, see, people don't want to be told that. They've left God out of the picture. They don't want to be told that. And consequently, when we live in this world, you know, we're going to see horrible tragedies that, like, occurred in Connecticut. And it's a sad, sad thing of what occurred there. And, you know, the young fellow that did it as well. I noticed also LaPierre of the National Rifle Association, you know, was speaking and saying that probably people are going to blame this on guns, you know, rifles. And, you know, he basically was saying, look, he says, you know, if this young man had come there and been faced with somebody else with a gun, it might have been a different story. And, of course, people didn't like that.

They decried that. Oh, you know, no, we want to do away with all guns. You see, what we want to do is what we want to do. And we don't want anybody to tell us that what we're doing is wrong. That's the problem. We don't want anybody to tell us that. We want someone to tell us, no matter what we do, whether we reject God and kick him out of our schools and we kick him, you know, out of society, that we are doing the right thing. And that poor you, you know, God deserted you in this time. No, God didn't desert us. Remember, man deserted God in the Garden of Eden. And he turned his back on God. And man has been turning his back on God ever since. And God has left man to himself, to work out things himself.

And man told God, get out of my business. No, don't want, you know, don't want you in my business. Except if I need you. I need somebody to blame. You know, then I want you.

But, you know, basically the kind of thinking that people have is that, brethren. But, you know, those that are right now, again, that are going through this, their hands are hanging very low. And they feel very feeble. But, brethren, it's happening all over the world. It's because man has rejected God. And we're going to see more and more of these kinds of things happen. And the reason why is because man is choosing for himself what is right or wrong. And, you know, if you do that, this is what comes along with it. Connecticut comes along with it. The massacre there, and, of course, the massacre and other places that have, you know, happened.

Columbine is another. People forget about those things, but these things go back a long, long time. It says, therefore, strengthen the hands which hang down. You ever get discouraged in this world, reflect on, again, you know, what God is doing upon the earth. He's working with his children. If you ever go through any problems, at least you know why. You know, when I went through my problems, I know why. I know God was chastening me.

And I had to buck up. I have to realize that he is working with me. And it doesn't seem pleasant where you're going through those things, but God is working with all of us, brethren, in the church. And it says in verse 13, so in other words, buck up. He's saying, you know, strengthen yourself, verse 12, but then make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.

And notice verse 14, pursue peace with all people in holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. Do you want to see God someday? Well, here the Apostle Paul says, unless we can pursue peace and holiness, he says here, with all people. Unless we can do that, you know, we are not going to see God. We're not going to have the opportunity to be in God's kingdom, is what Paul is saying to us.

So he says, follow after peace with all men. In the American Standard Version, rather than the word holiness, the word is sanctification. And it says, without which no man will see the Lord. In other words, brethren, we need to follow peace with all men, and we need to be sanctified from this world and this society out here.

That's why God has revealed all these wonderful truths to us, brethren, so that we can be set apart from this world, and we can be holy and different from this world. Verse 15, and notice here, it says, looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up, cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.

You know, we can have a root of bitterness that begins to set up in us, and it defiles us, and it can impact and defile other people. And, you know, we need to keep a check on ourselves that we don't get into bitter attitudes. We don't get upset with one person or another and let that hang in us and let that affect us, because it can impact other people.

And, you know, the Bible talks about woe unto us if we offend a little one. If we offend somebody in the church, that they tumble out of the church and lose out on their salvation, woe unto us if we do that. And so we've got to be very, very careful, brethren, that we don't let bitterness to spring up in us, that we lash out at someone else. And if we are, in fact, the one that is being lashed out, we better be careful we don't get in a wrong attitude. And going on, it says in verse 16, lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright.

You know, what is more important, brethren, than your salvation, your birthright? What is more important? I think we'd all have to agree nothing is more important. And he says, for you know that afterward when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. You know, I've read that verse many, many times, and there's a lot about it. I still don't understand. But I want to talk a little bit about this verse in verse 17, and and also what it says about Esau here being a profane person and a fornicator.

And I want to talk about pursuing peace with all people and holiness and being careful, again, that we don't fall short of the grace of God. But are you, brethren, are we following peace and holiness in our lives? Are we doing that, brethren, in our personal lives?

Like I said, brethren, knowing the truth is not enough. We have to begin to apply the truth.

Knowing the truth is only half of the formula. I know there are some people that get caught up in knowing and knowing and knowing. In other words, like the Bible says, ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth. And oftentimes, some people can think that somehow or another that they know more than everybody else. You know, they've learned so much that they've become a conduit between us and God, as it were. Do you have that much confidence in the fact that you, thinking you're a conduit for God? I think all of us are, by the way, a channel through which God can work. No, don't get me wrong. But, brethren, none of us are the conduit for God. None of us are. And when we get into that attitude, we begin to think we're something that we're not, then we are falling short. But knowing, knowing is only half the formula, like I said, because that will not get you across the vast chasm that exists between mortality and immortality. I think all of us are familiar, aren't we, with that terminology? That there's a chasm between mortality and immortality. You remember the story of the, you know, the, you know, beggar that ate the crumbs from the rich man's table? Lazarus and the rich man? Remember that story? Remember the story of the gulf or the chasm between where Abraham was and where the rich man was? Well, that chasm or that gulf was immortality that the rich man could not traverse and no man can, quite frankly. And in our lives, brethren, that's what we're going to try to get across from mortality to immortality.

But knowing the truth is only half the formula to get there. You can't get there just by knowing the truth. I don't care what you know. And like I said, I went through a litany of things that we've had revealed to us. And quite frankly, the world does not know. Falling short of God's grace, by the way, means that we made an attempt to go from mortality to immortality and we fell short. In other words, we're not going to make it to the other side. You know, grace is nothing more than mercy, God's mercy, that God gives to us. You know what it means to fall short of God's mercy? To fall short of God's grace? Let me say it again. You know what it means, brethren? To fall short of the grace of God.

And we haven't really said a lot about that over the years, about falling short of the grace of God.

What is one major rule, by the way, of a carpenter? They may know. What is a major rule? Yes, sir. Measure twice, cut once. Could you say that again?

Measure twice and cut once. Okay. So, when you make the attempt to jump from mortality to immortality, you better make that jump, right? Because you don't want to fall short. You don't want to fall short. It's like the carpenter. If he measures wrong, he will fall short or be too long. And I don't think that's going to be a problem, by the way, brethren. I know we're going to be probably too long. I think we're going to be like evil can evil.

Unfortunately, if we don't measure twice, though, we don't think about it. How many of you remember the cartoon The Wily, Coyote, and the Roadrunner?

Let me, I'm going to really date you. How many of you have seen that cartoon in a drive-in?

Okay, I am. Okay, you guys are old. They're really old. I have too. But that was probably my favorite part of the movie, to see The Wily, Coyote, and the Roadrunner. You remember The Wily, Coyote? The Wily, Coyote, he has the Acme machines. I don't care what it is. Everything's Acme. It comes in a crate and it's got Acme on the outside. And usually, I remember at least one cartoon where he gets a rocket. And, you know, this Roadrunner is fast and it runs really fast. And, anyway, I remember one where the Roadrunner was on the other side of the Grand Canyon, you know, a big chasm. And The Wily, Coyote orders the rocket. And he straps it to his back and he launches that thing. And it looks like he's going to make it all the way over. He's about ready to grab the Roadrunner and the rocket goes out.

And you remember if you hear this, and there's a puff of dust down at the bottom of the can. That's what I mean, brethren, by falling short. I was going to bring a cartoon and play it for you if you... because I'm sure some of you may never have seen that. Maybe you have. But falling short of the grace of God is similar to that. Falling short. In a way that we fall short, brethren, of the grace of God is by being like Wily Coyote. You know, we didn't measure enough.

And in most cases we had more knowledge than we had application of knowledge. We hadn't applied the knowledge enough. It's like the coyote is smart enough, by the way, to put the machinery together. He's smart of the most human beings. You get a bicycle, try to put it together, and I don't know about you, but oftentimes when I try to put a tricycle together or something like that, you get the handlebars upside down, and usually something's upside down. You have to do it all over again. But at least the Wily Coyote gets that down. But what happens is that we don't apply the knowledge. You know, grace through Jesus Christ enables us to have salvation.

And if we make it across the chasm from mortality to immortality, brethren, we will have salvation.

But we don't want to come up short and lose out on the grace of God. Let's go over to Hebrews 2. Hebrews 2. I'm going somewhere with this, brethren. Stay with me. Okay? Hebrews 2 and verse 1.

Here Paul once again says, My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus, the Lord of glory, with partiality. Verse 3. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm in James. I don't know why it was in James. But no, that didn't sound right. I hope Hebrews 2 sounds right. It says, Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things that we've heard, lest we drift away. Or I believe it says in the King James, lest they slip. In other words, they slip away. We have to give an earnest heed to them, as he says here. And it talks about, For if the word spoken through angels proves steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? In other words, knowing a lot, but neglecting the doing of it, which at first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him.

And the fact is that Paul here said, we heard it from Jesus Christ. We heard it from the Lord, as Paul refers to Him. Or if we understand again fully who Jesus Christ is, that Christ is the Son of God. In other words, we heard it from the Son of God, the Son of the Father in heaven. That should be good enough for us. We better be very careful to earnestly heed the things that were said and not neglect the great salvation that Christ has made possible through His sacrifice. And you know, we don't oftentimes, if we give up, we don't give up all at once, but it sort of slips away. We don't do as much as we used to do.

You know, we don't serve as much as we used to serve. We do not, we're not as involved as we much as we used to be involved. And I understand, brethren, when people get up in years, my wife's parents are up in years, and her father has some serious health problems. He cannot get around the way he used to be able to do. I understand that. But as long as we're able-bodied, we should be involved in the Church. Have on, as the Bible refers to it, as the garments of salvation. So let's continue. Let's go over to chapter 3. Chapter 3, in verse 12.

And it says, Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called today. Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. You know, when we begin to let things slip, then sin comes in, and it deceitfully does so, and we get hardened by it. And, you know, that can lead to, you know, anything from a root of bitterness to just simply a lifestyle that evolves into something that is wrong, that is downright wrong. Let's go to chapter 4. Chapter 4, in verse 1. Chapter 4, in verse 1. Therefore, a sense of promise remains of entering his rest. Let us, a fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. You know, let's come short of this great salvation that God is offering to us. In verse 11. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. So we can fall, brethren. We can fall as God's people. We want to be sure again we do not fall. Now, let's go over to chapter 10. Chapter 10, here in the book of Hebrews, once again, Hebrews 10 and verse 26.

Here Paul gives a very stern warning, because if we sin willfully after we receive the knowledge of the truth, in other words, we've got all this head knowledge, and we start sinning, you know, after we've been baptized, we've had the forgiveness of sin, we begin sinning willfully after we've received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins.

Or there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. And so here Paul warns us again of the importance of making sure that we do not let things slip away, that we don't fall short of this great salvation that God has given to us. And you know, on down here in verse 30, you know, lest we get into bitter attitudes and we want to take vengeance on other people, it says, for we know Him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord, and again the Lord will judge His people. And then it says it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. You know, if we fall, brethren, from grace, you know what? We fall into God's hands.

We're not in His loving hands, by the way. We fall into His hands, having done wrong. And that is a fearful thing, Paul says. But again, going back to what Paul says here in chapter 10, you know, there remains no more sacrifice for sin when there is a willful sin. And what Paul is saying in another way, brethren, that grace is useless against willful sin. God cannot show grace towards somebody who commits willful sin. And again, lest somebody begin to wonder, well, have I committed the unpardonable sin, this willful sin, that He's talking about? Willful sin, brethren, is breaking God's law with impunity. In other words, and not out of weakness. You know, all of us out of weakness and, you know, do fall down. We make mistakes. And that's not what Paul is talking about. He's talking about sin that is willfully done.

And when somebody has committed the unpardonable sin, basically they've said, God, even though they knew God before, they're saying, God, I'm not going to follow Your law. I don't care. Anyway, what do you think? Well, God does not have a sacrifice for that sin of rebellion against Him.

And basically, you know, an unpardonable sin is a sin which we refuse to repent of.

I think God would forgive any sin that we repent of. And, frankly, I think that when one comes to repentance on it, it's not willful. It is weakness on our part that caused us to do that.

You know, the Apostle Paul said in another place, you know, here he said, there remains no more sacrifice for sin. Another place Paul says, we then, as workers together with Him, also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. In other words, God has given you His grace to help you to overcome. He's forgiven your past sins, and He's promised that He will forgive our sins if we repent of them even in the future. And here Paul is saying that we have not received that grace in vain or that it's useless in our lives. It doesn't motivate us to overcome. In another place, the Apostle Paul warned in the book of Galatians—I'm not going to go there, but in Galatians 5 verse 4, remember what Paul warned the Galatians?

He said to them, he says, you have fallen from grace. And the reason they had fallen from grace is they turned from the true gospel to another gospel. And we believe that they, in all likelihood, turn to Gnosticism. In other words, eat, drink, and marry. For tomorrow you'll die. And it doesn't matter what you do in the flesh because Christ didn't really come in the flesh. The docetic ideas that we've studied about theology—in other words, Christ didn't really come in the flesh. He appeared to be in the flesh, but he was really a spirit. But John calls that the spirit of antichrist, by the way, to deny Christ came in the flesh. And when people believe, by the way, once saved, always saved, in a way that's an old, docetic, Gnostic idea that's been resurrected.

Interesting. Protestantism does away with the resurrection, and yet they resurrect old ideas.

That's where they practice with the resurrection, by the way, is resurrecting old ideas and bringing them into the modern-day churches. But they wanted to embrace Gnosticism, and they were rejecting the truth. And Paul says, you've fallen from grace. You've fallen. You're like Wylie Keldin trying to get across the chasm, but you are not going to get there, because your rocket is going to fizzle out, and you're not going to make it to the other side. In the Greek, by the way, there in Galatians, the Greek word for fallen is ek-pipto, spelled e-k-p-i-p-t-o.

And the word fallen means become inefficient.

Or, as Paul referred to it, as useless.

Grace is useless if we don't change our lives, brethren. Grace is useless if we have knowledge only, and we do not apply the knowledge.

And knowledge that is not put into practice, brethren, is absolutely useless.

If you know to do good, and you don't do it, what is that, brethren?

Does anybody know what that is? What does the Bible say? Sin. Sin! Right! It's sin. All of us should be able to say that, and you listen. Sin! If we know to do good, and we don't do it, it's sin.

Somebody reveals you the Sabbath, you don't keep it, you believe it, and you don't keep it. It's a sin to you. I don't care if you knew it was a law of God or not. You believe it. Because it says in the Bible, also, whatsoever is not a faith, is what? Sin. Right. So you have to believe it, and you have to do it.

But the Galatians were rejecting the truth, and Paul says, you've fallen from grace. You've made grace inefficient. You made it take no effect in your life at all.

Let's go to 2 John 7 and 8. Over here. Here, John, of course, who was the oldest surviving apostle. We don't know how old John was, but probably in his late 90s. But in verse 7 it says, For many deceivers have gone out into the world, who do not confess Jesus as coming in flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. And it says, Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we work for, for that we may receive a full reward.

So, you know, we've all been, hopefully, working towards something. Now, we can't earn salvation, but we can rather than earn a reward in the kingdom. Salvation is going to be a free gift.

And, you know, if we don't get the free gift, we're not going to have the rewards either.

And let me put it another way, brethren. If we don't have any rewards, then we won't have the free gift either. I gave the example, by the way, to those that gathered in Honolulu there for the King of God seminar. And I said, it's like the example of if I offered you a million dollars, and I told you that you had to meet me at the J.P. Morgan bank at two o'clock.

Now, if I was going to offer you a million dollars, how many of you would be there?

I think all of you would be there, wouldn't you? Either that, or you'd think I was pulling your leg. But I bet you'd be there even if you didn't think I was pulling your leg. But, you know, if somebody offered us that, what are the preconditions, by the way, of receiving the million dollars? You'd have to meet at two o'clock at the J.P. Morgan bank.

Well, you know, the same is true about salvation. You know, it is a free gift. You can't earn eternal life. How long would you have to work to earn eternal life? Anybody know the answer to that?

How long would you have to earn? Say it louder. For eternity? For eternity! Right!

Boy, you've been listening. That's good. So, it has to be a free gift, doesn't it? Because you'd have to work. You and I would have to work for eternity. And let me tell you, we don't have enough eternity to make it work, quite frankly. But, you know, we don't want to, brethren, run in our lives and have the grace of God to have none effect in our lives and miss out on that salvation or the reward that God is going to give to us based on what we do with what we know. Let's go back to Hebrews 12 again. We've got to avoid, brethren, very much so, allowing ourselves to fall into a root of bitterness.

Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12 in verse 15.

It says, Looking carefully, lest any one fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up, cause trouble, and by this many become defiled. Here, Paul uses the example of bitterness in falling short of the grace of God. You see, as soon as we get into a bitter attitude and we begin to lash out at other people, and we don't have to do it verbally, we don't have to do it physically, we can do it in our minds. We fall short of the grace of God when we do that. And the reason why we do is because God has forgiven us, brethren, so much.

He's given us so much in our lives. How could we not forgive one other person? How could we not do that? You see, how we fall short of God's grace. And God says, okay, you're going to judge this person this way, this is the way I'm going to judge you. You're going to give me, for instance, you're going to give me all the reasons why this person shouldn't be in the kingdom.

Okay, let me give you 10 reasons why you shouldn't be in the kingdom. That's how God's going to judge us, you see. Do you want God to do that, brethren? Do any of us want that? I don't think we do, do we? But rather, what we should do is what Jesus Christ said. God is going to forgive us as we forgive other people. So we can't let, again, a root of bitterness spring up in us and begin to cause us to fall short of the glory of God. And going on, and it says, lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. And it says, for you know, that afterward when he wanted to inherit the blessings he was rejected for he found no grace for repentance though he sought it diligently with tears. You know, that, of course, when we read the account about Esau, you know, we see him pleading with his father. And here with Paul, he explains to us that, in fact, you know, that Esau had tears as well that he besought. Remember he besought Isaac, you know, to make a give him a blessing. And, of course, we know that Isaac gave him a blessing, but it wasn't the blessing that was given to Jacob. You know, we need to, again, rather than as God's people, realize that in the case of our lives we can neglect the salvation that has been given to us. You know, here we're told that Esau was a profane person and a fornicator.

I think we realize that we should not be profane persons. We should not be sexually immoral.

And yet, that's so prevalent, brethren, in the world today, in this liberal world that we live in. When we are called and received the Holy Spirit, we are set apart and made separate from the world. And God has put us in a category of being sanctified, or sanctification.

Sanctification, brethren, you know what a sanctification is? It's a state of purity, a state of purity. God wants us to remain pure.

And the truth obeyed, brethren, purifies us. The Word of God is compared to water that washes us, free of sin. And the Word of God has the truth. And when we obey God, in other words, we put in the practice the knowledge that we have, brethren, we are being purified in our conduct. And so we're being sanctified. Sanctification is taking place in our lives. And, you know, there are certain things that will keep us out of the kingdom of God. And let's go over here to Galatians 5.

I referred to Galatians, now we'll go to it. But in Galatians chapter 5, and down in verse 19. I want you to notice here, brethren, for the works of the flesh, in other words, those who begin to fall short of grace, the works of the flesh, and we can do this, by the way, brethren, physically, or we can do it mentally. In other words, we can be adulterers in the mind, as well. Hopefully we understand again the Spirit and the letter. And the Bible admonishes to the walk in the Spirit. But in verse 19, now the works of the flesh are evident, which are these, adultery, fornication. The first two things he mentions here, brethren, are adultery and fornication. They will keep you out of the kingdom of God. Uncleanness, lewdness, I think these would probably somewhat go along with each other.

You know, idolatry, sorcery, hatred. Here he puts hatred in here, having hatred.

The only thing we're free to hate is sin. We aren't even to lash out at the devil. You know, Michael the archangel didn't lash out at the devil, but said the Lord reviewed you.

So he says hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelries, can't participate in the Christmas holiday, can't you? That's what it's about very often. And the like of which I tell you beforehand, just as I have told you in times past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Those that practice those things are not going to be in the kingdom. They're going to fall short, in other words, of God's grace. They're going to be like wily coyotes, trying to get across that chasm, and it's going to fall short and poof at the bottom, you know, of the pit. It's interesting that the Bible talks about being cast into the shield, into the great pit. And we know that the reward of those who fall short, ultimately, is going to be good hand of fire. It's going to burn them up and not be thrown in what the world views as the traditional hell, you know, where you rise, you know, the Dante, allegory, torture chambers. I don't know if you've ever read Dante's Inferno, if you read it in college or if you read it in high school. I'm not even sure they do that in high school, do they? Do they even do that? Did any of you read the Inferno in high school? Ah, you have one that read it. But anyway, you know, that was the basis, by the way, of the ideology about what hell would be like that was pushed by the Catholic Church, quite frankly. But anyway, we see here Paul gives us a list of those things we'll keep as out of the kingdom of God. We must repent, brethren, of the world's ways and turn completely away from this. You know, we shouldn't, these things, shouldn't be named among us, brethren. And we should be avoided, not only in the letter of the law, but in the spirit of the law. In other words, we don't blatantly, brethren, break God's law. We don't even want to displease God at all. But we can do so, brethren, if we do not value what God says is important. This has been man's greatest sin. He devalues what God says is important. God says, keep the Sabbath. Man says, no, that's not important. God says, keep the holy days. Man says, oh, that's not important. God says, keep the Ten Commandments. Man says, no, that's not important. You just got to be a good person. You know, you see how man works? He says, God, what God says is, no, we don't want to value that.

And, brethren, we can displease God and, in that way, break God's law. We don't even have to, in other words, purposely break it. We can do it by turning from something that God doesn't instruct us to do and rejecting it, which, in fact, most have done. Let's go over to Genesis 25. Now, Genesis 25. I told you I was going to talk about Esau. In Genesis 25 and verse 29.

If I can get over here to Genesis.

25 and down in verse 29.

It says, Now Jacob cooked a stew, and Esau came, and from the field, and he was weary.

And Esau said to Jacob, Please feed me with the same red stew, for I am weary. Therefore his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, Sell me your birthright as of this day. And Esau said, Look, I am about to die. So what is this birthright to me?

Now, he didn't value the birthright that should have been his, basically, based on, you know, the fact he was the first born. And then Jacob said, Swear to me as of this day. And so he swore, and he sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils. Then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. He didn't think it was very important, that birthright.

Now, do you read in here that Esau committed fornication?

Do you see it anywhere in this story?

In the story about his birthright, doesn't say anything about fornication.

Now, remember, though, Esau did marry a Canaanite-ish woman. I believe it was one of the daughters of Ishmael that Esau ended up marrying. And that was displeasing to his father and his mother. That's what Isaac, you know, and Esau's mother had told Jacob, don't take of the daughters of the Canaanites. That's why I remember that, you know, Jacob went over there to Levins. You know, these were, of course, his mother's family. But, you know, he married a Canaanite woman. But in all the story, you know, about Esau, it doesn't mention he was a fornicator. Of course, it might have been passed on via some other means that Paul was aware of. But it does consider him a profane person. It calls him a profane person because he did not consider his birthright valuable. You know, I'm reminded of what it says in Isaiah 1, verse 3. I'm not going to go there. But in there, it talks about how God says the ox knows his owner, and the donkey knows his owner, his master. But my people don't consider. They do not consider. You know, Esau gave up his birthright, and for him, it looked like we're talking about a bunch of physical things, you know. But it was much more than that, you know, for Jacob. And brethren, for us, it's much more than a bunch of physical things. We're talking about a whole lot more than physical things. You know, we're talking about eternal life. We're talking about eternity here. And, you know, if we in some way despise that, that great salvation that God is giving to us, brethren, you know, that God is offering to us. We're worse than Esau. We would be worse than Esau. And again, remember, it's been put in your lap, brethren. It's been given to you, offered to you. And, brethren, if we despise what God is offering to us, we're worse, like I say. We're not better than Esau. We're worse than Esau was.

No wonder he's a profane person. If we undervalue anything that God considers valuable, we're profane.

We're fornicators, really, because we're fornicating with the world in a spiritual sense. You know, and I assume that, again, that Esau was in the physical sense. But we, again, don't have that in the Old Testament. So, brethren, like I said at the beginning, knowing the truth is not enough. Knowing and being aware of the truth is not enough. We have to apply the truth. And, you know, if we ever get into the position where we are falling from grace and we're out there, brethren, once again, we need to remember, certainly before it happens, if it were to happen to us. And I pray that would never happen to us, brethren, is that we've fallen from grace, that Esau couldn't get his birthright back, even though he besought Isaac with crying and tears.

So, once you lose it, you can't get it back. You can't get it back. So, it's so important for us, brethren, as we run the race, brethren, to not let careers in our lives, hobbies, friendship, friendship, or even your family, for that matter. Your husband or your wife cut you out of the birthright that has been thrown in your lap, that has been offered to you. You know, because, again, these are important things to God. He wouldn't have offered them to us if they weren't important to us. You know, are we willing to sell our birthright for a tiny morsel of food? That's what Esau did. A morsel of bread, the Bible says, and a bowl of little soup.

I've had little soup, brothers. Not that good. And I'll tell you, no bread is that good. No bread is that good. You ever made expensive mistakes in your life? I mean, really expensive mistakes in your life. It maybe costs you $5,000 or $10,000, something like that. Maybe some of you made worse mistakes than that. I don't think I've made, so far as I know, I may have mistakes that cost me so much money, so much, but I haven't made mistakes that cost me. And they've been very painful. But if you make this mistake, brother, if you lose out on the Great Salvation that God is offering to you, let me tell you, you're not any better than Esauk who sold his birthright for morsel of bread. And you know what? You're no better than, in fact, Wylie Coyote, either. Because you've got that rocket strapped to your back, and it's not going to go anywhere. And I pray, brethren, that none of us are Wylie Coyote. You know, the truth is a wonderful thing, and grace is an even greater thing. Let us endeavor, brethren, to keep both God's truth, to know it and to do it, and to keep also grace God's unmerited pardon so our sins can be forgiven, so that we can have salvation, and so that we can bridge the gap between us, mortality and immortality, and we can get on the other side. We can be over there with Abraham, and Abraham's bosom, and be with Jesus Christ. You know, when that time comes, and when he comes to rule the earth, brethren, that we're going to be on that side, working with Christ from that time on into eternity.

And, brethren, I think it goes without saying, certainly steer wide and clear of all this Christmas, New Year's, celebrating that's going on out there right now. We don't have anything to do with that in our lives. And just, I think what we have to do is keep our heads down. You know, when the world is like this, because it happens ever so often. It happens, of course, Christmas time. It happens at Easter. It happens at Halloween and other times like that, when you sort of have to keep your head down and, you know, keep out of the world's business. But let's make sure, brethren, we inherit that great salvation that God has offered to us.