Living the Word

Good afternoon to all of you, and good day to everyone who's not here. Back home in Portland, it's the only morning service of the year, except for Holy Days. Alaska's even earlier. The far eastern part of this continent is an hour earlier than, or an hour later than we are. And I didn't talk to Mr. Eddington about how far and why this telecast goes. And so it's good day to everyone else who is not in this room, and good afternoon to you. It was an absolute delight to listen to Mr. Moody's sermon. As a recent retiree, it's been an interesting experience. People ask, how does retirement feel? I said, I don't know. I haven't figured it out yet. But one thing I have figured out is, for the last 50 years, I have been my own primary teacher from the pulpit as a pastor. And it has been an absolute delight to sit and listen to the wisdom of younger men. As Mr. Moody was walking through Psalms and connecting the dots between wisdom and its source, and that the Word of God is the beginning of understanding, and that understanding is the product that comes from those who respect it. It has been a pleasure to watch the new elders, the newer younger elders that I've had the opportunity to get to know in the Northwest. And I'm looking forward to getting to know many of the younger elders who are in the Midwest and the eastern part of the United States. But there is a wisdom there that comes from simply surrender to God. You know, getting older doesn't necessarily mean you're getting wiser. It just simply means you're getting older. That wisdom is a gift that comes as a result of respecting God, and it is resident at all ages. I'd like to thank the Planning Committee for the theme this year, Live the Word. You know, Live the Word is a directive. It's a statement. It's a finger pointing in a direction. And I looked at the theme for the year, and I thought, though it's a fine point of distinction, I'd like to move this message from the directive to an assessment of the action. So I could say, live the Word, a command, a mandate, a directive. Let's talk for this message about living the Word, about the action. Who has lived the Word, and what do they look like? I think most of us, when we assess that in a collective sense, have to think of Hebrews 11. And we have to go back to the list of individuals, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and as the list went on. And at a break point in Hebrews 11, midway between this catalog of saints, the author stopped in verse 13 and made a summary statement that would apply to everyone who had preceded that verse, and it would also apply to everyone who followed that verse. And he said in verse 13, These all died in faith, not having received the promises. But having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that there were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better. That is a heavenly country, and therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He's prepared a city for them. We look at this body of people and realize that their names are contained in the Word of God because they spent their lives living the Word of God. We also stop occasionally to recognize that that list is not complete, that that list is ever growing. My wife and I spent a better portion of the last two weeks on a daily basis at hospice in Vancouver, Washington, with an individual who had lived his life faithfully and was in the final hours of that life. Life goes on, but every year we lose people who have lived the Word. We're in the last, and I mean that in the sense of if we look at all of the ages or eras of church history, we are in the last. We are in the most recent. If you look back at our generation, we can look back at pioneers who pioneered this age, this era of the church, the 20th century church of God. As we age, one of the things that goes along with aging is time goes faster and we become more oblivious. It's great to have bifocals or trifocals because you can't see your face in a mirror that well. And once in a while where you pull the bifocals up and you look, it's a little scary. So you don't do that too often. But you know those of us who have gray hair or no hair or a combination of both are at this particular point in time merely the children of the pioneers of this era. We have an entire generation who, except for those who are in their 80s or 90s, and they may still be a part of that pioneering generation.

Time has marched on and those of us who are the elders in this room and the gray heads in this room are not the pioneers. We are the children of the pioneers. Those people whose names we know have lived the Word and they have joined the list of those who are found in Hebrews 11. But pioneering is always rigorous. It takes dedicated men and women. It takes focus. It takes purpose. Do you ever stop, and I think as a part of the planning for this Sabbath service, as I was sitting in the council meeting and the members of the council were discussing how to arrange the messages, they said, well, we need one of the men who's on the young end of pastoral work and then we need one who's over the hill. So Mr. Moody and I got assigned to be the bookends and to demonstrate in this case those who are coming into pastoral ministry and those who have retired from it. But when I look back at those who have pioneered this particular age, I look at dedication. I look at people whose lives were focused and who committed those lives to the service of God. Our first generation in this era of the church, for the most part, never went to a feast of tabernacles that was closer than a thousand miles away. And not because they wanted to travel to a new and different feast site. It was because there was no other feast site.

And a thousand miles for many of them was a luxury. With the first site of any size, once we abandoned the west coast and Belknap Springs and Sigler Springs, then Big Sandy became the feast site. Anyone in California was 1,500 miles away. Anyone in the northwest was almost 2,000 miles away. Those in the northeast were the same. Those in Canada, the lucky ones, right in the center of Canada, were about a thousand miles, and all the rest were much further. Three to four days was a common trip to the Feast of Tabernacles. During that particular point in time, for those who were the children of those pioneers, I being one of them, can tell you the most exciting part of the Feast of Tabernacles was the opening night as Mr. Armstrong stood up and did the roll call of the states.

And you'd crane your neck and look around as he walked through every state in the Union and asked people to raise their hands if they were from that state. In the earlier years at Big Sandy, there were entire blocks of states where no hand came up. And you'd come back the next year and look to see if somebody was there from New Hampshire or from Maine or someone from North Dakota or someone from one of the prairie provinces of Canada. And every year, once again, the trip was a three to four day trip each direction. In the earlier parts of this era of the church, there were several things that we take for granted today that had not yet been enacted. And as a result, protections that we take very much for granted today were not afforded to members of the church at that time. The Civil Rights Act was not signed until 1964. And until that point in time, there was a significant portion of the United States where African American members of the Church of God could not attend services. By 1965 and 1966, all of what is called the Deep South only had one church where both people of white skin and black skin could meet together. North Carolina had a congregation, but North Carolina was outside of what is technically called the Deep South. Elders in that part of the country who are African American worked from the base in Mobile, Alabama, and they're visiting areas for those of you that feel you have long treks today and some of you have very long treks. The elder and his assistant in Mobile covered Alabama, Mississippi, Eastern Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida as his, quote, church area.

When they found places to eat, they ate in portions that were cordoned off to them. When they needed restroom facilities, they saw men, women, and colored and knew exactly which one they could go to and which one they could not. Before the equal opportunity employment laws that were enacted in the 60s, going to the Feast of Tabernacles for more than a few people meant to return home without a job. That there was no right to accommodation. There was no privilege of accommodation. That you were at the mercies of the graciousness of your employer and to take off a period of time equivalent to the eight days of the feast and the three to four days each direction to get to the feast meant, in many cases, the assurance that you would come home to no job and each year was to come home in October or late September and look for new employment. Until 1973, every young man in the United States of America had to register for the draft, and he had to be able to convince a draft board of the convictions that he held. If he did convince a draft board, he would then serve a minimum of two years of public service, maybe working for goodwill or the Salvation Army or in a hospital if an orderly, or in some other fashion. And if he wasn't able to convince the draft board, the consequences were dire. One young man, simply as an illustration, sat in a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida in the late 1960s, and his only crime was that he was so soft-spoken he was incapable of convincing his draft board of his conviction. And as a result, he was serving time in a federal prison. That generation is all but gone. They have, in the past tense, lived the Word. Their journey is finished, and as I said, all but a few, a few who are fundamentally, from their early to mid-80s onward, still exist within the Church of God. Hebrews 11 makes a couple of additional comments that I think speak well to this body of men and women. I'm simply going to take a snippet from two verses because that snippet is eloquent. Hebrews 11 and verse 32 makes the comment as the catalog of saints is being read, and the author says, And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of, and then he gives a fore instance.

As we were driving from the airport yesterday evening, John Garnett was talking, and he was reminiscing about this particular point in time and some of the hardships of the pioneers. They are indeed people who followed this way with zeal. They followed it with total commitment, and the level of sacrifice required of them was above and beyond what is commonly required of us today. And as the verse said, time really would fail to speak of all of them and to speak of the lives that they lived. Verse 38 makes another comment. Speaking of all those whose names appear here and adding to those the endless list of people whose names simply get lost in time is the statement of whom the world was not worthy.

This world will someday come to know that there has been among them people who have lived the way of life. There is a comment made by Peter that I think all of us in this room are familiar with, where Peter talks about living this way and being spoken evil of because you live this way. But, and the inference is, when the kingdom comes and God converts them, they will glorify God for the example they saw.

Those who lived the Word, just as those who are living the Word today, are for the most part investing in the future. You know, you're never too young to live the Word. As I look back and I pay respect to that pioneering generation of our time period, I can also look forward and I can look at those who are just on the very front edge. I appreciated all the comments that Mr. Moody made about the young and can understand as a grandparent having grandchildren, even in this case a little older, I mean, excuse me, a little younger than the daughter that he has who was entering high school.

And as a grandparent having that same compassion, concern, and understanding, and desire to see them do well, we have to look at the other side of the coin and realize that you're never too young to begin living the Word. Years ago, I walked out of a Council of Elders meeting to do some paperwork during a break, and men sat in the room and they were talking and discussing among themselves. And I came back in and I caught the tail end of the discussion.

And somebody had started a discussion on how old were you when you began to take seriously this way of life. And having caught the very end of it, I asked one of the conversants, I said, well, tell me, what was the consensus in the room? And they said, well, as everybody went around the room and shared their experience, it basically came down to a period between 12 and 15 years of age. Each of these men, anecdotally going back to when he reached the place where this began to register and action was required.

I still remember being regaled with some of the stories of one of the patriarchs of the United Church of God, retired quite some years ago. Mr. Burke McNair, as he would talk about in his childhood, being up in his room with parents that were not agreeable to this way of life and quietly listening to a broadcast or reading literature, and doing that as a child. You know, it's nice to read the Bible stories about exceptional children, but exceptional children aren't the purview of just the Old Testament, or even, if we look at Timothy, the New Testament, children who are impressed by the way of God have never ceased to exist.

And as we talk about living the Word, we can pay tribute to a generation past or passing, but we can also look at a generation arriving and look at some who impress us greatly with their devotion and dedication. I could walk you through the scriptures that we all know. I don't think it's necessary, citing them as good enough. We're all impressed by the first chapter of Daniel in the first 12 or 13 verses where Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will not compromise on their diet.

And the steward says, you could cost me my life. And Daniel, with confidence saying, we won't cost you your life. You will actually see young men who are, if I can borrow from the last piece of music, thriving. And indeed they were. But it took courage to say, we're not going to eat the king's fair. We have decided what is right and what is wrong, and we are dedicated to right, and we will not compromise. One of the more eloquent speeches from a young man in the Bible is in Genesis 36 verses 6 through 9 where Joseph explains to the wife of Potiphar how he cannot dishonor his God and his master by doing what she is requesting.

Knowing, knowing that in saying that, what the consequences are probably going to be. And indeed he was not disappointed when it came to consequences, as he ended up in prison. He was a wise enough young man to know that by thwarting her request, he was laying himself open to the retribution of a very powerful woman. And yet his convictions were there.

You can't help but wonder when you arrive at 2 Kings chapter 22, and you see a nine-year-old taking the throne of Judah by the name of Josiah.

And for 10 years, we don't know exactly what went on in his life, but 10 years later at 18, he made some of the most monumental changes in the structure of Judah and its conduct that were made in the entirety of its history. And the summarization of his life was that he was a righteous king from the start. And so between 8 and 18, there wasn't some epiphany. He was who he was. The record simply picks up at 18 with the first major act that changed the state of the nation. Great stories, aren't they? The Daniels, the Shadrachs, the Meshachs, the Ben-Gos, the Josiahs. We could add Samuel, the prophet. We can add Joseph after he was sold into slavery.

But these are not just stories of bygone generations, because these convictions are lived by teenagers today, and they're lived by preteens. I have family members who are teachers. My wife retired, I would have to put that in quotes, retired from teaching three years ago, but she's addicted enough. She substitutes every so often, still. And we're very familiar as a family with the nature of the classroom. It really doesn't matter at what stage you are in school. School is a challenge between what do you believe, what are you convicted of, what will you live, and where is the flow of the entire student body going. And they're not going in the same direction.

Our summer camps are populated by the finest group of teens and young adults I've seen in the years I've been in the ministry. As I attend or have attended some of the camps over the years as staff, and sometimes as a guest, I have been impressed by the focus and by the dedication of the young people who are there. It's always a sight. Those of you who have never been to the last day of camp, I was going to say miss a treat, but it's not a treat. You miss a poignant event. As you watch young people embrace, tearfully, head to their cars with their gear, and head home, and it is written all over them, I don't want to leave. There's an environment here, there's a camaraderie here. This is the one place in my world in the year where everyone here is on the same page and going the same direction. Our camps have a strong focus on teaching teens how to live God's Word, and it is a period of reinforcement once a year. As a pastor, I've sent scores of kids to camp over the year, and it's delightful when the applications are really, as a pastor, it's the evaluation forms that come your direction. You see the number of campers who can't get enough. I don't want one camp. If I can get to two, I'm going to two. Once in a while, you have the rare individual that's even figured out how to get to three in one summer. I've seen twos all over the place. It's an encouragement to see every teen and every young adult who chooses to live the Word of God regardless of cost. The bookends exist even in our culture. Those who have been there, those who have done it, and are a part of Hebrews 11, and those who are just coming to the place where God is opening their hearts and minds to make evaluations, and evaluations that will lead them into conduct. Everyone in this room knows that living the Word of God is a challenge. Some are on the early end. Some of us are on the latter stages of living the Word. The last year or so, reflectively, I've smiled inside myself every time a song leader opens the hymnal and turns to page 38, for even from my youth. Now, I've been singing that song. I looked at the copyright because you lose track of time. It says 74, so I've been singing that song since I was 31. Now, I still sing the words, but there's a dichotomy. There's a set of words coming out of my mouth, and there's a ticker tape going through my head, and they're going in opposite directions. The words we're singing is, for even from my youth, O God, and then we get to the place, forget me not when I am old and gray. Now, I'm there. When I started singing that hymn, I was neither old and I wasn't gray. But now I sing the words, and I sing the words sincerely, God, do not forget me as I am old and gray. But I've got another hymn line going on in my head, and that hymn line is, God, help me not to forget you as I am old and gray.

That road runs both directions. You know, Scripture says, he that endures to the end will be saved, not he that endured 75, 85, 95, 99.9 percent of the time, he who endures to the end. And so when I sing, Lord, forget me not when I am old and gray, I also sing, Lord, always help me not to forget you as I am getting older and grayer.

Very important part of the challenge.

As we look at the Word of God, as we look at the challenge that is before us, we have to stop and consider what all is involved in that challenge.

I'd like to take you back just for a moment to Ezekiel 18.

In Ezekiel 18, it is not so much a matter of reading Ezekiel 18 as it is going back to Ezekiel 18 to be reminded of a reality. That reality in verses 24 through 26, here in Ezekiel, Ezekiel has been told by God, you tell Judah, never again do I want to hear the Father's have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. I said, that's enough of that. I don't want to hear it anymore. I want you to understand four categories of people. The righteous who stay righteous, the righteous who abandon righteousness, the wicked who stay wicked, and the wicked who abandoned wickedness and become righteous. And all of them will get exactly what they deserve. It is sobering in reading that hymn to say that a man who has been righteous and at the end abandons that righteousness, all of his righteousness will be forgotten.

Ninety percent is not good enough. It simply isn't going to cut it.

What are the challenges? I have given you those who succeeded. I've given you those who are looking forward. As I look at all of us, I have one question for the remainder of this message. What are the challenges to living the Word?

The challenges to living the Word start with maintaining sound doctrine.

Have you ever stopped to consider that of the seven churches of Revelation, four of those churches are either commended or condemned for what they did with doctrine? 21 years ago, we saw the effect of abandoning sound doctrine. I found it interesting within the circle of my own relatives.

I don't have to go outside of my own circle.

But you know you can come to the place where you abandon the Sabbath and you have an alternative Holy Day, the first day of the week. And then you come to the place where that day isn't so holy. After all, it's simply a time to go to church. And in time, it really isn't that special that you even need to bother to go to church. We have watched the wholesale abandoning of doctrine.

Paul's last will and testament, if you can call it that, are the books of 1 and 2 Timothy. In fact, all of us look at 2 Timothy where he says, you know, I've run the race, I've finished, it's time for me to look forward to the coming of Christ and of my reward. And it's time to pass the baton, Timothy, to you under the younger generation because my job and my role is finished. So in that sense, 1 and 2 Timothy are Paul's last will and testament. And if you read those books carefully, those books and the instruction within those books rest upon two pillars. Having the word, sound doctrine, and living the word. 2 Timothy chapter 4.

Turn with me back to 2 Timothy chapter 4. In 2 Timothy 4, Paul said, I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching, for the time will come when they will no longer endure sound doctrine. But according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap to themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. We are in that day and time. We are in a day and time of the proliferation of unsound doctrine. We came into existence in order to preserve sound doctrine.

You must have sound doctrine before you can live the word.

Living the word is not something that happens in a vacuum. It's based upon something. You can use the word doctrine interchangeably with word. You can use the term sound doctrine interchangeably with the word of God. They're all speaking of the same thing. But you have to have sound doctrine before you can live the word.

We've witnessed the reverse. We've witnessed when you abandon sound doctrine, living the word goes away. So I am speaking to a body of people who are witnesses, could stand at a court, could be sworn in, and could testify to the effect of abandoning sound doctrine and what it does. When United was quite young, a reality set in, a reality that I've never forgotten.

At a time of watching what was taking place and what was going on, someone said, you know, you can observe something. If you don't have doctrine, you don't have anything. And if all you have is doctrine, you still don't have anything.

Stop and think about it. We came into existence at a time where preserving sound doctrine was paramount. But as the dust settles and as the air clears and as you look around, you come to realize that you have to have sound doctrine, but if that's all you have, you are still bankrupt.

Our spiritual house is built upon two pillars, having the word, then living the word. You can't separate them. Though he wasn't saying it in the same words that I am, Mr. Moody was walking the same path as he was walking through the book of Psalms. You know, it's interesting it is the Apostle Paul who has a monopoly on exhortations about sound doctrine, sound words. 2 Timothy chapter 3 is a prophetic description of the end of the age.

He said in verse 1, but know this, that in the last days perilous times will come, for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power from such people turn away.

You know what Paul was doing here in chapter 3 in the first five verses? He was simply giving you the byproduct of abandoning sound doctrine.

Have you watched the nation in which we live in the last couple of decades and how the viewpoint and the way of seeing life has altered and how it progressively alters as people become more and more distant from any reverence or respect for God? The farther you come from any respect, you know, regardless of your church, regardless of your denomination, regardless of the doctrines, just the fact that God is a god, however you see him, and you choose to respect him. The more that diminishes, the more the list that I read to you in 2 Corinthians 3 grows, and the more prominent it becomes.

You first of all must have the Word, and then you must live the Word. 1 Timothy chapter 1.

You see, Paul was on this particular wavelength. He had this particular focus from the beginning of the first letter to Timothy, and he didn't let up. He didn't change this focus through 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy. And if, as the case seems to be, Titus was written earlier than 1 and 2 Timothy, he was on this horse all through the book of Titus also. But he said in 1 Timothy chapter 1, in verse 8, he said, What's the law? A guidebook, an instruction book, a how-to?

It's life for dummies. And so we all had to read it. And that's what taught us. It's like Paul said about himself, I wouldn't have known right from wrong had the Bible not said, this is right, and that's wrong. And then I found out I'm wrong, so I have to start doing what is right. As he's talking to Timothy, he said, the law is for people that don't know. And it will describe all these categories and all the rest that we could throw in that are contrary to sound doctrine. So basically what he's saying is the law is sound doctrine written for these people so that if they live it, they will no longer be these people, the people which we all were before God called us and extended his mercy to us. Live the Word. Sound doctrine, the basis for the formation of this body, and then living that sound doctrine are our keys to life. So in conclusion, as we look at living the Word, what do we have? Our model, ancient and modern, we honor because they lived the Word. As we tell the stories, whether we're reading from our Bibles about Old Testament people or whether we're talking about people that we have known in our lifetime, the honor that we extend them is an honor we extend for one reason only because they lived the Word. That new generation, some of those are our grandchildren, for those of you who are younger, they're your children. That new generation, our task is to teach them to embrace the Word. And for those of us that are a part of the older generation, our job is to accept the challenge to hold fast to the Word of God.