The Key to Understanding By Paris Reidhead*
Let us turn to Matthew chapter 22, Matthew chapter 22. You’ll find there our text or at least the first part of text of the evening. I’m going to do a bit of weaving tonight with the Scripture. And I really think that that this is the warp. We’ll come to the weft in just a little while, but I want you to see these deep important strands of truth. And on them we’ll seek to lay the fabric of God’s mind and will for us tonight. And so it is from verse 34 that I would begin reading:
But when the Pharisees had heard that our Lord Jesus had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
This is a very unusual statement. “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” I don’t like to use that word “key,” lightly, but I do think in one sense this is a key. A key to understanding the Law and the prophets.
Let’s look at it closely if it is that important. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” This is a commandment, given by God through Moses to Israel. Undoubtedly, the Pharisees thought that Christ would have selected one of the Ten Commandments. And brought that out, at least that’s what they were intending to have Him do. So they could then accuse Him of having slighting the others. But He knowing what was in men, came to the very root of the matter.
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” Now, this is a commandment. And God made us and He knows all about us. And He knows that we do not have direct control over our emotions. And this is in essences an emotional word. “Thou shalt love.” Normally, we think of this word as having to do with emotions. But it’s most important for us to understand tonight that as the word “love” is used in the Scripture, it do not primarily refer to sensibilities or feelings or emotions.
It is a good Anglo-Saxon word, actually. We don’t use it in its original form. Oh it does occur. For instances did you know that the word “love” actually has its roots in the Anglo-Saxon word lufian, which means together. The only way luf has survived in the word be lieve, which means to live or act or exist to gather with. And the way that it changed its form was the word lufu. Two old men in King James England sitting on a stone fence watching the young people go by would say, Ah your John and my Mary, I see their lufu. Well, what’s that mean, their together. They enjoy being together. And finally they announce there are just going to stay together and build a home together. And that idea of being together is the root idea of love. So to be lieve literally meant to live, act, have your being together. To be lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ as it was used by the King James translators meant to link yourself with Him. He used an expression “take my yoke upon you and learn of Me.” (Matt. 11:29) Link yourself and go together, together with Me. Two oxen in the same yoke always usually went in the same direction or else you had an upset wagon or you had an accident. So it is that to be lieve on Christ is to live together with Him. And to take the word love then as it was used by the King James translator’s writers. It is quite a distances from the common use for the word love. As we hear it in secular music. We find it being used secularly.
I think very often when we read “thou shall love the Lord thy God,” we are really talking of thinking about having a warm feeling about God. You know a kind of a happy warm glow. Is not what it is talking about at all. To love God with all your mind and with all of your heart and with all of your soul means that you have brought all the powers and faculties of your personality in to focus together with God. With God’s purpose and God’s plan and your purpose is joined His purpose. To love God therefore means that you have committed all of the powers of your entire being to the end of pleasing God, fulfilling His plan for you, satisfy His heart in regard to you, seeking to glorify Him, doing everything you can to ensure His blessedness, His satisfaction with you, and His happiness. In other words, you as a person have now united your purpose with God’s purpose and you are, if you please, yoked with Him, committed to Him.
Translate that into the next phrase: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Now, what does this mean warm, soft, sort of kindly glowing about your neighbor? No, it means that if you want food and clothing for yourself, you want food and clothing
for your neighbor. If you want peace and security for yourself, you want peace and security for your neighbor. Whatever you think is right intrinsically right for you, is equally right for your neighbor. And you therefore have an obligation to seek the blessedness, the happiness, the highest good, and fulfillment both of yourself and of your neighbor.
Well, that’s coming pretty close to giving us a definition of God’s use of the idea of the word of sin. Sin has to be the very opposite of this. We have defined sin, theologians have as being selfishness. An inordinate, improper self-love, a desire for one to be at the expenses of others. To have satisfaction, to have possessions, or to have position without due and proper regard the rights and interest of others. Well, that’s sin. If we understand that we would see why our Lord would say on these two commandments hang all the Law. Well, why? What is God’s Law? God’s Law is an expression of His mind. An unveiling of His purpose to insure the greatest good, the happiness, the blessedness of everybody.
“Thou shall not steal.” Why? That’s to protect the works of your hands and the reward for your service. And it is also to protect others from you. But God, you see, wants to have you enjoy the fruit of your labor and He wants others to enjoy the fruit of their labor. And so God’s Law is the expression of His mind, the revelation of His intention that everyone should have an opportunity to experience the highest good, and blessedness and fulfillment of all of their possibilities.
A sinner is a moral gangster. He’s part of the spiritual mafia. He is a person that said my pleasure, my satisfaction, the gratification of my appetites, the indulgence of my whims, is so important that I don’t care what it does to God or what it does to others. I am God and I will please me at whatever expense it may be to others. God has said, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” (Eze. 18:20) Why? Because it has run amuck in a moral universe. A sinner is a person who has committed himself to the purpose and the practice of pleasing himself without due and proper regard for the interests of God and the rights of others. That’s why God has said, “The soul that sinneth shall surely, surely died.”
And therefore Christ has said “Except you repent, you’ll perish.” (Luke 13:3) Well, why? Because the attitude of the sinner is I’ll do what I want to do, I’ll get what I want to have, I’ll be what I want to be, and I won’t let anyone stand in my way. I’ll please me. Now, he may not, he may not do that with the acrimony and the spirit in which I have done it. He may be perfectly gracious and sweet and smiling and pleasant and yet be as tough as a sharp steel in his ambition to achieve his own ends without regard for the interest of others or the purpose of God.
And therefore, God has made it clear in His Word that until there is a change of mind from something to something, one will perish. “Except you repent, you’ll perish,” said Christ. (Luke 13:3) The mind of the sinner, I’ll do what I want to do, I’ll get want I want to have, I’ll take, I’ll be, has to give way to another attitude. A complete change from my will to Thy will. It’s that simple.
Now, on the bases of that changed direction and changed attitude, a changed purpose there is the possibility of forgiveness. Paul said he was night and day house to house teaching repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. So by definition, if you have been converted, if you are a child of God through faith in Christ, you have repented. If you haven’t repented you aren’t a Christian. It’s that simple. And if you have repented, then you have fixed and formed an entirely new purpose which is to please God, gratify God, to seek His highest interest and His blessedness and His happiness, which is synonymous with “thou shall love the Lord thy God with all Thy heart, mind and soul.” This is the expression of it.
But, you see, the evidence that you have changed in your attitude to God is seen in the fact that you have changed your relationship toward people. For one to say they have repented toward God and yet they can remain ruthless and cruel and selfish in respect to people means that they have lost all mean of worth. The whole thing has been a confusing jumble of nonsense. Because if you have been born of God you’ve partake of the divine nature, you have a new heart, a new nature, a new life, a new spirit. This is the issue that we find.
And now I’m going to put a little bit, put the shuttle through and try to put a little weft (woof) onto this. This is what you find over in Matthew Chapter 25. If you’ll turn to it, you will see that the Lord is explicit. Here He has told the Pharisees and His disciples beside Him. The nature of repentance and faith and the evidence of this new life that you have truly repented, and you have truly believed on God and love Him, in this sense, the evidence is going to be seen in your relationship to people.
Now isn’t gracious of our Lord to give us a preview of judgement. Aren’t you glad that He isn’t going to spring something on us then that He didn’t advise us of in advance? Therefore, it is possible for you to have a preview of that meeting. And that’s what He has given here. Oh, I know that in this 34th verse that it would seem just looking at it casually that He is dealing with nations, but nations are made up of people. And He is dealing with people. He said in Matthew 7, verse 22, “Many will say unto me on that day,” and I will say unto them. And so here He is talking about, about individuals who comprise nations. “Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungered and you gave Me meat: I was thirsty and you gave Me drink: I was a stranger and you took Me in: Naked and you clothed Me: I was sick and you visited Me: I was in prison and you came unto Me. Then shall the righteous answer Him saying, Lord, when saw we thee a hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall He answer them, saying, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” (Matt. 25:34-46)
Now He’s not talking about salvation by works here at all. He is talking about a salvation that works. There’s a lot of difference. Because the Scripture is quite clear in stating that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23) And sin is selfishness. Sin is self-love. Sin is that disposition that committal of the will to the principle and the practice of pleasing oneself without regard for the Will of God or the right and interest of others.
And so what is He saying. Well, in effect He is saying unto that one group you repented and you believed. And there was evidence of repentance and faith by a transformed life. You were new creation, new creature. That’s what He is talking about. And to the others, who I think were equally religious. I do. I believe with all my heart that this other company were religious. I think the illustration of it is given in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Who was it that went by and saw the wounded man in the ditch? It was the rabbi. Who was it that went by? It was the Levite. Why didn’t they have time? They were so busy with their religious duties; they didn’t have time for a Samaritan in the ditch. But who was it that came? Well, it was a man that had absolutely no obligation, but he had something else. He had concern. And I believe that our Lord indicated in that this company of people and they know that He is Lord and they said, “When saw we Thee hungry, thirsty, naked, blind and did not minister to Thee?” Because they were a religious people.
Just as in Matthew 7, verse 22 to which I have referred, “Many will say unto Me on that day, Lord we prophesy in your name, we cast out devils in your name, we did miracles in your name.” They knew the right places to be, the right things to say, the right things to do, and yet He said “I will say unto you, away with you. I never knew you.” Well, why? Well, I think it is here. He’s simply saying those who received the gift of eternal life, are changed. Well, why? I think it isn’t difficult to understand. If you, for instances, were to study carefully II Corinthians Chapter 13 and verse 5 you would find that the Apostle writing to that church said, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ be in you, except ye be reprobates?”
You see salvation is not a decision. It’s not a scheme. It’s not a plan. It’s not a Scripture verse. It’s not an it. It’s not even an extension of your existence for eternity. Salvation is a Person, Jesus Christ.
Now, David knew that. In the 27th Psalm he wrote, “Jehovah is my light and my salvation.” He is my salvation. In the New Testament it is clear “When Christ who is our life,” not when Christ, who has given us eternal life. (Col. 3:4) “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear.” “He that hath the Son hath life.” (1 John 5:12) Well, why? Because Christ is life.
And so what is He saying here. In that day that He has described as the day of Judgement. What is He saying, simply this, I am always Myself. This is what the Son of God is saying. There is only one Christ. And if you have repented of your sins, you have pledged yourself there by in repentance and faith to please God in everything. To seek His greatest happiness and blessedness and satisfaction, then Jesus Christ has come into you and the evidence that Jesus Christ has come into you, is that you have been changed. And you begin to feel that same way Christ felt. And you begin act the same way Christ acted. And you respond the same way He responded. And the evidence of salvation, therefore, is in a changed life.
Again, you go back to John. John in his first letter describes a people saying, if you see your brother have need and you said be fed, be warm, be clothed. And you don’t do anything to help him, how, how does the love of God dwell in that man? What’s He saying? Why He is saying if Jesus Christ has come into you, if you have been made partaker of the divine nature, there is only one Christ and He is always consistent with Himself.
Well, let me illustrate it. Many years ago two missionary friends of mine went into...I knew them...one of them was here, in fact this year. Gordon Beacham who is over at Sebring, Florida retired missionary of the Sudan Interior Mission, North African Mission. John Hall, who is with the Lord, these two young men then 1915, went in Tanga, Nigeria. The Tanga people never buried their dead. If a person died of Leprosy, the body was taken to a cliff and throw down where there were known to be dens of Hyenas and consumed by the beast. Otherwise, for any other purpose than that. The body was taken by the blood relative to the scared grove, there put into a large clay cooking pot, the flesh was cooked and the family ate at that pot until the flesh was gone. The bones were taken from the pot, stripped of all remaining flesh, and put under a cairn of stones to which the family would then return with sacrifices every year.
Now it was into this tribe that John Hall and Gordon Breachum came. The second man in the tribe was won to Christ. He was a tall strong stalwart warrior by the name of Karga. Karga’s father had been killed by the neighboring Baliery people. And in the presents of the elders of the Tangaley Tribe, Karga had taken a blood oath that he would not cease his warfare against the Baliery people until he had killed 100 Baliery warriors in reprisal for the death of the father, because his father, he felt, had been unfairly ambushed. And so he was well on the way to carrying out his blood oath, when he met John Hall and Gordon Beachum. The Gospel of Jesus Christ penetrated his heart and he opened his heart to receive Christ.
He came to work at the station. There he helped them as an informant with the language, while he learned more about Christ. One night, alone in his hut, he said Jesus spoke to him. He said “Karga when the Baliery people want their children to go be quiet they say, ‘Shh, be quiet or Karga will hear you.’ They frighten they children with your name. Karga your My boy now. You’re a Jesus boy. You’re not going to kill the Biliery. I want you to go to the Biliery, tomorrow and tell them about Me.”
So the next morning instead of coming to work, Karga came with his bow and arrows and spears calling his dog or his dog on a lease. And the missionaries saw him,
“Where are you going?”
And he said, “I go to the Baliery.”
And they raised their hands and said, “Oh, Karga you’re a Christian. You can’t go to the Baliery now and continue your blood oath.”
“Oh, but you don’t understand. Jesus spoke to me last night and He said I must go and tell the Baliery about Him.” And then you know what they said, “Oh, Karga you can’t go to the Baliery, they’ll kill you.”
He said, “I go to the Baliery.” And he started down the path.
They never expected to see him again. But he walked right into the village and the people were so astounded that they let him come right up to the hut of family that had killed his father. And he said, “I have come to you the Jesus talk from the white people.” And he sat down and they listened as he told them what Jesus Christ had done in dying for them. And how he wanted
them to learn about Christ and they needn’t be afraid of him anymore. And he wasn’t afraid of them. He came back and every afternoon after that he would do his work. And about 2 o’clock he would put on his clothes and just beginning primer verses and he’d walk down to the Baliery people. After a year he came with family that had killed his father and he presented them for baptism. They said, “We need a pastor to teach us. Can Karga be our pastor?” So here a Tangaley became a pastor of the Baliery church. And at one time he had over 2500 people meeting in that church on Sunday morning. He personally, most of whom he had won to Christ. Almost all of whom he baptized.
We didn’t have many Sunday night. There were half that many. About 1200 of them went all through the area into different tribes having little meetings in huts. Giving the message at night he had given them in the morning. That’s why attendance was smaller Sunday night. What was it? It was the power of the Gospel. God had changed a life. From hatred, fear, anger, to one that was concerned that these who had been his mortal enemies, whom he sought to kill might come to know and love Jesus Christ.
Now that’s what you have here. You and I have been committed to selfishness. Oh, you see it in your grandchildren. You knew it in your children. You know in your grandchildren, you have your daughter brings her little boy over and your son brings his little girl over and you put them down on the floor together. The first thing you know your grandson picks up the truck and hits your granddaughter over the head with it. Well, why? Because she wanted it and it’s his. And apples don’t fall too far from the tree, you know. You were doing the same thing some time ago.
Now, that makes me wonder sometimes when I find people in churches after they have been members for 30 years still sitting in the pew scratching and pulling hair and biting at one another. It’s alright for babies I guess, but you don’t think of it as becoming conduct for Christians. Yet think of the churches that have been ruined, because professing Christians have been biting and pulling hair and scratching and gouging. You wonder if they have ever part taken of the divine nature. If they’ve ever pass from death to life? You wonder if they are children of God.
Now the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, faith, self-control. (Gal. 5:22-23) And so our Lord Jesus said here, when I was hungry, since I had given you a new heart and you had repented of your sins and received Me, and I’d come in. When I was hungry. When did we see you hungry? I identified Myself with everyone that was hungry. I identified Myself with everyone that was thirsty. I identified Myself with everyone that didn’t have adequate clothing.
That’s why the rest of the world you know laughs at America. We are a Christian nation. We send 23,000 foreign missionaries. We give 200 million dollars just to keep those evangelical missionaries on the field. All together there are 33,000 missionaries, but includes a small group, cults and others and 300 million plus dollars. But 200 million dollars and 23,000 are from the evangelical community. And yet have you ever stopped to realize that 50% of the world’s raw material is processes by American owned companies. In other words, it takes the processing of 50% of the world’s raw materials to provide enough income to keep us living in the standard to which we’ve become accustomed. Six percent of the world’s people received the reward for processing 50% of the world’s raw materials. And that’s why the Communists are so successful in saying imperialists, not colonial, not political, economic imperialists.
And this is why it is so difficult our missionaries go and say “Thou shall love the Lord thy God.” And the people say, “What is this?” Fifty percent of the world’s raw materials processed by 6% of the world’s people. Can it be? Can it be? There has to come a time when we begin to recognize that we are going to be nationists. If we are going to send 23,000 foreign representatives, if we are going to send all of these people, we’ve got realize that people are thirsty and they’re naked and they’re hungry and they’re concerned. And if you have been born of God, and I tell you about the church in Central America and the church in Africa and the church in India where Elders sit there and look into the faces of their dying children with Kwashiorkor, a malnutritional disease, the brain is enlarged, the head is enlarged, the belly is swollen, the limbs are like rubber or plastic and from the hips down covered with horrible ulcers all because they didn’t have enough protein. All because they didn’t have the food they needed. And here sits this father, Christian and he loves Christ. Missionaries up there on the hill, he has and is fat and in fair flesh, has a car to drive with a radio, but the people down below. Somebody comes in and sits down the other side of the fire,
“You why, what’s the matter with your baby?” “The baby has the hungry sickness.”
“What’s going to happen to your baby?”
“It’s going to die.”
“Have you had others have the sickness?”
“Yes, the only baby I have living is that one over there. The rest of them have died.” “Well, do you know who did it?”
“Why, we don’t have any food?”
“Do you know why you don’t have any food?”
“No, I don’t know why?”
“It just doesn’t grow. There isn’t enough and there are too many people.”
And then they point up, “There the ones.” They point to the missionary or to the government. “They’re the ones. You follow us and we’ll give you the food. We’ll help you get the food.” And who is he? He is a Communist.
Isn’t amazing that in three countries we’ve had the greatest success as missionaries, we’ve lost them to Communism. We had the greatest success in any country in China. Honestly! Great churches, schools, printing plants, seminaries, oh we had it all. And we did something right. Well whatever it was we didn’t do, we can’t do it any longer there. We’re out of it. Did you ever know that every single one of the leaders of Communism that took over China had been trained in Christian schools? Everyone including Mao, himself. Why? Because they didn’t see any possibility of getting food and clothing for their people or from the West and the only place their human need could be met was with the promises out of Russia.
And the second country where we had even a greater percentage harvest for Christ was Korea, with the purest church we’ve ever had on the face of the earth, in my estimation. No one could be a member of the Korean church, unless he brought somebody that he had personally led to Christ. And yet with that tremendous success, we lost North Korea and 450,000 believers were killed in 90 days. And Vietnam in all of Indochina the greatest harvest for Christ we ever had was in North Vietnam. Whatever we did right, church was established but every single one of leaders that took over North Vietnam and established Communism had trained in a Christian Schools. And they saw no possibility of the human need of the people being met in Christianity or from the West.
Well, why? Oh, I don’t know just why. I think I know somethings. I think that somehow or other we lost sight of the fact that the Lord Jesus had identified Himself with people that were hungry and naked and thirsty and in prisoned by their hopelessness and despair. And somewhere or other we got the idea that it was wrong to care about the human need of people. The aspirations and the hopes of the people.
But the Lord Jesus Christ said in that day, in that day I am going to know My own because to those to whom I come react just like I did! When I saw people hungry I said give them something to eat. When I saw people sick, I wanted to see them healed. When I saw people in bondage I wanted see them set at liberty. I’ll know My own because all of those into whom I come, feel the way I feel, react the way I react, because I am always true to Myself. I will be Myself in them. This is not a social Gospel. This is nothing less than inside into the nature of the Son of God. And the concern and the burden that the Lord Jesus Christ had the people the totality of their needs.
My ancestor, my great grandfather came with his mother, and his wife, three little children Albert and Alma, I don’t know the name of the little girl, they came from Wisconsin moved over toward Wilbur, Minnesota to go out to a homestead back in the
early 1850s. And when the...just at dusk...they were in the ox cart going a little ways a couple of miles a homesteader cabin and spend the night. Chief Little Crow, a Sioux Indian, had sent his son and twelve braves out on the war path in to Chippewa Country against the white people. They had come all this distance from Dakota off their own area and the first ones they came on to were the Dustin family. And the arrows began to fly, the oxen broke away, an arrow went through the breast of my Great Grandmother, my Great Grandfather had an arrow through his heart and was instantly killed, was scalped. My Great Grandmother was scalped while still alive. They found the little baby. Bashed its head against the wheel of the ox cart. And Alma and Albert huddled down in the things and didn’t cry once, one of them 4 and the other 6. The next day when the oxen had gone back to Wilbur, the settlers came out and found the two little children. The only part of the Dustins the Indians wanted were their scalps. Sometimes I think the only part of the people that we want are their souls. We sometimes collect souls the way the Indians collected scalps. And that’s what He is saying! My concern is for people and their fears, hopes, and their needs, their yearnings.
Nothing can meet the need of the human heart, but God. God is the Lord Jesus Christ. When He said when I come into you, when I live in you you’re going to find the love of God will be shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost. You’re going to feel the same way, same way that I felt.
We still have opportunity in this country. We still have opportunity in many parts of the world. We still send our missionaries, but they’re sent by you, sent by your churches, sent by your gifts. And some way, somehow, we who know and love Jesus Christ have got to reveal again the fact that the Son of God is concerned about people. Oh yes, we want them to know the forgiveness of sins. We want them to know the gift of eternal life. We’ve also got to be concerned about them. You can’t say to that church in Indochina and to that church in Central America and to that church in Africa be fed, be warm, be clothed we brought you the Gospel. You can’t say that.
Look what else we have done. As a means as a handmaiden as tool of our evangelism we set up our dispensary. And so we send our nurses, our doctors. And I have seen the letters that came back from my missionary friend. And they said when we came here 9 years ago, 9 out of 10 children died before they were one year of age. But praise God we’ve been here. We’ve had our clinic classes. We’ve gone into the villages. Now in the area we serve, in just 9 years only 1 of the 10 children die in the first year. Nine out ten children live.
What’s happened? Well, you see that was a handmaid of evangelism. But what we didn’t realize that we were doing was to change to balance between population and food supplies. And so in just two or three generations. What’s happened? We’ve out stripped the food supply. So, now what do you find? Nine out ten children live the first year, but 4 out of the 9 die by the time they are 6 of malnutrition. And of the 5 that survive 3 of them are permanently damaged by inadequate protein from they are weaned until their 6. So what’s happened? We’ve throw the whole balance between population and food out of control. And yet we don’t seem to feel responsible.
We’ve internationals we live with the world before us. Your children grow up reading and praying for missionaries. Oh, how imperative it is that we understand the Lord Jesus Christ. We have to understand that to love God means that we want to please Him and gratify Him and satisfy Him. But the only way in the world you can ever prove that you are of God is that you love people. You can’t take a dollar out here and blow it to God, He doesn’t need it. He paves the streets of Heaven with it. The only place it’ll help is in time. The only way you can ever evidence to anyone is to love God, is that you love people.
And so He said the first commandment is to seek the blessedness, the happiness, the satisfaction to be together with God and His purpose. The second is like unto it Thou shall seek the same blessedness, happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction for others which you want for yourself. Do you want food? Then you have got to want them to want food. Do you want dignity? They have got to have a right to have dignity. Do you want respect as a human being, with security for your person? Then they must have the same. Do you want security against your old age with provision for your need? Then so must they. Whatever that is right and proper for you to want, you should want. What you want for you, you must want for them.
Why are the young people in our colleges just turning away from the church? Why is it that men like Stokely Carmichael? Christianity, no. Jesus Christ, yes. Because what they read in the Bible isn’t what they see around them. What do we need,
what’s the Bible we need today in this last third of the twenty century; it is to become acquainted with our Lord again. To understand what it means to be a Christian. To be one of Christ. One in whom Christ is. Using your eyes to see the lost and needed. Using your brain to think. Your ears to hear. Your heart to feel. Your hands to serve. Your feet to go. Your lips to speak. Christ is free to live in you His own life. This is what He is talking about. And this is what it is when you read in Ephesians 3, verse 17: “That Christ shall dwell in your hearts by faith.” When Jesus Christ is free to dwell in you, then He going to be Himself in you. We’ve not several Christs, we have but one. And the evidence that you know God that you’ve be born of God that you’re a Christian one of Christ and that Christ is in you and in me, is going to be by permitting Him to be Himself in us and through us again. What did He say? In that day, I’ll know my own those into I’ve come those that have been made partakers of my nature, those that have inherited that gift of eternal life, that I died to bring. They will be the ones that when they saw a human need, they saw Me. I identified with them.
I’ve never heard an evangelical talk like that. Oh I can say friends any contacted with this generation we’ve got to come back and learn of Christ. He said, “Take My yoke upon and learn of Me.” Learn of Me. What is it? He wants you to present your brain, your eyes, your ears, your heart, your hands, your feet, so that living in you He can live through you. His own life again. And He can love through you.
Now here we are. Most of you with the snow of years upon your brow and yet your living to see the most crucial time in the history of our planet and you are in a position to make tremendous changes in the destiny of this planet. If you can just understand that whatever days there are left, Jesus Christ wants to just be Himself through you. Just live in you. Christ dwelling in your heart through faith. But this is what He will be, this is what He will do, there is only one Christ and this is how He will manifest His presences.
Let us bow together in prayer. Father, it’s marvelous when you take savage, brutal, cruel, for blood lust, passion, and you cleanse him from the past and you give him a new heart, a new life and a new nature make him a new creation. You cause him to love the tribe he hated and witness to them to his own peril. See them brought in 100s to Thee. We can marvel at this rejoice at Thy grace. But here tonight Father, are men and women who have all the potential and possibilities that can come from education, from information, and from opportunity. Can we not love those whom we’ve despised? Can we not be the channels by which Thy grace can be revealed to those we’ve even detested? Can we not be Lord the instrument by which those who we have considered hardly worthy of anything, but our scorn? Can through us learn Thy love Thy grace Thy mercy? Can we not use those skills, that talent, and those resources? Our prayers, our knowledge can help meet the needs of the men that in their despair in their hopelessness be nowhere to turn to the empty promises of Communist Atheism.
Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
* Reference such as: Delivered at The Gospel Tabernacle Church, New York City on Sunday Evening, September 30, 1962? by Paris W. Reidhead, Pastor. ©PRBTMI 1962
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Paris Reidhead (1919 - 1992)
Was a Christian missionary, teacher, writer, and advocate of economic development in impoverished nations. A spiritual crisis during this period—as he described two decades later in what is probably his best-known recorded teaching, "Ten Shekels and a Shirt"--left Reidhead with the conviction that much of evangelicalism had adopted utilitarian and humanistic philosophies contradictory to Biblical teaching. The end of all being, he came to believe, was not the happiness of man, but the glorification of God. This theme would recur throughout his later teaching.Since Mr. Reidhead's death in 1992, Bible Teaching Ministries, Inc. continues under the leadership of his wife, Marjorie, and daughter, Virginia Teitt, a dedicated Board, and the many people who have donated time and talent after being changed by God’s Word through this message. The message of the Gospel is reaching an ever-widening audience all over the world.