How to Read the Bible — Lesson 7: The Bible Agrees With Itself

HOW TO READ THE BIBLE — a short course from Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church • Pastor Chuck Trusty • Lesson 7 of 13 • a new lesson every two weeks

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Last Time

Last lesson you took John 14:15 home, and read its next-door neighbor:

"If ye love me, keep my commandments." — John 14:15

You read the whole verse, then its neighbor, verse 16: "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter." The neighbor promised help — you do not keep His commandments on your own strength; the Spirit of God abides with you. That was last lesson's tool: a verse has neighbors; read them.

Now weigh one word in it — keep. Do not read it as merely "behave." In the Book, "keep" is a watchman's word: to guard, to watch over, to hold safe. Paul could say at the end, "I have kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7) — he guarded it whole, to his last breath. So "keep my commandments" is more than good conduct. It means guard His words: treasure them, hold them fast, and let no one twist them or take them from you — the way you saw last lesson that a verse can be twisted. Love guards what it loves. Now, one more tool.

The Verse

"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." — John 13:34

The Question

Jesus calls it a new commandment — to love one another. But turn back to the Old Testament, and God said it long before: "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Leviticus 19:18). If love was commanded all the way back there, how is this one new? Does the New Testament throw out the Old? Do the two halves of the Book fight each other?

The Tool — walked together

First, the tools you already have. Ask your questions. WHO? The Lord Jesus — and this is a command, so who is it spoken to? His own disciples; the "one another" is the family of believers. WHAT? A command: love one another. WHEN? The verse does not date it — an empty box; but the neighbors (John 13) fill it: the Last Supper, the night before the cross. WHERE? The upper room, from that same chapter. WHY? The verse gives its reason in four words: "as I have loved you."

Run the rest of your tools before we name the new one. Read the whole verse to its end — "as I have loved you, that ye also love one another"; the measure is in the last words. Every command has an address — you found it: His own, the family of believers. A verse has neighbors — and John 13 gave you the when and the where. Is there a word for the Bible's own dictionary? Yes — new — and we draw it up below. Does a clear verse need to explain a dark one? Not here — that tool rests; this is not a dark verse, but two verses that seem to disagree. And settling that is the new tool.

So here it is. TOOL #7: the Bible agrees with itself — it never contradicts itself. When two verses seem to fight, the fight is in our reading, not in the Book. Read closer, and they lock together like a key in a lock. (When two verses seem to clash, look up the word they share — The Helper page shows how.) So "new" cannot mean the old command was wrong or thrown away. Look closer at that one word.

ONE WORD

NEW. The language the New Testament was written in has two words for "new," and they do not mean the same thing.

One means new in time — young, lately come. A calf born this morning is new that way. It did not exist yesterday. Yet it is no different from every calf before it — the same old kind of creature, only younger.

The other means new in kind — a thing of a sort that never was. The first airplane was new that way. Men had traveled for thousands of years — on foot, on horses, in carts, in ships. But when that first machine lifted off the ground, it was not a faster horse or a bigger cart. It was a new kind of thing altogether.

John 13:34 uses the second word. So the duty to love is not young — it is old as Moses: "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Leviticus 19:18). What the Lord makes new is the KIND. The old command measured love by yourself — love your neighbor as you love you. The new command measures it by Him — "as I have loved you," all the way to the cross. It is the same old duty to love, lifted to a new order — the way flight is still travel, but travel of a kind the world had never seen. The New did not throw out the old command; it raised it. The Book agrees with itself.

Try It This Week

Here is your verse. As you read it, watch for a signpost in the very first words:

"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." — 1 Corinthians 2:9

Did you catch it? "As it is written" is a signpost — it means Paul is quoting Scripture. He reaches back to the Old Testament, to Isaiah (64:4), and sets it down in the New. Two Testaments, hundreds of years apart, one Book, agreeing perfectly. That is the tool in your hand. And do not miss what it says: no eye, no ear, no heart has ever taken in "the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." That is your hope — and the reason to love Him and follow on.

Your Toolbox So Far

1. Start with the questions — WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY.   2. Read the whole verse — all the way to its last word.   3. Every command has an address — ask who it was spoken to.   4. Let the Bible define its own words — the Book is its own dictionary.   5. Clear explains complex — let a plain verse light up a deep one.   6. A verse has neighbors — read the ones just before and just after.   7. The Bible agrees with itself — when two verses seem to clash, read closer; they lock together.

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Next lesson, in two weeks: sometimes the word we need is bigger than our own can carry — and the Book reaches for a stronger one.

‹ Lesson 6 — Read a Verse's Neighbors  •  The Course Index — all lessons

Let the Redeemed Say So

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Pastor Chuck Trusty — Sunday morning service, October 18, 2026 Give Thanks · Lesson 2 · Psalm 107:1-2

► Watch the video (3:39)

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A note about this lesson: early in the message the phone that was recording this service lost its signal, so the video on YouTube carries only the opening of the lesson. Because there is no recording of the whole message to write up, what follows is the manuscript Pastor Chuck preached from, so the whole lesson can be read even though the whole lesson could not be watched.

The One Point

IF WE HAVE BEEN REDEEMED - THEN WE NEED TO SAY SO.

I. A Psalm That Some of Us Already Know

All right. This morning - we are in the 107th Psalm.

And some of you are already smiling - because we spent a good part of this summer - on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights - in the 107th Psalm. For those of you who were not with us on those evenings - the 107th Psalm tells us about FOUR kinds of people who got themselves into trouble . . . and God rescued every one of them.

And if you will remember - two weeks ago - on the morning that we stood on the first step of the Great Staircase - we closed our lesson on the first two verses of this same psalm. This morning - I want us to open those two verses up.

“O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy;” (Psalm 107:1-2).

Last Sunday morning - we were in the 100th Psalm - and we learned that thanksgiving is the front door to all worship. Well - this morning - the 107th Psalm tells us WHO is told to come through that front door - the REDEEMED. And the 107th Psalm tells us WHAT the redeemed who walk through that front door are supposed to do - the redeemed are supposed to SAY SO.

My story - a time when I got help and said so

I remember when I had cancer - and all of the help that I got from Andy and Haley. Sarah was just about to have Wyatt when I started having problems - and by the time I started treatments - Wyatt was just a newborn. Haley did “everything” to get my treatments started - Andy took off work to take me to Chicago for one of my treatments . . . What they did for me was a big deal then - and in my mind - it is STILL a big deal. I say this to put meaning behind the statement “Let the redeemed of the LORD say so.” My daughter, in all PROBABILITY, saved my life - and I am certainly NOT ASHAMED to say so . . . God saved our eternal souls - so why are we so often hesitant to say so?

Now, the one point of our lesson this morning is that - if we have been redeemed - then we need to say so. There is NO REASON at all not to.

II. What It Cost

A. Redeemed means being bought back.

Think about a pawn shop. A pawn shop makes its money like this - I have an item - I take it to the pawn shop - they take the item - and they give me a few dollars along with a ticket that I can use to get the item back. Suppose I pawn the pocket knife that I got from my dad. I can’t go into the pawn shop and just take my dad’s knife. To get the knife back I have to show the ticket, which proves ownership - and I have to PAY THE PRICE to buy it back (to redeem the item).

B. Israel in Egypt.

“Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments:” (Exodus 6:6).

In regard to our pawn shop example - Pharaoh had a claim on the children of Israel. And God walked into the devil’s pawn shop - with the intent of REDEEMING the nation of Israel.

The example here is that when Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden - all of mankind FELL into sin - which means that sin put a claim ticket on our soul - “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). The only way to cancel that claim ticket - and keep our souls out of Satan’s hands for eternity - was for someone else to PAY the price. The price for this claim on our souls was the voluntary death of a totally sinless man - and this is why God literally became a man - and went to the cross.

And Jesus did not pay the devil one dime. Jesus paid that price to GOD - “an offering and a sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2) - and THAT is what broke the devil’s grip on us.

“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14-15).

You see - in verse 2 - “Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he hath redeemed (bought back) from the hand of the enemy.” Before we were saved - SIN had a claim on our soul. The enemy had his hand on us like Pharaoh had his hand on Israel - and was preventing us from escaping. And there was NO WAY that we could pay the price that our enemy was asking - all have sinned - so there was no “sinless” sacrifice available (try picking yourself up by your own boot straps). So - what did it COST God to buy us back - to redeem us from the hand of SIN?

“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (Hebrews 2:9).

C. The price of our redemption.

“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation (way of life) received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

To be REDEEMED with the blood of Christ is THE GOSPEL in eight words. The Gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus - as He took our place in death - providing an escape from spiritual death - through our faith in Jesus.

“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

When we think about our salvation - do we think about how that, because of sin, our souls have been claimed by Satan - and in order to keep us out of hell - Jesus is literally required to buy them back with the sacrifice of His sinless blood? This is what it means to be redeemed. The nation of Israel were once slaves to the Pharaoh of Egypt . . . but one day God claimed His children and He set them free from the authority that Pharaoh once had over their lives.

D. Four rescues - and ONE answer.

“Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses” (Psalm 107:6).

“Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” (Psalm 107:8).

If we forget the cost - then we forget to be thankful.

Now - in each of our lives - we can all go back to a time when we were sinking in the pit - and how God reached down to save us - when we could not save ourselves. And after our salvation experience - not a single one of us has developed some type of super strength so that we no longer needed God to help us in life. If we have been saved - then God has pulled us out of the pit - delivered us from the power that sin once had over us (Pharaoh was master of the slaves in Egypt). But God has not been hiding His helping hand from us since we have been saved. What about that pit of lust - the pit of anger - the pit of doubt - the pit of hypocrisy?

REMEMBER the day that - as one of His children - God pulled us out of this pit and set us free from the hold which this sin had over us. I am not saying that we need to name the pit - but what I am saying is that we need to say that GOD has pulled us out of more pits in life than simply the pit of hell.

So - the redeemed are the ones who should remember what it cost. And the man who remembers what it cost is the man who wants to SAY SO . . . he is the man who is thankful.

III. Say So

A. Why would we WANT to say that we have been redeemed?

“And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing” (Psalm 107:22).

1. God (not self) gets the glory.

“Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth (properly arranges) his conversation (way of life) aright will I shew the salvation of God” (Psalm 50:23).

Now - I understand that we are PROUD of our freedom - we look at FREEDOM as a RIGHT - and I am not going to argue with that - but there are lots of things that we say are “rights” - but my point here is that just because it is a RIGHT - this does not mean that it is guaranteed. I say this to point out that a Christian life is a life of being set FREE from sin - so that we can become a SLAVE (servant) to God.

“But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life” (Romans 6:22).

I am major patriotic - and I am not remotely interested in living under oppression like Israel was oppressed by Pharaoh. Now - for God to get glory - when we “say so” (regarding our redemption) - is sending a message - and that message is - as much as I value FREEDOM I am willing to give up that freedom to become a SLAVE to God’s will.

Now in the history of humanity - I know of no culture that has ever existed where slavery was valued over freedom . . . but that is exactly the way it is with CHRISTIANITY. For a person to give up his freedom to follow God says something about the person - but it speaks volumes about GOD. And the whole concept of CHRISTIANITY is a burr in the side (source of conviction) to those who choose freedom instead of slavery . . . and this is WHY those who value freedom to serve Satan more than they value the slavery of Christian service lash out so violently against Christians.

2. The church gets fed. Somebody three pews over may need to hear what God has done for us.

“Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul” (Psalm 66:16).

3. The lost get to hear it. Jesus sent the man that He set free from the demons back home to tell it.

“Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee” (Mark 5:19).

WHAT WE VALUE - WE CAN’T KEEP SECRET.

Let the REDEEMED of the LORD SAY SO . . . Now we can approach this from several different angles - I’m not embarrassed to say I am saved - but I just don’t want to be pushy - I want to rely upon -

“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).

Well - that is all fine and well - but if we are not a slave to Jesus through a Christian life - then there will never be any reason for anyone to ask us about a hope in Christ - which will never be visible in our lives.

I am an American - and don’t care who knows it - I believe in traditional American values - and I honestly do not care who knows it. I believe in salvation through faith in Jesus Christ - not of works lest any man should boast - and I am not the least bit concerned about offending someone by shouting this from the top of my voice. My point is - I don’t care who you are - or what you are - a person CANNOT possibly keep from advertising what they value and what they believe.

You cannot keep what you value THE MOST in life a secret - but you can keep what you are ashamed of a secret that you take to your grave - in fact a person will go to great lengths to keep shameful deeds a secret.

“Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God” (John 12:42-43).

They did not SAY SO - because they valued something else MORE than they valued God.

IV. This Week

So - if we want to depend upon 1 Peter 3:15 - “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you” - then we really need to live our lives so that our neighbor will have REASON to ask us about our faith.

This week - let’s tell ONE person how we got saved . . . just like I am not ashamed to say what Haley and Andy did for me - let’s not be ashamed to SAY SO about what God did for us.

THE ONE POINT: IF WE HAVE BEEN REDEEMED - THEN WE NEED TO SAY SO.

Is our life SAYING SO this week? And I suppose that there is MORE than one way to SAY SO other than saying so with our mouth . . . I think that our lives are what should be SAYING that we have been redeemed.

Scripture used (all KJV): Psalm 107:1-2, 6, 8, 22 · Exodus 6:6 · Romans 6:22-23 · Ephesians 5:2 · Hebrews 2:9, 14-15 · 1 Peter 1:18-19 · 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 · Psalm 50:23 · Psalm 66:16 · Mark 5:19 · 1 Peter 3:15 · John 12:42-43.

Asking According to His Will

“Thy will be done” is not the weakest thing we ever pray . . . it is the strongest.

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A note on the Scripture in this study: every verse is printed WHOLE. The words set in ordinary type are the ones this lesson leans on and emphasizes . . . the words in italics are the rest of the verse, printed so that nothing is ever handed to you as a fragment with the remainder missing.

Part Six settled whose name we come in. Now we have to deal with a pair of verses that look for all the world like they are fighting each other . . . and until a man gets them straightened out, his praying will be tangled up his whole life.

Here is the first one:

John 15:7 — “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”

And here is the second one:

1 John 5:14 — “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:”

So - which is it? Ask what ye will . . . or according to HIS will? Because those two things DO NOT really sound like they belong in the same Bible – and the same man actually wrote both of them.

READ THE WHOLE VERSE

The first one has a front porch on it, and almost nobody quotes the porch.

“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you . . . ye shall ask what ye will.” There it is... The promise has a condition sitting in front of it – and the condition is not a hoop to jump through — it is a description of a certain kind of man.

Think about who that man is which is being described... He is a man who is living IN Christ . . . and the words of the Book are living in HIM… Now what is a man like that going to ask for? He is not going to be asking for foolishness – because he has been soaking in the Bible long enough – so that the Bible has gotten into what he WANTS.

Illustration — The Well-Trained Hand… A boy who has just been handed the keys – does not know what a truck can – and cannot do… so you have to tell him every single thing…

A man who has driven that same truck for twenty years - he does not have to be told . . . he has driven it so long that he wants what the truck wants . . . “abiding” does that to a man's asking… God is not fencing him in — the point is – that the fence has stopped being necessary.

Simple truth: the two verses were never fighting . . . the first one already had the second one built into it.

THE HINGE — WHY SOME PRAYERS ARE REFUSED

Now James gives us the plain reason a prayer gets turned down – and he does not soften it a bit:

James 4:3 — “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”

Ask AMISS. Some prayers are refused – not because God is stingy with us – but because of what is IN the asking . . . we wanted it for ourselves . . . we wanted it to spend on ourselves . . . and a good Father does not hand a child a thing that will hurt him – just because the child hollered loud enough for it.

I want us to notice that James says both things – only one verse apart. Verse 2: “ye have not, because ye ask not.” Verse 3: “ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss.” So - a man can miss the blessing by not asking at ALL . . . and he can also miss it – by asking wrong . . . BOTH of those are on the table.

WHAT “ACCORDING TO HIS WILL” ACTUALLY MEANS

Here is where this gets practical – because most folks hear “according to his will” and think it means – that we can never really know – so we might as well never ask for anything straight out . . . that is not it at all . . . there are two piles here – and they do not get handled the same way.

The things He has already told us

On a whole lot of what we pray about – we are NOT guessing . . . He has already put it in writing:

1 Thessalonians 4:3 — “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:”

1 Thessalonians 5:18 — “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

2 Peter 3:9 — “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

So – when we pray for a lost person to be saved – we do not have to tack an “if it be Thy will” on the end – like we are not sure… He has TOLD us that this is according to His wil... When we pray to be made more like Christ – we are not guessing . . . when we ask for help to be thankful in a hard week – that is “His revealed will” with His name signed to it.

We can pray these with no “if” in them at all… Half the timid praying we do comes from hedging on things that God already settled in the Book.

The things He has not told us

Then there is the other pile . . . and it is the one that keeps us up at night . . . which house . . . which job… Whether the surgery goes well . . . whether that diagnosis is the one we are dreading.

The Bible does not say one word about any of those – and here is where the “nevertheless” belongs — and it belongs there honestly – and not as a way of protecting ourselves from being disappointed…

IS “IF IT BE THY WILL” A COP-OUT?

Somebody will say it is... I have heard it said that adding “if it be Thy will” is weak faith . . . that it is a back door – we leave open so we will not look foolish – if the answer does not come.

Well – lets take that up with the Lord in the garden.

Luke 22:42 — “Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”

Nobody in the history of this world – ever prayed with more faith than that . . . and that is the very sentence He prayed.

Now notice He did BOTH things – and He did them in an order that we ought to copy…

First of all – He asked plainly for what He wanted — “remove this cup from me.” He did not pray around it… He did not pretend He did not want it… Then He handed it over — “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”

That is not a man hedging . . . that is a man laying down the thing he wanted most – on purpose – in front of a Father he trusted . . . and there is not a more difficult or a stronger thing that a human being can do.

THE ORDER MATTERS

So – do not use “Thy will be done” as a way of not asking . . . that is the mistake I see most often – and it wears a very religious type of face…

A man who is scared to want anything out loud will pray – “Lord, whatever You think is best” — and then he will go to bed having told God NOTHING… That is not turning it over to God . . . that is just being too CAREFUL… Our Father already knows what we want anyway (Matthew 6:8) — the asking was NEVER to tell Him something He did not know.

Ask plainly first . . . then turn it loose second… Both halves – in that order – every time . . . that is the pattern which the Lord left us in the garden – and it has never been improved upon…

AND WHAT ABOUT “BELIEVE THAT YE RECEIVE”?

One more verse has to be handled here, because it gets used badly…

Mark 11:24 — “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”

That verse is NOT telling us to work up a strong enough feeling of certainty – until God owes us the answer . . . that is not faith — that is trying to use faith as a lever on God – and it turns prayer into a MACHINE with a crank on the side of it.

Bible faith – is faith in a PERSON – and it is NOT faith in an outcome we have talked ourselves into . . . and a person can be trusted – BECAUSE he will not give us the wrong thing just because we asked hard.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Please – Please – Please let me stay at my house in the country… Nevertheless – not my will but thine be done… The answer to this prayer was NO… it turns out that my will (what I was asking) was not a sin – but it was not in line with God’s will… If He had answered my prayer – I would be driving 35 minutes one way – three times a week… After every storm I would be cutting a tree off of my fence… I would be on a tractor almost every day bush-hogging or mowing 80 acres… None of this is a sin – but it is just not practical at this point in my life… Life changes – life does not ever stay the same – our health changes – circumstances change – and when our “want to” gets out of line with REALITY – it is then that a prayer like this – gets moved over into the God’s will category – and moved out of – the this is what I want category… I could have held on – I could have been resentful – but the truth is – I am 67 years old – and it was time to stop acting as though I was 47 years old… and I needed to be nudged toward that direction… I miss my HOME – but even though I can see five neighbors now when I stand on my porch – I can also see a God who loved me enough to tell me no – not because He was being mean – but because He knew that keeping up an 80 acre farm is something that comes with an expiration date – and that I just needed a little help to see that – my time had expired… — C.T.

WHY THIS IS THE SAFEST PRAYER WE EVER PRAY

Let me close it where the Wednesday night lesson closed it… Would we honestly WANT a God who handed us every single thing we ever named?

Think back over the things you have wanted really bad in your life . . . think about a door you pounded on for a year that never did open . . . and where that road would have taken you if it had opened . . . most of us – if we are honest – have a short list of prayers we are now grateful – that were turned down.

Psalm 84:11 — “For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”

No GOOD thing will He withhold. Sit with that a minute – because it cuts both directions . . . it means that He is not holding out on us . . . and it means that when a thing IS withheld from a man who is walking uprightly – we have God's own word for what that thing was… which means that it was NOT a good thing after all…

So – “Thy will be done” – is not us giving up on the asking . . . it is us saying – I do want this Lord – and I am telling You plainly that I DO want it . . . BUT I would rather have what YOU know – than what I know.

BEFORE YOU LEAVE

“Ask what ye will” and “according to his will” were never two different rules . . . they are one rule – said from two sides . . . abide in Him and let His words abide in you – and the two of them come out at the same place.

Ask plainly . . . then hand it over . . . and when the answer is not what you asked for – remember that it came from the only Father in the universe – who has never once withheld a good thing from His child…

Simple truth… praying “Thy will be done” is NOT giving up on the request . . . it is trading our judgment for HIS judgment – which is the best trade a man can ever make...

TRY IT THIS WEEK

One… Take one thing off the shelf that you have only ever prayed about in a careful, beating-around-the-bush way — and this week ask God for it PLAINLY – out loud – in so many words…

Two… Then – in the same prayer – say the nevertheless part . . . out loud . . . both halves – in that order.

Three… And find one thing this week – that the Bible has ALREADY told you is His will — somebody's salvation will do — and pray for it with no “if” anywhere in it.

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NEXT — Part Eight: When the Line Is Clogged. Cherished sin does not un-save a child of God . . . but it will kink his prayer line, and the Bible names exactly what does it.

The Ends of the World and the Mystery of Israel

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Bro. Ken — Wednesday evening service, October 14, 2026 1 Corinthians 10 · Ephesians 1 · Romans 11 · Revelation 1 · Zechariah 12

► Watch this lesson on video (31:41)

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Bro. Ken brought the lesson this Wednesday evening. What follows is his lesson written up from the recording — his order, his words, and the places where he offered a thing as his own reading are marked as his.

What the Lesson Was About

Bro. Ken opened in First Corinthians 10 and spent the evening moving through the Bible the way he usually does — a verse in one place sends him to a verse in another. The thread that ties it together is the revealing of Jesus Christ: the Old Testament looking forward to Him, Paul saying the ends of the world had already come, and the day Israel finally looks on the One they pierced. He told the church up front that if time ran short he would skip some of it and go to the last part, because that was what he most wanted them to see before he quit.

How Long We Have Been Waiting

Before he read, he gave his own reckoning of the calendar. He believes the church has a good chance of going “the cloud route” — being caught up rather than dying — if we live a few more years. His count: about four thousand years from Adam to Christ, Christ crucified around AD 30, and roughly another two thousand years since, which puts us at about six thousand. He said plainly he is not a numerology man. He told of a cousin in Little Rock who had a friend who went crazy with numbers, counting this many squares in this verse and that many in the next. But he said there are numerals in the Bible a person can count on: six hundred sixty-six is the number of a man, and seven is the number of God, and the millennial reign is a thousand years. By his count we are knocking on six thousand years, and he put it that we are on borrowed time.

The Fathers Under the Cloud

“Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:1-4).

Ken pointed out who is speaking and who is being spoken to. Paul is talking about his own fathers, the Jews, but he is writing to the brethren at Corinth — a New Testament church made up mostly of Gentiles. And the Rock that followed them, he said, was Jesus Christ “all the way through the Old Testament, all the way back to Genesis chapter 3 verse 15.” He read it as the first promise of the Son: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). When God said “Let us make man in our image,” Ken said, it was an image that Jesus Christ was going to have to take on. Before the world was ever spoken into existence, God had said, My Son is coming.

He tied that to the word Revelation. It is the apocalypse — the revealing, the unveiling, of the Son of Man. All through the Old Testament and up into Matthew, Mark, Luke and John the Son of Man was talked about but not revealed. When Jesus took bodily form and came to the earth, He began the unveiling.

Egypt, the Sea, and What Came After

Ken read the passage as a picture of salvation. Egypt, in the Old Testament, symbolizes sin, and God brought them out of sin — the picture of our being saved. Then, immediately, they were baptized: the cloud above and the water on each side. After that they could go in and work for the Lord. He put the same order on the church: a born-again child of God, with the Spirit inside, baptized into a local New Testament church, can serve the Lord for the first time in his existence.

Someone might say you can serve the Lord in any church, since we must worship in spirit and truth. Ken’s answer was, “Don’t take the chance.” Be in a church that teaches the truth. And do not lean on a pastor’s say-so. He used himself and Bro. Chuck for the example: he cannot stand before the Lord and say, “Chuck told me this,” because the Lord will say, I do not care what Chuck told you — I gave you the Holy Spirit; what did you do with it? And if the answer is, “Lord, I just didn’t believe,” then, Ken said, that is your problem.

Examples, Not Leftovers

“Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted” (1 Corinthians 10:6). Ken’s point was that anyone who wants to throw away the Old Testament has nowhere left to find the examples the New Testament sends us back to. Look at what they did wrong; look at what they did right; do what they did right and do not do what they did wrong.

He skipped through the middle of the chapter and stopped at verse nine: “Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents” (1 Corinthians 10:9). That is the story of the fiery serpents and the brazen serpent on the pole — look at it and be healed. Ken said the people carried that brass serpent along for hundreds of years, he thinks all the way down to Hezekiah, before anyone got rid of it. Scripture says Hezekiah “brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it” (2 Kings 18:4). His lesson: a thing God used once can become a thing we worship. Do not do that.

“The Ends of the World Are Come”

“Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). Ken made much of the word are. Paul wrote that to the Corinthians as a present fact. How long ago was that? Two thousand years. In the time Jesus Christ walked the earth, it was already called the last days.

He believes that when the man Jesus Christ began to unveil Himself — when John said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) — the end of time started. All through the Old Testament they had been looking and asking what is going to happen, and Paul said he knew more perfectly the mystery of God, that all things were gathered together in Jesus Christ.

Ken added a qualification. The end does not come all at once. Certain things end here and certain things end there: the time of the Gentiles ends, the Jews begin again, then the millennial reign, and then the world ends. But he said it all began in Paul’s day, when Jesus Christ became flesh and walked among us.

Chosen Before the Foundation

He turned to Ephesians 1. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will” (Ephesians 1:3-5).

Ken gave his own reading, and he was emphatic about it. Before the world was ever spoken into existence, God chose the method of salvation — and the method is trusting Jesus Christ, who gave His life on the cross. It was not God choosing that one man goes to heaven and another goes to hell. We are predestined to the adoption in Jesus Christ, and that is the predestination. It is not God’s will that anybody should perish; it is God’s will that all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. He said, with some heat, that the idea that God picked who goes to hell is contrary to God’s Word.

He said a man must hold to the whole Christ: if you do not serve a resurrected Christ, forget it; if you do not serve a Christ who died in the flesh, forget it; if you do not serve the Son of God, you are dead wrong. He also said the right hand of the Father is not a seat beside God — it is the power side, and the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.

The Mystery of His Will

“Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him” (Ephesians 1:8-10).

Ken said the Old Testament saints did not know the mystery — they did not know Jesus Christ was going to come and die on the cross. They looked for a king and a deliverer who would set up the kingdom. Even the apostles asked at the end whether He would set up the kingdom now. When He said He was going to Jerusalem to be crucified, Peter said no, no, no — and was told to get behind Him because he savored not the things of God. The mystery given to Paul and the church is that Jesus Christ is the culmination of all things in heaven and in earth; everything is going to be drawn into Him. And that gathering began when He died on the cross.

He put the nearness of it this way: a thousand years since “the last days” began, and “that’s pretty last days.” He repeated what he had said the other night — the church is living in the toenails of Daniel’s statue. The stone cut out of the mountain without hands (Daniel 2:34) is going to fall on those toes, the “666 government” will collapse, and the seven government — the millennial reign — will be set up. Ken said he is not trying to scare anyone, but this is about over. He allowed that it may be hard to believe a person could see it in a lifetime, but there is a possibility, and some of the younger folks may well see it. He believes most of those sitting there will see the coming of Jesus Christ, in a cloud, and hear Him say, “Come up.”

Israel and the Veil

He then went to Romans 11, which he said to read sometime along with Hebrews 9:23-28 and 10:1-10 — he skipped Hebrews that night and said they would come back to it.

“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins” (Romans 11:25-27).

His question: when does God turn back to full-fledged dealing with the nation of Israel? When the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. He said he does not know where some people get the idea that the church is going to bring in the kingdom. In his words, the church is not going to bring the kingdom in; the church is going to be gone. What brings in the kingdom is Jesus Christ, who will come back, set His feet on the earth, and start the millennial kingdom, dealing through the Jews. The Gentile history will be done, and “we’ll be gone.” He said he does not know what the Gentiles will have in the millennial reign, but he knows they will send people up to Jerusalem to worship at the Feast of Tabernacles, and he supposes they will send delegates from Israel to teach the people out in the world.

He said there is a veil over every Jew’s heart when Moses is read — he said the verses he had in mind were probably not the ones he turned to. They can understand the law and history and the nation of Israel; what they cannot understand is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only when a Jewish heart turns to Jesus that the veil is lifted. He added that people look at the nation of Israel in place today and say it will never be uprooted. Ken said it will be: the Antichrist will overrun Israel and tread Jerusalem for forty-two months, and they will be in the wilderness until the Lord deals with the Antichrist and brings them back and starts the kingdom.

He also read on to the end of the thought: “As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes” (Romans 11:28). And when the Messiah takes away their sins, he said, the nation will no longer be “Lo-ammi” (not my people) — they will be His people. He did not turn to the verse in Hosea; it is described here, not quoted.

Every Eye Shall See Him

In Revelation 1, Ken read the seventh verse: “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen” (Revelation 1:7).

He said Christ comes in the clouds two different times. The first time He comes for us, in a cloud, and not every eye sees it. The world will ask what happened to Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — nobody’s down there anymore. They will be gone. He did not name the passage, but his words — that we “shall not prevent or go before them that are in the grave” — are the language of First Thessalonians 4:15: “we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.” The dead in Christ are brought with Him, the soul is joined to the old body again, and those who are alive and go “the cloud route” are changed. As Ken put it, this old body is not going to heaven — what goes is what is inside it, the soul — and he believes the creation will be glorified and put back as it was before Adam fell.

The second time, every eye will see Him. The lost will wail when He comes back. They will not see Him come down out of heaven as a man, he thinks, but a great, huge light going over to Jerusalem, and that will be Jesus Christ. And when someone on television says the “they also which pierced him” in Revelation 1:7 means the church, Ken said no — it is the nation of Israel.

They Shall Look on Him Whom They Pierced

He went to John 19:37: “And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.” That is about the Jews, he said, not the New Testament church, and John is quoting the Old Testament — so he went to Zechariah 12. He said, with a laugh, that the more a person looks at this Book, the more he realizes how dumb he is, and how smart the Lord is.

“The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him” (Zechariah 12:1).

Ken stopped on that last clause. God is the Creator. He thinks Satan was cast out of heaven because he wanted to be like God and tried to be a creator, but he cannot be. He is a manipulator, a deceiver, a perverter; he could never put a soul into anything because he cannot create life. God breathed into Adam’s nostrils and he became a living soul: “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). Nobody can do that but God.

Then he walked through the chapter. Jerusalem becomes a cup of trembling and a burdensome stone to all the nations that gather against it at the end — the same stone cut out without hands that falls on the toes of the statue. He read that God will make the governors of Judah like a hearth of fire among the wood and a torch of fire in a sheaf, and Jerusalem will be inhabited again in her own place. He said Scripture indicates they will be walking on the bones of the ones who came against them. And he told of a friend who was over in Desert Storm, where Iraqi soldiers came out of the hole and bent down to kiss his boots. Ken thinks the nations will have the same attitude toward the Jews when they come out of the Negev: God will have destroyed their enemies, and they will have to say, “Look what the God of Israel has done to us.”

From there to the key verse: “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10). That, he said, is when they will be saved — Revelation and John are quoting this and it is the Jews, not the church. And the mourning is as large as Zechariah says: “In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon” (Zechariah 12:11).

The Close

Ken said that after Jesus Christ has come back on a white horse and fought against an unbelieving world, and he believes — “I make a case for it” — that Christ Himself administers the vials, telling the angels where to pour them. The lost will say, “Hide us from him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Revelation 6:16), and all the way through those passages, Ken said, the answer is that He has every right. He will destroy the great part of those who come against Jerusalem and then set up the millennial kingdom with the Jews, who will look upon the One they pierced. And then: “God won’t deal with us Gentiles. He’ll be dealing with the Jews.”

The recording ends there, at about 31:24. Whatever closing prayer or invitation followed is not on it.

Scripture Used

1 Corinthians 10:1-4, 6, 9, 11 · Genesis 3:15 · Genesis 2:7 · 2 Kings 18:4 · John 1:29 · Ephesians 1:3-5, 8-10 · Daniel 2:34 · Romans 11:25-28 · Revelation 1:7 · Revelation 6:16 · 1 Thessalonians 4:15 · John 19:37 · Zechariah 12:1, 10-11 — all KJV. Referred to but not read aloud: Numbers 21 (the fiery serpents), Hosea 1:9-10 (Lo-ammi), Zechariah 14 (Feast of Tabernacles), Hebrews 9:23-28 and 10:1-10 (named as a reading assignment).

God Is Light — Three Lies and the Truth

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Pastor Chuck Trusty — Sunday evening service, October 11, 2026 1-2-3 John · Unit 2 · 1 John 1:5-10

► Watch this lesson on video (40:58)

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Three Lies and the Truth

This is the lesson the way it was preached on Sunday evening - near word for word. The “uh”s and the starts-over are taken out; the sentences are left the way they were said. Bible verses are printed exactly as they read in the King James. Anything marked GOING DEEPER was NOT preached on Sunday evening - it is extra study for anyone who wants to dig further.

Well, it is good to have the opportunity to be here again this evening. This is the second lesson on First John - and you remember a couple of weeks ago we talked about the Apostle John and how he was an eyewitness there in Ephesus. He kept talking about how he had literally SEEN Jesus with his eyes and touched Him with his hands. And we learned why John wrote this first letter: its purpose was so that those who read it would have the same kind of fellowship with God, with Jesus, and with one another that the Apostle John had with God, with Jesus, and with his fellow worshippers . . . and also so that our joy in Christ might be FULL.

We talked about fellowship - and when we hear that word we think, “Oh, we are going to go drink a cup of coffee, we are going to go eat a meal.” Well, in the days in which this was written, the word actually referred to PARTNERS who own something together. The example we used was this: it is supper time, and I am acquainted with the family, I am acquainted with the cook . . . and the door is cracked open and they stick me a plate out through the crack in the door, and I sit out in the yard to eat. As opposed to - they open the door and invite me in, and I sit down at the table with the rest of the family. Now that is two types of fellowship, and one is quite a bit closer than the other. And that is the idea here, people . . . we can be a saved, born-again child of God, just as saved as the Apostle Paul, and have a DISTANT kind of relationship with the God who saved our souls - or we can have a very close fellowship with the God who saved our souls.

The Message John Heard

This evening we are going to begin with chapter one and verse five, and notice that verse five mentions “the message.” Now he is talking about the message that he is reporting.

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” - 1 John 1:5 (KJV)

So John is telling us that the message he is putting down in this letter is not something he sat down and thought of, and it is not the result of his studies over several different years. The message he is giving is something he HEARD - these ears heard it directly from the mouth of Jesus Christ. This is coming directly from God.

Now “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” - well, what exactly is that supposed to mean? If Jesus is light, then, “Preacher, what about people like me that have a lot of shadows, to put it politely? What about people like me who possess a lot of darkness in my life? If God is light, what kind of shape does that put me in? Does that mean I am lost? Does that mean I have to keep doing something in order to drive the shadows away so that I will not become lost?”

Well, we are going to read all of these verses - one John one, five through ten.

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” - 1 John 1:5-10 (KJV)

Notice here there is an “if we say . . . if we say . . . if we say” - and an “if we confess.” Now the one point of our lesson this evening is this:

GOING DEEPER · THREE LIES AND TWO TRUTHS

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

Look at how these verses are built. Verse six is a lie . . . and verse seven is the truth. Verse eight is a lie . . . and verse nine is the truth. And verse ten is a lie - and then the chapter stops. That is three lies and two truths, and John answers the third lie in chapter two.

God is not asking for a perfect record - God is asking for an honest walk.

God is asking that we avoid these three lies, and not say these untrue things in an effort to build ourselves up in our own eyes and in the eyes of others.

In God Is No Darkness at All

Now we are told here that in God there is no darkness AT ALL. This is significant in the language this was written in: John uses “no” twice - he doubles it. John doubles the “no” he uses in this verse, and I will tell you what that means in just a second. According to the source I looked at, John used the strongest way possible for the language to say NONE. There is no darkness in Jesus Christ or in God at all. And if we go to James one and seventeen, we read where there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” - James 1:17 (KJV)

Now the significance of this - think about the difference between light and darkness. Light shows what is actually THERE. If God is light, doesn’t God’s word show us what we really are? You see the connection there. Light shows us what is actually there. A lot of times, especially with kids in the house, we play pretend a lot - that is just something Grandpa and the kids do. But when you turn the light on and everything in the room is clearly exposed, you cannot pretend anymore. You cannot pretend there is a boogeyman over here in the corner when the light is on. “Grandpa, there is no boogeyman in the corner - I can see.” So light takes the pretense completely away.

Darkness, on the other hand, is the opposite of light - and it does the opposite THING that light does. Light exposes . . . darkness hides. It is easy to pretend something that is not true in a place of darkness. So walking with God - notice the way this scripture words it: “If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.” So walking means that if we follow God’s will, if we allow God’s word to expose what we really are, then we are walking out in the open . . . we are walking where there is no place to hide. If we are not walking with God, then we are walking in the shadows - we are walking in darkness.

GOING DEEPER · WHEN THE POWER GOES OUT

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

For you little ones - when the power goes out at night and the house goes black, the first thing Mama does is find the flashlight. And when that flashlight comes on, whatever is on the floor shows up - the toys, the shoes, the dog. Well, God is a light that never goes off, and nothing in God’s house stays hidden.

Now why would we choose to walk in the darkness instead of in the light? There is a scripture - I think it is John chapter three, you can correct me - that says they avoid the light because their deeds are evil. I am not quite sure where that is. Is that John third chapter or not? I do not know - the preacher is not the only one that does not know about it. But you see, if we choose to point our lives in that place of darkness, we do so because we are trying to HIDE what we are. If we choose to walk in the light as He is in the light - in other words, walk so that the truth shines on our life and shows us what we really are - well, then we are not trying to hide anything. Notice what this scripture says: if we confess our sins, if we agree with God that we are sinful, we are not trying to hide anything.

It is like the Apostle Paul talked about the law being our schoolmaster, drawing us to Christ. If God’s word did not expose what I really was, then how would I ever become aware of my need for God? When I got sick with my cancer - if I never felt bad, if I never suffered, I would never have gone to the doctor and I would have died. So pain and suffering, we do not like it . . . humility, we do not like it . . . shame, we do not like it. But without some of these negative things we would never be aware that we were in need, and if we never understand that we are in need, we would never seek a Savior. I mentioned this morning about the mountaintops and the valleys - you sort of see what I am getting at. It is just impossible for us to always remain on those mountaintops, and the valleys are just as necessary, or even more so, than the mountaintops.

“Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” - Hebrews 4:13 (KJV)

Naked - that is, completely exposed - and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

A Shadow Needs Something in the Way

Now think about a shadow. In Him is no shadow, neither variableness or turning . . . in Him is no darkness at all, not even any dim places. A shadow is the result of something standing between an object and the light. And you will notice, just the way it is by nature, a shadow ALWAYS points AWAY from the light. A shadow never points toward the light. You see the significance of that in our lives? If we are walking in darkness, if we are looking for shadows to hide things, we are going in the complete opposite direction of the light.

And the sun never casts a shadow on itself. Well, “Preacher, that is kind of a duh.” But again, that is an example teaching us there is no darkness on the truth. In fact there are no DEGREES of truth . . . there is no such thing as a half-truth. If God is light, God is truth, and in God there is no darkness at all. That means there is no half-truth, and there is no “well, this is true under this circumstance, but under this circumstance over here the truth can change.” It does not work that way.

The Bible tells us there are three that bear record in heaven - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Well, “in him is no darkness at all” teaches us that there is nothing in between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. There is nothing that blocks the light of the Father from reaching Jesus Christ . . . nothing that blocks the light of Jesus from ever reaching the light of the Holy Spirit, and then all the way back around.

Now you remember there were some individuals in the churches in the days of John, there in Ephesus. These individuals were promoting the error that Jesus was not here physically - He only SEEMED to be. Their reasoning was that the physical part of the world had to be dirty, and there was no way anything physical could be clean and righteous. So Jesus, being God - being God in the flesh - could not have been here in the flesh, because the flesh is sinful. Well, these individuals claimed to walk with God. They claimed to be in the light . . . and while walking in the light of God, they also kept a hold of their darkness. They put their hands tight around the error they were promoting. And what John is simply saying is this: you can say what you want to, but darkness and light cannot exist in the same place. They cannot exist together.

GOING DEEPER · WHOSE WORDS WERE THESE?

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

The false teachers in those churches taught that sin belonged to the body - to the low, physical world - and that the ones with the “higher knowledge,” or the saved soul, had gotten above all that. So “we have no sin” was not something John made up. That was their SLOGAN. And when John says “if we say . . . if we say . . . if we say,” he is quoting their own words back to them, one at a time, and holding every one of them up to the light.

Three Things People Say

Now there are three things people say in the verses we were looking at, verses five through ten. “If we say we have fellowship but . . .” and then they give an excuse. “If we say we have no sin” - that is a lie. And “if we say we have not sinned” - that is also a lie.

So notice first John one and six, the first one we look at.

“If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:” - 1 John 1:6 (KJV)

What these individuals are doing is putting the label of Christianity on their lives and DIVORCING the label from the life. They are pretty much saying, “My being a Christian really does not have anything to do with my behavior or my manner of life.” Well - duh. Can you not see the inconsistency in that mentality? Now the walk they are talking about, to walk in darkness - once again, the purpose of this evening’s lesson is that God is not looking for perfection, He is looking for basically honesty. There is not a one of us who can honestly claim that we never walk in darkness, or places of less light, or places that are shadowy. What this is talking about is not sinless perfection . . . it is talking about the PATTERN of our life.

I have been walking for over sixty-eight years. There has been an occasion or two when I have stumbled, scraped my knee, fallen flat on my face. But the pattern of my life is that I am walking upright on my feet. That is the pattern of my life - my life is not defined by the few times I have stumbled. That is the idea here: the pattern of our life, not the fact that we stumble.

You ever go to the supermarket and stand there in front of the magazine rack and pick out a magazine and look at it? Well, how is that different from SUBSCRIBING to that magazine and getting it in the mail regularly, once a month or twice a month? There is a difference between a subscription and “I am just going to look at this magazine one time.” There is a difference between patterning our life after our pet sin - subscribing to whatever it is - and just a one-off. Folks, none of us are perfect. We have all been guilty of picking one off the rack and looking, just one time. Well, to walk in the light is to subscribe to RIGHTEOUSNESS.

So the pattern it is talking about is not just a bad day. It is not talking about the individual who stumbles and says, “Oh, man, I hate that I stumbled.” It is talking about when you WALK in darkness - the individual who has a paid subscription for the foreseeable future to whatever it is.

Then verse eight - the second lie.

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” - 1 John 1:8 (KJV)

Now the second lie fools the person who is telling the lie. The first lie is intended to fool OTHERS - to make me appear different from what I really am. With the second lie, I am actually deceiving my own self. It is like this: “Brother Kenneth, I have not subscribed to this magazine - I just borrowed yours.” And just because I borrowed it and did not really subscribe, that is not the same thing - that is different. You see the pattern? I am patterning my life after error, whether I borrow that error or whether I subscribe to it . . . but in my own mind I am deceiving myself, because I justify it. I have not officially bought into whatever sin it is that is leading me astray. A classic example of that - I remember a past president we had who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and he just redefined what sin was and made the problem go away - or at least tried to. That really does not work.

And the third lie - and this is really the worst one of all - verse ten.

“If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” - 1 John 1:10 (KJV)

Now notice what it says: we make Him a LIAR. Who do we make a liar? We contradict God. We can fool others, we can fool ourselves, and we can contradict God by subscribing to this way of life that is in error.

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” - Romans 3:23 (KJV)

Romans three and twenty-three pretty much nips this in the bud. Every person who has ever been born could put their name right there - erase “all” and put their name there - and it would be one hundred percent valid. “For Fred has sinned and come short of the glory of God.” “For Bobby has sinned and come short of the glory of God.” You get what I am saying? To say otherwise is to tell God, “You were mistaken.”

I have got an example here that I thought was kind of cute - I was kind of proud of it myself. A pretend FENCE. Let’s just get a herd of cows and pretend that there is a fence around those cows. Do you think the cows will stay in that field? Well, I am going to live my life and just pretend that I am righteous. Do you think that is going to do any good? The only one I am deceiving is me. And the way to realize we are just pretending the fence is there . . . if we go out at midnight on a new moon and walk where we are pretending that fence is, well, we can convince ourselves that the fence is really there. But if we go out at noon in broad daylight and walk in that same place, the pretending will not work. God is light. And if we look at God’s word, we will see ourselves exposed as we really are - which may not be comfortable, but it is NECESSARY, because if we never see our sin, we will never seek a Savior from that sin.

So God is not asking for a perfect record . . . He is asking for an honest walk.

The Truth - Walk in the Light

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” - 1 John 1:7 (KJV)

First of all, if we walk in the light - if we pattern our life after God’s truth - we will have fellowship with one another, at home and in church. And the blood of Jesus will cleanse us from all sins. Now on the surface you may say, “Well, preacher, that sounds like after we get saved we have to do good stuff to maintain our salvation.” The idea here is that you have to understand this is talking to the FAMILY. Now you remember what the purpose of the letter of First John was. The gospel of John, I am going by memory here - “that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” And then First John - and I may have my Johns mixed up, forgive me if I do - is so that his joy in you may be full . . . so that your cup will be full and STAY full. Well, how does that cup stay full?

GOING DEEPER · THE MASK WE WEAR IN THE CHURCH DOOR

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

Walking in the light gives us two things. The first is fellowship with one another - not just fellowship with God, but with each other, at home and in the church. And fellowship means partners who own something together. Well, nobody can be partners with a MASK.

Suppose I walk into the church with a smile on my face and anger in my heart. When we go into business with someone, when we put our name on the title next to our partner, we expect them to have skin in the game - just like we have something to lose. People, if I am unwilling to practice in my life - or at least TRY to practice - what I preach from the pulpit, how can our partnership in this church be genuine? And if we are wearing a mask of hypocrisy - and I am not talking about an occasional stumble, I am talking about a subscription to one of the three lies - then we are not in fellowship with God, and we are not in fellowship with each other, and we will not be until we CANCEL the subscription.

All right, I have always been kind of bad about this - I will dip my spoon into the soup and I have to concentrate really hard, because I have always had a little bit of a tremor, and if I am not careful I put as much food in my mouth as I possibly can. I am a horribly impolite eater. But I have got this spoon, and it is holding all the liquid I can possibly put on it. Well, if I start trembling, that liquid comes out of the soup. For our joy to remain full - if I take my eyes off of Jesus Christ . . . you remember what happened to Peter. He was sinking in the water until he did what? Until, “Lord, save me.” Jesus reached out, and when he saw the Master, he quit sinking. Well, when we take our eyes off of the truth, this cup of joy starts shaking, and what was a full cup, some of it starts splashing out.

Now I want to correct a possible misconception. The Bible is not telling us that if our joy ever gets full, it is going to stay full no matter what. It is telling us that we CAN have a full, complete joy. And if we walk in the light, that cup will remain full . . . it will not spill over, empty out, and we will not get the tremble. It remains topped off.

So if we walk in the light we will have fellowship one with another, each other, at home, and also His blood will cleanse us from all sins. The blood KEEPS ON cleansing. Now we are not talking about our salvation - this is addressed to the family, and it is talking about fellowship, not sonship. So if we walk in the light, the blood of Jesus constantly cleanses our life, so that if we are a Christian today and choose to walk in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ will give us the strength and the motive to be a Christian tomorrow. That kind of thing.

The Confession

Now one John one and nine. I want to say this is really important scripture - but what scripture is not important?

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” - 1 John 1:9 (KJV)

To confess does not mean to pull out a list and name everything we did wrong. The first thing wrong with that is that it is not possible - we cannot possibly know all the wrongs we do. We sin ignorantly. We sin in ways we do not even realize. To confess is to SAY THE SAME THING that God says about our sin. “Well, preacher, I just made a mistake.” It was not a mistake - it was a sin. “Well, preacher, you just do not know what I was going through. I was sort of justified in that.” I do not have to know what you were going through. No, you were not justified in that - God says it was a sin. “Well, preacher, I am not as bad as they are.” Well, you may not be, but that still does not excuse our sin. Confession is when we stop hanging a “but” on the end of an excuse.

The kids mess around in the kitchen, and they come in the living room with chocolate all over their face. “Mom” - or Sarah, or Granny - “have you been in the cookie jar?” Well, why would you ask a kid if they have been in the cookie jar when it is so obvious they have? It is to get the child to realize, “Well, maybe I should not have done that. I probably should have asked permission for that.” That is pretty much what David did. We are not going to go there and read it, but in the Fifty-first Psalm, David pretty much got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. We cannot get our hand out of the cookie jar until we ADMIT that it is in the cookie jar. We cannot remove our hand from where it should not be until we realize, “My hand should not be there.”

GOING DEEPER · DAVID JUST AGREED WITH GOD

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

God already knows - and confession is us finally saying what God has known all along. That is exactly what David did. Psalm 51:3-4 - “For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.” There is no excuse at all in David’s confession. David simply agreed with God that he had SINNED.

And it says that God is faithful and just, if we confess our sins. To be FAITHFUL means that you can count on God to keep His promise - if we agree with Him about our sin, He will forgive us. And to be JUST means that the price for that sin we committed has already been paid. First Peter two and twenty-four - there is a little comment I want to make.

“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” - 1 Peter 2:24 (KJV)

It would not be right, it would not be proper, it would not be fair, it would not be according to the law for God to hold you and me accountable for sins that have already been paid for. He is faithful - He will keep His word and forgive - and He is just. He is not going to hold me accountable for a debt that He already paid on the cross.

GOING DEEPER · ALL UNRIGHTEOUSNESS - THROUGH THE WHOLE HOUSE

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

And notice what God cleanses - “all unrighteousness.” God does not just cleanse the one sin we named in our confession. The named sin opens the door . . . and the cleansing goes all the way through the entire house, the complete life.

So not to confess our wrongs does not mean that we become lost. It means we are still saved. But what it is telling us is that we have stopped minding our Heavenly Father. And once again, first John one and nine is written to the FAMILY. If we confess our sins - who confesses? The family confesses - He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Now one John two and one:

“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:” - 1 John 2:1 (KJV)

Oh, he is writing us this letter so that we can live perfectly sinless lives? No, he is writing it so that we can AVOID sin. If we do not avoid sin, we have an advocate - a go-between that will take our sins and argue on our behalf, so that we can escape judgment, because that sin has already been paid for. Now that does not mean we are going to avoid consequences, because we set things in motion - that is just the way life is.

GOING DEEPER · FELLOWSHIP KEPT OPEN

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

A guard here, so no one misreads it. Verse nine is written to the family of God. Verse nine keeps FELLOWSHIP open . . . it does not buy back being His child. A child who sins is still a child - 1 John 2:1. And neither is verse nine a formula for the lost to say in order to get saved - or “re-saved.” The lost come to salvation by repentance toward God and faith in the Son, not by some act of naming their sins.

The Operating Room

I will leave you with this thought, and try to be honest. In terms of confession - “Well, I did this, but . . .” - is there a “but” hanging on the back end of our confessions? Now this is not a threat so that we have to be afraid we are going to become lost. It is an INVITATION to step into the light, to see what our problems actually are so that we can go to Jesus for forgiveness. What this is designed to do is to show us that our hand is in the cookie jar where it has no business. And once we admit that, once that is exposed to us by the light of God’s word - “Oh, my hand should not be there. Oh, thank You, God, for showing me. Forgive me” - that is what God is looking for.

I have asked the musicians to come forward as we prepare for an invitational hymn this evening . . . but one other example, talking about God is light. I suppose most everybody has either been in an operating room or knows a little bit about one. An operating room has lights that will just blind the fire out of you . . . just real bright. Well, why is that? So the doctor can see to cut out every little bit of what is wrong. We understand that you would not want a doctor operating on you in a dark operating room, would you? Well, why are so many so intent on living their lives in the dark? God’s word is the light, and the light is intended to expose what should not be there - not so that we can reach in and cut ourselves, but so that we can take that to God in prayer and ask Him for forgiveness, and ask Him to remove the cancer of sin - or however you want to phrase that.

GOING DEEPER · THE QUESTION TO TAKE HOME

Not preached on Sunday evening - extra study.

God already knows we do not have a perfect record - His Word says so: “For all have sinned.” God is not waiting for us to get everything right before He forgives us or before we start following Him. He is simply looking for somebody who will agree with Him. I am only going to ask one question tonight, and I do not want you to answer it out loud: is there anything we are still keeping in the dark . . . and not calling a sin?

Please consider what you heard this evening as we stand and sing.

Enter His Gates — Thankfulness Is Worship’s Front Door

Dardanelle Missionary Baptist Church — Dardanelle, Arkansas

Pastor Chuck Trusty — Sunday morning service, October 11, 2026 Give Thanks · Lesson 1 of 7 · Psalm 100

► Watch this lesson on video (36:38)

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Thankfulness Is Worship’s Front Door

This is the lesson the way it was preached on Sunday morning - near word for word. The “uh”s and the starts-over are taken out; the sentences are left the way they were said. Bible verses are printed exactly as they read in the King James. Anything marked GOING DEEPER was NOT preached on Sunday morning - it is extra study for anyone who wants to dig further.

Well, it is good to see each of you in our services this morning . . . and we are going to talk this morning about how important it is to be THANKFUL. I want to start with a verse that shows us just how important being thankful to God actually is.

“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” - Romans 1:21 (KJV)

Now it is interesting to note that one of the very first things Jesus named, when a people drifted away or turned their back on God . . . was how that people became UNTHANKFUL. We have all heard about that house built upon the sand in Matthew chapter seven - well, the idea here this morning is that thankfulness is pretty much the FOUNDATION that is holding our lives together. Our life is either built upon the sand - we understand the metaphor there - or our house is built upon the rock. A house built upon the sand will collapse when things get stormy . . . a house built upon the rock will stand. And if we are thankful to God in our lives, well, it goes a long, long way in strengthening the very foundation of our lives.

Notice the One Hundredth Psalm, verses one through five.

“Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.” - Psalm 100:1-5 (KJV)

Now we see five verses that we just read, and there are SEVEN commandments in these five verses . . . and right smack dab in the middle of those commandments is the commandment to enter into His gates. How? With THANKSGIVING. So the one point of our lesson this morning is this:

Thanksgiving is the way into the front door of all worship.

The point there is that we cannot worship with an unthankful heart.

The Gate Is What Comes First

Now you will notice here in the scripture that the gate is what comes FIRST. Look at verse four.

“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.” - Psalm 100:4 (KJV)

Enter into His gates - not empty-handed. This sets up a picture of the way they worshipped back yonder in the Old Testament. The Jews went to the temple, and the first thing they encountered was the GATE. Well, when we come to worship God on Sundays and Wednesdays, what is the first thing we encounter after we get out of the parking lot? It is the front door. So I want you to picture the gate as pretty much the same thing as our front door - and they entered the gate of the Old Testament temple not empty-handed, but carrying thanksgiving.

And when we walk through the door of this church house, do we walk in empty-handed? Typically we are carrying our Bibles with us when we walk through that door. So that is a picture I want you to put in your head: the Old Testament saints went through the gates of the temple carrying thanksgiving . . . just like we walk through that back door, hopefully carrying our Bibles. And after we walk through that door carrying our Bibles, where is the next place we go? We carry our Bible into the auditorium, where we offer worship to God - where we praise God as opposed to praising one another. In the Old Testament they did it the same way every single time, and they did not deviate from it, just like we do. In order to get into the auditorium to offer worship, you have to go through the door.

Well, the idea is that the worshipper is supposed to carry something into the worship service. He is supposed to carry a thankful HEART . . . and he is supposed to carry an attitude of praise. You see, thanksgiving is equal to a thank offering - or at least it was, back in the Old Testament temple worshiping days. It was a gift to tell God, “Thank you, God.” And that is the idea behind the phrase, “enter into his gates with thanksgiving.” Do not come empty-handed. Do not come to this church house with a blank mind - “Well, what has God ever done for me? What in the world do I have to be thankful for?” When you go through that door, go through it with an attitude that you have already begun to count your blessings . . . “I am coming here to worship a God who has already blessed me this way, and this way, and this way, and this way.”

If we enter this church house with that attitude, I guarantee you our worship will go a great deal better . . . our worship will be a great deal more pleasing to God than if we come through those doors not carrying thanksgiving, but carrying a LIST of stuff that we want God to give us. You see the difference in attitude? Come through the gates of the house of worship carrying a thankful attitude - not just a wish list.

Notice the Order

Now I want you to notice the order here. Let’s look at verses seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen of the One Hundred Sixteenth Psalm.

“I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people, In the courts of the LORD’s house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the LORD.” - Psalm 116:17-19 (KJV)

You will notice the way that is worded - he OFFERS thanksgiving. And once again, the idea of thanksgiving is a thank offering. You know, we pass the plate and you put a dollar or whatever it is in the offering plate, and we always think, “Well, that is the offering.” But in the days of the Old Testament they actually brought SACRIFICES . . . and the first sacrifice they gave was an offering that represented their thankfulness to God. So picture that. And notice the order: “I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD.” I am going to tell You how thankful I am before I even start praying. I am going to tell You how thankful I am before I start pointing to my wish list.

So I simply want to reinforce the concept here that before one request was ever made to God in prayer, the worshipper entered into the door of a house of worship with an attitude - in this case, with a literal offering of thankfulness - and THEN he went into the auditorium to offer praise unto God.

GOING DEEPER · THE WORD BEHIND “THANKSGIVING”

Not preached on Sunday morning - extra study.

The word the psalmist uses for “thanksgiving” in verse four is the Hebrew word for the THANK OFFERING. It is the same word the Law uses for the offering a worshipper carried up the hill in his own two hands - a gift that said one thing and one thing only, “Thank You for what You have already done.” And the little heading above the psalm - “A Psalm of praise” - reads in the Hebrew “a psalm for the thank offering.” So when we read “enter into his gates with thanksgiving,” we are not reading about a feeling . . . we are reading about something carried through the door.

“Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.” - Psalm 95:2 (KJV)

The Back Door to the Want List

Now, most of our praying - and I am just being honest, I am looking at it from my own perspective - most of our praying comes through what I am going to call the BACK door . . . straight to the want list. What I mean by that is that we skip the front part, the thanksgiving part. Notice Philippians chapter four and verse six, and we are going to go back to the Eighty-ninth Psalm in just a second, so you might want to put a finger in the Psalms.

“Be careful (full of worry) for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” - Philippians 4:6 (KJV)

Be careful for nothing - now that means do not be full of worry, do not be anxious about anything. And the thing that is intended to take that anxious attitude away is this: “but in every thing by prayer and supplication WITH THANKSGIVING” - thanksgiving for what we have already been blessed with - “let your requests be made known unto God.”

I always try to come up with examples that are everyday relatable. We do not do horseback rides anymore, but we all know what that means and we see it on TV all the time. Well, picture my want list to God in prayer being carried on the back of a horse . . . and what do you think that horse is? The horse is the attitude of THANKFULNESS. If thankfulness is not there, my wish list to God has nothing to carry it. Can you think of it that way?

Here is another way. If you spend any time over in Russellville you are going to get stopped at the train tracks - and what is typically at the front of the train? The ENGINE. Well, thankfulness should typically be at the front of our prayers. And what is at the back end of a train? The caboose. Oftentimes we get the two reversed and we want our wish list to pull everything . . . and if we have time, and if we are having a good day, “Oh, well, thank you, God, for my good day.” Does that mean we are not supposed to be thankful when our day is not good? Last time I checked, the Bible says that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose - now, there are some conditions in there, and I am doing that from memory, but that is close. The idea is that if we have a good day, well, yes, God has a hand in that . . . but if we have a bad day, God also has a hand in that. You remember the song - I am not going to go there - but it makes a valid point: the God on the mountain is the same God that is in the battle.

God’s Front Porch

We live in a rural community - say “rural” three times, that is one of the most difficult words there is to say - and if you go to a neighbor’s house you go up on the porch and say, “Hey, how you doing?” You have some little small talk, and THEN you get down to what you really went over there to visit with your neighbor about. Nobody who expects to get what they are needing just jumps up on the front porch, throws the door of the neighbor’s house open, goes inside, and says, “Kenneth, now this is what I want you to do.” That is just not the way it is done. If we ever did something like that, it would show that I did not have a whole lot of respect for Kenneth . . . I was not concerned about being courteous, and this is Kenneth’s house, and I am not honoring him at all - I am just barging in there making demands.

GOING DEEPER · RESPECT SHOWS UP AT THE DOOR

Not preached on Sunday morning - extra study.

Respect for God does not wait until we have found our seat - it shows up right at the door. Psalm 89:7 - “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.” The fear of the LORD we stood on last Sunday morning - that deep respect for who God is - is the very thing that makes a man stop at the porch and say hello before he asks for a single thing.

Notice the One Hundredth Psalm again, verse four. Enter into His gates with WHAT? Thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise - be thankful unto Him, and bless His name. Well, the idea of our example about barging in the front door and making demands is this: verse four is describing God’s FRONT PORCH. And thanksgiving is the greeting we are taught here to give to God out on the front porch, before we ever enter the door of His church house.

Now, is that the way we approach worship? Let’s put it this way. Do we walk through that door back there with a Bible in our hand, intent on worshiping and praising God? Or am I going to leave my Bible out in the car and bring a magazine in - I am going to go through that door intent on looking at this magazine while that preacher gets up there and goes on and on and on? You see the difference? Do we enter into His courts with thanksgiving . . . or do we enter into His courts empty-handed, carrying something we value in the flesh and leaving what is valuable to God on the outside? How in the world do we expect to worship if we enter into church with that kind of attitude?

I just want to throw a cautionary note out here. I am not talking about the possible loss of our salvation, people. I am talking about God’s saved, born-again children. It is possible for a child of God to have an attitude of thankfulness for everything God has done for them . . . or it is possible for that same child of God to ignore everything God has done for them and simply live a selfish life in terms of this world. Such a child will not lose their salvation - but they will lose all the BLESSINGS that God desires to give them.

Back when I was growing up, I liked TV probably a little bit too much when I was younger. And I remember on the rare occasions when company did come to see us, the first thing Daddy did, while they were still out in the yard before they ever got in the house, was turn the TV off. Well, what was that for? It was a show of respect - this person has come to visit, and I am not going to spoil our visit by watching television and ignoring the visitor. So when we come through that door and settle down here in the auditorium to worship God, are we like watching television in our mind? Are we thinking about all the stuff that is going on out in the world and ignoring whose house this is? I have got a news flash for you . . . God can read our minds, folks. You may fool the preacher, you may fool the person sitting next to you, but no man is able to fool God.

Something else I have noticed at our house - the kids come over, and the first thing the kids do is sometimes one thing and sometimes another. They hit the door and the first thing they say is, “Where is Granny? Where is Granny? I want to give her a hug.” Oh, that is a good thing, right? But sometimes they go through the door and the first thing they say is, “Where are the cookies? Where are the cookies? Where are the cookies?” And they put Granny’s hug in second place. Well, my point is that oftentimes we do the same thing with God. We come to church looking for COOKIES, when the first thing we should do when we come to church is hug God’s neck and thank Him for what He has done for us.

GOING DEEPER · FOR THE ONE WHO CAME IN HURTING

Not preached on Sunday morning - extra study.

This is not a rule that says God will not hear a prayer that skipped the porch. Peter, sinking in the water, did not stop to say thank you first - he cried out, and he got no lecture on manners. Matthew 14:30 - “But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.” The gate of thanksgiving is the pattern for our daily walk . . . it is not a lock on the door for the one who is desperate.

So when was the last time we went to God in prayer and did not ask Him for anything . . . when the only purpose for our prayer was to say, “Thank You, God”? When is the last time we prayed that kind of prayer? Once again, thanksgiving is the way into the front door of all worship - we cannot worship without thanksgiving.

We Are Thankful Because of What We Know

Now, another thing that is interesting . . . why are we thankful? In regard to our relationship to God, and the things we are talking about here, we are thankful because of what we KNOW. Look first at verse three of the One Hundredth Psalm.

“Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” - Psalm 100:3 (KJV)

Know ye three things. Now, has someone ever done something really good for you, really nice to you, and you benefited, but you did not know who that person was? You did not know who to thank. Or perhaps you were just so busy with life you did not even notice anybody doing anything good - you just trudged on through life. Well, you never singled anybody out to thank them because you were ignorant of what they had done for you. That is the stage I want to set here, and that is the point I want us to realize. If we are unthankful to God, there could be several reasons - we could just be rebellious, mean, whatever, selfish - and that is one lesson. But what I am talking about this morning is this: if we are unthankful to God, is it perhaps because we are IGNORANT of what God has done for us? We do not know that God has paid off the mortgage. We do not know that God has done this, this, or this. If we knew who it was, we would single them out and thank them. The purpose of the lesson this morning is so that we will know what God has done, and perhaps that knowledge will move us toward a thankful heart.

Thanksgiving is basically a CONCLUSION, if you will - a conclusion based upon things we have been made aware of in our lives. You cannot thank that neighbor for something he did while you were away if you are unaware of what your neighbor did for you. There are three facts that should draw us toward being thankful, and all three are mentioned here in verse three.

Fact one: the LORD, He is God. God is the one who spoke all things into existence. God is the one who has the power - literally the power of life and of death. Don’t you think it is appropriate to be thankful to that God?

“I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:” - Isaiah 45:5 (KJV)

I have done good things for you, and you do not have a clue who I am . . . well, that is on us. The point is there is no one else for us to thank.

Fact two: God made us on purpose. “It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.” He made us on purpose, in His own image. Well, what do you mean by the image of God? There are three that bear record in heaven - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost - and we are made in God’s image. We have a mind, we have a body, and we have a spirit. We think with our mind, we feel with our body, and our spirit is the part that has life. We could chase that further, but we are going to stop there. And the Bible tells us that God created the earth to be inhabited - inhabited by who? To give US a home.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” - Genesis 1:27 (KJV)

Don’t you think God deserves a thank-you for making us - for giving us a place to live?

Fact three: we belong to Him. We are the sheep of His pasture. Now this is kind of against our culture - we do not know a whole lot about shepherds and sheep - but basically a shepherd is the individual who literally takes care of the sheep. Sheep are not like a bunch of cows. Sheep, I have read, are about the dumbest animals on the earth . . . just dumb as a box of rocks. Well, the shepherd takes care of those sheep, and that is what the shepherd does. And the PASTURE is the field where the shepherd feeds the sheep.

So let’s transition from an agricultural scene to a spiritual scene. Jesus is the Great Shepherd. We are those dumb sheep. And where does Jesus feed us spiritually? Does the New Testament church pop into anybody’s mind? That is the pasture . . . that is the field - the area where the Shepherd, Jesus Christ, feeds us as His sheep. So you might wonder, “Well, what is the purpose of the church?” If you want to spend your life hungry, okay, then spend that life as a child of God OUTSIDE of the church - because the church is where the feed is.

A thankful heart is aware of all three of these facts: the LORD is God . . . He has made us, and we did not make ourselves . . . and we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. We possess a thankful heart because we are aware of what God has done for us. Now, if you are aware of what God has done for you and you just do not care, well, that is a whole different kettle of fish, and we are not going to go there this morning. But if you are a saved, born-again child of God and you are made aware of just some of what God has done for you, then you cannot help but develop a thankful attitude toward God.

GOING DEEPER · WHO BOUGHT THE GROCERIES

Not preached on Sunday morning - extra study.

Think about a child at the supper table. That child did not buy the groceries . . . did not cook the meal . . . and did not build the table it is sitting at. Nothing on that table is a result of anything he did. But a child who has been raised right - raised to respect God and to respect his mama and daddy - says “thank you” anyway. Not because he feels like it on that particular night, but because he knows where the supper actually came from. It was a GIFT. The thanks we offer comes from what we know about the kindness and the mercy of God.

And the sheep have more to be thankful for than just the pasture. They have the Shepherd - because of how the Shepherd laid down His life for the sheep. John 10:11 - “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” And everything a sheep needs comes from the Shepherd. Psalm 23:1-2 - “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.” We can always look past our circumstance to the circumstance of the cross.

Thankfulness Does Not Depend on the Weather

Let’s look at verse five.

“For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.” - Psalm 100:5 (KJV)

I have seen this so many times I have lost count. Everything is going good, we are on the mountaintop, and, “Oh, I am thankful to God” . . . but that thankfulness evaporates when we are no longer on the mountaintop and we are down in the valley. Thankfulness is not dependent upon circumstances. The God we love, serve, and are thankful to on the mountaintop is the exact same God who is in charge of everything when we are down in the valley. God’s purpose is not to keep us on the mountaintop - God’s purpose is to teach us, to mold us, to shape us into what we need to be. Sometimes we need that mountaintop experience, but we also need those valley experiences.

I am thinking of a sculptor, or a whittler. I want to whittle this stick of wood and make a certain shape, and I cannot shape that wood without cutting something OFF. We cannot be shaped into the Christians God desires us to be without ever having something cut off of our lives. So feelings come and feelings go . . . but God’s goodness, mercy, and truth are always strong, and they are always available to us. Is our thank-you something that is built upon how our week has gone - or is our thank-you built upon who God is, as the One who is holding our particular week?

The Homework

I have asked our musicians to come forward as we prepare for an invitational hymn, and I am going to give you a homework assignment. I am putting before you the idea that every prayer you offer this week, you offer that prayer through the gate of thanksgiving.

Now, I am going to go through the prayer . . . and I want you to recall to your mind what you are thankful for. Pick THREE things. And not just general stuff - “I am glad to be an American,” or whatever - but, boy, I dodged the bullet on that one. Anybody ever been there? Well, who do you think nudged you over so that bullet did not hit you? I am speaking metaphorically. What about that person - “Preacher, I just could not have done that without so-and-so”? That is a blessing from God, and that is something we should be thankful for. What about when circumstances just kind of start falling in around us, and, “Man, I never expected that to work out” . . . but you know, it did? Duh. These are things we should be thankful for.

GOING DEEPER · THREE THINGS, NAMED PLAINLY

Not preached on Sunday morning - extra study.

When we said to name three things before we ask for one, we meant specific things, not general ones. Name the MERCY God extended to us this week - the one we know for certain we did not deserve. Name the PERSON who helped us, who was a blessing to us this week. And name the PROVISION we received - the help that came in just when it was needed. “I could not have made it through the winter with that hole in my roof.” That kind of thing.

And here is what we will find out, if we do this assignment. The worshipper who comes in through the gate of thanksgiving is a person who is already worshiping by the time he gets to the courts . . . and half of what he came in to complain about looks entirely different from inside the house of worship. So which door have we been coming in - the front door or the back door?

And one other little caveat. I do not know how y’all do at mealtime, but what we should all do when we sit down and put our feet under the table is pray out loud - thank God for the meal, and thank Him for His blessings. If you do not do that, I strongly encourage you to begin doing it. And for those who have little children - where in the world do you think they are going to learn how to pray if we do not teach them? If Mom and Daddy never pray in front of them, how are they ever going to learn to pray, or what to pray for? It would not hurt a single thing for your children at the supper table to hear Daddy pray out loud, “God, thank You for the food, and thank You for that neighbor who really helped me get out of that mine. I do not know what I would have done without their help.” There is nothing wrong with that. Nothing to be ashamed of . . . and that is not being Pentecostalish.

Have you ever been upset because somebody came up to you and said, “Thank you for what you did”? Has it ever rubbed you the wrong way? Well, have you ever been a little upset because somebody OWED you a thank-you and it never came? Do we really want to offend God like that? I would a lot rather God be glad that I thanked Him than a little bit put out with me because I did not thank Him. “Oh, well, I am thankful, but I am too ashamed to say it out loud where other people can hear.” We need to pray about these things.