[SPEAKER_00]: And in the 37 years that I was in the pulpit, I have never served a church that had a working sound system.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have been places like moment of truth that had a sound system, but as far
[SPEAKER_00]: and there would be no sound.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was not needed because the church would be very small.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had more than once, you know, the deacons tell me that I got called to the church because, you know, the old folks could hear me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, God would he made me wired me for sound.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I
[SPEAKER_00]: usually can make myself heard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of that, just before I forget, Karen, if you will, turn if you wish to, I may make use of this tool as long as it's up here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, that's nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can talk to her.
[SPEAKER_00]: or if you wish to, to the gospel according to St. John, the 14th chapter and the first verse.
[SPEAKER_00]: probably you won't really need to read this because you will have already committed it to memory at some point in your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very familiar verse, but that's what we speak
[SPEAKER_00]: some churches is called passing these, you know, it's just shaking hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's just the custom of shaking hands with your neighbors as a part of the chair assert.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I said, I've always, myself, for better or for worse, neither bringing or complaining,
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always served the slightly more formal church and we called it passing the piece, I've always, you know, I've always believed that you can't go to heaven unless every Sunday you say the Lord's prayer and sing the doxology, you know, I am past the piece.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know Smith for community churches passing the peace and I noticed that some of the folks are hugging.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I wasn't raised to hug.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's only two women in my wife and I'm not asking for anything ladies by the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's only two women that I have ever kissed.
[SPEAKER_00]: One was Elizabeth Jane Ferrabi and the other was an old that my aunt Valma who made me do it when I didn't want to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't like her.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I have
[SPEAKER_00]: she made me kiss her goodbye one time and so so it was just, you know, my family was a little on the harsh side of strict, neither bringing her complaining.
[SPEAKER_00]: We always had plenty to eat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can only remember one woman, and I'm not sure what I did,
[SPEAKER_00]: But Dad was using a switch on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had me behind the barn and I guess I was putting up a howl about it and my cousin and often playmate Bill Robinson, you know, cousin Billy.
[SPEAKER_00]: came around behind the barn to see what was going on and said, you know, my dad Robert Farrowby, yeah, he said, you ain't what a name hard enough Bob.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's my relative.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So people are hugged.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm mildly disapproved.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say, I notice there's a lot of hugging going on during the passing of the piece.
[SPEAKER_00]: A good old Calvinist tan shake will always be good enough for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they ignored me as they always did.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the next Sunday during invitation, alter call,
[SPEAKER_00]: opening her purse and taking something out.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has a rather devilish smile on her face and she's coming forth and I'm pretty sure Jane is saved but she's coming forward to have that
[SPEAKER_00]: What am I to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: I give her a pack on the cheek.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that isn't going to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she grabs me by the jaw and twists my head around and makes me kiss her on the lips and the congregation of applause and laughs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jane can get away with anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she's in heaven now.
[SPEAKER_00]: By now, after all that preliminary I would hope that you have found, if you need to find it, because who doesn't know this one?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, John, 14 chapter first verse, and not your heart's be troubled.
[SPEAKER_00]: You believe in God, believe also in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it were not so, I would have told you, I'd go to prepare a place for you and make the Lord richly bless this reading and hearing of His Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus commands us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, and it's not a suggestion.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't say, you know, if, if you feel like it, Jesus commands us to not let our hearts be troubled.
[SPEAKER_00]: We shouldn't worry, maybe even a subit of a sin, because after all, it's a demonstration of lack of faith when we worry, you know, it means that God isn't big enough to handle our problem, so we shouldn't worry, but Lord, easier said than done, because there's everything
[SPEAKER_00]: to trouble our hearts, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now myself, I don't watch the evening news, but I've always watched the morning news.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today's show is my morning news, you know, because I want to get the day started off wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I want to have everything I'm going to worry about from
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, of course, by the way, you will watch the local news on in the morning, you know, so I can be aware of who got shot in Kansas City during the last 24 hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's everything to trouble us, and maybe you was the evening news, maybe you don't, maybe you watched the morning news, maybe you don't, maybe you're
[SPEAKER_00]: almost I would say, you know, I don't say that a Christian should be on and for, but sometimes it would seem that maybe it would be wise, just to avoid the news, because I've noticed one thing, you watch it, and then you skip watching it for, I don't know, couple of weeks, and you get back
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, like from vacation and it's the same old person rumors of war that it was, you know, this time last year.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so, so what, what other it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Same old wars and rumors of war.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even if you don't watch the news, even if you don't let that get under your skin, I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure I believe that
[SPEAKER_00]: you have things in your life, personal, private things that trouble your heart, issues of the heart, issues of the pocketbook, issues of relationship, all kinds of things that will trouble you, all kinds of things that might make you lose a little sleep at night.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so our hearts are troubled.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now if you would ask me, you know, just this, how are you, the common American degree, how you doing, I wouldn't give you the common polite answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And say, oh, I'm fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's not really true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can give you a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm almost 80 years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can give you a laundry list of health problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might have noticed it was a mild struggle getting at these few steps to the public.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, my author is really giving me trouble this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm out of his voice and Arthur is the worst, you know, my, you know, my hip is her, you know, and there are other things and, you know, the VA is my home away from home and I take, you know, I take a whole drugs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I take so many bills in the morning that I write open I walk.
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I could tell you this, and I could tell you that, I say, you know, I, I, you know, I, I don't have enough for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of those, um, my kidneys aren't working like they should.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got arthritis, I've got arthritis, I've got arthritis and every joy to my body.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm telling, you know, but, you know, I did it anyway, but if you just, actually ask me how, I'm not going to do that because it's not considered the light to just sort of,
[SPEAKER_00]: now there is with our problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, not unless you're specifically asking for prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, whether it's the things you hear of a news, whether it's the things that others tell you, there are things in your life to trouble your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though Jesus says,
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, where are we to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the first step, he says, you believe in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Believe in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, I don't really have to worry about any of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you wouldn't be here if you didn't believe in God?
[SPEAKER_00]: The sign outright, very clearly says church, you know, moment of truth about his church.
[SPEAKER_00]: and incidentally i got lost coming out here i i took a wrong wrong exit and uh... was going through clay coma i finally stopped at a filling station where everybody spoke Spanish and there's one angley speaker guy uh... and uh... you should be proud of this people know you
[SPEAKER_00]: this one angley's be and he was kind of rough looking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm not afraid of rough looking characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one's, you know, it's not going to do anything for anyone's rough guy reputation if they beat me up, you know, I beat up therapy, you know, 79 years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I asked this guy who loved Liky had never been inside a church in his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty rough looking, I said, could you tell me, and he knew, he said, oh, you turned, you know, turn on Randolph Road, they'll take you right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Lord helped me out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe he was an angel, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we, we look at this and we say, believe in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stay with me here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone believes in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you say that way, you mean, pervy, oh, what about the atheists?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I've interacted with a few, but very few atheists in my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even there, even there, they seem to have a stronger faith in God, in a sense
[SPEAKER_00]: It isn't if they don't believe in God, it's if they believe in Him and they're mad.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, their question is not, is there a God?
[SPEAKER_00]: Their question is, well, why did God allow this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why did God allow that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Either in their own life, some tragedy in their own life, or perhaps some worldwide tragedy, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the most common ones to be brought up now,
[SPEAKER_00]: many years ago, you know, why didn't God allow the Holocaust during World War II?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why did God allow six million innocent European Jews to be murdered simply because they had a Jewish last night?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could say that maybe it has something
[SPEAKER_00]: But beyond that, that's the best I can do on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or why did God allow someone I love to get cancer?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if why did God either cause or what?
[SPEAKER_00]: And the question is, I don't know, but that doesn't just prove the existence of God by any means.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, you know, the Bible says,
[SPEAKER_00]: the full has said in his heart there is no God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the only verse of Scripture of fellow pastor pointed this out to me as I was discussing preparation for this sermon.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only verse of Scripture in the Bible twice is the full has said in his heart there is no God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember what put it this way, the fool has said in his heart, in his heart, must be hollow.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fool has said in his heart, there is no God, because his head knows better.
[SPEAKER_00]: You said, you know, I know there is a God, never mind the details right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll get to that sooner or later.
[SPEAKER_01]: never mind the detail.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know there is a God because there is a sun that shines.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are birds that sing, there are dogs that spark, there are bees that buzz, as Mr.
[SPEAKER_00]: Spark in Star Trek, but if there
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that there is a God because all of these things existed, and somebody said, well now, wait a minute, Farabbe, what about Charles Darwin?
[SPEAKER_00]: Didn't some time back in the 19th century, didn't Charles Darwin's with his theory of evolution, storm heaven and
[SPEAKER_00]: you know Darwin's theory that non-life can become life and then that life can become a higher form of life as I've heard it put one time that a rock is a rat is a monkey is a man or as someone else but the monkey was swinging from his tail one day and the tail broke off and
[SPEAKER_00]: you can believe that if your character did, it doesn't negate the idea of God because where did it all come from?
[SPEAKER_00]: Stephen Hawkins, the well-known now late British scientists, said that it all began with gravity.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, fine Stephen, but where did gravity come from?
[SPEAKER_01]: someone else says, well, what about the big bang?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and I do love the big bang.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, why the big bang is some of the greatest, if you're going to be, is still theory.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you accept that theory, it's certainly it proves that there was an exact moment of creation that there was nothing and then there was.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the beginning, you know, this is the Dr. Zeus translation of the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the beginning, and what do you think?
[SPEAKER_00]: Every thing was as black as ink.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord said, I'm going to set that right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord, he said, left there be light.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the lights came on just like they should.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord, he said, now that's very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Clearly, if you say it all began with gravity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you're merely elevating gravity to the status of God, I was out of the lecture at that Lyndon Hall Library on the campus of UMKC, and I called the Search for the God Particle.
[SPEAKER_00]: And without we're told that without gravity we'd all be a bunch of electrons whistling around the universe at the speed of light, we wouldn't hold together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, B, that is a very important question, and I said, but we have no idea why there should even be gravity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does it even know when those?
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have those who maybe are angry at God and would seek to kill God by refusing to believe in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've probably heard the expression back in the 60s.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it was on the cover of Time magazine at one point.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that was actually coined back in the 19th century by a philosopher by the name of Friedrich Nietzsche, who was out of Hitler's favorite philosopher.
[SPEAKER_00]: He coined the phrase God is dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: rather Philip, calling the phrase superman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although he wasn't talking about the fellow in the blue long johns who apparently wears his red underpants on the outside of his, you know, he wasn't talking about that superman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, that, that, that outfit was so admired, but Nietzsche was anything but a superman.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a sickly man who died at the age of 53, under, uh, excuse me, it's 56, uh, under the
[SPEAKER_00]: Nietzsche's dad, Nietzsche is just the providence of dusty bookshelves in a university library.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only one who even knows about Nietzsche, our bookworms such as myself, but God goes on.
[SPEAKER_00]: one may deny it if they wish, but then you're denying reality, you know, the question is, what is the nature of God?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is God's life?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not it, and there are various ideas on that,
[SPEAKER_00]: Islam says God is like such and such, you know, they have and Christianity says God is like and even within Christianity there might be different ideas within a various denomination groups and of course Hindus have their idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was in China getting my 10 plate of
[SPEAKER_00]: food and a little girl came to me as, you know, headmaster Dennis and said, they ran out of food Dennis and so I offered her my way to food and she said, I cannot eat your food Dennis.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a
[SPEAKER_00]: The answer would be, well, young lady, Liz was her name in English, Liz, all of just doesn't want you to eat today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or she had been Buddhist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, sometime in the past life, you did something and your karma is not allowing you to eat today.
[SPEAKER_00]: But rather than that Christianity tells me, they God wants this child to eat, and so we go to a Muslim restaurant and we get her food that you will accept.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone said to me in China, they said, are all the foreign teachers Christians?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, yes, on I, I believe they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, I don't believe Muslims,
[SPEAKER_00]: and Buddhists.
[SPEAKER_00]: She named the two primary religions in China.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't believe that Muslims in Buddhists would do for us what you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a difference because it's a different concept of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do we know God?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I must respect your time here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I realize that I will turn to a pump
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we know what God is like?
[SPEAKER_00]: God is revealed to us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, if you want to know what God's like, look at Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does God consider important?
[SPEAKER_00]: What does Jesus better consider important?
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus as the King.
[SPEAKER_00]: The gospel of Matthew, Mark, Mark, I hope I can remember them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew, Mark reveals Jesus as the servant.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Matthew of Lee, Luke, Jesus, the man.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Matthew, the gospel of John, which I've used this morning, is Jesus,
[SPEAKER_00]: the Son of God and God the Son, the beginning of John in the beginning was the word and the word was God and the word was with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same was in the beginning.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are things in John that are not in how they're gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, we have the little prayer and I'll finish
[SPEAKER_01]: hold your applause.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the sermon may be a lesson to you in eternity, but it will end.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have the little blessing that children say, God is great, God is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: in John, you know, as God the Word, we see Jesus raising the Lazarus from the dead, only see that in John, you see Jesus turning the water into wine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm about to my parents would have rather been hanged in the
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm not going to worry about whether when Jesus turned the water into wine, whether it was all the holy wine, or whether it was Welch's great juice.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus turned and he showed his greatness as God, the Son, God is great.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we see the goodness of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the water into wine that he cared, that some friends of his mother might be embarrassed by running out of supplies at the party.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see the goodness, and I would add one more gee, we see the grace of God in the book of John.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only in the book of John would you have John
[SPEAKER_00]: So loved the world that he gave his only begot son.
[SPEAKER_00]: John Calvin's definition of the grace was God's unmarried favorite to fall in man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me say this, my definition of grace, that God in his holiness loves man in his lowliness.
[SPEAKER_01]: the fact that you, or I, and the object of God's love, is an example of the all-encompassing grace of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So only in, you know, and it's crazy, but there are those who want to take this out of the Bible, of all the things to take out of the Bible, there are those who want
[SPEAKER_00]: which is about the story of the woman taking it in adultery, you know, let those who are without sin pass the person.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to take that out of the Bible, you're saying either either you are so sinless that you're not afraid of being stoned at or that you want to throw stones at others.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I would go by any of you listening to the music of Bob Dylan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody must get stoned.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was stoned you when you feel so good.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was stoned you when they said they would.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I would not feel so all alone, no, everybody must get stoned, but Jesus says, only those who are without sin can cast the first stone.
[SPEAKER_00]: That great story of God's grace.
[SPEAKER_01]: says, maybe about a minute past 12.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought it's made to write up, write it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I don't have to convince you of the existence of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I just want to remind you of the greatness, the goodness, and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: For all I know, every one under my voice this morning is saved.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's often the case is it will be in a smaller church.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, take a moment to appreciate it, take a moment to praise God that he and his holiness, incomprehensible Holy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't wrap my head around it and I say, oh, favorite love,
[SPEAKER_00]: that beyond anything I might deserve, you know, I've had prayers that weren't answered the way, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I were God, I wouldn't answer any of Pharaoh's prayers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just know that God is a loving God that the troubles of our heart
[SPEAKER_01]: believe in, believe in God and take one more step, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dave, I'm going to turn it over to the pastor here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you for this duel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't think I would have made it three without it.