> Transcripts of Ray's Audio's and More Teachings
Mobile Conference 2009 - all audios
Kat:
Mobile Conference 2009
http://bible-truths.com/audio/Worship.mp3 Audio 1 - Worship!
http://bible-truths.com/audio/YetCarnal.mp3 Audio 2 - Are You Yet Carnal?
http://bible-truths.com/audio/Define6Days.mp3 Audio 3 - Are You Yet Carnal? continued
http://bible-truths.com/audio/DEFINETHEDAY.mp3 Audio 4 - Define The Day
http://bible-truths.com/audio/ISJESUSGODPT1.mp3 Audio 5 - Is Jesus “God?”
http://bible-truths.com/audio/ISJESUSGODPT2.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/THEGODFAMILYPT1.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/THEGODFAMILYPT2.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/INHERITTHEKINGDOM.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/THEONEGODPT1.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/THEONEGODPT2.mp3
audio 1
HOW WE MUST WORSHIP GOD
I said in my announcement in the forum whether anybody would be surprised to know that my wife’s little Shih Tzu worshipped me this morning? You would say, ‘well how does a dog worship you?’
Strong’s; Greek: proskuneō worship - from G4314 and probably a derivative of G2965 (meaning to kiss, like a dog licking his master’s hand); to fawn or crouch to, that is, (literally or figuratively) prostrate oneself in homage (do reverence to, adore): - worship.
So when you think about worship think about a dog licking his masters hand, showing affection and love and so on.
The churches across the country they all love to worship and your more earthy churches like the Pentecostals and the Church of God and all of those like to have a Wednesday night worship or Sunday evening. They call them ‘Worship Services’ and they do all kinds of things; they sing, they pray, they dance and fall over backwards. There’s no doubt about it, that is a form of worship. I don’t think it’s the kind of worship that God appreciates, but that is worship.
(Notes) Tis true, such carrying ons does constitute a form of worship, but is this what God wants us to do? In the Valley of Hinnom they sacrificed babies to worship their god Moloch.
When one bows down to a monarch, he is acknowledging that this royalty is his Lord and Master and is willing to obey in any and all things commanded of him.
When people bow down and kiss the Pope’s ring, that’s worship. That is almost right with the definition, like a dog licking his master’s hand, that is a form of worship. Any time you pay homage or bow in obedience or put yourself at someone else’s service that is a form of worship.
Hebrew: shâchâh worship - A primitive root; to depress, that is, prostrate (especially reflexively in homage to royalty or God): - bow (self) down, crouch, fall down (flat), humbly beseech, do (make) obeisance, do reverence, make to stoop, worship.
The first time “worship” is used in Scripture is with Abraham and he is willing as part of that worship to sacrifice his own son!
Gen 22:2 And He said, Take now your son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou love, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell you of.
Gen 22:5 And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the a@@; and I and the lad will go yonder and WORSHIP, and come again to you.
Generally people worship in a way that makes THEM (not God) feel good. Worship service is a feel good service. This is one reason why some of the really big Mega churches now hold worship services which mimic rock concerts. They literally entertain themselves with their own worship.
Worship today consists of many centuries of church tradition:
The church today has accumulated a lot of things that have nothing to do with the Scriptures. Yet they are very fond of these things. I’ve put down here things that just aren’t true, but are part of their religiosity.
ANGELS ARE WOMEN
No they aren’t. They are not, but I get probably one or two emails a week about angels from Christians. These pictures of 15, 16 or 17 year old teenage girls with bleach blond hair that are sexually clad and they think that those are the furious and terrible cherubim of the Bible. No!
Where do they come up with this stuff? I don’t know, some of it comes out of paganism and different places. But if you check the Scriptures you will find this in Judges.
Judges 13:6 …A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible.
It was a man.
Genesis 16:7-8 “HE said unto her…” it was a man.
Genesis 31:11-12 “And HE said...”
Luke 1:19 it talks about Gabriel, which is a man’s name.
Angels are not women. But how would you tell the church that angels are not woman or that most angels have wings?
THERE WERE THREE “WISE MEN”
When people put together these scenes of what their religion means to them… like the Christmas season and they have the manger scene. That is totally unscriptural. They have ‘three wise men.’ How many have hear of the ‘three wise men’? How many know in the Scripture where it talks about the ‘three wise men’? No where does it talk about three wise men. It talks about “wise men,” but not three.
Matt 2:1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
Matt 2:7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.
Matt 2:16 Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men…
Tradition says that there were thirty. But they say there was three, there was not three.
JESUS HAD LONG FEMININE HAIR
I know my little Methodist church had a picture of Jesus… I really believe it was a picture of the Greek god Zeus, with long curly hair. That’s how they worship, they worship this image of Jesus with the long curly hair. He didn’t have long curly hair. You know what Paul said.
1Co 11:14 Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?
It isn’t just long hair it’s long curly hair, locks of hair. But will they get rid of that image of Jesus? No. They show Him as this beautiful man… remember in Nashville I went through Isaiah 53.
Isa 53:2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.
Yet the picture that supposedly represent Jesus, He’s like the most handsome dude that ever lived. It’s all false worship. There is nobody like that. And there weren’t three wise men, but that’s not a big deal, it’s just not Scriptural.
Mat 2:11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary His mother, and fell down, and worshiped him:
It said they (wise men) came into the “house” and saw the “young” boy. He wasn’t a baby in a manger, but a young boy. That’s why they killed all the boys two years and under, He was really close to two years old by the time the wise men got there.
FIRST RECORDED SIN
We are taught the first recorded sin in the Bible is where Eve ate the forbidden apple or forbidden fruit. No it wasn’t. The first sin was when she looked at it to LUST after it.
1John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
v. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
She had already broken all of the commandments before she ever took the first bite. Why can’t people see that? Well I didn’t see it either until I started paying closer attention to all the words. I have never heard of anybody in my life, no one that seems to understand that Eve sinned before she ever ate the fruit. They think eating the fruit is what caused them to be sinners, because now they had a knowledge of good and evil or whatever. They had knowledge before that, they weren’t robots, they weren’t stupid.
Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
v. 2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
v. 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
The serpent said aren’t you allowed to eat whatever you want? She said yes, we are allowed to eat everything we want, except of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So she knew that, she had knowledge she knew that was wrong. Right?
GOD GAVE HUMANITY FREE WILL
One of the biggest stumbling blocks to worshipping God is the belief that man had a free will. I mean that will really screw you up, because then you will take credit for anything that you do that’s good. You will take credit for your own salvation quite frankly. There’s not a Christian alive that would not acknowledge that he save himself or that he‘s responsible. No. It’s all of God, ALL OF GOD.
But they say, ‘you had to do something or you wouldn’t be saved. Am I right?’ Oh yes of course. ‘Well how do you say it’s all of God?’ Well I mean you have to accept it, you have to accept Jesus and you have to repent of your sins and you have to, etc. But God doesn’t make you do that, oh no. ‘No you just do that on your own.’ You just decide to do that? ‘Yea.’ So you’re a sinner and one day for whatever reason you decide, I am going to stop sinning. Right? ‘Yea.’ You repent and you accept Jesus? ‘Yea.’ Well how come the Bible says in Jeremiah if a leopard can change it’s spots, then you can choose to do good when you have been practicing evil all of your life?
Jer 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.
Do you know any Christians that can change the spots of a leopard or the skin of an Ethiopian? ‘No.’ Well then they can’t choose to go right or come to Christ.
Jesus said, “No man can come to Me,” (John 6:44). Well sure you can, ask any Christian. It’s all up to you. Billy Graham said when he gives an alter call, ‘don’t you be praying for these people now. It’s fine it you prayed for them before, fine it you pray for them after, but don’t pray now. This must be their decision.’ WHAT? The most important decision that anybody will ever make in their life, boy that’s the time for sure you don’t want God’s help? Idiotic nonsense.
Jer 10:23 O LORD, I know (Too bad that the church doesn’t know.) that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walks to direct his steps.
They say, ‘yea but it seems like we direct our own steps.’ Well just more of the deception. Can an Ethiopian change his skin? Can a leopard change his spots?
Php 2:13 For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.
I was telling somebody last night at a little gathering here that I had a couple of Jehovah Witnesses ladies come to the door about a year ago. I didn’t let them in, but I did accosted at the door for a little while. They were telling me how corrupt the world was and how man chooses to do evil and he needs to choose to do right and follow Jehovah and all that. She was talking about your free will to do this and they just don’t do it. Well I said a man doesn’t have a ‘free will.’ They said, ‘oh yea, God gave man a free will. Oh yes, absolutely we have a free will.’ So I said no, the Bible says, it is God that wills and does whatever is His good pleasure. Then one lady said, ‘that’s not in the Bible.’ I said not only is it in the Bible it’s in your New World Translation Bible, check out Philippians 2:13.
They literally dusted their feet off and went on their way. They were offended at the word of God. Why? Because they despise the word of God. You can open up your Bible and read them a verse and they despise it.
I’ve told ya’ll how I once I had this girlfriend, one day she said something really stupid. All I did was I quoted a verse, I didn’t set it up, I didn’t comment on it, I just quoted a simple verse. Her response was, ‘yea well that is your interpretation.’ Boy where does this stuff come from?
I’m giving just one more, because there is just no end… I said many years ago that there is not one doctrine in the Christian church that is Scriptural. Not one, not completely, no.
SAYING GRACE
So a year or two ago I was thinking about this ‘saying grace.’ I had a friend and we went to a restaurant and everybody would bow their heads, people would be getting their food and we would be praying and I thought that was a little awkward. I’m not embarrassed to pray or to talk about God, but I just thought that was a little awkward, you know. So I got to thinking about where did that come from? Does anybody have any ideas why we say ‘grace’? When I say ‘grace’ I don’t mean say the word grace. Grace means gratuitous or gift.
[Comment from attendee: Was it because Christ was blessing the bread?] Okay, that sounds logical. Anyone else?
[Comment from attendee: Was it when He feed the multitude?] Alright. Anyone else?
[Comment: Paul gave grace before he broke bread, in Acts, on his last trip.] Okay, can anybody find that? I want to know where they sat down for a meal and before they ate the meal they ask God’s blessing and thanks on the meal. This is not a big deal, in fact I do it, it’s a custom and there is really nothing wrong with it. I just don’t believe it’s Scriptural. Some say I Timothy 4.
1TiM 4:3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
That has nothing to do with saying grace. Some authorities say it came from Deuteronomy 12.
Deu 12:7 And there ye shall eat before the LORD your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that you put your hand unto, you and your households, wherein the LORD your God hath blessed you.
I don’t see anybody saying grace over a meal there. Do you?
Well what about the first Biblical dinner? That’s found in Genesis 18:1-8, that’s the first real dinner mentioned in the Bible.
Gen 18:1-8 And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, And said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth. And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.
There’s nothing about saying grace or a blessing.
What about when they were entertaining angels with a meal in Genesis 19:1-3?
Gen 19:1-3 And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.
There is no thanks given.
What about the first Passove? There is no thanks given, no blessing said, not that I see in the Scriptures.
What about when they went through the field and the disciples were eating grain?
Mat 12:1 At that time on the sabbath, Jesus went through the grain fields. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.
Did they say a blessing over the grain/food first? It doesn’t say so.
Kat:
Someone had said feeding the multitudes. Now that is a little different. That is not like sitting down for a meal here, because they haven’t even got enough food for a meal. Now He ask God’s blessing because He’s got a couple loaves of bread and two fishes and He needed God to multiply them.
Mat 14:16 But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.
v. 17 And they say unto Him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes.
v. 18 He said, Bring them hither to Me.
v. 19 And He commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, He blessed, and broke, and gave the loaves to His disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.
v. 20 And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.
That’s a special pray. God, take these little morsels of food and make a whole lot out of it. But that’s not the traditional blessing of a meal. It’s a miracle of turning a little food into a lot of food.
It says “looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke it” that’s true. But this was in the context of multiplying the fish and so on and of course they took up twelve baskets that were left over when they were done eating.
The Pharisees had a major problem with the disciples of Jesus not washing their hands before they ate. But they didn’t have a problem about them not saying a blessing or a pray.
Mat 15:2 Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.
Well what about the last supper? There for sure, right? For sure there we have an example of blessing the food and everything before they partake of the dinner. Right? No pale face.
Mat 26:26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is My body.
Did you catch that? “As they were eating,” they already started dinner, they didn’t ask a blessing on it.
When did He bless the wine? It was blessed “after supper,” after the meal.
Luke 22:20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you.
Even after the resurrection did Jesus bless the food?
Luke 24:40 And when He had thus spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet.
v. 41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, He said unto them, Have ye here any meat?
v. 42 And they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of a honeycomb.
v. 43 And He took it, and did eat before them.
He said have you got anything to eat and they said yea we’ve got some boiled fish and they gave it to Him and He ate it. It doesn’t say He blessed it or ask God‘s grace on it or anything.
So it’s not a big deal, all I’m saying is we have these traditions that you just know in your mind, ‘well that’s Scriptural.’ The church has been doing that for two thousand years, but I don’t find it in the Bible. Sorry, but I don’t find it there.
It’s fine though, you can start traditions that are not used in the Bible as examples. But the point is people do think it is in the Bible. It’s like the saying, ‘cleanliness is next to godliness.’ People think that’s a proverb from the Bible, it’s not in the Bible, okay.
So then we read in Paul’s writings.
2Tim 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
v. 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth…
Well any of you that have tried to tell your friends about Bible Truths or just tell them anything about the Bible, they won’t hear it. They will not want to hear it, they will turn their ears from it.
(Notes)
None of us are worthy to approach God’s throne.
Luke 17:10 So likewise you, when you have done all those things which are commanded you, say, we are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.
Here is what we must by all means avoid.
Mark 7:7 Howbeit in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
John 17:17 Sanctify them by Your truth: Your word is truth.
Exo 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
v. 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord your God am a jealous God…
1John 5:21 My little children, guard yourselves from idols.
They literally worshipped idols in ‘those’ days.
Acts 7:41 And they made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.
But in ‘these’ days we are a little more clever and sophisticated.
Col 2:8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
“cheat you”
“philosophy & empty deceit”
“tradition of men”
“principles of the world”
2Tim 4:2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
v. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;
v. 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth,
WE MUST HAVE THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE:
So if we are going to worship God properly we have got to have true knowledge and we have got to have the right attitude.
Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge:
Mat 15:8 This people draws nigh unto me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me.
V. 9 But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
There is a form of worship going on out there, but I don’t think it is necessarily what God wants.
WE MUST HAVE THE RIGHT ATTITUDE:
What attitude must we have to make our worship meaningful?
James 4:6 …God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble.
James 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.
That is one simple all encompassing statement. I mean there are hundreds of commands in the Bible, but here is a simple one, “humble yourself.” Now we could talk a couple of hours on that; Debase yourself - lower yourself - get down on your knees - get rid of your haughty looks - stop thinking your better than other people, and on and on and on. “Humble yourself” and God will “lift you up!” That’s a promise He said so, you’re humble, then God will lift you up. How simple is that?
Luke 18:9-14 Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, "God, I thank You that I am not like other men--extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.'
And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!'
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
So when you worship God humble yourself, don’t be like the Pharisees, ‘glad I’m not this Publican here. I mean I fast twice in the week and I do this and I do that.’ Jesus said that man did not go down to his house justified, he might as well not prayed at all.
WE ARE ADMONISHED TO ASSEMBLE TOGETHER:
Now we are admonished to assemble ourselves together and it is a difficult thing when you live in Great Britain and central Mexico and northern Canada and all of that. But we are here today and you know we are making a jolly good effort. As Jesus say;
Matt 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.
Heb 10:25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another…
1John 1:7 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 cleanses us from all sin.
So hopefully that is what we are doing here. We are assembling… trying to get the true knowledge of God… we are hopefully humbling ourselves… we are determined to walk in the light… learn God’s Truth… we are having fellowship one with another… the end result is we will be cleansed from all our sin! How good is that! That’s a good thing. Right? That’s worship.
We are worshipping here. We are not singing, we are not dancing, we are not falling over backwards and foaming at the mouth or speaking in mumbo jumbo. But we are here, we are assembling, we are fellowshipping, we will hopefully have a humble attitude, we are hungry and thirsty for God’s Truth. That’s WORSHIP! We are worshipping. Do you follow?
Well what about all the days we don’t assemble? Well you don’t have to be in a physical assembly to worship. Just follow instruction.
John 4:21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
v. 22 You worship you know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
v. 23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship Him.
v. 24 God is a (‘a’ is not in the Greek) Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
Not that you can, but you “MUST worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Not that you can or can’t, you “must.” We must worship “in spirit and in truth.” There’s the answer as to how, when and where we are to WORSHIP God.
When Israel was condemned for idolatry, they didn’t worship “in truth.” Those statures and stuff that they bow down to, that’s not truth and it’s not spiritual, but very physical. You can bust the nose off of those gods.
REAL TRUE AND SPIRITUAL WORSHIP IS OBEDIENCE
So ‘true’ worship is obedience to the truth! All of the truth, all of God’s word. To know what that is you have got to pay attention to all the words. I’m going to show you a couple of examples of how I do that and why I can take any truth of God and just keep going with it, there is no end.
Matt 4:10 Then said Jesus unto him, Get you hence, Satan: for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.
Luke 6:46 And why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
That’s worship!
Mat 22:37 Jesus said unto him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
That’s worship!
John 14:21 He that hath My commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves Me:
That’s worship!
Kat:
Later I’m going to talk about does Jesus deserve the title God. Not that He is God the Father, of course not. But God is a title, does He deserve that title? Because that’s a big deal from the perspective of, is Jesus just a brother or is He in effect a God to us?
There is only one Father, but you don’t go to the Father accept through the Son and you don’t get to the Son accept through the Father. It works both ways.
I find it hard to believe that if Jesus was just a man, that we would pray to Him and worship Him and all of that, for just a man. Oh He’s a good man, don’t get me wrong, but if He is just a man? Then the question comes up, why is one man’s life worth all the billions of people that ever lived? Why would the death of one man justify the forgiveness of all other men, why?
You would say, ‘well because He didn’t sin.’ Why didn’t He sin? Did God the Father have anything to do with the fact that Jesus didn’t sin? He had a lot to do with it didn’t He. So from that perspective Jesus can’t take credit for being the perfect sacrifice. If He can’t take credit for it, why do we give Him credit? We will talk about that later.
When Jesus was ascending into heaven He gave some final instructions to His disciples.
Matt 28:20 Teaching them (the nations) to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you:
That’s worship, to do everything that Christ commanded. One of the main things we have to do is to forgive other of their sins. That is a difficult thing to do. You can not worship God if you have got a grudge against somebody.
WE MUST FORGIVE EVERYONE OR OUR WORSHIP IS IN VAIN
Mark 11:25 And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have aught against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
v. 26 But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
In other words, you might as well not be worshipping at all. That’s dead in the water, if you’ve got a grudge or hold bad feelings towards people.
Now when I say hold bad feelings, that’s where you wish bad on people or you hope they get theirs or something like that. It doesn’t mean you can’t think about what they are. I call a spade a spade and people hate me for doing that. I’ve had more than five or ten, twenty or thirty or forty Christians and ministers say, ‘Ray what are you doing, you name names.’ I said, duh. Jesus Christ named names, Paul named names. Paul said the copper smith really did me dirty. What about the loving John? Third John, it’s less than a half a page in the Bible, less than half a page and do you know what it centers around? The pride of Diotrephes.
3John 1:9 I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes (that carnal minded jerk), who loves to have the preeminence among them, received us not.
John named names didn’t he. But if I do it… I don’t condemn these people, I just tell what they are.
Wait until you see my article on ‘23 Minutes in Hell.’ I mean I have to constrain myself, because I tell you I am going to blow that thing out of the sky. I would love for that to get on U-Tube. But I have no ill feelings towards Bill Wiese, that something horrible happens in his life or I hope he gets to really go to hell that he says everybody else is going to, no I don’t wish that on him. But I am going to expose him and I am going to name names, you bet I am.
Mat 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
v. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: [Note this colon [:] - the rest of this verse “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” is not in the original Greek].
v. 14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
v. 15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
James tells us to, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.” (James 4:08 )
Colossians 3:2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
1Cor 6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
1Peter 1:15-16 But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
So I said true worship is obedience, I mean it’s just like one and the same thing.
1Sam 15:22 And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
Obedience is better than sacrificing or delicious food or anything. Obedience!
Exo 19:5 Now therefore, if you will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all the earth is Mine:
The whole earth is God’s, but what is His “peculiar treasure”? The gold or diamonds in south Africa? No, His people are His peculiar treasure. I was telling someone, His chosen are His favorites, so it’s the ones He favors.
Jer 7:23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be My people: and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.
Jer 12:17 But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the LORD.
Dan 7:27 And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints (that’s us) of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him.
But that’s not going to happen until we learn to do the obeying first.
Act 5:29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
Act 5:32 And we are His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Spirit, whom God hath given to them that obey Him.
Do you want His Holy Spirit? What have you got to do? OBEY! That’s worship.
Rom 6:16 Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
It’s all about obedience.
Mat 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
You can’t serve God and mammon, that’s why it says in 1 John.
1John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
You can’t serve God and materialism.
Col 3:22 Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye service, as men pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God:
Col 3:20 Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
Heb 5:9 And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him;
1Peter 4:17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER
What is the conclusion of all this?
Deu 10:12 …what doth the LORD thy God require of you , but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
v. 13 To keep the commandments of the LORD, and His statutes, which I command you this day for your good?
This is a really good verse. That’s a lot of doing, that’s a lot of obedience. That’s a lot of WORSHIP!
“Walk in all His ways…”
“To love Him…”
“serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”
“To keep the commandments of the LORD, and His statutes…”
(KJV) Ecc 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
(CLV) Ecc 12:13 The terminus of the whole matter has been heard: Fear the One, Elohim, and keep His instructions, For this is the whole duty of humanity."
“Fear God, and keep His commandments and instructions; for this is the whole duty of humanity.” That’s about as simple as I can make it. I could talk for hours and we could have more Scripture, we could do a lot of things. But I just want you to learn some basic things.
If we are to do these things, the obedience and so on, we need to read the Scriptures to see what it is we need to be obedient to. But the main thing that I want you to get out of this lesson this morning, if you only remember one phrase, WORSHIP IS OBEDIENCE! Just remember that. What is true worship, obeying God, everything He says.
Luke 4:4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.
But don’t be so stupid as that little group that left our fellowship… talk about not getting the spiritual lesson and taking everything literal. They say, ‘you have to obey everything that Jesus Christ said even if He says, don’t do it.’ I mean wow, it’s just hard to believe that your mind could be that perverted. If Jesus says don’t lust after a woman in your heart, then you’ve got to lust after a woman in your heart? Because it came out of His mouth and you have to live by every word? When you figure that one out you let me know or don’t let me know, I don’t want to know.
So pay attention to all the words and I’m going to show you how to pay attention to all the words. I thought at the Nashville conference I covered pretty well the proofs of how long the creation days were. That there was no global flood. I had at least a hundred different proofs. But I’m still getting emails, ‘no Ray.’
Well I’m going to show you how to pay attention to the words. Because I’m not afraid to go back and take up these challenges, because I learned a principle and I told it to you. I’ll tell it to you again.
If something is really true, now it doesn’t matter if you know it’s true or not. If it is really is true, then the more you study, the more you look, the more you examine, the deeper you go, if that subject really is true, what you discover will add credence to the fact that it is truth. If it is not true, if it’s false, then the more you study the more you look, the more detailed you go, the deeper you go, the more evidence you have that it’s not true. That’s just the way it works.
So I thought what does it take to persuade these people, of course it takes a miracle. But I’m going to shut their mouths anyway, so that they can’t answer back. So it’s going to be an exercise in paying attention to the words. I am going to show you how I do this. It’s just something that God put in my head and I know how to do it. I know how to zero in and keep going and going and going. I’m just amazed at what you find or what God reveals if you humble yourself. I just say, God show me… show me, because I don’t understand this verse… I don’t understand it, so show me. He hasn’t shown me everything yet.
WOMEN PREACHING?
Somebody ask me about woman preachers, what do I think about women preachers? I said I don’t know. He said, ‘what do you mean, “you don’t know,” Ray you know everything.’ When people ask I say, well Paul said that women should keep silent in the church. He said, ‘well do you believe that?’ I said I don’t know. He said, ‘but what do you think.’ I said, I don’t know! I said about a year or two ago I studied it for a whole week, like ten hours a day I studied that and I don’t know the answer to it.
I mean there seems to be somewhat of a contradiction between, “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak,” (1Cor 14:34). Then the fact that even the woman at the well. When Christ was talking to her about you have to worship God in spirit and truth… she ran back to town and told the whole city that she had just met the Lord and she started spreading the gospel.
Paul had different woman help him out. Who supported Christ’s ministry? Women. It names Joanna and Susanna (Luke 08) and Mary Magdalene and there isn’t a man among them. Women supported the ministry of Jesus Christ.
But you’ve got to pay attention to the words and we are going to do that. As you leave this conference and you want to worship God, you will have to read this Bible very carefully, look at all the words. Don’t be guilty of ‘reading without heading.’ If it says to do or to think, or not to do or not to think, that’s what you do. That’s worship. When you can accept that God says it and I’ll do it, that’s worship.
Kat:
http://bible-truths.com/audio/YetCarnal.mp3
Audio 2
ARE YOU YET CARNAL?
This second lecture I have is entitled 'Are You Yet Carnal’ it’s taken from 1 Corinthians 3.
Carnal: Probably from the base of G4563; flesh as stripped of the skin), that is, (strictly) the meat of an animal (as food), or (by extension) the body (as opposed to the soul (or spirit), or as the symbol of what is external, or (by implication) human nature (with its frailties (physically or morally) and passions), or (specifically) a human being (as such): carnal, carnally; flesh, fleshly.
But then it means by implication human nature, physical and morally, the one with human passions and so on. Carnal is like the word con carne in Spanish, Chili Con Carne is chili with ‘meat.’
Is it bad to be “carnally minded?” YES it is, it's very bad.
Romans 8:6 For to be carnally minded is DEATH; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Being carnally minded is the complete opposite to being spiritually minded. Carnal minded and spirit minded are at diametric opposite poles, and one is life and the other is death.
So ask yourself are YOU “carnally minded?” Well, I would suspect that a lot of you would say, 'well yeah, I guess somewhat. I guess I’m still somewhat carnally minded at least.' In Revelation the third chapter Christ is talking about the church of Laodicea.
Rev 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write;
v. 15 I know your works, that you art neither cold nor hot: I would you wert cold or hot.
You’re not real spiritual and you’re not totally carnal, “you’re lukewarm.”
v. 16 So then because you art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue (or vomit) you out of My mouth.
v. 17 Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Now then, that’s pretty many negative things, isn’t it?
v. 18 I counsel you to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white raiment...
"White raiment" stands for the righteousness of the saints.
v. 18 ...that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness does not appear...
v. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
So the sin here of these lukewarm Laodiceans was that they thought they were rich and “increased with goods.” But He said, no you’re not, you’re poor, you’re naked, you’re wretched, you’re miserable, you’re blind.
ARE YOU RICH AND INCREASED WITH GOODS?
A danger when we come to Bible-truths.com and you start learning these things is that you start elevating yourself above your brothers and sisters. You think you have esoteric knowledge that they don’t have and that they’re just a little down here at this spiritual level and you’re up here, because we know the truth of these things.
We know the truth about:
Eternal torture...
The idea that man has an immortal soul...
That when you die do you go to heaven...
Should you tithe money...
Is there a secret rapture...
We know what the fire and the brimstone stands for...
We know the difference between Gehenna fire and the Lake of Fire...
We know that death is not life...
We know the importance of the resurrection...
We know that we are saved by grace through faith...
We know about the spiritual aspects of the law...
How you keeping the Sabbath day is a spiritual thing, where you no longer do your work according to Hebrews 4...
That the commandments are spiritual...
We understand that man doesn’t have a free will or immortal souls…
That the Bible is not to be taken as totally literal at most places…
Sovereignty of God…
The god of context…
So you see you feel like you are pretty "INCREASED with goods.” You know a lot about God and the Bible and you’re pretty rich and increased with goods. You’re increased in many spiritual gifts of understanding and you could begin to feel that way.
BUT ARE YOU YET CARNAL? Because you can have all that and still be carnal. Are you guilty of despising portions of God’s Word? What is it to be carnally minded? "DEATH"... it’s not good. Are you more interested in the physical and the material things of this world than the things of the Spirit? Well, if you are, then you’re carnal. Let’s notice in Corinthians the first chapter.
1 Corinthians 1:4 I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;
v. 5 That in everything you are enriched by Him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;
v. 6 Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
v. 7 So that you come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:
That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? You don’t come behind in anything, "in everything you are enriched, in all utterances, in all knowledge," right? Then you go across the page to chapter 3.
1 Corinthians 3:3 For ye are YET CARNAL…
See that? So you can have a lot of knowledge and a lot of gifts and a lot of stuff and you're still carnal. Which is? [Attendee: Death]. What are you going to do with all this?
So this is what I try to tell people, when you learn all these truths, don’t try to jam it down peoples’ throats, they don’t want to hear it anyway. People will not judge you by how clever your arguments are, they will judge you by how you live. It’s the old story of; I’d sooner see a sermon any day than hear one. So you need to be a walking, talking sermon, not a clever arguer. Not that you shouldn’t know how to argue, you should. Peter says you should “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15).
People say, 'well Ray you don’t believe all that stuff in the Bible, do you?' I say yeah, yeah I do, not all translations, but even in all translations God’s truth is there. Yeah I believe it and I can tell them why.
There are dozens (hundreds) of ways in which you can be “yet carnal” and I could give you a whole list of them. You would probably agree and I don’t know how beneficial that would be. You would say, 'okay Ray told us 127 different ways that we are carnal and I’ve got them all down.' I’d sooner teach you principles, because you can apply a principle to different things.
One specific piece of information, sometimes you can’t really apply it all over, it’s too isolated. But a ‘principle.’ See it’s kind of like that saying about; rather than give a beggar a fish, you would do better to teach him how to fish. Because if you give him a fish that’s very limited, he’ll make one meal out of it and he’s hungry again. But you teach him to be a good fisherman, he can catch fish all week.
So, I’m not going to try and cover all the different ways that we are still carnal, but I want to touch upon a principle and I want you to know right up front that I’m not doing this because I expect something out of you. I’m here to teach and then the chips fall wherever they may and what you do with it, is between you and God.
I thought if I say, well you know if you’re nasty to your wife or if you're a nagging wife to your husband and that this is just a carnal attitude and you shouldn’t do this and on and on. I mean you might get something out of it, but I don’t know how many of you are naggers or how many of you are men who are mean-spirited toward your wife or whatever. So I wanted to pick something that I can know whether you’re carnal or not and I got the proof. I know I open myself up for criticism…
I got an email from one of our detractors, a little group that left our communion a couple of years ago, who accuses me now of begging for money. I don’t beg for money, but he accuses me of begging for money. So I was a little wary about this because I don’t want anybody to think that I’m asking you to send money to Bible-truths.com, because I’m not.
But I want to show you an area where most of you are carnal. I know it for a fact. That is I know it for a fact if you tell me you think bible-truths is a place where God’s word is being taught and people have benefited by it and lives are being changed and that you agree with it and think it is a good ministry. If you tell me that’s what you believe, then I can tell you that most of everyone sitting in this room is yet carnal.
I certainly do not have the time to cover many way that you are “yet carnal.” But my hope is that covering a few in more detail, that it will prepare your minds to obey all such commandments and admonitions from God’s Word.
Mat 6:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Alright let’s go through it. Luke 18, you know the story but we’re going to take a quick look at it.
Luke 18:18 And a certain ruler asked Him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
v. 19 And Jesus said unto him, Why do you call Me good? There is none good, but one, that is God.
Some people would use that to prove that Christ cannot be referred to as God, because He said “only God (speaking of His Father here) is good.” But when He said this, He had divested Himself of all His power and glory, so He was in human form in the weakened state of flesh.
v. 20 You know the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor thy father and thy mother.
v. 21 And he said, All these have I done from my youth.
v. 22 Now when Jesus heard these things, He said unto him, You lack one thing, sell all that you have, and distribute it unto the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me.
He was offering him apostleship, not discipleship, apostleship. He turned it down!
It’s like:
Christ - How would you like to be My apostle?
Certain ruler - Yeah okay, what will it cost me?
Christ - Everything you’ve got.
Certain ruler - Nope, too high a price.
v. 23 And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.
v. 24 And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God.
Now, if you think this is a small subject, a physical small subject, you know this filthy lucre - money and this is not important in God’s realm of things.
Chapter 18 -- the whole chapter deals with money.
Chapter 19 -- the whole chapter is centered around money and riches and what you do with them.
Chapter 20 -- centers around money and riches and wealth.
Chapter 21 -- same thing.
You think that it isn’t important? I mean, when God mentions something two or three times in the Bible, it’s pretty important… four whole chapters! Okay? Alright.
He KNEW the commandments of God and he obeyed them from his youth! So, he went away sorrowful. Was that being spiritually minded or carnally minded? [Attendees: Carnally minded.] He wanted to know what he needed to do to inherit eternal life... he went away sorrowful. He was carnally minded, which ends in? [Death.] That wasn’t what he wanted, was it? If he had said, what should I do if I want to inherit death? Jesus could have said, keep doing what you’ve always been doing… enjoy your money.
But they say, ‘yeah, Jesus asked A LOT of the rich man to give up all his money.’ Guess what? Jesus asks A LOT of us, a lot. He didn’t say you couldn’t get in the kingdom of God, but he said it is nigh onto, almost impossible.
What if anything then can a rich man do to enter the Kingdom? In the next chapter (Luke 19) we have the story of Zacchaeus, he was rich. He was a short guy who couldn’t see Him, so he climbed a tree or whatever. They criticized him… he said, 'Lord I know I’m not a perfect man, but half of everything I have, HALF, I give to the poor.' Now He didn’t ask him to give all. I think Zacchaeus was probably old and Jesus probably didn’t want him as an apostle or maybe he didn’t have those talents or whatever. He didn’t offer him apostleship, but he volunteered that he gave half of his riches to the poor and with Jesus that was fine. He said, “salvation come to this house…” (Luke 19:9). He said you’ve got the right attitude.
Now, there are a lot of things in the Bible that says “God HATES.”
Proverbs 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto Him.
v. 17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
v. 18 An heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
v. 19 A false witness that speaks lies, and he that sows discord among brethren.
Amos 5:21 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell (scent no fragrance, Rotherham) in your solemn assemblies.
Now there are a few things that it says, "but God LOVES," not that many where He just comes out and says that, but there are a few. Where is the first place in the New Testament where you read where it says God "loves"?
I like to do these things. Where’s the first place it says in the Bible about this or that or whatever. Maybe it’s important when it’s the first time something happens? The first place we find where God loves something?
John 16:27 For the Father (Jesus’ God and Father) Himself loves you…
There is one thing that God loves, He loves you and me. Now it says,
v. 27 …because ye have loved Me,
In other words if you love Me (Jesus), He will love you.
v. 27 …and have believed that I came out from God."
Well now here’s where we have one of these Scriptures again... who is Jesus? “He came out from God.” How did He come out from God? We’ll talk about that in another lecture, maybe tomorrow. So what do you need to do to get God’s love? Well, you need to love Jesus and you need to believe that He came out from God.
What else do we find in the New Testament that “God LOVES?”
GOD LOVES A CHEERFUL GIVER
2 Corinthians 9:7 Every man according as he purposes in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loves a cheerful giver.
He “LOVES a cheerful giver.” So if God says, you know how I would really love you… be a cheerful giver. (Notes) Do you pretend that this verse is not in the Bible? Does not apply to you? I said we are going to get up close and personal on this Bible conference. I want to help you to grow spiritually and get rewarded for your journey. What’s the difference between being “cheerful” or being “sorrowful”? The sorrowful man who came to Jesus won’t be in the Kingdom of God. Some of you are saying, ‘Ray I would much prefer that you talk to us about how “God loves us.”
The “cheerful giver” is loved of God and will be in God’s Kingdom and He will also receive a reward.
Mat 16:25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it.
Gal 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.
v. 8 For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
v. 9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
Luke 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
Now we have some wonderful cheerful givers in this room, yes we do, not that many I’m sad to say. We have now reached probably (based on the last three or four years), by now we have reached maybe six million people. Most of those people don’t give a penny.
Then we have thousands of people who really get something out of this site and most of those don’t give a penny. Then we have probably hundreds who actually have their lives changed and hardly any of those give a penny to this work. Then we have the members of our forum who are more of an inner circle and most of those never give a penny to this work.
So out of six million, we have about thirty people who give regularly to this ministry. About thirty, about two and a half dozen and you know who you are in this room. They are some very generous, very loving cheerful givers. You will be rewarded, believe me you will be rewarded. Out of that thirty people or so, it varies from year to year, but I’d say out of 30-32 or something, 95% of the income of this ministry comes from about seven of those people. That’s about one in a million. Of the six million who come to the site, we have seven people who are very generous. It’s a little sad though, don’t you think? At least we have some.
For a few years, Dennis and I did most everything, the work, the contributions and so on. You all know my webmaster? Dennis Vogel, he’s the man who started bible-truths.com. He said, 'I thought you started it Ray.' Nope, Dennis did. I wrote the first article Exposing Those Who Contradict, then he said, 'we have to get this out to the world’ and he came up with the name. Actually the name was taken, Bible truths, so we put a hyphen in it. But now we own both of them, we own it with and without the hyphen. We’ve had people wanting to buy it. I think some want to buy it so as to shut us down, but it’s not for sale. I think Dennis told them for six figures we would consider it. Because for six figures we could come up with another name and figure out how to get our readers to come over.
Kat:
I HAVE TRIED TO SET AN EXAMPLE OF CHEERFUL GIVING
Now, I have tried to set an example, a personal example on not being materialistic and to be giving and being a cheerful giver, to give of my time and my talent and so on. I was just amazed when I got this email from one of our detractors, it accused me of begging for money. For about eight years now, my wife and I have not taken a vacation. We always took vacations, two or three a year and we haven’t taken any in the last eight years or so.
I put probably five to ten hours a day into our Bible-truths site. There were long stretches where I put in twelve to fourteen hours every day, even when I worked full time.
I usually didn’t work a forty-hour week, because I did roofing and all the days it rained you can’t work. So I hardly ever put a forty-hour week in, because of the weather, so I had a little more extra time in that way. I averaged about $40 an hour, so even on the shorter work week, I still did okay. I didn’t have any real expense, never advertised and my clients loved me, so it was just word of mouth... 'get Ray, he’s your man. Ray takes pictures.' I would too, when we tore a roof apart, I would take pictures. Because I know these shyster construction people and how they operate and I wanted people to know that I could be trusted. I had a Polaroid and I would go through them and I couldn’t make a Polaroid last a year, because I just took too many pictures and in nine months it was finished. I would go down and say, okay here’s what you’ve got and they’d see it and say, 'that’s not my roof, with all that rot.' Yeah, that's it and I’d say, is that your red Chevy there? ‘Well yeah.’ Then that’s your roof. So they knew we were up there working and not drinking beer.
I took an early retirement, if I would have stayed down there another five years, with all those hurricanes that came through there, I could have, as we said, 'cleaned up.' I would have got three or four crews and my best men, rather than working I’d have made them all foremen.
But if you take the hours I put in, five, ten, sometimes twelve, fourteen or sixteen hours a day… I sometimes sit at that computer, either studying or writing or answering emails, sometimes for six or seven hours at a time and not even get up for a glass of water. I’d sit there from 4:00 in the morning till almost noon. If you take the hours, $40 an hour times the number of hours I put in, 365 days a year... The only time I’m not on my computer or don’t do something with bible-truths is the couple of days I’m out of town at a conference. It’s the only time I’m not on my computer every single day of the year. If you multiply $40 by say just seven hours a day for ten years, it’s a sizeable amount of money… it’s about a million dollars. So, when people accuse me of being selfish or greedy or begging for money, they really don’t know what they’re talking about. Dennis has devoted hundreds and hundreds of hours many many thousands of dollars toward this ministry.
My wife and I try to be frugal and set an example, we do a lot with a little, you know. My wife will hardly buy anything unless she gets 50-75% off. That’s just the way she is. She’s a coupon cutter and takes advantage of all that stuff. Although we didn’t take a vacation, in August we went back to Pennsylvania for my class reunion. I bought a new shirt, which I’m wearing today and bought a jacket, but I got it on sale, it was $200 at JC Penney for $79. Got new shoes $25, they’re not real leather.
I told my wife she could fix the house up, she was excited about you all coming. We had been using hand-me-down drapes from when we bought the house six years ago and they were faded, tattered and looking kind of rough and she wanted to paint. So I said go ahead and have somebody paint the walls and ceilings and make it look new and we put new drapes up. We bought the drapes for 50% off at JC Penney.
Now the rods, especially for the big windows, the big heavy rods and the hardware and everything that goes with them, were $100. Nobody had those on sale. JC Penney didn’t have 50% off on those, nothing, they were full price. I just think that God blesses me all the time, because I called around and not only did nobody have any on sale, but they didn’t have what I needed. They didn’t have enough, told me they could order them and that’d take a couple of weeks. Somebody said, ‘did you check Bed and Bath.’ I said, oh, they’re so expensive. But I called them and they said, yeah, we’ve got something on sale. I needed six curtain rods for the big windows, the rods and the things that screw on the ends and everything, $100 for the lot. Then the smaller ones are like $69-$59. I needed six of them, six rods and the assemblies for six windows, three were one size and three were all different sizes. I didn’t want junk, so they had one of their best quality, top of the line on sale, six rods, all the right sizes. Now you tell me, just a coincidence? $100 rods, guess how much? $19.95, that’s 80% off! My wife did a good job and I helped her some, to hang the curtains.
When I’ve work four or five hours at the computer, then I gotta get out and do something else, play with the cats or do something for a while. But God blesses me, in little things. I know when we moved in I wanted to set up the carport, because you only drive into two stalls and the rest you can’t drive in and I thought that it would make a nice recreation area outside. I like to sit outside and I wanted to fix it up and we went to Hobby Lobby. There was a loveseat, it was kind of an Egyptian/Grecian type design and I thought that is really neat that would look nice. It was over $400 and I thought no way.
My wife is a scrap-booker and some months later we went back up there and she wanted to get something for her scrap-booking and here’s this loveseat, it’s on sale. $400 down to $110… I bought it. I was afraid of this material on it, because it would be out in the weather and in six or eight months it would probably get mildew. I said, well I’ll take a chance. I’ve had it almost six years now and it looks like the day I bought it.
ANSWERED PRAYER FOR A HOUSE
Have I ever told you how I bought my house? We were talking about getting out of Miami and maybe retiring early and we thought we’d move to one of the smaller cities in north Florida. So we had a Bible study up here about six years ago in Mobile. While I was conducting some of this, my wife was out driving around at noon. When we got together she said, 'boy, this is a nice place, I never saw such friendly people, they are so friendly.' I said, Yeah, it’s a nice place.
Later on she said, 'you know we talked about moving out of Miami, would you ever consider coming back to Mobile? I used to live here before.‘ I said, no I never considered it for a minute, but maybe. That’s all it took and she was writing to the Chamber of Commerce and Real Estate companies. Anyway, we came back about six months later and she had all these realtors lined up to show her houses. So for the whole weekend, she was out looking at houses. There was nothing, they didn’t hardly showed us anything we were looking for. They wanted to show us two story houses and we didn’t want one. So we didn’t find anything and it was Sunday evening and we were going to go back home. Sometimes we flew up, but we’d brought the car up.
We were staying with Dennis and the sun was going down and I stepped outside. I decided to hop in the car, I didn’t even tell them I was leaving, I just hopped in the car and took off. As I came down Cottage Hill, I was thinking, you know I think there are some subdivisions down Nolewood that we didn’t look at. I turned down Nolewood and turned into Lands Down side entrance. I saw a nice house for sale and I pulled up and was looking at it and a guy came out with his trash and I said, is this your house? He said, 'yes.' I said, well it’s nice what are you asking for it? He said, '$189,000.' I said, yeah, that’s a good price, but not for me. So I continued on and then I said a prayer out loud in the car by myself. This is what I said, God if you want me to move to Mobile find me a decent house that I can afford.
I continued through the subdivision and I came out to like the service road and I thought I’ll just go back. Then I thought, no, I can go down to the bottom of the hill and hit Highway 90 and go that way rather than circling back through the subdivision. But right down at the bottom of the hill, I saw this sign in the yard, For Sale by Owner. I had my cell phone and called. A lady said, 'I just got out of the shower, give me five minutes and I’ll let you see the house.' I said okay.
Well it was pretty nice, so I asked what they were asking for it… $128,000. I didn’t see anything for $200,000 that I liked as well. They were leaving town for a few days and I couldn’t show my wife as it was getting dark and he was coming home to have dinner. So we waited a few days and went back so my wife could see it. They said, ‘128,000, we know the realtor said we can get a lot more for it, but we just want to sell it and get out.’ I said, I don’t want to haggle price with you, it’s well worth the money. I just don’t have much money, so would you take $125,000, that’ll help pay for some new appliances. 'Yeah, okay we’ll take $125,000.' People that saw it said, ‘you didn’t buy this house, you stole it!’ I said, no I gave him what he wanted. My Allstate agent said now the replacement cost of my house is $300,00... I bought it five and a half years ago for $125,000.
I don’t know how many minutes it was from the time I said that prayer till I found that house, but not many, just a few minutes. So don’t tell me God doesn’t answer prayer. Anyway, be faithful in little things and God will give you more. But don’t be carnally minded, do the right things, think the right things... let God bless you, don’t try to force your own blessings.
Now I do have to admit though, about a year ago, when I was told I only had few months to live… I always had my eye on one of these flat screen televisions, but they were way too expensive. I thought, well if I only have a few months to live maybe this will be my last hurrah. So Sears had a sale on a good Panasonic, not a discontinued model and a three day sale (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), so there was another discount. If I put it on a Sears card, I got another 10% discount, so I got a third off, which is pretty good. I got a 50 inch flat screen TV, so shoot me. [And you’re still alive.] I’m still alive, over a year now.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version