Romans chapter twelve. And verse one, Romans twelve, and verse one. I would teach you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." You'll notice that word acceptable found in both verses. In verse one, we are accepted by God when we present our bodies and our systems. a living sacrifice, and then in verse two we are to accept his will for our lives. This morning we were speaking on verse one about the necessity, the obligation of the Christians to present his body a living sacrifice. And how the Apostle, he says, by the mercies of God, I beseech you. that ye present your body on the basis of all that has preceded what we have been taking up in Romans chapter one to eleven, on the basis of all those wonderful things, on those frightened packs, on the basis of these things, I that teach you, I urge you, I pre-give you. And as he said, he doesn't use the word I demand you, because he wants voluntary service. I beseech you, therefore, brethren. By the mercies of God, and the word brethren is very clear. He's writing to Christians. He's not writing to the unconverted. The unconverted are disqualified in this verse. because a unsaved person cannot present his body as a living sacrifice. I deceit you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that he present your body a living sacrifice by fully and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable or intelligent service." I think that's as far as we got this morning. We were pointing out the fact. that our bodies are not our own, they are not with a price and with a glory by God in our bodies and in our spirit which are his. He referred to Daniel how he gave his body. It was a case of having a clear conscience and giving up his body or holding to his body and having a guilty conscience. And that's the point today. If I were to see a conscience before God and there's no happier life than the conscience void of offense toward God and man, then it's up to me to heal my body unto the Lord and accept His will as my will for my life. To do otherwise is to have a guilty conscience. And if you want to see a merciful Christian, look at one who is out of the will of God and is holding something back that the Lord wants and deserves. And so he is talking about Daniel, how he presented his body. And the result was he went into the lion's den. He would rather do that than to disobey the word of the Lord and pray to another God. And also we referred to the three other Hebrew children, Shafak, Meshach, and Abednego. And it's very interesting how that very word yielded their bodies is found in connection with these three young men in Daniel chapter three, and this is what you read. God delivered his servants, the three young Hebrew servants who refused to bow down and worship the Roman image that they came instead of. God delivered His servants that trusted in Him and have changed the King's word and healed it their bodies that they might not serve nor worship any God except their own God. And so they healed it their bodies. They were in their late teens, as we pointed out, and they were handsome, intelligent, healthy young men, and yet they healed it their bodies. unto the Lord if God wanted them to be killed. In fact, they said that. It would please us, the Lord, that we are consumed in that fiery furnace, well and good. If not, then our God will deliver us. But we're going to trust him, and they did. Now in reference to presenting our bodies, a living sacrifice, the thought of sacrifice takes us back to the Old Testament. They were called. There were sacrifices offered constantly. And in the worship of the tabernacle, the priest was always the one who made or offered the sacrifice. Now Christ is the priest. He is our great high priest. As our brother of Bauman has been pointing out on Wednesday nights, if Christ were on earth, He could not be a priest because he came of the kingly tribe, that is the tribe of Judah. He could be assumed that he could not be a priest. In order to be a priest he had become of the tribe of Levi, therefore Jesus Christ could not be a priest because he came from the tribe of Judah. Only by a change in the priesthood and by divine appointment could he be a priest, and therefore he is a priest. Sales would have gone to be a priest forever after the error of Melchizedek, not after the error of earth. Now the Aaronic priesthood could not continue by reason of death. So that failed in a figure of Christ. Melchizedek did not die, least with the report of his death. He had made the beginning of days or end of life. Therefore Christ is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, and his priesthood is forever. And he would not and turn off case of death. The Old Testament, just as the priest became familiar with his office and had a little experience in how to deal with the people who came to him, as God's representative and as their representative presented to God, just as he became experienced, he had to end his priestly office. They were retired at the age of fifty, some died before that age, but concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, he hath an unchangeable priesthood. He will never die, and certainly he will never retire. So Christ was the priest, but here is the point. He was not only the priest nineteen hundred years ago, he was also the sacrifice. He could not be a priest until he rose from the dead and went to heaven in the respect I have been referring to, a priest for us. But as a priest, he offered himself. Christ, the priest, and the offering. And the Bible tells us that. He's both sacrificed and the priest. His life was not taken from him. He said, I have power to lay down my life. I have power to take it up again. This commandment has I received of my Father. And so Christ was both sacrificed and he was the one qualified to offer that sacrifice. Now this is true. of every Christian. As Cranes offered himself, so we offer ourselves. Unless you haven't heard, every Christian is a priest. And they're all things. Yes, every Christian is a priest. And every Christian has something to offer on Sunday morning when we come together to remember our Lord Jesus Christ. We function as priests and we present our offering, our thanksgiving. We offer up spiritual sacrifices to God that are well-dozing acceptable unto Him. But then there's another sense in which we function as a priest, and our offering is different this time. Instead of worship and praise, the offering is ourselves, our body. And so we offer up our bodies as a sacrifice. We are both a priest and an offering, and God wants you to voluntarily offer yourself. as an offering unto the Lord. And how delighted and how pleased God is when a Christian one is born again presents himself to God as a living sacrifice. You know, all Christians haven't done that. Some have accepted Christ and they're going to heaven. They're born again. But they haven't gone all out for the Lord. They haven't presented their body a living sacrifice. They haven't accepted God's will for their life completely. I was glancing at the front page of today's paper. I didn't say to you on about five minutes of glance at it, but I noticed something, and I suppose if you read it, you did, about Jackie policeman. I am not speaking in favor of this man. I don't approve of the life he's lived. But I was struck with what it said, that he had gotten married yesterday. And all he said was, I will. That's all he said. But instead the bride, she said, well, he did. And this is what she said. I didn't buy him, Jackie, a present. I had, or gave myself to him. I didn't buy him a present. She said, I gave myself. Now, here's the difference between the two. He said, I will. She said, I give myself to him. I didn't offer him a present, but buy him one. Now, she might have bought a more royal voice. I suppose she's wealthy enough to that. That's a very expensive automobile. You think Jackie Gleason would have been satisfied that royal voice? Or do you think he was more pleased when he heard her say, I give myself to you? Of course, her saying, I give myself to you, was more pleasing to him than a dozen were of voices. She gave herself completely to his. Now there's a difference. A lot of Christians have said, I will accept Christ. But then, on the other hand, have they given themselves completely to Christ? Oh, some bring them a present. As this bride said, I didn't give that to you a present. Some Christians were trying to get by with giving a present. Well, I'll give the Lord the tithe, or I was giving some money, a gift now and again, and I'll make the little sacrifices for the Lord's true. but they hold back from giving themselves completely. God doesn't want even a million dollars from you. The way is the Lord. The cattle and the cows and herrings are here. God wants you. That's what would have the lighter part. And if he gets you, he knows he'll get what you've got. And as the Apostle Paul refers to these Corinthians, he said, You first gave yourselves unto the Lord. And what God wants every Christian to do is to give himself, or herself, unto the Lord, a living sacrifice. If you have power to do it, you can do it. And Paul's beseeching you, too, I beseech you, therefore, chosen by the mercies of God that you present your body, a living sacrifice fully and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable purpose. Now, in seeking your body or presenting the body, it means your package. It means when you present your body unto the Lord, you say, Lord, I am mealing myself to you, I'm committing myself to you. It means that you're turning over your faculties, your eyes. What does this mean? For Jesus said, If thine eye be single, thy body shall be full of light. It's wonderful to have a single eye, a single eye. Is your eye single? If so, your body is full of light, and the word light in Scripture speaks of glory, or a sense of God's presence. When your eye is single, your eye fixed on the law, then your soul can be full of a consciousness and awareness of the Lord's presence, and there's no more turning light than to have a single eye for the glory of God. And so that's one number. one of your faculties that God wants. He wants your eyes. They looked unto him, and were radiant. That's what it says in the Psalm. And when you look unto the Lord, you can't help but be radiant. When Moses looked unto the Lord over in the presence of God on the mountain he came down, he had to cover his face with a veil because his face shone. Some of the presence of God rubbed up on Moses because he had been talking to God. And when the Christians know something of a single eye to the glory of God, they looked unto whom and were radiant. A radiant company, because you have a single eye to God's glory. Then, of course, your ears, or another one of your faculties, God wants your ears. My sheep hear, my voice may follow me. Oh, the voices that today are clamoring for the Christian's ear, the Christian's ear. The world wants to get your ear because the ear is an avenue to the heart, just as the eye is the eye gate to the heart. Mine eye affects just my heart, says Job. And it's true when we get our eye upon Christ, And our vision is focused on him, it affects our heart. It burns our heart. And the same thing with our ear when the Lord has our ear. Some people listen to what others have to say, and they've got an ear for this person and an ear for that person. Some may listen to the members of their family when they should be listening to the Lord. Some will listen to the voice of tradition. Instead, they're listening to the voice of the Word of God. God wants our ears. And then again, God wants our hands. He wants our feet, our hands to work, our feet to walk. He wants our mouth, our witness, our testimony. Here are our faculty, five of them. And you remember what the Lord did with the five loaves, how he fed the mortgages? because the five loaves were turned over to the Lord. The Lord took those loaves and he multiplied them and he fed them all together. When we turn over our bodies, we turn over our faculties. And why what God can do when he has our bodies? The people he can feed and bless when he has my faculties. When he has my body. Therefore, says the Apostle, I want you to present your body a living sacrifice, wholly and except to belong to God which is your reasonable, your intelligent servant. You know the Jewish priest in the Old Testament was an expert servant. We don't have any indication of how they were trained, but they were excellent servants, experts. they knew how to take an offering and to divide it and place it piece by piece upon the altar. It tells you that in Leviticus. And God wants us to be expert surgeons as priests. And he wants us to put every piece in its place upon the altar. Here are my hands. Here are my feet. I want to do what you want me to do. I want to walk where you want me to walk. And here is my lips, my mouth. I want to speak what you want me to speak. Here are my eyes. Here is my ear, and whatever else I have, Lord, here it is. And it's a wonderful thing to get into the presence of God and lay everything piece by piece upon the altar, holding nothing back. You remember Ananias and Sapphira in the early chapters of the Acts, chapter five? They kept back part of the price. They didn't put anything on the altar and the result was they were stricken dead. Here is a solemn lesson at the beginning of the history of the church, how God came in judgment upon a man and a woman who outwardly gave the impression to others that they had given everything when they had held back part of the price and it cost them their lives. Jesus Christ gave his all. He held nothing back for a future occasion. He held nothing in reserve. He gave his all. If we hadn't, we never would have been saved. And as Jesus Christ gave his all, he will not be satisfied with anything less than youth or nature. There's no such thing as a partial commitment. He wants all. And so, as the priest in the Old Testament, he laid that offering into pieces and he put it all upon the altar. And he also had something else there associated with the altar, the grace and altar. And that was flash hooks. What do you use those for? Those flash hooks were used to keep the pieces in their place. Keep them on the altar, keep them from falling off. And you know we need to do that too. We need to use the passion to keep our offering on the altar. Sometimes in a meeting possibly like this, God speaks to your heart. And you realize how cold you are and how far you are from the Lord. And God presents this place, and you say, Lord, I'm going to present my body and my all, a living sacrifice. By what joy it fills and floods your heart. But then you go home, maybe the morning you get up, and you think of something you'd like to do or some place you'd like to go, you think, well, I think I'll take part of that offering back. You have to watch that. When you have your devotion, your private devotion, when the Lord speaks to your heart, and you yield yourself to him, it's so easy to take a feast of that offering off the altar. Take it back. And after a meeting, it can be done. And when that's the case, it means you're falling short of complete yieldedness unto the Lord. And we need to use the pressure. Don't take any back when you give yourself to the Lord. You're happily. Keep them there. Keep them there. In other words, this is more of an attitude than it is an act. It's something that's constant. It's something that's perpetual. God wants us to live from day to day with all on the altar. Paul says, I die daily. Every morning I put myself on the altar, every morning. This is a perpetual sacrifice unto the Lord. It's not so much a process. Well, it is really a process more than a crisis. Some people talk about a crisis in their life, and it's wonderful to have a crisis. When you come to the point where you realize to live for yourself is unprofitable, and you're not happy, but when you live for the Lord and you present all upon the Father, this is something you need to do each day. It's a constant process. It's the result of a crisis in your life when you discovered that self-light just doesn't pay. Yesterday, I was listening to my radio, listening to the news and the big shift. Valley they had in Washington. And after that program and all, I listened to another man. And he was late. He made this statement. He said a person who loves himself is unloved by others. I thought, isn't that good? I'm going to write it down when I get home. A person who loves himself or herself is unloved by others. And he also made a statement. A young girl went out with a young man, and after the date, she said to him, she said, as far as I'm concerned, you are so conceited. I never met anyone that was so infatuated with himself. And she said, I'll assure you one thing, you're not going to get any competition. In other words, I don't want any of you. And I'll not compete with any other girl for you. You're just too conceited. You're just infatuated with yourself. And I thought of those two things. I wrote them down. That's how I get some of my sermons. I hear things, I read things, think things, and I write them down. In other words, you're presenting yourself. You upon me always. God wants it there. Another thing you'll notice too in reference to this sacrifice, it's a living sacrifice. Present your bodies a living sacrifice. The unsaved are disqualified. It's only those who are living by regeneration that can preserve their bodies. You can burn again by the Spirit of God. You can cook them from the body. You have been a partaker of the divine nature. And because you have life for He that hath the Son have life, as Christ as I give unto my chief eternal life, they shall never perish. Just when you have spiritual life, you're qualified to present your body a living sacrifice. A living sacrifice. A life because of regeneration. And you're living too because of the indwelling holy spirit. The spirit of life dwelled in you. And how wonderful to know that the powers you're alive by regeneration, and you're alive by the indwelling spirit, then you can offer yourself unto the Lord, a living sacrifice. What a weak, wobbly, watered down, thin, pale, and moaning, object of Christianity we have today. even born against Christians, are unfair, on talk, on exercise. The church has lost its vitality. Individual Christians are drifting with the tide, they're becoming like them, which are down to the pit. They're not resisting their bodies, a living sacrifice. unto the Lord. Alive because they've been born again. Alive because within them is the indwelling. Holy Spirit of God. Thus, God wants them to make that sacrifice. Present your bodies a living sacrifice. Back in the days of Nero and, of course, since then under the inquisitions of Irohn, if you read church history, You'll find that many a Christian paid with his life. Under those Roman emperors they were cast into the amphitheater and devoured by the wild beasts, somewhere tied to a stake. Many of them. Thousands of Christians, I would say millions down the ages, down the centuries, have given themselves as martyrs. A martyr is a dead sacrifice. It's all over. Once the wild beast punches and breaks the bones in a matter of minutes, then it's all over. That's a dead sacrifice. But here it says a living sacrifice. A living sacrifice is harder to offer than a dead one. Teach me to live. It is easier for us to die. justly and quietly to pass away, on earth while nights to close the heavy eyes and waken in the glorious realms of days. But this living sacrifice, day after day living, trials day after day, the same earths and circumstances, the same pain that body, the same painful association. Many are Christian wishes to die. Death would be welcome, but no. There they are suffered, endured, day after day. Life is misery. It's a living sacrifice. That's the difference in living. And let me say this, You will be a living sacrifice before you will be a dead one. Those martyrs I have referred to didn't become martyrs when they died. They were martyrs at heart before they died. Their dying didn't make them a martyr, it marked them. They were living sacrifices before they became a dead sacrifice. And Paul speaks of that, for me to live is Christ, to die is gave. And so to yield myself to Christ as a living sacrifice prepares me for the moment when I'll become a dead sacrifice when death takes over. You know the word baptism doesn't mark a Christian? or doesn't make a Christian. Baptism doesn't make a Christian. Some people see the belief of God. But baptism marks a Christian. Speaking the Lord's Supper doesn't make a Christian, but it marks a Christian. And when a Christian witnesses to Christ, he doesn't witness to become a Christian. He witnesses because he is a Christian. A dog, Doc, because it is a dog. And it's what we are apart. There have come doubt in the light. In other words, in our heart, like the Apostle, he says, I die daily. I'm dying to myself, but I'm living unto Christ. And when these people are, in the according to, pay their price with their life, and become a dead sacrifice, at heart they were living mockers. And thus when the hour came, they were prepared for it, they faced with courage, and they laid down their life for the law. Then the Lord, he says here, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your body to living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable or your intelligent faith." That word holy, of course, as we have it here, it means pure, but you could spell it W-H-O-L-L-Y, holy, nothing held back. Holy, acceptable. We'll notice, you did notice, I drew your attention to it in verse one, God accepting our sacrifice, accepting our body, our faculty, our life. And that's what he wants. In the next verse we accept his will. But we want us to know how pleased and delighted he is when we commit everything to him. a sacrifice fully acceptable unto God, which is reasonable your intelligence. So, Lord Jesus pleased God in his private life. When he worked those thirty silent years in Nazareth, for nothing is said about him, in the time he was twelve, when he was seen in the midst of the doctors, and answering questions, asking questions. Nothing more is said until twenty-eight years later, to be exact, when he turned up in the synagogue of Nazareth and opened the books of Isaiah and preached his first sermon. Now it's very remarkable that at the beginning or the end of those silent years, twenty-eight silent years, God says, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, he writes to his baptism. When John bathed out, here is God sharing his pleasure in his Son at the end of those years of silence when little or nothing is said about us. But then again God later on, just at the end of his public life, just before the cross and the Mount of Transfiguration, God says, again, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. God was pleased with Christ's private life, and God was pleased with Christ's public life. I wonder if that can be said about you and me. Are we a living sacrifice? Presuming ourselves to God, God sees our private life, and to sacrifice to the Lord. Will ye with the hymn, and do ye also live that sacrificial life publicly, willing to make sacrifices unto the Lord for the sake of others? That's what's entailed in this verse. For then notice verse two, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed. by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You know, surely, indeed, our deities, those who did not go along with the established church or organized religion, of course, the first Pope turned up about the sixth century, and then, of course, there was a controversy between him and the church, or the state church, governed sometimes by the king, Church of England. and there was conflict going on between these two. Many were themselves because of the conflict between the throne and the Pope, the church. The Pope wanted to dominate the throne. In many cases he did. He dominated politics. Sometime a king would rise up and he would cast off a yoke of Catholicism and he would not obey the edict of the Pope. But during those dark ages there were always a few. who didn't go along with either. They were eluded from Catholicism, and they stood eluded from the State of Church, the Church of England. The Walrusers, the Nestorians, the Albigensians, they were called non-conformists. They wouldn't conform to Rome. They wouldn't conform to what we know today as the Episcopal Serum. They were none-conformer. You know we're living in a day when two Christians have got to be none-conformer. There are those elements and those forces that are at large today that would try and get you lined up to them, to conform to them. Be not conformed to this world. There are some of those influences in this world that want you to be conformed to. The re-rendering, well, in the night of the Jubilee Graham, he made this remark, and I turned over to my Bible and I happened to have it written at the head of my literary page, so I guess he read the same translation I did. I think it's the Amplified New Testament. Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold. And that's what the world is trying to do. For instance, the world is trying its best, the political world. The political world is out to try and squeeze the public, just as included, into their mold. And of course others, such as the social world, is trying the same thing. The world of style is trying to squeeze people into their mold. and sometimes it's not very modest, but it's the slow style. Don't let the world squeeze you into it. The world of religion, different religion, and the day we're living in the age of the great final movement in Christendom, now called the Ecumenical Movement, the denominations came out of Rome after the Great Reformation and they're going back to Rome, one by one. And you had the final form of the Universal Church in the Book of Revelation, the Star of Doom, in chapter seventeen and eighteen, and the Church is back to Rome. And the ecumenical movement is doing everything it can to squeeze many women and churches and smaller denominations back into the mold of ecumenicalism, one church of which roams ahead. But he says, don't you be conformed to that. Don't be squeezed into that mold. And you might refer to the mold of materialism or pleasure. says the Apostle, don't be conformed to that. Don't get caught in the pressure that puts you in that mold. Over in chapter six, I think we mentioned it, Paul says, I have preached to you that mold doctrine. Now, he speaks of a doctrine, the doctrines of the Word of God, also of a mold. And neither what liquid metal will do, it will yield to the mold, the shape of the mold. Now God has a mold. If the world has mold, God has one mold. Not many. The world has many. And it doesn't catch in one, it will catch in another. But God has one mold, and that mold is Christ. And God is trying to conform me and me into the image of his Son. If we're soft and pliable like melted metal, we will yield to the mold of divine truth and be conformed to the image of his Son. And so he says, And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the ruling of your mind. Now that word transformed is very interesting word. It's found three times in the New Testament. It's found in connection with the transfiguration. That word transfigured, this word transformed, and when first Corinthians speaks, beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord be as changed, that word changed is the same word in the Greek, as transformed and transfiguredly. We are chained into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. And just as the Lord is transfigured, and just as God wants us to be transformed or changed, to be different, that's it, just to be different. Today Christians, born-again Christians, are hardly any different from others. Well, not if this is a just the same. It doesn't matter what denomination they are. You're really just about the same, run in the mill. But God wants his people as individuals, as Egyptians, and be conformed to the laws of divine truth and divine principles. There should be a difference. In the Old Testament, God made a difference between the children in Israel and the Egyptians. And there should be a difference to take between a structurally gathered church and an organization that's being governed by organizing instead of an organism that's being controlled by the living Word of God and the Spirit of God. We are transformed into that same image even as by the Spirit of the Lord. And the Spirit is the one who transforms Oh, can't figure that into his likeness. And so this is God's will for you and me. And I trust that we will be exercised about it and be not conformed to this will that be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove, this is something nice, prove whether it is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You know to be conformed to this world is like the chameleon, you've heard about. It's that little creature that gets on a green leaf that turns green. If it gets on a brown earth, it turns brown. It changes its color, the fruit gets surrounded. You know some Christians are like that. My Sunday they can really act like saints. with their long faces, their pious looks, but watch them on Monday. They can mix with crowds and do just about the same language and do the same thing. They can change colors. That's the same exact. That's hypocrisy. I want you to be like my son if you're really born again. and I want you to be in the very middle of my will. I want you to prove what my will is, to the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Now there are various phases of God's will, this God's providential will. He sends his will upon the sun, upon the evil as well as the good. There's God's potential will. only made possible with your cooperation? It's God's will that all men should be saved, but they're not always going to be saved. But it's God's potential will that they do, but it's only those who cooperate with God's potential will and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior that makes that will possible and complete. So there's God's potential will. It's God's potential will that you do baptized, but you've got to cooperate. It's God's potential will that you be transformed in the likeness of his son, and not conformed with words, but you've got to cooperate. It's God's will that you present your body a living sacrifice, but you've got to cooperate. It's only possible with your cooperation that God's potential will. Then you have here, have also God's permissive will. And a lot of Christians are living in the permissive will of God. God is just permitting them to have their way. He's not intervening. He could and sometimes does. And it's strange what God permits some Christians to get away with. God's permissible. But here you have his perfect will. There's a big difference. We find God for his providential will, his potential will, and his permission will. But here's the secret of a happy life, God's perfect will. God's perfect will, you're right in the center of it. You know the eye of a hurricane. is very calm and quiet and peaceful. Plains have been able to get down in with an eye of a hurricane and ever these quiet and yet surrounding them there is danger and death from an awful law. God wants you and me as Christians to remain in the center of his will, whirling around you and me are forces. that are being unleashed, that are threatening the very existence of our nation and the human race, not to mention threatening you as a little individual. There are forces that are just to destroy your testimony as a Christian and ruin your life. The only way you're going to escape those holding forces, those dangerous elements, is to get into the center of God's will and stay there. To prove what is a good and acceptable and perfect way of God. That's progress. Good, acceptable, perfect. We haven't time to go on, but I'm going to stop there. And ask you the simple question. Have you presented your body a living sacrifice? My how little some Christians sacrifice for the Lord. It's more or less the case of, well, if it's convenient, I'll do it. If I have the time, if I'm not doing something else, I'll do it at church. Why, it's nice to see some people who make a real sacrifice and pay a real price. I visit people constantly. In fact, since this is the family at their reception three or four weeks ago, and they said, we want the fellowship of the chapel and that the trouble is we can't get there to be steady because we get so much company. Well, I said, that can be easily settled. First of all, it's very unfair for a family to not go to their church and go over to you and keep you away from yours. And I said, all I can ask you to do is this. A friend of mine, Mr. Brown, head of Brown Transport on Ladder, When he found Christ, of course, they were socialites and had lots of company. When he found Christ, company killed them Sunday morning. Rob said, he told me with himself, "'For folks we're going to church. We're going to the members of the law.' Now he says the whole house is yours and he had a vision. He says, Make Yourself a Home. He'll be back in about an hour and a half. Just make Yourself a Home. Or he says, Do bear a nap, come with it. Or, oh, well, he said, We didn't come back to work for him. Well, he said, Next time you come, come, drink. But he says, Today, just stay here, make yourself a home with me back. Well, then he said, I didn't have any more trouble with that, then. And he said, It was terrible. And then the world got around. Better not go to Claw's Downs on Sunday. He's also in church, in church. That's making a sacrifice. And Christians are asking, that's a little sacrifice for the Lord. That's a minor sacrifice. We were stricken out about a major sacrifice. And Christians write today about little sacrifice. When you put your little sacrifice alongside the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and see how it shrinks into insignificance and almost nonsense. People talk about, well, I can't go to church, I've got a headache. What kind of a headache did Jesus Christ have when he offered his sacrifice on the cross? His whole body, he righteous him. And yet he died for you. He inconvenienced himself. He made a sacrifice that saved the life for you and me, and we talk about a little bit, paltry thing. Compare your sacrifice to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. May it be yours and mine, we enter into these things and find ourselves in the center of God's blessed, holy, satisfying will. Shall we pray? Our Father in heaven, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we commence with thy presence. We ask thy blessing upon thy words. We pray thee, Father, as a blessing to us. We know some of these things come home very devastatingly due some of our hearts. Go, Father, we trust that if thy word has reached any tonight, at all night, take to that commencement off the altar in a matter of hours and go back to the real way of living, oh, that they might keep the sacrifice from the altar. It was something of living day by day, week by week, and month by month, living for Jesus a life that is true, seeking to please him in all that I do, yielding allegiance, glad horses, and free this is the pathway, a blessing for me. We ask it in our Savior's precious name. Amen. Let us sing in closing, Number two, eight, seven, I am dying, O Lord, I heard thy voice, and it told thy love to me, and I long to rise in the arms of the church, and to the boat there is long to be. Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, in the cross where thou hast carried. Draw me nearer, near and near, blessed is Lord, to thyself. Now glorify and sing the first and second versions of him lead. Let us stand. so