Believers are called to be ambassadors for Christ, representing Him faithfully by speaking His word, not their own opinions. This representation requires familiarity with God's Word and a willingness to engage with the world to win others to Christ, rather than isolating oneself. Furthermore, believers are temples of the living God, meaning their bodies are sacred and should be cared for, and their actions, including leisure time, should be disciplined to avoid becoming mere ritual. The church is also presented as the bride of Christ, expected to exhibit love, devotion, and faithfulness to Him.
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Now I am sure that most of the people here tonight are well acquainted with the Believers Bible Conference that is held at Lookout Mountain or on Lookout Mountain at Covenant College approximately the third week of July every summer. Thirteen years ago, there were very few conferences that were being planned for families. And I saw led of the Lord to gather together, together, several of my friends, including Brother Robert Willis, who then lived in Birmingham, and Tommy Steele, who had just moved to Winston-Salem.
and several others, and we formed a committee of conveners and we announced the conference by faith at Lake Louise Conference Grounds at the Corps of Georgia. The first conference, we had three speakers. Brother Bob Willie spoke, and so far as I am concerned, he still one of the most able men that I know of. I just didn't hear him speak as anybody. Maybe I'm a little prejudiced and partial, but I've heard him give several messages that I think are without peer. I really have. I love this man, and I was just thinking, just a few moments ago, he and his wife arrived in Chicago, and they're now on their way out to Wheaton with Brother Bob Majonia.
We want to remember this dear brother in prayer. I consider him to be one of the greatest men, and I say that because he's not here, because he'd be embarrassed if he were here. But I consider Bob Willis to be one of the most godly men that I've ever met in my life. I really mean that. And I counted a real privilege to be associated with him, and he has been, he and Tommy Steele of Winston-Salem, are the only two other conveners that were Willis thirteen years ago that still work with us in the Believer's Bible conference. Now for nine years we met at Lake Louise in northeast Georgia at this conference facility which was built with Mr.
Argyll Eternal back in the late thirties. And it was in need of repair. It was real hot most of the time. The food was, you couldn't even compare it with the food here. And they sold this conference ground to the Georgia Baptist Association. We saw the handwriting on the wall. We realized that we couldn't stay there very long because they were pretty soon going to have their program so full that we couldn't go in there. So we asked the Lord to give us another place. You know, the Lord is so good. When you ask Him something, Sometimes you don't have much faith.
And so we just said, Lord, give us another place to meet. But we didn't know that He was going to give us a little place right this side of heaven. But He did. He gave us a place to meet on a mountaintop, twenty-three hundred feet above sea level, in a hotel that was built to be a luxurious hotel. It was built during the Depression. or just before the Depression, excuse me. It was supposed to be a stocking-off place for all the rich guys coming south, see? And well, they never made a go of it. And it was sold about six years ago to the Reformed Presbyterian Centers for about one-tenth of what it was worth.
It has wall-to-wall carpeting. It's modeled after a Scotch Castle in Scotland. Every room has a bath and every room has outside windows. The food is served buffet-style, and this is the only place I know of that I can even compare the food with to what we have at Covenant College. It is a family conference. We have a program for adults, for teenagers, for young people, for boys and girls, and on down to the nurseries. It begins the nineteenth day of July, which is a Saturday night with supper, and it closes with lunch on noon the twenty-fifth day of July.
The speakers, some of you know them well. J. Philip Morgan, in my estimation, one of the most gifted men that God has given the Church, right over here at New Smyrna Beach, and the other is Robert J. Little of Chicago. They call him the walking Bible around Chicago. Some of you who have been to the conference back when he was with us at the call, remember when we had our question and answer meetings in the afternoon, somebody would ask a question, and he would sit there with a Bible in his hand, but it wouldn't need to turn to it. He'd say, well, in Jeremiah ten five, it says, and he just quoted it. And somebody else could ask, well, over in Hebrews three fifteen, that goes like this, and he just quoted.
Well, he really knows the word, and he's a real blessing to us. And then we have a program for all ages, as I've already suggested. I know that some of you people get a lot of Bible teaching, but if you want to come to a place in the middle of the summer, and as you know, it does get a little warm down here, you know. Let's be frank and admit it now. It gets a little warm here in the summer. Just get in your car or get on a train or a plane, come to Chattanooga. I know two ladies that hadn't come since we were in Georgia because they thought there was a lot of mountains to climb. Well, it's just one mountain, see? and you can be up in fifty minutes from the time you start. And if you want to, when you get to Chattanooga, give us a ring and I'll come down and drive you car us. So you won't have to worry about driving up the mountain to get to Covenant College.
The rates are very reasonable for the accommodations, fifty-two dollars for the conference for adults, and when you see the food and the accommodations, you'll say, my life is really a bargain. We hope that some of you people are going to be able to meet us at Covenant College the third week in July. By all means, pray for us. And if you can come, come. And if you can't come, just pray for us. We hope that we'll be seeing some of you then. We'll have a little larger segment of our family with us at Covenant College. We'll have Stevie, who's ten, and Jimmy, who's fourteen, and our oldest son, Gil, who is twenty-three, that's hard to believe.
He's getting married the twelfth day of July, and they're going to spend the second week of their honeymoon at Covenant College with us at the conference, and he's going to direct the chorus. So some of you will get to meet Gil if you get to the conference. It's a real joy to have my brother with us tonight. He lives in Kissimmee, and he's just retired from the U.S. Air Force. been overseas a lot in about twenty years. Denied at the supper table, he said, if they'd take him back for twenty more years, he'd go again. They must have some gimmick, I'll tell you. Oh, I believe he did make one stipulation. If they'd let him stay in this country, that's right. Yeah. All right. Well, they don't do that, do they?
This morning, we began a study in Second Corinthians. And we were studying... some of the titles or the names or the phrases that Paul, the Apostle uses in describing Christians. Now we have a few people here tonight that we're not here this morning, and so we want to review very briefly what we said this morning and then take up our study and continue as there are six of them in all in the book of Second Corinthians that we want to mention.
However, there are several others in First Corinthians. There are about nine or ten titles that the Apostle Paul gives Christians of the Church in First and Second Corinthians. The first one we mentioned this morning was Paul speaks of Christians as a sweet savor. or as we saw in the Williams translation, as a perfume, as a fragrance, as an aroma. And we gave you several illustrations this morning of some Christians who, by God's grace, whose lives had been a fragrance and a blessing and a perfume to those who knew them.
We mentioned Cainton Point, Fanny, Jake Crosby, who had two thousand other hymns published. during polite time. About fifty-five or sixty of them which are in most common hymnals. In fact, we call to your attention to some seven or eight or ten of them this morning. A Christian is not only a fragrance or a perfume or a sweet flavor of Christ, but we mentioned this morning that Paul spoke of Christians as an epistle, as a letter, as a messenger of Jesus Christ. We also mentioned this morning that a Christian is likened unto a treasure in earthen vessels.
And when he made this statement, he was speaking of the power of the gospel as displayed through Christians who exhibited and who proclaimed the gospel. of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was speaking of this earthen vessel as something very simple, very elementary, very crude, but something which in the hands of God could be a great power for good and a power for righteousness, a great influence for God. Now we come to the picture number four, and we turn to the fifth chapter of Second Corinthians, and we come to the twentieth verse. And we read these words.
In the Williams, most of you have the King James. So I am an envoy to represent Christ, because it is through me that God is making his appeal. Now I must admit that I prefer the King James in this particular place. to the Williams, because he uses the pronoun we. He says, Now then we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did defeat you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
We are ambassadors for Christ. Now, I don't know how many of you have had much dealings with an ambassador or not. I notice I have in the margin out here the word commissioned. An ambassador is commissioned to do a certain specific job. We have a man in our assembly in Columbia. I wish all of you had the privilege of knowing him, but the name of Dr. Frederick H. Giles. He's not a medical doctor. He's a physio. He's a nuclear bowel physio.
And a couple of years ago, well, four years ago now almost, he went to Baghdad a lot with his wife and three small children. You want to try something but change? Try that. And he was to be over there two years. on one of these exchange professor deals. And his job was to set up a research department in the University of Baghdad. Well, it so happened that they were there and they were supposed to leave about two days after that little conflict started over there in June. of nineteen hundred and sixty-seven and they left several days early because of the conflict and they were very glad to get out. But he had a lot of dealings while he was in Baghdad with the U.S.
ambassador. And he told us something about the job and the work and the responsibility and the position of an ambassador. And he said that an ambassador is never to tell what he thinks. An ambassador is never to tell how he feels. An ambassador is to represent our government to those people, and he is to tell what our position is in any matter. Anything that he tells the people who come in to talk to him from Iraq and those other countries, he tells them what he has been told to tell them in washington dc he doesn't give his own opinion he doesn't give his own feelings he doesn't give his own ideas now does that throw any light on what we are we as ambassadors for the lord jesus christ ought to tell what he has said thus saith the lord now in order to do that we've got
to be familiar with the word with a book One of the reasons why so many young people today have lost confidence in religion, quote, unquote, per se, is because they've seen so many people in the guise of religion and sometimes in Christianity who haven't had anything to offer but what they thought or what they felt. It wasn't, thus saith the Lord. This is God's Word. This is what God has said.
It was what man thought or what man felt. The Christian is the personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, you notice how this ties in with what I was talking about last night? Why was Elijah Bowles... We said that he was bold because he realized that he represented a God who was real. We said that he was bold because he believed in the promises of God.
We said that he was bold because he realized that he was a personal representative of Jehovah. And beloved brother and sister in Christ, When you go to visit that unsaved, hard, cold, indifferent neighbor in the name of Christ, if you are reminded of God's Spirit just before you leave your little cottage to go out to visit this apparently maybe difficult to reach individual, if you are cognizant and reminded of the fact before you go that you are a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ, you can go bold.
We are ambassadors for Christ. All right. Chapter six, verse sixteen. Mr. Williams translates this. And what agreement can a temple of God make with idols? For we are the temples of the living God. Just as God said, this is a quotation of Colos from the Old Testament, from Leviticus and Ezekiel, incidentally, I will live in them and walk in them, and I will be their God.
and they shall be my people. Therefore, come out of company with them and separate from them. The Lord has said, and stop touching what is unclean. Then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you. And you will be sons and daughters of mine, the Lord Almighty says. Now I'd like to say a word about coming out from among them and being separate before I deal with this temple of the living God.
I believe that there are some truths and there are some teachings in the Church of Jesus Christ where undue emphasis has been put upon a certain emphasis, I mean a certain truth. and it has been very detrimental to the cause of Christ. Now, I don't want to be misunderstood, but I'll tell you something. There are a lot of people that have taken this verse so literally about coming out from wrongs them and being separate, that they have separated themselves from unbelievers and the ungodly.
and those who know not the Lord, to search and extend, that they have no contact with the outside world, and consequently they can't be a blessing to the outside world. Alright, what do I mean by this? I mean that unless I am acquainted with unconverted people, unless I know some unconverted people, unless I befriend unconverted people, unless I have some social contact with unconverted people, how can I win them to the Lord? There are a lot of people who are Christians and who gather together with wonderful Christian people and they sing hymns and they love the Bible and they come to meet it.
But it has been years since they had a real vital a lies, positive witness with some unconverted person because they've had no contact with her. Let me give you an example. Unless you spend some time with some unconverted people, when and how are you going to gain their confidence? And unless you gain that confidence, how are you going to be a definite positive witness to them? You see, it's possible to be acquainted and to be on a social, friendly relationship with unconverted people without becoming part of them.
You see, I'd give an example. I'd give you an example. There are many legitimate forms of recreation. that a Christian can engage in with unconverted people with one goal in mind to win them to the Lord Jesus. Mrs. Stewart and I have a friend. In fact, he was a man who married us, the fifth day of July, hottest day in July, nineteen forty-five. And this friend, led a man to Christ, who is now the judge of the municipal court in Columbia, South Carolina.
At that time he was the prosecuting attorney for that whole circuit. He led this man to Christ. You know why he did it? He went fishing with that man fifty-five times before he led him to Christ. I know of other men. who have played golf game after golf game after golf game. Now don't tell me they didn't enjoy it. I'm not telling you they didn't, yes, they enjoyed it. But they played golf with unconverted men. Why? Because they wanted to win their confidence and win their friendship and be a witness to them to the Lord Jesus Christ. I remember one night in Yonkers, New York, Brother Sackler might have been there.
If I'm not mistaken, wasn't Brother Sackler from Yonkers? Yes, sir. Nineteen forty-eight, were you there? In Yonkers, New York, the last Sunday night, in nineteen forty-eight, the Lord blessed us, gave us real liberty in the gospel. And at the close of the service there were two fine couples there that had been brought there by two other couples in the assembly. And these young couples in the Yonkers assembly had been praying for these two couples for two years. And they'd taken them on picnics. They'd taken them to symphony concerts. They'd taken them here. They'd gone here. They'd gone yonder with them. And they'd witnessed to them as they had opportunity. And they brought them under the sound of the gospel.
And if they closed the meeting that night, they introduced me to them. And I looked them squarely in the face. Both of them were from other faiths entirely. I said, Wouldn't you like to know the Lord Jesus as your Savior? And they looked at one another and they nodded ahead. And they said, Yes. And I had the joy. We went back into the little inquire room back out there beyond the piano. And I remember very well, the ladies went downstairs, and the men stayed upstairs, and they got on their knees, and they prayed while I talked with them. And in a few months, I prayed about it at twenty-five or thirty minutes. We came out of that room, and those four young people had all four trusted the Lord Jesus as their Savior. You know why? Because the people in that assembly had been concerned enough to spend time with them, to have social contact with them, to witness to them, to preach to them, and men.
They were getting the harvest because they hadn't lost contact with the outside world. Now, don't misunderstand me, friends. We don't have to go out and do questionable things in order to be a witness for Christ. But I tell you this. You have got to befriend unconverted people. You've got to have contact with unconverted people if you're going to be a blessing to them. I know of some Christians who wouldn't invite an unsaved neighbor into the house. You know why? Well, she would smoke in my house. And I see some people smiling because they know what I'm talking about.
They've seen this. Oh, she's so worldly. What do you expect? But for the grace of God, it should be you. Why, down here in North Palm Beach, They have one of the most aggressive, active gospel works I know of, and they have these coffees in the morning. And these ladies come with their big, long, flashy dresses, or maybe not too long, probably pretty short now, excuse me. And their big, long cigarettes and all, they sit around and talk and drink coffee and eat cookies. And then finally Aaron takes them gifts up, and for fifty minutes he gives them the word, and week by week by week, they're coming to Christ. You see, beloved, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
And in one place Paul says, I become all things to all men in order that I might win some. And if I understand my Bible right, God's methods in the church may very, very frequently change, but his message will never change. And I think that there are some methods that worked in the church twenty-five or thirty years ago that were very effective that today we might need to well substitute some other methods.
I think the time has come. I remember the time when I first came into the assemblies back in nineteen hundred and forty-six out of the Methodist Church. When I first came into the assemblies of Christians, the meet as we do in nineteen forty-six on Sunday night, preach the gospel. Preach the gospel. Preach the gospel. Preach the gospel to people that can preach it as good as you can. Minister the word on Sunday night. Preach the gospel when you can get the unconverted out. When? As a rule, it's Sunday morning. So there's nothing wrong with changing methods and approach as long as you don't change the message. And the message is of how Christ came and he died and he suffered and he was buried and he rose again and he ascended and he's coming again.
That's the message. Right there. So, well, I didn't mean to say all that about that, but it won't cost anything extra. I just had it on my heart and I had to get it off. I'm really concerned about this, that a lot of Christians are so concerned about not being part of the world that they've lost contact with the world. And when you've lost contact with the world, you can't be any blessing to the world. You say, well, now, brother, to you, how far can I go? Well, I can tell you how you can find out. If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God that give it to all men liberally and upright, if not, and it shall be given him. You ask the God, ask God how far you can go. They're going to be occasions when you're going to go into a home because you want to make contact with people.
And they're going to be things going on in that home that you wouldn't do in your home. But you're going into that home because you want to be a witness for Christ. And you're going to get acquainted with these people. And if you go in there and tell them, don't do this, don't do this, they wouldn't be a bit different if they stopped doing it until they had Christ in their heart. And then when they have Christ in their heart, the Holy Spirit of God will speak to them, and they'll realize what they might be doing wrong. They might be hurting their bodies. All right? Back to the main point here. Paul says, ye, meaning believers, are temples of the living people.
God. You notice he used that word living again. He used that word over in the third chapter. Living God. You see, the Holy Spirit knew that in nineteen hundred and sixty-seven or eight a bunch of guys were going to stop talking about God was dead. And so the Holy Spirit put that in there. See? The living God. He's alive. and it can do what no other power can do. Now what's a temple? What did the people think of when they thought of the word temple in the day of Paul? It was a place where God was worshipped.
It was a place where God was enshrined. It was a place where that represented God. It was a place where he was supposed to live. And so he says, You are a temple. And because I'm a temple, And because my body is a temple, I am to be respectful to my body." And in First Corinthians six, he puts it a little differently, and he adds a little more to it. He says, What? Know you not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit of God, which you have of God, and you are not your own, for you are bought with a price.
Therefore glorify God in your body. and in your spirit which are gods. So what does this say to me? This tells me that because my body belongs to God and because I've been bought with a price and because my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit of God, my body is very, very sacred. That means that I should take care of my body. I should be careful with my body. And I'm using the word my because that's what each of us should think of it. But whose body is it? It's God's body. We should discipline our bodies. We should eat the proper foods.
We should get the proper amount of rest. We should get the proper amount of exercise. You know why? Because God doesn't give us but one body. Not on this earth. One body. And if you abuse this body, you don't get another one, not on this earth. I have a very fine friend. I've mentioned him from this pulpit several times. Some of you have heard him give his testimony. Wonderful man of God. I saw him on the streets in Columbia the other day, Johnny Spence, a professional gospel. Johnny Spence is being used as a lawless.
But Johnny Spence doesn't get to go a lot of places where he would like to go, and he can't keep up the pace that he would like to keep up. You know why? Because before he was converted, he dissipated his body. And he's not strong anymore. And he never will be strong anymore. Why? Because God doesn't give you but one body. And he has to go much slower than he would like to go, because in his youth, he dissipated his body. And even though he wasn't converted then, it was still God's body. Now, in light of the fact that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, I should be very careful about what I eat, what I do with my body, and what I take into my body, and My brain and my eyes and my ears are all parts of the body.
So then what I see and what I look at and what I take in, mentally, spiritually, intellectually, is all a part of my body. Consequently, it behooves the Christian to be very, very careful with what he does or doesn't do concerning his leisure time before the television set, before the radio, hither or yon. Because my mind can be blessed or helped or cursed or damned by what I see.
and what I take in through these eyes and through the ear gates. Now I'm fixing to get in trouble right now. But I've got enough gas already in my car to get back and I have a courtesy heart. So alright, I'm not worried. Twenty-six years ago in Augusta, Georgia, I used a little booklet which I picked up for twenty-five cents about Hollywood. I'm not talking about Florida either, I'm talking about California. And I prepared a message on the terrible influence of Hollywood, which really should be named Hollywood.
And I told what happened to the money. that people gave when they went to see these Hollywood-produced movies. And I told them the kind of lives that these people lived, which made these movies. And I told them the subject matter that went into these movies. Now this was twenty-six years ago. Now twenty-six years ago, hardly any Christian who went to a Bible-believing, evangelical, conservative, assembly or church would dare have gone to a downtown theater. To see these Hollywood-produced movies, they wouldn't have thought of it because they knew of the effect it could have on them and on their children.
And so they wouldn't have gone downtown to the theater for anything. So what happens today? Many Christians, many Christians, who go to Bible-believing churches and assemblies like this, go into their living room, into their den, and they turn on the TV, and they watch movies that wouldn't have been allowed to have been shown in the Hollywood-produced theaters twenty-six years ago. And we wonder why we have no burden, and we wonder why we have no vision, and we wonder how we have no power.
And we wonder why. Now don't you go out of here and say, shock the few said Christians ought to throw the TVs away. I didn't say that. There are some good things on TV. In fact, we had Billy Graham on it three weeks, three days last week, preaching the gospel. Praise the Lord. And most of what you see on the newscast is all right. You notice I said most of it. But I'll tell you one thing. If you are the type of individual that cannot ration and discipline what you see and don't see on that screen, if you don't have the power to do that, it'd be better if you'd throw it away.
There's a little track. I think I have one up in my briefcase. It's published by Good News. I wish I had a thousand of them. I'd like to give them away. The name of the little track is, My Experiences with a Kleptomaniac, written by Don Hillis. And he tells about how the TV in their homes stole a lot from them. Stole the Bible from them. Stole the family fellowship from them. Stole their prayer from them. Stole their devotions from them. stole the quiet time from them, stole their family fellowship and visitations from them. And in his particular case, he said they got rid of it because the television had been a kleptomaniac and it stole a lot of things from them.
So just remember, I think that what I'm talking about now is something that all Christians need to make a real serious matter of prayer. Beloved, we're living in days when the time that we have is very short. And if you're going to do anything for the Lord Jesus, you'd better do it now. Tomorrow may be too late. There's another thing that I'm real concerned about. that's happened to a lot of Christians. And with this I'm going to close. And I've experienced this in my own life.
I'm not just talking about something I read in a book somewhere. And this is one of the most dangerous things that can happen in the life of a Christian. And that is the danger of some of the things that we do that are good becoming habitual and becoming to be a ritual to us. Now some of you who are honest will admit what I'm saying is true, because you know it's true, but some people won't admit it.
I hope that all of us will be open-minded enough to admit that this is true. But I think that there are a lot of people And this has been true in my life, in the past, and I confessed it to the Lord, and the Lord has said if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us, and to cleanse us of our sins, and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness, and forgive us. It is possible to have your devotions regularly, every day, and read the Bible, and pray, because you know you ought to do it. You've been taught that you ought to do it. And you go through the motions, and you have your devotions, and you pray every day. And it becomes just a ritual to you.
Because if you're no closer to God, and no sweeter, and no easier to live with, and no more like Christ, when you finish your devotions than you were when you started, you might as well not have had them. It's a ritual. Now we look with a scan. and disdain upon some of our friends of other faiths who have a lot of ritual that they go through with, and when they finish going through the ritual, there's no difference from the way they were before they started. And we say, Oh, I'm ashamed. See? But we do not the same thing, but we go through other things that have become a ritual to us, and it doesn't change us any. What's the difference? Another tragic saying that has happened in some instances.
I know of some Christians, and I say this in love, but I have a real fear that in the lives of some Christians, the Lord's Supper, such as we will observe here tomorrow morning in the will of the Lord if the Lord be not come at nine thirty, observance of the Lord's Supper has become a ritual to some. Now, if this is not true in your life, praise the Lord. But there are some people that look upon this. This is it. And they go through the motions Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. Many times they haven't prepared their hearts. They don't come, as our brother Saka said in his prayer, with hearts full and overflowing.
They have nothing to give to the Lord, but it's a ritual and they go through with it and they feel, oh well, I've been the confession now. Same way. I'm all set till next Sunday morning. By the way, if anybody want to ever say Amen, I've had it once or twice in my life, so I wouldn't think. So don't feel badly if you want to say Amen. If you agree with me, see. But of course, if you don't like it, don't say anything. All right. I think there's a real danger in making the Lord's Supper a ritual. We put it on a parcel, and we worship, not the Lord. who worship the Lord's Supper.
So let's remember, there's a real danger of allowing things that we do systematically and regularly becoming a ritual in our lives. A temple of the living God. And the last thing that Paul says, In second Corinthians, in chapter eleven, verse two in the King James, he says, I have but thrust you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband.
Now just one or two thoughts about this. We have a son that was married the first of February, and as I have already suggested, our oldest son is to be married the twelfth of July. We are very, very glad to say there's two fine, sweet Christian girls. The Lord never gave us any daughters of our own, but we have gained two, at least already one, and another one on the way, and we love them, and we praise the Lord for them. This is a real joy, and I'm sure that all of you that have sweet Christian daughter-in-laws know what I'm talking about. But as we've had one marriage and we are about to have another one in the family, there are several things about brides that come to your attention, and it would apply here.
Now, the Holy Spirit of God through Paul and in other places in the New Testament speaks of the church as the bride. of Christ. And so we might well ask ourselves this question, what is expected of a bride? Now since the Holy Spirit of God speaks to the church of a bride, by and large the things that are expected of a human bride are expected of his bride, the church. Now what is expected of a bride? The first thing that I can think of is love.
Love. Pure, pure, simple love. And that's what God expects of us, his bride. Love. What's another thing? Devotion. You see someone, oh, isn't He devoted to her. Isn't she devoted to him? They're so devoted to one another. That's the way it should be with the church. We should be devoted to who? To the bridegroom. Our Savior, the Lord Jesus.
And the third word that came to my attention as I thought of these two brides that have come into our family, all that are coming in, love, devotion, Faithfulness. Faithfulness. God expects the church to be faithful. To who? To the ground. Who's the ground? The man in the glory. The man Christ Jesus. Love. Devotion.
Faithfulness. What are you? You're a sweet savor. You're a perfume. You're an official. You're an earthen treasure or treasure in earthen vessels. You are an ambassador. You are a temple of the living God. And you are the bride of Christ. May what we do and what we say and the way we act bespeak of all these titles that God has given to us by His grace.
Shall we pray? Oh, our Father, we thank thee for the joy that you've given us tonight as we've spoken today. of our relationship and of our responsibilities to thee. Oh, Father, we know the devil would like very much for the church to be worldly and the church to be loose and shabby and careless, in its life and conduct among others. We know that the devil, the prince of the power there, would like for us to have no power with God or with men, but we know that thou hast but trust us as a chaste virgin, as a bride to thyself.
We trust that thou wilt be able to present us spotless in all thy glory in the day when we meet thee. God grant that all of these attributes and characteristics Mention tonight and others that we didn't have time to mention may be seen and evidenced in our lives because we love you, because we are devoted to you, and because of our love and devotion we want to be faithful to you. We thank you for speaking to us tonight. Bless us now as we go to the lounge for our fellowship together, and may our fellowship be sweet.
because we belong to a wonderful family, the Church, of whom the whole body in heaven, earth is named. Now this is one little small segment of the body down here, but we pray that you'd bless all the other members of the body tonight. Pray for our brother Bob and Vera up in the Chicago area that you'd bless them tonight, give them a good night's rest and a good time of fellowship tomorrow with our people. and bring them safely back to us in your own time. In Jesus' precious name, amen.