Herbert W Armstrong

   Uh, some of the halls we've met in from time to time in different areas, you couldn't go to sleep if you'd wanted to. We had a hall in Uniontown, Pennsylvania where I was for about 6 years over in that area toward Pittsburgh, and you couldn't go to sleep every other week they had a wedding and they would be fixing it was a German Polish environment you'd smell sauerkraut. Have you ever tried to go to sleep smelling sauerkraut? And it makes it very, very difficult to say the least.

   You have to forgive me if I'm a little helter skelter. I am on vacation. And I called Mr. Pyle and we talked a while and he said, would you speak? And by the time I got around to answering, he had to do something else and hung up. Uh, you'll hear a different story from him. I do want to cover something that maybe give you a little insight into see an area of life you haven't thought about or maybe you've pondered it and haven't come to a conclusion on it.

   How many of you were in religions like the Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal years ago? Many of you almost, you know, just a normal mainstream of religion. I grew up in the Methodist church, but we sort of, uh, as, uh, my parents did. Dabbled in a little bit of everything. We went to Pentecostal churches. I remember going to Billy Graham's campaigns when he just got it got started. I remember going to Oral Roberts when he still, when he was still in the healing business and he's been out of that for 20 years when he still did that.

   And growing up I got the direct impression from religion from the Methodist where I was in the South, which was basically more evangelical and from the Baptists which my mother attended from time to time and from all the various camp meetings, tent meetings and all that we went to, I got the impression that God was in the business now of giving you just about everything you wanted. I remember thinking uh growing up now maybe you haven't thought this, but I, I, I would want something and I would think from my religious background now if I ask God for it maybe he'll give it.

   I remember I worked at a radio station after high school for a little while and we had a group to come on there on Sundays on FM and if you ever listen to Sunday FM in the South, you'll know what I'm talking about. They're different and they would jump up and in fact they jumped over one of our chairs and broke it because they didn't quite make it. I was on the air. Now, what happened, this fellow was, uh, healing people and he had this kid that uh had been healed of not wearing his uh of his eyesight. He had poor eyesight and he was healed on the poor eyesight, threw away his glasses. And he had asked God now to give him good sight. Well, the kid could not even find the microphone. They let him up there and he announced that he had been healed, and I sat there and I looked out there and I said that's strange now. They think God is giving them everything they want and yet he didn't.

   Now what if God gave you everything you wanted? What if he did? And I even phrasing the question like I do, I'm saying if, which is automatically prejudicing you or giving you my opinion that he doesn't, but what if he did? Are there any case histories of God doing that? Giving somebody or a group of people just about everything they want and what happened to them? And how about in the New Testament, does God do that?

   Turn back to the example of the Israelites back in Exodus chapter 3. And let's take a look at ancient Israel and begin to find out what, what happened when God gave a whole group of people just about everything you could want and then we'll take a look at maybe some data that people have collected today and just a human physical sense, and then look at the New Testament and find out what God does do and what he does give us.

   Exodus chapter 3. This is an example of the Israelites, and I could go through all kinds of phrases with them, but in Exodus 3. And um. Going into about Maybe I can uh give you the story to break into it. Remember the case of Moses keeping his flock and finally he came upon God, the burning bush, and that's verses 1 through about 9, and God began to tell Moses what he had in mind.

   Look what he said in verse 7 (Exodus 3:7). And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people, which are in Egypt. Now what God was saying is I've seen that my people are in bondage, they are in slavery. These people are suffering. Now, we look at it and we think, boy, we're in bondage. We're in bondage to Bank of America, bondage to MasterCard, bondage to car payments and house payments. Listen, these people were just bondage if they didn't perform right they were killed. It was the kind of bondage you very seldom seen in modern history, except maybe in some sections of Africa and India and perhaps China in recent days in Asia. But they were gonna be killed. God looked at that bondage.

   Now, what would you think would be the greatest gift you could give somebody if they were in absolute slavery, where their first born were being killed. Well that is bondage where you had a little baby and you were scared to death that that baby was going to be a little boy he was going to be killed and all the, can you imagine the pressure on a woman as she became pregnant as she began to go through the normal gestation period on up say 7-8 months instead of being happy we're gonna have a little baby, you'd be scared to death. I'm gonna have a baby and if it's a boy. And you don't have any control over it. A little X and Y chromosome got together and there's a boy instead of an XX. And you would say, my here what's happening? And the traumas that came about as a result of that. God heard that. He could relate to it, he understood it.

   And what did he give the Israelites? He began to tell Moses what he would give them. He said, I've seen the affliction, and then the latter part of verse 7 and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, who beat them, who are merciless, who work them to death, who use them evidently to build all the pyramids and a lot of the things you can see in Egypt, where I have known their sorrows, and I have come down to deliver them. Verse 8, out of the hands of the Egyptians and to bring them out of the land unto. I said, I'm gonna give them freedom, and here's what else I'm gonna give them. This is what you would like. It's better than my garden, which doesn't produce good. He said, I'm gonna give them a land that is good and large into a land of flowing with flowing with milk and honey and into a place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and all these other ites. He said, I'm gonna give them a land that would make your eyes pop out.

   Now that was something he gave them. Now you, you would think now once what if somebody came up and offered you the most beautiful home that your expectations could employ? Now you dreamed about it, boy. I want a dishwasher that I mean you can push a button and it jerks the dishes off the table, you know, it's funny how we, how we do things. Years ago if you had a dishwasher, it was a sign of laziness. Now it's one with more buttons on it. And then you know I, I, I even find we we start complaining we're in a hurry, but the dishes have to be taken off the table and the scraps scrap, you know, put off from them to stick them in the dishwasher. Now maybe some of you married a dishwasher and haven't traded it in for one of the modern types if you can use that expression since then, but still we, we tend to expect all of these things.

   Well, the Israelites were given their expectations, their own land. They were given freedom. And not only that, you can go through a list of things that they were given that would absolutely be marvelous if we could have it.

   Look at Exodus 14. In this country today we spend over $100 billion a year for protection. McDonald Douglas out here in Saint Louis uh produces quite a bit of income for the area because they produce basically well not only the DC-10 anymore but military aircraft, and a big expenditure in this country is for protection. We spend more for protection than just about anything else. Now God gave the Israelites protection that you couldn't beat and it was free of charge. Now that's something that if you wanted it as a big thing, I mean, you're not only promised them the greatest land to farm and a place to live, he said, I will protect you till you get there. They didn't have to have policemen, they didn't have to have all the military armaments we have. He said, I'll take care of you.

   And Exodus 14 is an example of that. After Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and I'll paraphrase it and then just pick up a couple of verses, he began to have second thoughts. Now you have second thoughts about things. Have you ever been scared of something or afraid at the time, then maybe 3 weeks later you reflect back on it or a little while later and you're not quite as afraid of it? Well, I should have gone ahead and done that. It's like little children, our little boys take swimming lessons and they eternally, you know, when they're on a high dive, one of them are on a diving board, I won't do it. Then when he's home, boy, I'll do that. It's like our little girl, we have a little girl 28 1/2 months old. She was going to she said I'm gonna ride a horse. I ride horse. We took her up to a horse. She would say she would ride that horse, but the closer she got to the horse, the less she would wanna ride it. And when she got up next to it, she started not only not wanting, she started reacting to it, crying, hollering, then you would take her back and I ride the horse. And what happened? She had second thoughts the further she got away from the problem. The the horse was the problem.

   They've even tested rats and found that out. They'll take a rat and they'll starve him almost to death and they'll put food at one end of the cage and make him run to the food. Oh, a rat loves that. He does it once. Second time they shock you. He can get his food, but they shock him to get it. Well a rat gets smart fast. I mean, the 3rd time he takes off for the food and then he sort of slows down a little bit as he gets near it after just a few runs at that, you know what he does? He gets about a certain distance that you can predict for all rats. He gets there and he turns over and he begins to do all kinds of unseemly things, lick himself and shake, but see he's getting close to that shock, and he wants the food.

   As long as God was punishing Pharaoh, Pharaoh felt about the same way because right there was the immediate punishment. He just stopped. The Israelites left and got away from him. He thought, I'll get him. They took off after him. He tried to get them. Here he came thundering down. Well, the Israelites looked back. Now God had not been performing any direct miracles for a day or so, about a day, and they began to get worried.

   Verse 11, and they said to Moses in chapter 14 of Exodus (Exodus 14:11-13), because there were no graves in Egypt, a highly optimistic attitude, but what they were saying is we're going to die. You ever met people like that if they, they get a cough, they're gonna die. Uh, you know, they, they, they, there's something that's wrong with them. Everything is death, or the Israelites didn't say now, hey, we might be able to escape. They say hey we're dead. In fact they weren't only dead they were talking about the grave and being under and all you start talking about the grave, you, uh, if you get people talking about that it's a very morbid thought and not only that you're being preoccupied with being put under. It's not only you're dead, you're under now and uh very fearful people, it's very fearful kind of thinking.

   They said, Now why have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore have you dealt with us to carry us forth out of Egypt? All kinds of questions began based on the premise they were going to die, they began to ask other questions. That was the wrong premise, they weren't gonna die. But based on that idea, their reasoning was right. Why do we have to die out here? I'd rather have died a few years later in Egypt. Now they began to talk about that.

   And then verse 12, is not this the word that we did tell you in Egypt? You know it's the old story. Didn't I tell you before? I didn't wanna come out here. This is what the leaders were telling Moses. I didn't wanna get involved in this. Moses here we're gonna die. All these people die. Why didn't you leave us alone? Or it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians and we should die in the wilderness.

   Now at that juncture, what would be the greatest gift you could give the Israelites? Well, the greatest gift you give them life. It'd be like taking someone who thinks he's going to die. Who knows he's going to die because he's sick and giving him health. No, that would make you feel good if you ever been sick and gotten well or had the flu and been sick as a dog use a vernacular statement and all of a sudden you got well you jumped out of bed and you go, oh man, I feel great. And you, you know, it's a elated spirit you just feel real good all over.

   All right, the Israelites began they were going to experience that. They were afraid they were gonna die. They were shaking. You can imagine the children started crying, the mothers were upset and it's like a disease or infection that spreads. Now Moses said in verse 13, and Moses said unto the people, fear you not stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show you today. For the Egyptians whom you have seen this day or today, you shall see them again, no more, forever. God will fight for you or the Lord shall fight for you, and you shall hold your peace. Now what he told them, and it happened is they won't kill you, and God will protect you, and they witnessed an event that was miraculous.

   And I think the 10 Commandments probably wouldn't do it justice because if you walk through a sea and saw all of the billowing waters above you and went through that and got on the other side and then saw this army pursuing you and saw the water collapse on then began seeing chariots float up on the top of the water and all of that that would be something that would really, I don't know I don't think we could explain that. In our terms we haven't experienced it you would look and look at all the horrible experiences of people who had abused you and your family for years and all of a sudden you didn't do anything there are no more factor in your life. God gave them protection, dramatic protection.

   Now not only that, look at Exodus 16:4. You know today we have the food stamp program. We have people all kinds of food stamps which frankly keeps the American farmer in business, commodity market, the canneries, because you can buy American food, so it's sort of hard to say what we give away. We get take it from one, give it to another, and then the farmer gets the money, the commodity people, and then they spend it on airplanes, tractors, and fertilizer to keep somebody else working, so it's a big circle in society.

   Well, God dealt with the Israelites in a way that it was unique. Here they were out in the wilderness. And God began to give them something that's very important. Look at verse 4. Then said the Lord unto Moses, behold, I will ring bread from heaven for you. Oh that is great. God gave the Israelites free food. They didn't have to go to Safeway, Kroger's, any of these stores. I mean it was there. They didn't have to read labels for it. It was made by God. They didn't have to check. I wonder if any vitamins are in this. I wonder if they processed it too much. They didn't worry about it. I mean, God made it. They were given their food free. Did not have to plow for it because you hard to plow rocks and sand in the desert anyway. They didn't have to worry about it. It was there.

   You began seeing what the Israelites were given as a totality of of of this tangible items they were given freedom, protection, and food. You know, a lot of that's what you worry about. I worry about protection. Some might gonna break in my house. I'm scared, lock my car doors. You go downtown. You're, you're afraid somebody may vandalize you in Memphis. Some guy was driving around the downtown area with his doors unlocked, and two women jumped in the car and stab him, and I read that and I go downtown. I'm locking my door and looking out, boy, these women, I'm gonna, you know, take off the other way. We, we live in that kind of fear. God gave them protection. The other thing you worry about is buying food and keeping your family fed and all of this. God gave them man.

   Look at Exodus 17, another example, Exodus 17:1, and you can read the whole example here because this is the example of where the people didn't have any water. Now today we cannot, uh, really feel like they felt we live in cities where we turn on the tap and water is equated with the bill and money. You've got money you can get water today we probably if we were out in the desert we would be arguing because there's no coke, no beer who would be complaining God, I mean, where's where, where's the pop? Don't have any iced tea. Don't have any pop. Don't have any of this. All right, well they were complaining they didn't have any water, which is far more essential. They were, you know, out in the middle of the desert they're gonna die and again that panic took over.

   People began to murmur in verse 3 against Moses. You know, Moses, if you think for a moment, what could he do as a physical human being? He couldn't do anything. He couldn't make water. And you're talking about the position to put him in and the realization there better be a God there and God to come through for him did a great deal for Moses and helping him right here they wanted water and remember the example that Moses smote the stone and water like a river just came out. All the people had plenty to drink, so God gave them water.

   You can go through example after example. Just Exodus chapter 20. You wanna take a religious issue, people today. More than anything else I think in religions would like for God to talk with him. You ever noticed that how many people said God spoke to me? Lady about 100 years ago fell over backwards. God spoke to her and she started a whole religion out of that. And if you ever heard people I remember in Ohio. Visiting a lady where Christ would come in at night and stand at the foot of her bed and talk with her, she said, and I think she believed it. I didn't believe it, but she did. And now what happens though? How would you like God to talk with you? That would be something I think we'd want, alright Exodus 20 is an example of God sitting down or standing up whatever it doesn't say what he was doing. But talking with man, giving man essential principles of how a community must be conducted to exist, or to use fancy words, maybe put it simply, he gave them laws that if they didn't keep their whole society would go kaput. Their home life would shatter and they would be dealing in crime and frustration and problems just on a human plane. He gave them those laws he talked to, and as you begin to see the Israelites God gave them freedom, he gave them protection he gave them food, he gave them water, he spoke to them.

   And in Exodus 40, you'll find he even traveled with them. You know that's powerful. I mean he went with them. He traveled all the time, was there in a cloud with them. Now you would think that after that experience the Israelites would know God better than anybody else. They would understand God they've been given a lot.

   Look at Deuteronomy 5, and did they really benefit in a spiritual way from all that had been given? Deuteronomy 5:29. As God reflected in his own opinion, or in his opinion, shows exactly what he thought. Deuteronomy 5:29. He said, oh that there were such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep my commandments always, that it might be well with them and with their children forever. That's strange. God says, I wish they had the heart, the mind. To really understand what I'm driving at, but they didn't because they'd get the manna, they'd eat it for a few years, and I don't know whether God changed the flavor of it. He didn't say, but they got tired of it. And they didn't like God then they sort of got upset with him. They took out their frustrations on Moses, so they were scared to get mad at God personally because you know they knew what he's done to Pharaoh. They knew what he did to the army, so they get mad at Moses instead. It's always easy to get mad with a human being. Nobody likes to get mad with God because there's the outside chance you could die, and then, you know, God's, he can get you. You read the Bible, I mean, he can, he can do you then. So most people will take it out on the human being first. So they, I mean they would tell Moses off. They called him every name in the book. They got mad at him because, you know, Moses, you're our problem. God, he's not our problem, you know our problems are because of you and this has always been true of human beings. We just place our anger on other people and take it out on them because you don't wanna make God mad.

   Alright here God says though they didn't get the point. They really didn't understand. So what if God gave a nation just on a human level everything they really needed or could want in one sense? What would happen to them? They still wouldn't have the mind that God wants to develop in men. They would have food, they would have a lot of things, but they may not in all of them have the mind that God wants. They wouldn't think like God they wouldn't understand like God.

   Let me give you an example from a textbook of what people uh viewing human behavior say about parents as a human model or example about parents who are over permissive and indulgent. Now God is a parent, and just when you, when I read this, think a little bit about what if God acted like these parents overindulgent. Indulgent means every time a kid whimper, you give him something. He cries in the store. You plug in the sucker he wants. He cries in Kmart. You give him a toy. He cries at home. You give him what he wants. You've seen parents like that, haven't you? You've gone through the store, little kid there can go and they'll say, cut him, kill him fight, buy it. You go. Oh, quite, and the louder the kid gets, the mother gets panicky, you see, oh, OK, here it is. Kids, you know, sits there and happy as all get out. You know that kid has built a habit then he knows the louder he cries, you'll give it to him. That's, that's what we call indulgence or what can be phrase indulgence.

   Let me read what over permissiveness and indulgence does, then I'll give you a classic example of what happens when somebody has been overindulged. So although it happens less commonly than is popularly supposed, sometimes one or both parents cater to a child's slightest whims and in doing so fail to teach and reward desirable standards of behavior. Those are big words, so you give him something, and I mean he every time he whines, you give it to him, and you really reward crying and whimpering and you know, make it desirable for him to do it. In essence, the parent surrenders the running of the home to the uninhibited son or daughter.

   Well, in 1968 by Pola gave an example. And he quoted a father who had been very permissive with his little 9 year old daughter and finally, here's what happened the permissive father finally rebelled in tyranny, uh, uh, against his nine year old daughter and in a near tantrum exploded. This is a father to a little 9 year old daughter. He said, I want one thing perfectly clear and understood. I live in this house too. I tell the little girl he had given her everything so he had to tell the girl I exist I'm bigger than you and I live here so I have rights.

   Overly indulged children are characteristically spoiled, selfish, inconsiderate, and demanding. A fellow from the University of California at Berkeley in 1961 found a high uh high permissiveness and low punishment in the home were correlated with. Anti-social aggressive behavior, I mean the kid just, you know, was unruly, particularly during middle and late childhood. Unlike rejected emotionally deprived children who often find it difficult to enter into a warm interpersonal relationship, indulged children enter readily into such relationships. In other words, they get along with people and they just seem friendly, but then they exploit people for their own purposes in the same way that they have learned to exploit their parents.

   In dealing with authority, such children are usually rebellious and for long, uh, for so long they've had their own way. Every time they wanted something they were given it. Overly indulged children also tend to be impatient. I read the example of the Israelites. They got impatient. They didn't get water, boom, they didn't get this. They blew up impatient to approach problems and they tend to approach problems in an aggressive and demanding manner and to find it difficult to accept present frustrations in the interest of long range goals and then what really takes them out is when they get into the real world they find life does not allow them the privilege of getting everything immediately. They go in debt, uh, they marry speedily in a hurry to get somebody and they live that kind of life from frustration.

   A classic example of somebody who lived that way. And was overindulged as a fellow called Dear Marshal Hermann Goring over in the Nazi regime. Let me read you a little bit about, uh, Goring. Goring had a better family background than most of his Nazi associates. Here’s the fellow had been, he grew up in a pretty rich environment, been given a lot. His father had been governor of German Southwest Africa and resident minister of Hatai or Haiti. Herman attended several boarding schools but was bored and restless. Till he got to the military academy where he settled down to his studies. So Hermann Goring. Now Goring was given a lot in his life and notice what it did to him, and then we'll go into the New Testament and find out what God when he gives you something, how you ought to really entertain it and use it.

   He entered the army as an infanterman, but he took flying lessons surreptitiously and got himself transferred to the Air Force against the wishes of his superior officers because, you know, flying an airplane is easier than shooting a gun and and hiking around in the army. Anybody knows that. I fly I mean I can fly over a whole, I remember we used to go hunting up in the Monagahila National Forest in West Virginia. Mountain is one peak 5000 ft, and I mean it would really. tough you have to hike up the mountain. I went over there on an airplane to scout that area flying around one day, and I mean I could, I could go up and down any place I wanted, no problem. Hermann Goring figured that out about 40 years ago. So anyway, 50 I guess he was in World War I.

   So what he did, he got in the Air Force. He was courageous and impetuous flyer, and after the death of Rycoffen, he took charge of the flying circus. At the close of the I World War, Goring went to Sweden, where he worked as a mechanic. And as a civil aviator. Not to be outfoxed, he married a wealthy woman. I wonder why he married a wealthy woman. All right, Herman married a wealthy woman and enrolled in the University of Munich. In Munich, he met Hitler and joined the Nazi movement.

   Goring's manner of living is described as Byzantine splendor. That means rich. And as a particular, as, as a, uh. Another pirate, uh, tanical splendor lived like a pirate. I mean he just lived, he ate, and he had a big time, lived in a beautiful home, a castle. He built a pretentious country home near Berlin and furnished it magnificently with tapestries, paintings, and antiques. He had his own private zoo. He required his servants to address his wife by nobility and in a term of nobility, thus giving her the distinction of nobility. He felt that the Germans liked his display of luxury and he bragged about it. He gave food for their imagination, and gave the people something to think about. Go, I mean, he just, he was, he began getting things and the more he got, the more he became mentally a little bit uh difficult to live with.

   Goring was given to exhibitionism and had a passion for uniforms, gold braids, medals, decorations. Goring would strut and swagger in private and in public and political rallies, he made himself a flamboyant master of pomp and pageantry. He was an exhibitionist in the psychopathic pattern, big word, he was just crazy when you get down to it. Goring was coarse, however, and gross. He was a gargantuan eater and drinker. He was a rival, he was rival in jest. He laughed uproariously when his pet lion, uh had an accident on a lady's dress. He horrified men and women by having a bull and a cow mate before them. He said he personally enjoyed the spectacle and declared it was an old Teutonic custom. So when they really didn't like it, what he did, he said this is really an old German custom. He gave historical credence to his behavior.

   Our Herman was a was popular with the masses, and they smiled good naturedly at his antics and self-display. He demanded they make sacrifices in order to win World War II and victory. He exhorted them to choose guns instead of butter. He patted his fat belly. If you ever seen pictures of Goring, you know, you can appreciate this. He patted his fat belly and said that he had lost 40 pounds in the service of his country. The Germans appreciated his sense of humor.

   Goring was unscrupulous in his exercise of authority. He was said to be courageous, hard, challenging, and authoritative in the pure oppression manner. He was described as affable and a hearty butcher. When he was made chief of the Prussian police, he told his men to shoot first and inquire afterwards. He said, if you make a mistake, don't talk about it. The faults which my officials commit are my faults. The bullets they fire are my bullets. Goring regarded as bullets as an effective form of propaganda. He introduced the concentration camps and declared that it was not his duty to exercise justice but to annihilate and to exterminate.

   Pampered see everything he had no conscience after a while he was given everything he wanted and he began to demand more. He did not look on human life as valuable and was a part author and uh propitiation of the a propitiator of the uh concentration camps. He introduced decapitation. Guess how he explained that. He explained it as an honest old German punishment, made it nationalistic. Goring is given credit for plotting the Reichag fire and planning the direction of the blood purge.

   Going admitted that he had no conscience and his conscience was Adolf Hitler. Like many a sociopath. Goering was a tender had a tender side. He was fond of animals, including his lion cubs. He declared that he who torments an animal hurts the feeling of the whole German people at the same time would kill the masses and the Jews and all kinds of other things that he did. Goring was often considered the most natural and most conservative of the Nazi leaders. Like most people in his ilk of mental condition, he would appear normal in his social relationships and he might seem genial and kindly with humor. However, he wasn't that way.

   Well, what happens though if you're given everything you want you want before you're ready to know what to do with it. You can become very selfish, very materialistic, and very spoiled, and the Israelites did not have the mind to accept everything God had given them.

   I turn to Matthew chapter 6. Matthew 6, let's look at a few things here. Matthew chapter 6. And notice what Jesus Christ said. And showing how he was gonna deal with people. This is almost in Matthew 5, 6 and 7 a platform speech of how God thinks. And how he puts things together and what he was gonna require a New Testament Christians to do in addition to just keeping the laws. This is the kind of mind he wanted to build an addition to what the Israelites were ever given and a big addition to that, or as it said in Matthew 5:17, it was a magnification of what they were given to show the intent, what God had in mind, how he thought.

   I said in verse 19, of Matthew 6 (Matthew 6:19-21), Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, for moth and rust does corrupt. Now what kind of treasures does moth and dust corrupt? All the little treasures we buy, if you ever bought a new car and looked at it about 3 years later and found rust on it? You'll look at it and you sort of think, boy this was pretty new at one time it's rusty now we bought our children bicycles and I go out and look at those bicycles a year and a half later, and they look like they went through the I World War, II World War, Korea, Vietnam, and are now probably down in Africa fighting some war there. See they rusted.

   Now what he's showing he's not saying it's wrong to have treasures on Earth. What he's saying as we go through this, it's the idea of people tend to emphasize certain kinds, and we all do have treasures. And then I want to get into another point as we go through this. He said these treasures to identify them, to label them are treasures that can corrupt. They can rust. And not only that, there are treasures that can be stolen. Somebody can take them from you. People can take your houses. My grandfather or great grandfather had the farms down in South Carolina, cotton farms back at the turn of the century, and I mean every time my granddad used to tell me, you know, we sit around the stove and he'd uh relate all the stories, but what would happen as cotton prices went down because of Egyptian exports back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, my great grandfather would lose the farm, taking two years of Egyptian cotton coming into this country, and the bank would repossess his farm. Then it'd take about 2 years to get it back. Then about 3 or 4 years later, here come more Egyptian cotton, the bank would get its farm again. It's a big cycle. So finally they moved to North Carolina and got out of the whole thing. And quit raising cotton. My grandfather did, my great grandfather never left. He kept in that cycle. All what happened though people could break in and take it.

   Now what Christ says though in verse 20 he said the emphasis ought to be in your life. He said, most people just emphasize one aspect, all the physical things that we can garner and get to ourselves and bring in. He said, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven. Now how do you lay up treasures in heaven? Now, obviously you can't buy them because anything you can buy tangibly somebody can take it away from you. He said we're neither moth nor rust this corrupt, and where thieves do not break in. Or break through nor steal. Then he says in verse 21, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

   That's a strange thing in modern society. We equate things probably differently than they would have back to 2000 years ago because we live in a society our treasures are in dollars and cents. My little boy saw a $100 bill and boy he thought that was something he said I want that. Problem was I wanted it too, and he looked at that and he, his eyes got and he wanted to hold it. He said, I wanna put it in my pocket. Now he really wasn't intent on the $100 bill per se because after a while his little mind you could begin to see he talked about bicycles. The money wasn't a treasure, what the money would buy was really a treasure.

   Have you ever noticed that the money itself is not the greatest treasure. It's what it'll buy and purchase it gets to be a treasure to you. So you go out and I go out, I take my wallet and I think, boy, I am gonna buy. I take my dollars and cents and I don't worship those. I, I, I, I think about what I'm gonna buy and I talk about it. I went out and I had seen this commercial on television about Weed Eater. You seen the Weed Eater commercial? I thought, boy, that is what I want. I can edge. I can cut. I can do everything, probably give my kids a haircut with it the way the thing works. I though that is the greatest thing in the world. I borrowed somebody and I liked it. Listen, I thought that was great, so I went out and bought one. Now what was my treasure though? My treasure is my, it's not a weed eater, it's a weed whacker. My same thing though. My weed whacker was a treasure. I went out and I mean the other Friday I used that thing 2-3 hours. I went out by a fence, cut out all the weeds, edged, and I thought about it and talked about it.

   Now if you look at a fisherman and you go out and say, now where's your treasure? It's not the money he has, it's what's that what that money does that becomes a treasure, he says, boy, my treasure, let me show you this rod and reel. I got this. I show you the greatest plug that is ever invented. Paid 9.95 for it to catch anything. Then he uses it a few times and you go back a year later and you've got a new one that'll do anything and then he's got next year another one will do anything right, the treasure is what you buy.

   You know I have a lot of treasures and moth and corruption bother. I have a house. I have a car, a wise little Toyota moth and corruption does bother it. And from time to time and all of that, but when you use your money you begin to think about it. See Christ made a very emphatic statement that is so true. Once you invest your treasure in a home, you think about it, you talk about it, you're absorbed with it. I don't care what you buy. We, we have gone through a cycle. I don't know how you are, but every time we, we, we buy things and our crock pot's gonna solve all your problems. You just throw stuff in it, walk off, come back a month later, and the food's done. Never burn anything, you know, you buy it, and that's your treasure for why you invest what 9.95, 16.95 in it solve all your problems. Well, it's a treasure for a while, and you talk about it. Friends come over and you say, hey, I wanna show you my crockpot or you feed them stuff out of the. Isn't this good. You know they sit there and eat it and they're good. I'm, I'm not down in crock pots, but what the money does it, it begins to show and it begins to reflect something that's important to you and you use it or you can go through the electric knives and I remember we had some old washing machines that I thought we bought up in Canada I think for $5 a piece. And my wife said we've gotta have something better. I mean it burned double knits and they, they break and we had babies coming along and we thought, well, we'll finally, and after I guess we were married 7-8 years we finally saved enough money to buy a washer and dryer. We thought that was great to go with our $5 refrigerator and $25 stove and uh anyway, we bought the washing machines and you know those things where they were the apple over I even used them. I'd go down there and you know you just push buttons and throw stuff in great. And we talked about it. People come to our house. I wanna show you a washing machine. You ever you ever visit anybody and they do show you things like that? Sure you do. They've invested their money and that's where their mind is. That's what they're thinking about.

   Guy gets a new boat, and I'm gonna show you my new boat, and I mean, you may be sick of boats, but he's gonna show you and he'll tell you everything about it and he'll try to convince you why it was the best buy. That's not wrong, but what it's doing is reflecting that's where your treasure is that's what you think about it's true with tithing it's true with giving it's true with anything. If you give something you ought to think about it when you start giving and don't think you're a part of something, you got problems if I made mortgage payments on my house and I thought they were stealing my house away from me or something was happening to it. I'd be fearful and all of these things come up in our minds and where your treasure is, that's where your heart is, and this is true with all of us.

   Now Christ was emphasizing the treasures you can build in your life that are even more important than the physical treasures, and he was showing as part of the attitude, the attitude of giving, the attitude of service and all of the things he begins to talk about in this chapter. He says in verse 22, the light of the body is the eye. If your eye be single, your whole body shall be full of light. But if your eye in the evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness, and he's showing these contrasts of treasures on the earth versus a kind of treasure that Christ wanted to build in humankind, something that hadn't been built in the Israelites, a mind that hadn't been developed in them. And he was showing that most people live life in a darkened state. They don't get the point of what God is talking about.

   He says in verse 24 (Matthew 6:24), no man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one or love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. He's not saying it's wrong to have mammon. He said serve it, for that is the major emphasis in your life. I'll take a classic example. We have men like former President Nixon, and I don't know how much you've read about him or read the uh Watergate papers and all of that, but here was a man. Who wanted to be president. He really wanted to be, but he was willing to make sacrifices that shouldn't have been made to maintain what his illusion of a president was. He was willing to sacrifice things like honesty. He was willing to sacrifice things like integrity. He was willing to sacrifice things like his language about other people, his attitudes about other people like calling Mr. Mitchell the big enchilada, which I expect Mr. Mitchell didn't like. This was on one of the tapes. I read every one of those silly things and you're talking about disillusioned with what went on and the attitude behind it. What he was willing to sacrifice was what we call basic human traits of honesty and goodness in order to be president. Now if you were to talk with him now, I don't know whether he would want to sacrifice those things. He said, I wish I would have done this a little differently. So this is the emphasis, emphasis we're talking about. There have been people to sacrifice their entire lives with something physical and sacrifice your integrity, truthfulness, all of these things. That's what Christ is getting at.

   You found yourself in that position I have where I need something and boy if I just run that stop sign, I get there and you know, not that you know there may be cases where you ought to run a stop sign. There have been cases where I've run, you know, gone through an intersection and after I got through it asked myself did I stop and not know you're tired or something remember years ago, you know, when driving 60,000 miles a year, many times I wondered what, what I did. Like that, and I guess I probably stopped I did all the other times that I can remember. I know what happens though these individuals, you see it in society are willing to sacrifice though characteristics that God says are very important to get things that corrupt. They're willing to cheat, lie, steal, budge on their taxes, and a lot of indecent things. So Christ goes through an example said really your emphasis ought not to be that so. They're important, but if you sacrifice the eternal things that can be built in your life, then you're making a mistake.

   Now the Israelites were willing to sacrifice all the good things of character in order to get what they wanted. They would get mad and I mean be so bitter toward Moses they were ready to kill him. In order to get water. So they were willing to sacrifice being the kind of people and thinking like God would like them to have thought in order to get something. It didn't help them out. You've had children do that, haven't you willing to sacrifice your nerves and you in order to get something, you know, where they get mad and whine and cry and throw a fit in a tantrum or to get what they want.

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   He stole the Pharisees and these people, well his disciples do at this time that he's talking to in verse 38 (Matthew 6:38). He said, you have heard that it's been said. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And that was the way they've been taught. Now we basically live in an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth society here. You run into my car, it's your fault, your insurance fixes my fender, right? That's a fender for a fender. Uh, somebody, you have a swimming pool and somebody falls into it, uh, and the value in this society is placed on the life that's lost and your insurance company or you, whatever the case might be, reimburses the person accordingly. You're in a car wreck and get your arm banged up. There's a whole trial involved around paying you for that arm. What is that arm worth? What's that tooth worth? There's basically that idea in society, and it's not a bad idea in itself, but Christ went on to say there's something more.

   He said in verse 39 (Matthew 6:39), and I say unto you that you resist not evil. Whosoever shall smite you on the right cheek turned to him the other also. And Christ began saying, I wanna tell you there's something else you can do. If somebody hits you on the right cheek, the law says you hit him on the right cheek. You slap him back. That's what you people think. Now that has been turned into to undo jokes, ridicule and funny things, boy, I'll just turn the right cheek and then I'll turn the left and then you better watch out.

   Now what is Christ driving at? What does he mean? How many times in life do you have to practice this? How many times people come up and hit you in the right cheek? I haven't had that happen since I was a little boy growing up. You mean Christ wasted all this time telling these grown men something that only children are involved in? You know the way we fight, let's go on. And you can read through it to get the gist or gist of it and find out what it's saying. Well, what is, what, what idea is he implanting?

   You know the way we hit people on the cheek when we get older, and little kids, they come right on they're violent. I mean you take their toys, they'll come and slap the other one. The way we hit people on the cheek is verbally, psychologically. Husband comes in and he's been mad all day, you know, and people have done him wrong on his job and he comes in the door and his wife, you know, is all happy and has dinner ready and he comes in and says, well, what are we having today or tonight? We're having chicken, she says, all happy, he said, What do you mean chicken? We have that all the time. And what is he doing to her? He's put a little thing, slapped a little bit.

   Now most human beings, a wife would say now, hey, wait a minute, she wouldn't take her this long to do it. I'm just rephrasing a little bit of the thought process, you know, I mean, it doesn't come out, it comes out a little faster. I mean. We're good at this. She's saying, you mean I have spent all day slaving for this guy? He comes in mad as a hornet saying we have chicken all the time. Here I have very little money to buy groceries with. Doesn't give me much money to buy groceries with, and I slaved the way I burnt my finger. What do you mean we're having chicken tonight? Then uh then bang. All right, now here's what she said. She, she did that to him, boy, what do you mean yelling me like that? Don't you know who I am? Yeah, I know who you are. You're the guy that did this. Uh, what are they doing? They're fighting, right? All right then. As they fight then, who turned the cheek? See, when the husband pounds the wife, she turned around and hit him back, verbally. Then he hit her back, and before long, even the dog is cowering in the corner scared to death. I mean, the thing though is I'm gonna keep out of they can keep away from these people.

   You see what happens? This is the way we hit other people. What Christ is saying, there's a whole dimension of life I'm talking about that it's different. What if the wife had just said, I know I ought to tell him, I am mad that I'm gonna keep my mouth shut. Maybe after the guy ate, he would be happy. You know, he'd eat and he'd say, you know, I had a rough day today, a ball slammed the door of the truck on my finger. This guy in the back dropped something on my toe. This person came into the shop and yelled at me and threw a crowbar at me and missed me and I am so mad. I, you know, I, I just feel horrible. Maybe it would come out like that. Maybe he'd continue yelling. Christ just said turn the other cheek. Most of the time we don't.

   How about when you go in a restaurant and a waiter or waitress makes a mistake. You know, it's easy not to turn the other cheek. I'm not talking about somebody you, you order, um, well we went to a restaurant and this waitress said that these were barbecued beef ribs. And I'll tell you what what was brought to us was a beef. They got the funniest looking pigs someplace I've ever seen. They were spare ribs, you know. Anybody can see that. Now I'm not talking about saying I'm gonna turn the other cheek and I'm gonna eat my spare ribs and make that lady happy, you know, but I, rather than saying and getting up from the table and you know, throwing them at her. Or you know, stomping them, throwing them off the table, or looking at him and scowling at her. Uh, what do you mean bringing these things to me? You know, we said, hey, you know what, what are these? She said, well, they're be you know, they don't look like beef to me, and we were nice about it at least, because I mean anybody that can't tell the difference between a pig and a cow has got problems. Why, why insult them any further, you know, why make them any sadder. So anyway, you can do that and oftentimes if if you've seen people rush up and make an accident or do something wrong in traffic, have you ever had anybody just absentmindedly pull out on you? I have, you know, I mean they just pull right on you, slam on. Breaks and they just don't even see you. The reaction is now they have hit me on the cheek and man you blow your horn. What are you doing? And you're riding down the highway mad then because this idiot ran out in front of me and you blow your horn at other people right you're just going around hitting everybody. And I mean people look and see you coming that guy blowing his horn at me for boy, I tell you that's a nut going along here. And then they start doing it I mean we got a whole, you know, you drive in some cities, it's, it's catching like a virus. They need to give a vaccine against it.

   See what happens? Christ said there's got to be something eternal built in you that just doesn't act that way. It doesn't behave that way. He goes on and says in verse 40, and if any man will sue you at the law and take away your coat, let him have your cloak too. Or also, now that's not talking about if you somebody takes you to court falling over and saying you're suing me for this, let me give you all that I have. You know, under even a Roman uh justice and judicial system, if somebody sued you and was awarded your coat, what Christ is saying it would be better to give him your coat and be nice about it and to go ahead and keep fighting in endless battles.

   Have you ever seen somebody go through a court trial? Over a fence line or something. And I mean the court decides. They go through whatever appeals they can and the court has decided this. And they spend to their dying day griping about it. Have you ever seen that, you know, somebody has an automobile accident, the court, the insurance company and they go through court. This is all it is worth. And they say, well, I think it's worth more and I mean if you see that person for the next 20 years he's talking about how he was ripped off. Christ said it's better not to be that way. On justice has ruled this way, why not go ahead and live your life and it it might be good if you had the attitude to give him more and just get out of it without worrying about it.

   You've seen children do that. Argue incessantly over something rather than just saying, alright, we'll settle it, here it is, my attitude is I'm out of it. And being happy with it, the human proclivity is once you've been taken, once you've gone through the trial, is if you don't get what you thought was yours, to assassinate the other person to talk about the system, to run it down for the rest of your born days and make everybody else miserable, including yourself, he's saying, and who, and whosoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him two.

   Now back then, if somebody has the authority to compel you to go a mile. And could make you do it. He said you might as well go two. Have you ever had a boss ask you to do something that you didn't want to do? I don't mean anything dishonest or wrong, but I, in the term of work in terms of work and you didn't wanna do it. And he has, you know, sort of the right to compel you a little bit. So what you do, you do it. So when he wants it done this way, I'll do it this way, blasted. I'll do it. And what you do is do it in a way that sort of, you know, doesn't do it exactly the best you could.

   All right, now what are you doing? Have you ever as a husband or wife, maybe wise or more prone to. Have this happen. a husband said we're gonna do this, and the wife just plain doesn't wanna do it. He's compelled you so or maybe the wife says, hey, we gotta take the kids over here to do this and if you use the husband's example and the husband is compelled to do it, so he goes along in the car and he gripes the whole way. I told you we shouldn't come here so we're almost out of gas in the car. See, your car is missing all your fault. What he's doing instead of going in a happy and sort of a nice way and saying, well, we should go. I ought to go and I'm going and I'm gonna go the extra mile and be friendly about it, he goes and he gripes and he pulls up and slams, all right, get out and go see if I care. I'll sit here in the car, you know, he sticks his open like a little child and you know, the way we do, and you can see them in parking lots, take your wives shopping, see these guys sitting out in the car, you, you know they're mad. I mean you can tell when people are upset. You just look at it and it's a, it's a marvelous go through a, you know, go around a shopping mall and just view people sometimes and you can tell when a husband has been dragged along. I mean you can see him, he paces behind he hides in stores, his wife has to find him. All kinds of things.

   All right, now that's just down to a very kind of the way we act, doesn't it? If somebody compels you to go a mile and they can make you do it, you ought to do it happily. You've got a choice. If they can make you do it, you can either do it miserably or you can do it happily. The human proclivity is when you don't want to do something and you have to be compelled to do it drag your feet. That's my proclivity and your proclivity. What he's saying is it's better not to do that.

   What I'm talking about Christ is saying is another dimension of life that is so different from the average person that isn't even funny. These things can't be torn down, he's saying. These are the eternal principles. And he's talking about that even precede what he was getting to in Matthew chapter 6.

   Let's look at another example in Matthew 5:21. Let's look at verse 21. Matthew 5:21. To show this dimension of things of what Christ is doing with the mind and God the Father is and giving His Holy Spirit to help us to be something that the Israelites weren't, and it's more important than food and water. Not that they aren't important, but these things are the important principles that underlie the eternal existence of God, and they're very important.

   It says in Matthew 5:21, you have heard that it was said by them of old, you shall not kill. Now that was very emphatic. 6th commandments, don't kill. That's the letter of the law. How many times do you disobey that law? You know, I have never disobeyed the law. Thou shalt not kill. I have never killed anybody. Oh, you know, we could all give her, uh, if you've been in the military, maybe you've had to under that circumstance, but we could probably if we were passing out medals for keeping the 6th commandment literally, we could pass out medals to everybody practically except those involved in war. And we can all feel righteous scratch one another's back and say, boy, isn't this good we kept that six commandments.

   Christ says, hey, wait a minute, I got something to add to that now. I wanna tell you something else about that commandment. He goes ahead and says, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But he said, I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of judgment. Now if you're angry without a cause. Now if you're angry at anybody. I'll be willing to, I don't guess I shouldn't bet, but I would venture to say if I'm angry with them but I could prove in my own mind that I have a right to be angry.

   You ever ask a child when they get mad, you know, like two little brothers fighting, you'll ask one of them, why are you fighting? You know, they're mad and angry. Well, he, he, he took my toy away from me and I had to hit him. The other one said, Well, yeah, he, he hit me and I had to hit him back. He's gonna hit me again. See, they're angry with what they're saying. I've got a cause to be. Well, Christ isn't talking about the Mickey Mouse causes that we sometimes engender. He's talking about something far deeper. He said, if you, there are causes to be angry with something, it's sin and where people are taken advantage of and hurt. That's one thing, but he goes on to express his meaning where you can get a little bit more.

   He says in the continuing, and whosoever shall say to his brother Rocca. Now you don't have to be a Greek scholar, just look in your margin. That means vain fellow. You'll be in danger of the council. Then he goes ahead and says, But whosoever shall say unto you, thou fool. I look at the margin, it says graceless wretch, and that pretty well shows what it means, graceless wretch shall be in danger of hellfire.

   Now what is he talking about? Have you ever dealt with people like they're not worth very much? Sure, you know, a lot of things happen in life. Like a vain worthless fellow, when you get mad at somebody and upset with them, you try to prove, and I do too, it's just a human proclivity, how worthless they are. I remember back home growing up, you know, uh, and probably you've experienced the same thing. Families tend to pick on certain members of the, uh, you know, other members of the family like our aunts and uncles would pick on. Another side of the family or like my mother would talk about my dad's family and she'd talk about somebody and you know they drink they do this they do that they're no good. And I mean they really get vehement about it.

   Now what are they doing? They're saying somebody isn't worth very much. When you tear somebody down and tear them to pieces and bitterness and anger and in a vituperous bellicose, belligerent, angry, hateful way, what you're doing, you're saying they're not worth very much. You're not treating them with the regard a human being ought to have, for another human being, that's what gossip and rumor does. It makes somebody look so black, so bad, so dismal, so no good that they aren't worth even God's time, much less yours. And this is something we do.

   Have you ever heard the, I grew up in a religious background, and we'd run down other, you know, in the family, they'd run down other religious people. Look at those dumb Pentecostal people. They're no good boy, they're brats, they're crazy. And I don't believe that, but I've heard those terms used. This is what it's talking about. Where you view somebody is not worth helping.

   Now I wanna show you something else. There's more than one way of doing that. Because it also mentions a graceless wretch, graceless basically means without uh mercy, and what he's saying is there are people that look on other people as if they don't deserve any mercy whatsoever. Now this often happens when somebody's down and out and say feeling horrible, they've done wrong, they feel guilty, they're just. Sort of getting up off their stomachs and somebody else comes along and says look what dirty that person is and what are you doing then? You're saying now that person isn't worth my time, my effort, my help and I'd like to step on him again. Then what, what's happening to that individual as he tries to get up and all these people come by and they put him down again. They say, yeah, I wanna tell you how bad he is. Yeah, and you read about that in the paper, you read about people treating one another that way. You see it in the world.

   Have you ever seen in a job where everybody flogged somebody else to death, picks at them? I'm gonna tell you those that guy, he is nuts. He's no good rather than saying that he's got problems, how can I help him? The attitude is almost, he's got problems and I'm gonna pick his feet out from under him so he falls a little bit further. or when somebody is just crawling around in human depravity and discouraged and distraught, I'm not gonna help him. Instead of helping them, the proclivity is to tear him down further.

   Now what Christ is saying, if you treat people like that, that's not the way he treats people. It's like when old Peter jumped out of the boat and says Christ, I'm gonna run over on the water and grab hold of you. Peter got about halfway over and you know, blub, blub, blub. He started going down. He said, help me. Some people would have said, Peter, you nuts, you jumped out of that boat. You deserved to drown. Others would say now wait a minute, what I'm gonna do, Peter, I'm gonna let you know how wrong you were just a second before your lungs are so filled with water and you're about to drop to the bottom, I'm gonna pick you up. And they had to come over there and dragged him up, pumped the water out of him, said, Peter, I told you, see, you almost died. Need more faith, brother. You know, these are all the attitudes people would have to show these things.

   You know, Jesus didn't act like that at all. And the scriptures don't even show Peter had to go all the way down. Christ went over and just helped him because the guy needed help. And if, you know, he's gonna drive him crazy. Peter went down, Christ didn't let him get all the way down. He picked him up and looked at him and I think Peter already knew he didn't have any faith. That the time the water got up to his elbows, he, you know, knew something was wrong. He missed something and Christ said, well, Peter, I've helped you up. You know, you need more faith. Peter said amen. But he didn't let him drown, half drowned, 3/4 drowned before he helped him. He got there a little bit sooner. And he helped him because he needed help, and I guess Christ could have looked at Peter and said, you're gonna curse, you're gonna deny me, and I, I wanna let you know just how bad you are. I'll let you gobble gobble gobble you're about ready to go under, but he didn't do that.

   Now this is the way Christ is expressing. How he thought about human life. Not only did Christ not murder, he didn't have all those little innuendos and, and feelings of hatred. He was a man who helped. Who was there to help when the harlot was caught in the case of adultery, I don't think anybody had to go up and say, lady, you're in trouble. I mean, she was standing here before a half a dozen or so angry men who had rocks in their hands ready to kill her. I don't think Jesus had to come up and say, hey, wait a minute, woman, don't kill her, but I wanna tell you, tell you woman how bad you are. That woman was scared to death. That's the reason you didn't have to go, you know, some people use that and say, well, look how Christ was so nice. Well, somebody's about to be shot to death or stoned to death. You don't have to tell them they've been wrong. Your heart's pounding, your blood pressure is probably 200/150. The veins are about to pop out of their skull. They know they're gonna be dead. They sweated all night. They worried, their minds in absolute turmoil, and these guys stand there ready to kill them, Christ said, hey, wait a minute. Let me show one of these guys. He wrote something, they all left. He looked at the woman, he said, I'm not gonna condemn you. Just go and don't sin. And what he was implying, if you go and sin, you're gonna be back here and I'm not gonna be here next time maybe. And you know how it feels to be caught. Please go your way and don't do it anymore.

   Now Christ was there to help. He had a tremendous amount of love, which is right the opposite. If you want to put it on a polarity. You could have hatred, murder down here and love way up here. He was in that direction up, not down. Most of us tend to be in the direction these things are talking about angry without cause and hatred, you worthless wretch. See we go the opposite way in human life and Christ is saying, don't deal that way.

   He said in verse 23 (Matthew 5:23). Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar. And there remember that your brother has aught against you. Leave your gift before the altar and go your way and first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Beautiful statement, you know what people will do if they're mad at somebody else, what do you usually do? Do you go to your brother and say, look, I, I, I, I'm upset with you. I don't know what's wrong. I, I feel bad about it. What you usually do is go tell everybody else, you know, so and so treated me bad. Have you ever treated you bad? Yeah. And usually go to people you know to think that way. You may not think it in your mind, but boy, we have an innate sense for picking stuff up like that, and you do the same thing. That's what I do. That's the way I think, you know, that's why you sometimes have to think, hey, I better not do that.

   What he's saying is people do that or the other opposite is somebody will go in the prayer closet and say, God, I have aught against my brother. He treated me dirty. Now God, you take care of my problems. Uh, I want you to show your God and show I'm your son. You go out and get rid of that boss. Boy, I'll tell you, you do my dirty work for me. God said you, you better do it yourself and better not be dirty. It better be to go out and try to reconcile the problem that happens in marriages, you know, where they get so dismal and and bitter and dark where people begin fighting and it's, it's a horrible situation to be in and nobody wants to be reconciled. One is praying God get rid of him or get rid of her and trying to find people that agree with him and boy that is yeah that's hard to solve. It's almost impossible to solve something in that kind of state and it's sad because it hurts people. Maybe they need a clean break at times when it gets so bad, who knows.

   He says in verse 25 (Matthew 5:25-26), agree with your adversary quickly while you are in the way with him. Now that's something most human beings don't do another dimension when you're mad at somebody and it adversity with them, how long does it take you to come to see their view and understand them? See, the human proclivity is not to do that, lest at any time your adversary do you in is what Christ said, and the adversary deliver you to the judge and the judge deliver you to the prison or to the officer, and you be cast into prison. And Christ said, you're gonna pay the debt in verse 26.

   So the idea is, if God gave you every physical thing you wanted, it'd be awfully easy to become spoiled like the Israelites did. However, God is in the business of making sons like him, you can't give somebody goodness. You cannot give somebody the characteristics, you know, you read here. You can't give somebody joy, peace, and happiness. I well remember up in Toronto about 10, 11, 12 years ago a guy gave an attack speech on the subject of love, which is an odd thing to give a attack speech on, but it's, I remember it and I'm glad he did it because it stuck with me. But what he was saying is you people don't have enough love. You people don't have enough this. And what happened? It was an attack speech, so he brought a newspaper to beat the lectern. And I sat there and he was saying, you ought to have love, love you, and I thought, now what's he telling me? screaming, you ought to have love. And I said, now that's the way to teach somebody to have love, isn't it, to scream at? Well, no, that's really not the way to do it, is it? It's like parents, you know, child, you be nice, you be kind. And the parent isn't nice or kind. How does a kid ever learn to be nice or kind? Christ was nice and kind and set the example that we should be like him. He turned the other cheek. Christ dealt with people. As if they were worth a lot. They were worth saving and worth helping. Christ showed the example.

   Those are the valuable things of life. The other things are valuable, but what Christ said in Matthew 6, these things are eternal. Nobody can take them away from you because if they can, they they're not based on godly principles. Nobody can take the kind of character Christ had away from him. The devil couldn't do it through Judas. The Pharisees couldn't do it through the Romans, and the Romans couldn't take his goodness away from him. And what God had built in him with the spirit of God, they couldn't take it away from him by driving spikes in his hands and his feet or by spearing him in the bladder when he was dying. They couldn't take it away from him. He never had that taken away from him. They took away his clothes, his beautiful robe, and he watched him gamble for it. They could do all of that. They could take his physical life, but they never could take what had been built in him as a man who could face trouble, adversity and turn the other cheek. Who could face people who had done wrong and help them, not condone them, not pat them on the head and say. Go do it no more, but I mean help them to where they became better people, where they kept God's laws, where they can have the spirit of God and the mind of God and the principles of God written in their human minds where they began to see things in a different vantage point. Nobody could take that away from Christ.

   Now that's the most valuable gift, frankly, that God can give you or me. The spirit to where you have the opportunity to begin to develop that same kind of mind, a mind that will last forever. Characteristics. That cannot be tarnished by pressures of the devil or human beings or whatever, an attitude that is absolutely unparalleled that would be happy to exist forever in harmony with God. That's the big thing God gives, and yet it's almost a thing nobody ever thinks of. They'd rather have a new car, a new wife, new husband, new teeth, new this, new that, rather than the kind of mind that God is built. That's the important thing God can give because that's something that it takes time to build. Bodies Christ says they can be built in the moment of the twinkling of an eye. Eternal life can be given like that, but the character that it takes a lifetime to build, where it cannot be tarnished forever, for it's not tarnished in this life, well that takes our lifetime, with God working in us and the Spirit working in us, and by far that's the greatest thing that God has given us on a human plane to learn to be like him.