The God-Sent Redeemer

Greetings and welcome once again to our Wednesday night service.

So glad to have you tuning in. This is a live stream service from the almost empty auditorium of the Beacon Baptist Church. We do have one worshiper with us tonight and we're always happy for those who can come and who desire to come. We are having our teens meeting tonight in the teen room along with some of our college and career young people. So that is a people present meeting and I think that's going to be continuing on Wednesday night moving forward. And we will be adding meetings slowly to our schedule.

It may take a while to get back to our full schedule, but we are moving in that direction as the COVID pandemic is clearly beginning to wind down. Now we had a wonderful Sunday night service this last Lord's Day, the memorial service for Missionary Stuart Waugh. That of course was a people present service, a Sunday night meeting with many of our people here and we're thankful for those who could come. And I wanted to give you a report on the offering that we received Sunday night for the Simon Waugh Memorial Fund in Zimbabwe. And we received a report from the Waugh Memorial Fund. We received $25 short of $3,000. $2,975 for the Simon Waugh Fund and have heard from some who were watching by live stream who said they would like to contribute to that as well, so I expect we'll be receiving some additional amounts in the mail.

And so it looks like that special offering went above $3,000. So thank you for your concern. Thank you for your very obvious interest in the Gospel in the land of Zimbabwe. Our next Sunday night meeting will be on the third Sunday night in March. That will be March 21st and we'll be gathering on Sunday night at 6 o'clock for a communion service. And we will be having a time together around the Lord's table. We need to do that and with things opening up a little bit, we're encouraged to start adding some additional Sunday night services and that is one we'll be adding on March 21st. So please keep that in mind and join us at that time if you are a born again baptized believer and are ready to resume obeying the Lord's command. Then our next Sunday night people present service will be the first Sunday night in April, which will be the first Sunday of our Spring Bible Conference with Mark Webb.

And that will be Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night. Mark Webb has been a wonderful blessing to our church over the years. I've lost track of how many times that he has been here for Bible Conferences. But he is coming once again so grateful that he's still able and willing to do that. And this time he's going to be bringing a series of messages from the book of Ephesians. So we're looking forward to that. The Bible Conference will be Sunday morning, Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night. And we'll be saying more about that in the days to come. Other than that, we will continue Sunday morning, people present, Sunday night, Wednesday night, by live stream. But you'll be hearing regular exceptions to that as we move forward.

And you just heard about some a moment ago. I will also mention that our Elders and Deacons will be having our monthly meeting this coming Tuesday night, March 9 at 715 in the Fellowship Hall. We praise the Lord that the relative of Rose Bradshaw, a U.S. Marshal, who was shot in the line of duty in Baltimore some weeks ago now, that we have been praying for, is recovering well from that shooting incident.

Our Government Official of the Week is Haw River Councilman Patty Wilson. We continue to pray for Marseille Councilman, who is recovering from her second eye surgery. She is doing well.

In fact, she was in church this last Sunday morning. And she says her eye appointment today went well. The doctors said the transplant looked good, but her eye is very dry and agitated.

She will be using another drop to see if it will clear up and return in a month. Pray for her. Continue to pray for Drew Guthrie as she battles cancer. We're so grateful for her good spirit and also the report that she does not seem to be having any pain. We are praying for Art Pope, who has tested positive for COVID in his condition.

That's a very serious matter. His wife tested positive and then he tested positive. But he has received an infusion of antibodies that is supposed to knock his COVID out in record time. That's a special treatment only available to people in a special situation like he is with his COPD. That's the treatment I was told, and I assume is correct, that President Trump received when he got COVID and why he bounced back and seemed not to have any effects at all.

Same treatment. And so we're grateful for that. But please pray for Art Pope that he will not get a serious case of COVID because in his case, a serious case would be very serious.

It probably would be fatal. We continue to pray for Betty Duncan, who is suffering with back pain and has had some other issues, but she had a better day today. We're glad for that. But she is now living in Greensboro with her daughter, Jeannie, and that has been a blessing for Betty and for Pat. And Shirley Watkins is home, and she says she's doing better. Every time that someone contacts her and asks, she always says that she's doing better, getting a little stronger.

So we're grateful for that. We would ask your prayers for Ryan Kelly, son-in-law of Lee and Sue Vestal, who will be defending his dissertation on Friday. We pray that the Lord will give him clarity of mind. We continue to pray for Jean Ferris, the mother of Wendy Lynch, who is recovering from hip surgery and now has had some infections that are complicating things. She seems to be allergic to a number of antibiotics, and that's hindering her recovery.

But pray for her that she'll be able to go home soon. We're also praying for Keith Scheiermakoski in Canada, a friend of Leslie Fanon's son who lives in Canada, David Joel. They call him Joel, and this is an acquaintance of his who has been in the hospital for a long time, has had a long recovery, has been moved to the rehab ward in the hospital and is doing well, and is able now to walk unassisted. There's an area of concern with his left arm, and there appears to be some nerve damage.

Please pray that the doctors can find the problem and offer a solution, and pray that the Lord will use all of this to open his eyes to his need of Christ. We've also had the name Joe Seymour added to our prayer sheet. That is Pastor Joe Seymour of, I don't remember the name of the church, but it is in Kenston, North Carolina. He comes occasionally to our tri-state fellowship, even though it's a long drive for him. He preached at our fellowship in, hmm, was that in February?

I think it was. But he's got some health problems, and he has asked us to pray for him. Then we're praying for Karen Vestal, who is a niece-in-law of Sue Vestal and was diagnosed recently with chronic Lyme disease. So please pray for her.

We know how debilitating that can be, but the Lord is in control of all of these things. We are continuing to pray for Laverne Waugh as she is dealing with the emptiness in her life with the death of her husband, Stuart. And for Mike Webster, missionary to France, as he's battling colon cancer and seems to be doing well. We're praying for Dawn Hammond, the daughter of Eddie and Clara Driver, who will now be having additional radiation for her cancer. And for Scott Latour, a relative of Pastor Bob Latour, cousin actually, and he will be meeting with his doctors to determine if his treatments for cancer have been effective. So those are the prayer requests that I'll mention tonight. We'll wait till the end of the service to pray for those from the Beacon pulpit.

I have a number of communications from missionaries, most of them personal, letters of thanks or other communications to our congregation specifically. This first one from David and Lynn Champlin, who serve in Suriname, South America. Dear Beacon, we are alive and kicking.

Suriname is under a lot of restrictions. The last two weekends we were in lockdown. This weekend we celebrated both Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day, but no lockdown. There have been two expanded power outages recently. Two different men brought their backup generators to David to help them get it working just in case the situation becomes more frequent.

They've also decided to work on our own backup generator for the same reason. Lynn's school has been online since March, March of 2020, last year, as have Suriname private schools. The public school kids do not have access to the same technology, so they have lost a lot of school both this year and last. The government has decided to open the public schools, which means that due to class size, each class will be divided into groups, A and B. The A group will attend on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. The B group will attend on Tuesday and Thursday, and then the next week they switch. The problem is some of the older students have been forced to drop out and find work to help support their family. Tomorrow the elementary classrooms in our school are supposed to open.

How many students will show up and how many will continue online is still to be seen. Thank you for your birthday cards and your prayers, signed David and Lynn Champlin. Armando and Sarah Borsini, serving in Italy. Right, dear brothers of Beacon Baptist Church. We are doing well, even if here in Italy we have a partial lockdown.

Obligation to always wear a mask when out of our home, prohibition to go out of our region, malls closed during weekends, gyms and pools closed every day. Please pray for us that we can keep sharing the gospel in spite of all of these restrictions and that God may send other people to our church to listen to the preaching of God's word. Sarah and I would like to thank you for your decision to increase our support. We feel that you are dear to our hearts and we're so thankful for the love you have for us. Please let us know how you and your families and church are doing. We greet every one of you with warm love in Christ Armando and Sarah Borsini. This one from Timothy and Ruth Bixby in France and they are particularly giving us an update on their building project which we have been involved in and continue to be involved in and concerned for.

And so they write, since you, members of Beacon Baptist Church, are a big part of this process, I wanted to give you the latest news. The last meeting with the proprietors of the building they're trying to buy was a bit stressful, however God intervened, and they went from asking for 180,000 euros to be placed on their own account to agreeing to a 100,000 euro down payment to be paid to our property lawyer and held until the actual sale. We were insisting that all money pass through the property lawyer and they accepted this in an email just yesterday. The amounts below include $100,000 that is promised but will be given only after we sign the purchase agreement. It does not include a $15,000 gift we heard about today.

And here's the information. After adding the taxes and fees, we will need to pay about 660,000 euros. We presently have about 360,000 euros, which puts us over the halfway mark. We have an additional 90,000 euros offered in personal loans. That makes our total financing presently available to around 450,000 euros. We saw, and the euro is worth a little bit more than the American dollar, but it's close.

It's not exactly one to one, but you can adjust that in your thinking. We saw our own internal giving rise last year in spite of being shut down for several months due to COVID restrictions. That was encouraging and shows the motivation of our people. We had never sat down before and tried to figure out the percentage, but when we did some rough calculations tonight, we found out that when considering the giving between 2018 and 2020, more than 40% of our receipts came from internal giving, that is from their own church. This shows that God has both blessed us with very generous outside donations, that's the other 60%.

We have received gifts from Luxembourg, Switzerland, Scotland, Martinique, French Guiana, and the United States. But it also shows us what a motivation and desire there is to give within our small assembly. And so he continues on about the purchase of the building, the actual details and timeline. I'm not going to go into those details now, but suffice it to say that they are moving forward. They are convinced that it is God's will for them to move forward, and they've reached the place where now they are committed. And they've also received an additional four months before the verbal agreement was that it should all be finalized by the end of this year, by the end of December 2021.

But now they've been given an additional four months, so it needs to be finalized by the end of April 2022, which gives them some additional time to raise this enormous amount of financing for the purchase of the building. But they've received so much encouragement, they really believe that the Lord is directing them to move forward. And I can announce that here we recently, in fact just I think either today or yesterday, received a $5,000 designation for this purpose from someone outside our church who wanted to have a part in this project. And so this is the way it moves forward, and if others will do the same, other individuals, other churches, we believe that the Lord is going to supply this need. My next letter is from the Webster's who are serving in France, and Mike is on our prayer sheet battling cancer.

But they write, dear friends of Beacon Baptist Church, thank you so much for your Christmas gift of $275. There's no way that we can adequately express how encouraging this is to us and the wonderful ministry that God has granted us here in France. Your generous gift will help us through these challenging times. Thank you also for your steadfastness and regular giving throughout 2020.

We could not remain here without it. We began 2021 with thankful hearts for God's protection of our children and grandchildren. Three of our four families, they have four married children, three of our four families had COVID, but are all fine now. It has been wonderful to watch them grow in grace throughout this difficult year. We are also very thankful for all that God has done to solidify and edify the flock here in France during the ever-changing COVID restrictions.

This year should be the year that the church will vote biblically qualified men into leadership positions. Would you pray for wisdom as we seek to go forward to this very important step in these times of limited gatherings? Also, we ask you to pray for two Christian immigrant families, both of which left their native countries of Pakistan and Syria because of persecution. Pray that we may know how to best encourage them that they may become instruments for reaching others in their respective languages.

We are ever thankful for your prayerful support, signed Mike and Melanie Webster. I have two other letters. One is from Jesse and Hannah Green, and I have to do some black-outing on their letter because of the sensitive nature of the country they're going to and would not want that to go out over the internet. Have you seen letters that maybe were classified material that were released, but there are certain places that were blacked out so you couldn't read them? Well, it's not blacked out in this letter, but I'm going to have to black it out as I read.

So here we go. They write, I pray that you are doing well. We have some exciting new information regarding the country that we asked you to pray about. To give context for this information, it might be helpful to give a quick summary of the situation. We applied for visas to this country, and this country is not the one that they're going to permanently, but because right now the country they're going to permanently is closed, they're going to a neighboring country to learn the language. And so that's the country they're headed to initially while they learn the language and then waiting to get into the country of their destination. We applied for visas to a neighboring country in December of last year, but in January they changed their policy to allow only foreigners who already had residency visas to enter.

And that's because of COVID. This derailed our timeline for when we thought we would be able to leave for neighboring country. However, today, March 1, neighboring country has changed their policy back to what it was pre-January. We are hoping this means that they will finish processing our visas and send us our passports. Click here to read an article that outlines that, just in case you are interested. I will keep you posted on how everything progresses. May God bless and keep you in Christ, Jesse and Hannah Green.

And finally, one more. This is a letter that we received from Brazil, and it has been translated. It initially came to us in Portuguese. I cannot report that I was blessed by that letter because I couldn't read that letter. However, a day or two later it was followed up by the translation into English. And this is from one of the two pastors, young pastors in training, generally, that we support on a missionary budget in Brazil in this, trying to think the exact name of it, sponsor a pastor project.

That's not quite the exact name. But it enables these pastors to receive a subscription to a good, solid biblical magazine that comes to them monthly, filled with good teaching. It allows them to receive good books several times a year that have been either written in Portuguese, or in most cases translated into Portuguese from English or some other language.

And it also supplies the funds for them to be able to attend an annual conference. And all of these things are to strengthen them in their preparation for ministry, or in the case of some who are already pastoring, to help them in their work. All right, here is the letter translated March 1. Pastor Greg Barkman. And this is signed Pastor Michael Santos.

I will write a little about my ministry and life. My wife and son and I are all well, thank the Lord. The Lord has kept us from all evil and contagion from this pandemic that has plagued the nations. He has provided all our needs in Christ. And that's a wonderful testimony because Brazil has been hit particularly hard by COVID.

We've known that from reading international news. In February, I finished the course Counseling the Depressed from the FIEL leadership courses. That's the sponsoring organization for the conference and for these adopt-a-pastor projects and so forth.

And I'm now taking Counseling the Suffering from the same course. We are experiencing one of the most difficult and decisive times in our ministry. As I said in my previous letter, leaders are moving in a direction contrary to their vocation with regard to members of Christ's body, causing threats to the unity of the flock and progress of the work. This attitude, together with other factors, has caused great instability in the commitment of many leaders and workers, and many are leaving the ministry. But praise God, they are going quietly and without unnecessary quarrels. I recognize that it is my responsibility as leader and pastor to focus wholeheartedly on the Lord with fasting and prayer and brokenness, that He will change the situation we are now experiencing.

I do not want to blame anyone else or consider myself a victim. To the contrary, I want to examine my own heart in the light of the Lord so that He will show me what needs to be corrected. My hope is in the text of 2 Chronicles 15, 7, but you be strong and do not lose courage, for there is reward for your work. Pastor Markman, I'm extremely grateful for you and your ministry, for this wonderful project of the field ministry and being sensitive to the needs of and equipping pastors and ministries. My prayer is that God will continue blessing you richly. Thank you for your vision of God's kingdom, and may He pour out His grace abundantly upon you, your family, and church. I urgently ask for your help in prayer, that the Lord will strengthen us and grant us all the resources necessary, whether spiritual or material, to get through this tempestuous time.

Attentively, Pastor Michael Santos. So this brother is in need of prayer. Let's not fail to pray for him at this time. So let's go to the Lord now in prayer. Father, we thank you for the grace of salvation and for the mercies which you shower upon us day by day.

We live and move and have our being by your power, by your sustaining power in our lives, by your grace extended to us day by day, by your mercies which are new every morning. We are concerned about this dear pastor brother in Brazil, whom we've never met, but who has been assigned to us in this program that we have been involved with for many years. And he's now going through a very difficult time, and we pray for him and pray for the church. I pray that you'll give him wisdom. I pray that you will increase his faith. I pray that you'll keep him steadfast and unmovable in these times of difficulty. I pray that this may be a time of growth for him and for the church as it apparently is going through a time of transition and perhaps a time of purifying.

It sounds like perhaps a time when there is some tearing down that is necessary before there can be some building up. And we pray, O Lord, that you will undertake in all of these things. We pray for Jesse and Hannah Green, that you will guide them as they seek to get to the place where they can learn the language that they need to learn.

We pray that you will open the door for that and allow that to happen soon. We pray for the Webster's in France and pray that their church might be enabled to elect qualified biblical leadership, which would be the step that brings them, I would say, very close to full autonomy and independence and perhaps beyond the need of an American missionary any longer. We pray for Michael Webster as he combats cancer, that he will be strengthened by your might. We pray for the Bixby's also in France, that you will help them with this enormous building project.

We are amazed at how much has been supplied so far, such an enormous sum, and yet it is not the total that is needed. And so we pray, O Lord, you who own the cattle on a thousand hills, you who own all the wealth in all the world, that you will channel the resources to the church in France that is needed at this time. We pray for Armando and Sara Borsini in Italy. We ask that you might help them in these times of COVID. I pray that you will send people to their church to hear the gospel of Christ and that you will use your word to convert souls. And I pray that you will help Armando in his main work of translation so that good, sound commentaries and other sound books can be made available to Italian Christians and unbelievers in the work that needs to be strengthened there and a foundation which needs to be laid across that country. And finally, we pray for David and Lynn Champlin. We pray that you might help them in Suriname during these times of COVID. And as Lynn's school opens back up, I pray that you'll make this a wonderful avenue of ministry for her. And I pray that you will open things up in the churches in Suriname as well. We ask these things now in Christ's name.

Amen. And now if you'd open your Bible, please, to John chapter 1. We started into this first chapter of the Gospel of John a couple of weeks ago on a Wednesday night. We're going to come back to this same portion again as we talk about the God-sent Redeemer, the revelation of the Redeemer in verse 9, the rejection of the Redeemer in verses 10 and 11, and the reception of the Redeemer in verses 12 and 13. Now, we're going to come to verse 9. That's where we're going to begin our study tonight, which says, That was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

But that, of course, breaks into a thought which goes before. And so previously in the first several verses of the chapter, we have the identity of the Redeemer in verses 1 through 5, that familiar passage. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It identifies who this one is, this one who by physical appearance looked like any other man when he walked upon the earth.

And yet he was so much more than what he appeared to be. He was eternal God who took upon him human flesh. He was in the beginning with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. He is the Word, the communication of God to mankind. In fact, in this passage, he is identified as the Word.

He's identified as the life. He is identified as the light. As the Word, he communicates revelation about God.

As life, he quickens to life those who are dead and in need of life. And as light, he illuminates the souls, the minds of those who need understanding. So the identity of the Redeemer in verses 1 through 5, and then the testimony to the Redeemer in verses 6, 7, and 8, and that refers to John the Baptist and his mission of pointing men to the Christ, of preparing men for the Christ.

We read there was a man sent from God whose name was John. This man came for a witness to bear witness of the light that all through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light. This brings us now to verse 9.

That was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world. Now, as we were dealing with this a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, and how in this passage, and we'd have to read on further in the chapter to get this, but how in this passage there were some who thought that John might be the Christ. And they questioned him about that, and he denied that he was the Christ, for he was not. But it is clear that there were some who esteemed John more greatly than Jesus.

And that's a problem, isn't it? Because John didn't come to exalt himself. He came to exalt Jesus.

He said, he must increase, but I must decrease. He came to point to that light. He was not that light, as we just read, but he came to bear witness of that light.

That was the true light which lighteth every man who comes into the world. And so we have this rather common phenomenon that we all have to be aware of and to guard against, and that is when it comes to human messengers who are used by God to communicate God's truth, as John was, a wonderful human messenger who was prepared especially to bear testimony to the light of the world, namely Jesus Christ. There are always two dangers when it comes to the messengers of God, to human messengers. Danger number one is to esteem them too lightly. Danger number two is to esteem them too highly.

We can make a mistake on either side of the equation, can't we? And there were some who esteemed John too highly. They esteemed him higher than Jesus. I think I told you a couple of weeks ago that the first several apostles of Christ had previously been disciples of John, and they got their first information about becoming Messiah from John, a wonderful messenger of God. And they were disciples of John. They followed John. They listened to John. They learned from John, but when John pointed to Jesus and said of him, Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world, and he pointed his disciples to Christ, then many of his disciples went to Christ. But not all of his disciples did.

Some stayed with John. Why didn't they go to Christ? Well, because they were enamored with this human messenger, John. They liked him for some reason. They esteemed him more highly than Jesus. And even though the one they esteemed and held in high honor, namely John the Baptist, told them, he basically said, Leave me now and go to Jesus. He's the Christ.

I'm not. But some of them wouldn't do that. They stayed with John.

Why did they do that? We're not told why they did that, but I'm sure that some just like John's style, his personality, which was very different from that of Jesus. They were contrasts, a study in contrast, and yet they both were here for the same reason, was to highlight Christ, to point men to Christ, to prepare men to Christ, to call men to repentance.

They were here for the same reason, but nevertheless, their styles were very different, and Jesus himself points that out. He says when John came, and he would not eat at your feasts. He would not join you in eating and drinking.

You were critical of him. He was a bit antisocial. He was a recluse. He grew up in the wilderness. He preferred to be out in the wilderness. He didn't like to be in the city. He didn't like to be in the company of others.

He didn't like to go to the houses and to the dinner parties and to the very social events that were available to him in the city. He didn't wear fashionable clothes. He wore an old garment of camel's hair, and he just looked rough, and some people like that. He's my kind of guy. I like this rough look. I like his style. I like the way he sounds. I like the way that he thumbs his nose at social norms, and some people said, We're just going to stick with John.

We like him. Whereas Jesus gladly went into homes where he was invited. He went into the homes of tax collectors. He went into the homes of Pharisees. He went into the homes where he was invited. He went to their dinners.

He ate their food. He joined them in what they were doing, and yet he was just as criticized for what he did as John was for what he did. The ones who criticized John for not doing this criticized Jesus for doing this, which goes to show us that when people have a heart that's not right with God, they're always going to find something to criticize.

They're always going to find something that's wrong. They're always going to jump on something and blow it out of context and make an issue out of it that isn't even genuine, that they don't understand at all, but something to justify their unbelief, their justification for not listening to John was that he was so rough and antisocial and he wouldn't mix with people and that isn't right, and so we're not going to pay attention to him, and their justification for not listening to Jesus was, why, he eats with sinners. He eats with tax collectors. He mixes and mingles with these people who, though they may be wealthy in society, we don't approve of them, and so since we don't approve of them and he associates with them, then we don't approve of him, so we don't listen to Jesus because he does eat with sinners, and we don't approve of John because he doesn't.

Now, how does that work? See the sinful heart of men? Yet we're all made of the same stuff.

We're all descendants of Adam. We all have these deceitful hearts that we have to be on guard about, but we need to realize that there are reasons, not good reasons, but there are reasons why some become followers of men. Sometimes it's admiration for somebody whose life exemplifies some aspects of Christianity that you admire, and because he exemplifies those things, his zeal, his knowledge, his success, whatever it may be, you become a follower of that man.

Sometimes it's because it's easier to follow someone else than to develop your own vital relationship with Christ and your own independent study of God's Word. I'll just listen to what he says. Have you ever heard anybody say when they were asked, what do you believe about this? What do you think a preacher so and so believes?

I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, I believe that. I follow him. I listen to him. I believe in him. Whatever he says, that's what I believe. Well, you lazy Christian who won't study on your own and come to your own conclusions about things, God sends us teachers to help us understand God's Word, to open up God's Word, to show us how to study God's Word, but we need to make it our own. You don't believe something because preacher so and so says it.

Believe it because the Bible says it, and you know where in the Bible it says it. You can go to the Bible and find it, but some people become followers of men because that's the lazy man's way to deal with Christian doctrine and Christian issues. Some desire to be identified with something that is respected and successful. I identify with preacher so and so because he's got a big church. He's got a big ministry.

Watch out. Those are reasons, and there may be others, why people sometimes become followers of men, but let me mention a few of the dangers of becoming a follower of men. There's a danger of not developing your own convictions regarding God's Word, as I just pointed out. Secondhand religion, secondhand understanding of Scripture, which is not very good understanding at all, is it? Just like children who grew up in a Christian home and call themselves Christians, but it turns out they've got a secondhand religion.

It's not personal. It's not their own. It's not the new birth. It's not the work of the Holy Spirit in their heart. It's just adopting what they have grown up in. It's secondhand to them.

It's not their own. And that's a danger of becoming a follower of men. There's a danger of magnifying and multiplying the idiosyncrasies and weaknesses of men. When you become a follower of men, then sometimes you follow the things in them that are weak and are erroneous because nobody's sinless but Jesus Christ.

There's a danger of eventual disillusionment. I wonder how many people were shaken by the revelation that Ravi Zacharias turned out not to be a man of moral integrity. He was so effective, so clear in his preaching, so winsome, so powerful, so admired, and yet he clearly has been a hypocrite for many, many years and decades.

I don't know how long. I don't know if this goes back all the way to the beginning, if he's been that way all along, or if he stepped off the path of righteousness somewhere along the way, but he's had hidden things in his life that have been going on, undetected, unknown, uncovered for many, many years until... They didn't come to light until after his death. He's gone, and now it's coming out, the immorality that he was involved in. That has shaken some people, but it shouldn't shake us overly much. It should sadden us.

It should sober us. It should remind us that we are not followers of men. We're followers of Christ. We thank the Lord for men who teach us God's word. We thank the Lord for men who are genuine and real and faithful, and sometimes we don't know because, in the case of the one I just mentioned, he seemed to be that way until after his death, some of these things started to come out that he had been involved with. But we aren't followers of men. We're followers of Christ. We have to learn that lesson at some point, and it's a hard lesson to learn.

And if you are overly discombobulated... That's a good Greek word. If you're overly discombobulated by the failure of some man, then you have been following men more than Christ. You're making the same mistake that the disciples of John the Baptist made when they weren't willing to leave John to become followers of Christ. We've all had unfortunate and sad and wrenching experiences with people that we thought were faithful Christians, faithful Christian leaders who turned out to be hypocritical. We've all had that happen. If it hasn't happened to you yet, it's going to happen to you. I pray that it wouldn't.

It would be better if it didn't in many ways, and yet it will happen at some point, I can promise you that. So you better be holding on to Christ and recognize that he's the only sinless one, he's the only 100% dependable one, and that your faith is in Christ, not in men. I don't know if I've told you this before. I probably have. When I was in training for ministry, I was involved in a church about 80 miles from my school that I went to on weekends and served as a weekend youth pastor. Wonderful, wonderful training for me, wonderful experience.

It's one thing to learn in the classroom, the formal classroom, and it's another thing to learn in the classroom of life. That was so helpful to me. I would go down on Saturday night and hold a youth meeting every Saturday night. We had a youth group of 25 to 30, 35 young people, a good, strong youth group in that small church. And I also led the congregational singing on Sunday and directed the choir, had a choir rehearsal on Sunday afternoon.

It was a busy, busy time. I did that for several years, between two and three years during my time. But after I had been there for a couple of years and had gone straight on through school year, summer, school year, summer, I decided that it would be beneficial to get experience in another church, under another pastor, some other mentoring, some other experience in training. And so I made arrangements one summer to go to a church in Memphis, Tennessee and spend the summer there and do whatever that pastor assigned me to do, which was primarily to knock on doors. And I knocked on literally thousands of doors throughout the 12 weeks of that summer. Many times people weren't home.

I'd leave literature and go on to the next one. I didn't have thousands and thousands of conversations, but I knocked on thousands of doors, and I had hundreds of conversations. And that was very, very helpful to me. I had some really interesting conversations, which I won't go into now. But about halfway through that summer, I got a phone call from my father back in South Carolina. And he said, Greg, I wanted to be the first one to tell you this. He said, I didn't want you to read about it in the newspaper.

I thought that might be too shocking. He said, but Pastor so-and-so, the pastor of the church that I had been going to on weekends for two years, is in jail. And he told me what he'd been charged with and why he was in jail. And my father was very concerned, lest that would shake me up, shake my faith. Here's a man I'd been learning from, been mentored by, was learning, you might say, the ropes of practical ministry under his leadership, who I'd been hearing preach Sunday after Sunday and laboring with him and obviously considered him to be a faithful man of God.

And here he was in jail for something that was a genuine crime. I can tell you by the grace of God that though it was a very shocking and sobering phone call, it did not shatter my faith as my father was afraid that it might because I had already learned that I'm a follower of Christ, not of men. And I finished out my summer in Memphis, Tennessee, and had some wonderful experiences there. I came right back to school for my next year of schooling and returned to that church on weekends. They needed me now more than before.

Oh, they needed me now. I had young people that were in my youth group who were very shaken, and I counseled with a lot of those young people who wanted to talk to me about what had happened. They were concerned about whether they could really be saved because they traced their salvation to the ministry of this man. And since he turned out to be evidently a hypocrite, wasn't a saved man at all, they began to wonder, could I really be saved? If I came to Christ under the ministry of a man who wasn't saved, does that indicate that I'm not saved? And they had questions like that, and so I was able to assure them that no one is saved by trusting in a man. We're saved by trusting in Christ.

If he preached the true gospel, and you believed the true gospel, and you believed in Jesus Christ, then you are saved regardless of who you heard it from. God has all kinds of ways of proclaiming his gospel. And sometimes he uses instruments that aren't even themselves servants of Christ.

They pretend to be, but they're not. Think of Judas. Judas preached the gospel. Judas performed miracles. Judas, I would assume, saw some people come to faith in Christ under his preaching minister when Christ sent the 12 out to go to the villages and to preach the gospel and call upon people to repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Judas did that just like all the others. Some people heard him. Some people believed him. The fact that Judas was a hypocrite, the fact that Judas was a traitor, the fact that Judas was a messenger of Satan, not a messenger of the Lord Jesus Christ, did that mean that the message that he preached was wrong? No, he preached the right message.

And people who believed the word came to faith in Christ through the message that was preached by a hypocrite. But that's the danger. You see, if you elevate men too highly, then you are in danger of a number of things, including being very shaken, very disillusioned when those men proved to be unfaithful men.

And here's the greatest danger of all. In some cases, what that means is you miss Christ because what you've been doing is holding on to a profession that relates to another human being. You call it profession of faith in Christ, but if it shakes you that much so that you don't know if you still have faith in Christ because of what some person did, then that indicates that your faith wasn't in Christ at all, was it? Because if it was in Christ, it wouldn't make any difference. Christ hasn't failed. Christ hasn't sinned. Christ hasn't done wrong. If your reality is, on Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand, then as sad as it is, it makes no difference what those who call themselves Christians may do and may fail around you. It will not destroy your faith if your faith is real, but if your faith is in a person instead of in Christ, then it can be destroyed and you can miss Christ because you became a follower of men instead of Christ. Don't let that happen to you.

Don't let that happen to you. Who did John come to elevate, to reveal, to point men to? Jesus Christ. He, John, was not that light but was sent to bear witness of that light that was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world. O God, to us show mercy and bless us in Thy grace. Cause Thou to shine upon us the brightness of Thy face, that so Thy way most holy on earth may soon be known, and unto every people Thy saving grace be shown. O God, let peoples praise Thee, let all the people sing. Let nations now be joyful, let songs of gladness ring, for Thou wilt judge the peoples in truth and righteousness, and o'er the earth shall nations Thy leadership confess. O God, let peoples praise Thee, let all the people sing, for earth in rich abundance to us her fruit will bring. Our own God will bless us, yea, God will blessing send, and all the earth shall fear Him to its remotest end. Shall we pray?

O Heavenly Father, help us, every one of us, to be followers of Christ more than anyone else, to be believers in Jesus Christ, not believers in a man or a movement, but in the Lord Jesus Christ, the true light, who came into this world, the true word, who reveals to us God Almighty. Father, we thank you that Rose Bradshaw's relative in Baltimore, who was shot, is now recovering well. What a mercy that is, and we thank you for it. We pray tonight for Haw River Councilmember Patty Wilson, that you might lead her, guide her, direct her, give her wisdom that is beyond her own normal wisdom. We thank you that Marseille Councilman is recovering from her recent surgeries. We thank you that she was able to be in church Sunday, but we realize she's not yet fully recovered, and we commit her to you for that healing that is needed. We pray for Drew Guthrie as she battles cancer, and for Art and Angela Pope as they are battling COVID-19. We pray for Shirley Watkins that you may indeed strengthen her, and for Ryan Kelly as he defends his dissertation on Friday that you might give him clarity of thought. We pray for Jean Ferris as she's battling an infection as she recovers from hip surgery, and we pray for Keith in Canada, and we thank you that he's made good progress, and we pray that you may bring him to full healing by your mercy, and that you might minister to the needs of his soul. We pray for Pastor Joe Seymour, a blessed man of God who has faithfully pastored for decades, who's now facing some health issues, and we commit him to you and pray that in your kindness that you might be pleased to bring him through this health crisis and to continue his ministry. And we pray for Karen Vestal as she now is battling chronic Lyme disease.

We know how difficult that can be. Oh, Lord, help her, strengthen her, heal her, as you certainly have power to do that which the doctors cannot do. We pray for Laverne Waugh, give her peace and comfort and joy. We pray for Mike Webster, give him healing. We pray from cancer. We pray for Dawn Hammond, that you might also use the upcoming treatments to arrest the cancer in her body. We pray for Scott Latour, who's also battling cancer, and for Betty Duncan, who may have suffered a stroke and is certainly struggling. We commit her to you as well. Now, Father, guide us, direct us, protect us. Wall us in, keep us, oh Lord, from straying off the path of obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ as we ask these things in his name, amen.