Wednesday Night Bible Study

praise the lord everyone we greet you tonight in that wonderful name of the lord jesus christ the only name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved and i add my voice to that of pastors and pastor anthony and pastor mark mccool welcoming our new family members from the great state of michigan i was that was my home base before i left to go to johnson city and start a church my mom and dad lived and died there when we moved from the uh south land missouri cotton picken country and we welcome everyone it's great to have a church family we love each one of you there is a thought on my heart i'm going to depart from our normal process we've been following a sunday school lesson um but there's been a subject on my heart for a few days and we're gonna talk about it and play with it a little bit and talk and we may finish up tonight we may go several weeks i don't know now don't forget next wednesday night we got special guests going to be here very special and you want to be here for that and say what a what a camp meeting we had this past week my mind i've got to go ahead and give the lord a handclap i concur with the elder john d james and he said the the best sermon he ever heard was the last one the best camp meeting we had is the last one and the best message we heard was the last one every one of them was so good and then brother james wilson what a job he did both messages sunday morning and sunday night my my we were so blessed and so uplifted and uh maybe that's uh one of the reasons i felt like getting back to this thought that's been on my mind as a matter of fact i have touched on it a little bit here and there in the last few weeks but i want to call your attention to the book of genesis chapter 1 and we'll start reading at verse 4. father we thank you tonight for your love and blessings we thank you for the great privilege we have of being in the house of god and for our church family i pray that you will anoint the lips of clay with the spirit of god and give that which you would have for this service tonight give me the ability open my mouth and my mind that i may convey to this audience what you would have spoken in jesus name amen genesis 1 4 and god saw the light that it was good and god divided the light from the darkness verse 10 and god called the dry land to earth and the gathering together of the waters called he seas and god saw that it was good and the earth brought forth grass and the herbs yielding seed after his kind and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind and god saw that it was good verse 18 and to rule over the day over the night to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness and god saw that it was good my topic tonight is it was good it was good it was good and we're gonna talk about some things that's that's good tonight and uh you will stay with me we may hopscotch a little bit here and there you may have to hang on to this is not going to be one of those deep prophetic messages and it'll not be something that'll keep you on the edge of your seat but if you look with me at verse 18 of chapter 2 genesis god had repeatedly said it was good verse 18 and the lord said it is not good and the lord said it is not good now all these things that god has done created he's talked about the light the sea the dry land the sun the moon that which rules over the day and the night and all of these great things but then in chapter 2 he said wait a minute i've run into something that's not good i've done something or i have failed to do something and it's not good now when god confesses to something that he has omitted you better give attention to it and the lord said it is not good that the man should be alone all the good things god had done he had made a man everything else had a mate even the trees have to be pollinated with a mate but god said it is not good that the man should be alone now don't let this surprise you god was not specifically talking about a wife he said i will make him a help meet for him and certainly this does include and perhaps the number one thing god said man needs is a wife a help meat but it's not good for man to be alone in a lot of things you don't need to be alone in your doctrine that's right you don't need to be alone in your ideology it's a sad thing to find yourself out on an island of one this past week we saw a private citizen go up in the edge of space and his name is jeff bezos he's the head of amazon and they said he's the richest man on planet earth he said he is worth 200 billion dollars not 200 million but he's worth 200 billion dollars and was able to finance and sponsor this uh great trip that they took just a few minutes but when they landed i was watching and i noticed the first thing he did folks started gathering around they didn't have all the um i remember when cape canaveral when they when when alan shepard i remember when um the other astronaut was the first one to circle the earth uh the first american circled the earth john glenn and all the the the all the the the paraphernalia they had and it was amazing all the the room full of people watching their computers and it was just something amazing and but here they were riding in suvs and uh jeff bezos had a cowboy hat straw hat looked like it was about wore out and there was an elderly lady an 18 year old boy and yet they made it up there and back down and the first thing he did when folks they had to drive their suvs out through the desert and there the dust was flying it had set down and and the first thing he started doing he started thanking people and one thing he said i want to thank all of my customers that's bought anything from amazon if you bought anything from amazon you helped sponsor that trip into the edge of space this last week and he was very careful to thank all of his uh customers all of his employees and all of those who had anything to do with that excursion they took and i thought about that we can learn a lesson uh we it's not good that man should be alone now you can't attach that solely to marriage because in first corinthians 7 7 paul declared that his state of being unmarried was a preferred state of being married and even said i wish that you could remain everyone could remain as i but under the circumstance you can't so therefore it's better to marry he said so it's not just a a wife and and you if you've heard me preach many times you know what a treasure that uh i have in a wife well only today i had my arms around her and i said do you reckon when we go up in the rapture the lord let us be hugging like this i'm sure there'll be something more glorious than that but that just somehow entered my mind as i embraced her as i do every day of the world i said you suppose the lord will let us embrace each other like this as we go up in the rapture and of course we had a little laugh about that and she said i maybe so but we're talking about two is better than one according to ecclesiastes 4 and 9 2 are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor for if they fall the one will lift up his fellow but woe to him that is alone and this this little simple message and simple lesson tonight i want to i want to get your mind and my mind together and i'm i'm going to talk about the value of friendship the value of having someone that you can lean on and someone can lean on you a little limerick or a little blind if i can remember it i heard many years ago that said love is a chain of gold shaped in god's own perfect mold each link a smile a laugh a tear a grip of the hand and a work of chair bending closer soul to soul sweet is the journey of friendships road everybody needs a friend the bible states no man liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself you are going to need someone now the implication of ecclesiastes 4 9 2 are better than one two can do more than twice as much as one if one can put a thousand to fight under the leadership of the two could put ten thousand we read through the bible this comparison of one being able to do something but two can do so much more in a church in a family if there's unity if there's friendship if there is cooperation you can do so that's the the strength of first apostolic church and i i hear this everybody that comes our way new they tell me how how friendly everyone are everyone is so friendly and i feel so much at home i had one brother that came here some years ago from way out west and he said when i got out of my car and started across the parking lot he said i felt the greatest spirits have felt a a a fellowship a friendship before i got in the door i believed that and when god said it's not good that man should be alone it's not good that anyone should seclude themselves and not have friends and not have those they can depend on and those that you can help them out but it said but woe unto him that's alone a person that secludes himself gets over here by himself he's in for a lot of trouble you're gonna need somebody psalms 133 verses one and two behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity it is pleasant and it is good it's so precious and sweet for brethren to dwell together in unity now if you were here this past week any night and you saw this auditorium filled with people and you saw folks from the the north side the east side the west side we we have the tri-state and to see the love the tenderness the mellowness that we felt among ourselves it's a thing to be treasured and i want to say that's good that's good what's bad is somebody that nobody can get along with and they can't get along with themselves behold how good and how pleasant is for brethren to dwell together in unity it's like precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard even aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garment now proverbs 15 23 says if a man hath a man hath joy by the answer of his mouth and a word spoken in new season how good it is now we're talking about it's good there's some good things did you know you can say something that can make somebody's day a joyous day or you can say something to ruin their day it said a word spoken in new season how good how good it is for some reason today i i open my ipad and i don't know how to get on uh facebook i've never posted anything on facebook but uh there anthony put me on facebook and i don't know how i did it and i don't know how to get on or off but but i opened it up and i touched that button and there and it was a thursday night a devotion that he had systema cool and myself to do and that was back during the the pandemic when it was so bad that we couldn't have more than 10 people in a building and it was just systema cooling myself and the enough staff to to do the electronics and we were singing some of the old songs some of the lewis hair songs i can shout hallelujah again i can shout hallelujah again been through another valley and something else and something else so i can shout hallelujah again and then i began to read the comments over to the side and the folks that had listened to that and the sweet and kind and precious uh system i was i had my arm around her and and here we found ourselves crying not because we were unhappy but for folks to say says sweet and kind words and so many people use the internet uh to say bad words and bad things and criticize anything that go but seems like everything uh concerning the church it was so good the you can say the right thing at the right time and you can make somebody's day or you can ruin their day john 15 and 13 greater love hath no man than this that a man laid down his life for his friends now i've touched on this here though that but let me dwell on this greater love have no man than this and and that is now we know that jesus did that for he laid but did you know there are folks that love our country so good that they willingly lay down their life for our country [Applause] every one of us knows someone or has someone a loved one i remember linus gentry brother gary gentry's brother was killed in vietnam brother don cook was killed in vietnam and it seemed like every week back then there would be another boy from from the knoxville area and uh greater love there's those who love enough that they will sacrifice their own life for a friend henceforth now in john 15 15 henceforth i call you not now jesus had just said this and that the 13th verse greater love had no more in this than this that he lay down his life for his friends verse 15 he said henceforth i call you not servants for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth but i have called you friends for all things that i have heard of my father have made known unto you now now please follow me and and don't think i've gone off the deep end we know that friendship and love is a natural thing between brothers and sisters in the lord jesus said by this shall all men know you that my disciples if you have loved one to another he's a new commandment i write unto you that you love one another as i have loved you so we believe that but let me tell you something i believe he's talking about i i'm not going to call you servants anymore because a servant don't know what his lord is doing but i'm gonna call you my friend now this indicates that a friend you can share something with a friend that you can't share with anybody else and know full well that if you share that and i'm not talking about gossip i'm not talking about but you know that a real friend you can can sometimes you need to unburden yourself sometimes you need somebody to just listen to you there's something that and you know that they're not going to run off and and grab the internet and tell somebody grab the telephone but you can share your deepest heartfelt feelings and they'll not betray you jesus said i'm not going to call you servants by friend because a servant don't know what his master does but i'm going to let you in on what's in my heart i think a church family that's dedicated to god they're not going to be a bunch of folks that runs around and gossips about one another [Applause] hey hey they're going to be now you don't go around telling a lot of bad things about yourself there's some things the bible says don't want time to be mentioned among you and we don't need to go back and rake up all the things that we did when we was in sin and this and that and the other but there are times that your heart is burdened down and if you just had somebody to talk to um i've told this before but let me quickly tell tell you this um years ago brother uh summers and his family of course uh nathan and and tabitha they were just little little tykes then and uh as a fellow starting a homemaker work out in missouri out south is a good long ways and brother summers uh felt like taking his family going helping that fell out with that uh home mission work and they went out to to and that was great they had that burden to do it but the man didn't save very long he left and left him there without a church plan there they were and i got the the most pitiful letter can we come back home i'd like to come back home why of course i couldn't tell him fast enough why sure you can come back home yes sir come on back home well they came back home and i'll never forget it they uh they rented a house a little little house over here off broadway and uh it was a man and woman that they it was their starter home the beautiful little house and a little four-room house i guess and then they built a nice house back behind that that would become their permanent home but they didn't want to rent this other house to brother summers because he had two children and he convinced them that they were under control and they take good care of the house and so forth that's fine well uh he was driving i believe it was either buick a big old pontiac station wagon and and he'd driven a long ways and and it was about two o'clock in the morning he called me and uh brother summers what what what can it do for you and i i woke up and he said brother mccool he said i've been moving stuff in that man's little house and i convinced him we'd take good care of it and he said the last load i've brought in he said i so i was a tired sleeper said my foot slipped off for the uh the brake and said i have run my car clean through that man's house i said really he said yes sir yes sir and i i said well what what do you need what can i do for you brother summers and i'll never forget the words he said he said brother no cool i guess i just need a little comfort i just need a little comfort are you listening what i'm saying this great deep bible study tonight sometimes you just need a little comfort brother summer you should have been more like brother summer you should have paid more attention brother some of you should or you should no that's not what he needed he didn't need somebody to lecture him about working too late and getting too tired he that that that didn't put the house back together i got in my car and i went over there and sister cool with me and sure enough the kitchen sink was laying out in the middle of the floor and and the nose of that car you run through the the wall and i looked at that and it sure was a mess i said brother summers uh you're i understand you you're you're kind of aspiring to be a carpenter yourself i said i know a good carpenter brother billy wilson and i'll contact brother billy wilson and i'll guarantee you he'll join in here with you and and he'll help you and y'all can restore this house back to just as good as it was or even really what you believe why sure i said this is just an accident and in the morning when the or this morning when it gets daylight go up there and tell the man what happened this is just what happened of course you wouldn't do it for an intention for anything but but you're going to put it back just like it was or better and i called up brother billy wilson uh i remember i've seen him on his way to 120 through west columbia carrying that big long uh carpenter's toolbox got one handle got the the saw and the square and everything is here and well he met with brother summers and they restored that house the words keeps ringing over my mind brother mccool i just need a little comfort sometimes you need somebody that can give you a little comfort you don't need a lecture you already know you're in trouble well now are you i told you so i told you i told you they're not needing you to i told you so and i knew this was going to happen if you'd have just listened that's not what they need to hear when they're in trouble they need somebody that can say some words of comfort jesus said i'm not going to call you a servant i'm going to call you a friend we need friends not sure we are brothers and sisters in the church but we need friends give the lord a handclap i wrote an article in fact i looked for it i couldn't find it on my my uh hard drive or the uh my in my stuff but i wrote an article about brother jimmy the basketball print uh preachers have a lot of acquaintance but they don't have that many friends a lot of folks uh don't realize this but and i told them about what a friend was and how we can trust each other and you don't have to be on your guard some folks will just release another thing you say they'll make something out of it it don't mean a thing by a slip of the tongue uh that then that take what you say wrong and but a real friend will let you explain if i say it i'm the author and i have the right to explain it i have a right to explain what i meant by that was in a a meeting in richmond virginia many years ago uh but uh actually brother bob was in revival and and we stopped by sister mccool and i sang and brother bob and i sang and and after it was uh over or i was at the well i was talking i said uh brother bobby uh he's my favorite singer and then i thought and i said and sister betty is my favorite i said they're my two favorite singers brother bob is is my favorite among the two favorites well i didn't realize what that sound like after the service uh sister mccool said hmm said i heard you say that brother bobby was your favorite of the two favorites oh i said i didn't say that i didn't say that i said i had two favorites and somebody had the audacity to produce a tape recording but what i meant was i had two favorites and and he was one of them but that's not what i said well it was no big deal but i said just a little little incident that i'm trying to illustrate to you that a small thing i've had folks to get offended at something that you didn't mean a thing in this world by it you didn't mean a thing but yet they take it wrong of course the bible said uh the blessed they that love thy law and nothing shall offend them and maybe they shouldn't be offended but i'm talking about when the church should love each other well henceforth i call you in our service a servant or not what his lord does then he said you've not chosen me but i've chosen you and ordained you that you should go forth and bring forth fruit okay then verse 17 said these things i command you that you love one another the greatest tool the greatest instrument we have as a christian witness and worker evangelist and leader is to not only love but show that love these things i command you that ye love one another and let me throw in a little hint to you men wives honey do you still love me what you know i love you a marriage i bought your of shoes didn't i that's not what they're wanting to hear that's not a good answer at all i put a roof over your head don't like i do that you know they just want to hear him say i love you we at first apostolic church let us and we are not we're not stand you with our words and i love you i love you and that we need to say it and then live by proverbs 18 24 said a man that hath friends must show himself friendly a man if you're going to have friends i i've had folks i saying shook my hand i i sat there and nobody well did you get up out of your seat and go around and shake hands with anybody well see if a man's gonna have friends he needs to show himself friendly i don't need to say i've seen fortune and just just just see i'm going to see if anybody's going to come and shake my hand i'm going to sit right here and i'm going to move and see if anybody thinks enough about me well if that's happening and i see that person i'm going to try to go to them and shake their hand but i don't want to be that one that sets waiting on someone to slight me waiting on someone to i know they they they don't like me it's good i've got to show myself friendly if i'm going to have friends did you could you say man all right and then let me finish that a man that hath friends may show himself friendly and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother now we know god jesus is a friend that sticks closer but this was back in proverbs in the old testament he wasn't talking about jesus he was talking about you really do have friends that's closer than your blood relatives i have friends and i'm not criticizing my blood relatives tonight but there are folks in this congregation that loves me as much as my own twin brother does i hope a man that has friends must show himself friendly and there is a friend that's sick and closer than a brother proverbs 27 9 ointment and perfume rejoice the heart so doeth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel now let's look at that carefully ointment and perfume rejoice the heart so doeth the sweetness of a man's friend now uh i used to love to go through the uh the shopping center and there was a place a candle shop and just to go by there it would and sometimes i would go in and just just walk around and look because i was enjoying the atmosphere i enjoy the the aroma and just walk around and it just kind of lifted your spirits it was it was just uh hard to explain but it it was a pleasantness well did you know in the the presence of good godly friends it's just a pleasant atmosphere i have been around folks that they can't say anything good about anybody anybody's name mentioned they know something bad about them and then on them and oh excuse me i've got to go uh please and you feel like you need to go take a shower because but there's others that is such a sweetness to be with them god help me to be that perfume god help me to be that ointment that brightens the day that gives us an atmosphere of pleasantness that's what this church is about is we want it to be a pleasant place where folks enjoy the fellowship and just enjoy being with each other you heard me quote this other day god told jeremiah said jeremiah said don't be afraid of their faces i've been in a few congregations and when i was preaching i'd their faces were not too too inviting proverbs 27 17 iron sharpeneth iron so a man sharpened the countenance of his friend now what that's saying that iron an old file uh you take that and uh if uh an axe or a hole or what it's got dull and rusty and and and you can brighten it up and sharpen it up and man that'll when we were chopping cotton we wouldn't we wouldn't make many rounds chopping cotton to dad would say okay let's sup and he carried a file in his back pocket and we'd you'd have a jug of water would have a break would you get a drink of water out of the jug and when dad was the one that could sharpen and he'd take that home and he would sharpen because if you don't take the time to sharpen that hole you're wasting your time and he would sharpen everybody's hole and then we'd go back to work because we could do more work in less time if we had a bright shiny sharpened hole to work with now then that's what friends are for they're we're going to sharpen one another we're not going to dull each other we're not going to blunt each other but whatever i say i want it to make you a better person not a sad person i want to make you a glad person what we say to one another it should leave us in a good spirit and a bright attitude oh i do hope you understand this simple little message and then it said whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof so he that waiteth on his master shall be honored now if you'll take care of the fig tree the fig tree will take care of you you neglect it it'll stop bearing neighbors friends we need to cultivate we're going to get back what we put into it we're going to get back you've heard that little story the old preacher and his little boy went someplace to preach and they uh took up him and offering one take their vans up an offering and the advantage put a dollar in it and when they gave him the offering it was one dollar and this little boy looked at him said daddy if you'd put more in you'd have got more out james 2 23 and the scripture was fulfilled which saith abraham believed god and it was imputed on him for righteousness how do you reward someone that believes you how do you reward someone and he was called a friend of god would you like to have a friend like jesus oh i mean i don't know mr bezo but man if he's a friend of mine he he might like to give a little bit to the ministry i god i believe him and abraham believed god and it was imputed on him for righteousness and he was do you want to be a friend of god well if you want to be a friend of god then you'll be his friend and he's going to be your friend here's what happens between friends john 11 11 these things said he and after that said unto them our friend lazarus sleepeth i go that i may wake him out of his sleep now then he he called lazarus his friends now they they notified jesus that lazarus was sick and then then they got back in testimony jesus lazarus is really sick they they more than one time jesus said i i'll be there and when he got there lazarus was already dead and and they left jesus to scorn when he said he was asleep jesus then turned to his disciples and said he's dead and i'm glad for your sakes that i wasn't here because i'm gonna do something you've never seen done before i'm glad i wasn't here when he was sick because you just he's my friend and i'm gonna go wake up my friend and he went to the tomb he was four days late but he was still on time and he said lazarus come forth and lazarus came forth he was the friend of jesus hallelujah hallelujah would you stand your feet with me please i'm not through with this message but i'm going to quit and again as i prefaced my remarks um this is no great deep thing but i want i want to instill within us a love for each other and not only a love for each other but the ability to show it you heard me said so many times in my in mine and my wife's relationship 65 years 65 years and it's sweeter today than it's ever been said well i'll say it again when she turned 80. you remember my song i wrote her a song she's a beautiful lady today she turned 80 but she still seems like 20 to me words can't describe her there's no other lacker what a lovely lady is she god surely loved me when he gave her to me forever thankful i'll be grace charm and beauty fails to describe her but i'll be thankful through eternity she's the love of my life she's the perfect preacher's wife she loves everyone she meets she takes time for all for both great and small and that makes her special you see she's sweet warm and kind she's that way all the time she's an angel sent down from above she's my companion and she's my prayer partner but best of all she's my love she's a beautiful lady she's almost in her middle 80s now but she still seemed like 20 to me her hands may be wrinkled but in her eyes there's a twinkle and a smile that still excites me she's my lifelong lover she's a godly grandmother she's modest she's humble yet bold her charm is ageless none can dispute it because the angels never grow old you could sing that with you've heard it so many times probably every one of you know that song father we thank you tonight for this service we thank you for the sweet spirit that we feel in this place bless sister mccool and brother mack in the house tonight father if they are watching may they feel the love that's emanating from my heart bless mac and bless system of cool and bless all of our elderly in our church brother and sister richmond for the richmond oh god he needs a hand of god to touch my sister richmond for being so faithful to that precious man and god i pray for all especially our elderly in our church i pray for them now god let this message sink deep into our hearts bless those listening by way of the internet in jesus name dismiss us from this place but not from your presence all this we ask in jesus name