January 21, 2024

10:30 am ---- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -- On Eagles’ Wings – Exodus 19:1-11

“The Hearer I Appreciate” ~ John Hall

1. One who has prayed for the preacher and for the blessings of the Lord on the congregation which is meeting that day.

2. One who is punctually in his pew with his family beside him.

3. One who has his Bible open and who devoutly follows the scriptures read as hearing God speaking to him.

4. One who takes a hymnbook and joins in the praise of the Lord as earnestly as does the leader of the singing.

5. One who in his heart joins in the prayer time.

6. One who remembers that we are in the presence of God and bears himself with reverence of manner and conversation.

7. One who looks for Christ and grace in the sermon and not for rhetoric, elocution, and clever statements.

8. One who listens, takes the message to himself, and has a comment afterward regarding the subject.

9. One who has a look and a word of Christian greeting for those near him in the church after the service.

Job: Perfect Man, Perfect Parent -- “Job; a man that was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil. . . . And it was so, when the days (Job’s sons and daughters were) feasting, Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, ‘It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.’ Thus did Job continually.’” – Job 1:1,5

God called Job, perfect (complete in Christ, mature in faith) and upright (as Christ); meaning, he was just, upright, mature in understanding, character and conduct. By the grace of God he knew God, walked with God, obeyed God, walked according to God’s Word, knew Christ, worshipped God always, called on the Lord always. Christ was his life.

Job had 10 children and Job’s one concern for all his children was that they might know and worship the Lord. He was deeply worried about them. Though they had everything they could ask for (too much) they did not have the one thing needful, and so Job prayed for them. Job called on God for them, and he called on them to come worship the Lord with him. But they didn’t, and so they perished!

Parents, what about you? What is your greatest concern for your children? Is it that they might have all this world has to offer? . . . or have Christ, Who is all? Do you pray for them? . . . that the Lord would reveal Himself to them? Do you call them to worship with you? If they don’t come to Christ they will perish. Do you talk to them about the Lord and their need of Him? If they are old enough to willfully rebel, they are old enough to perish for it. O’ may we be as Job, perfect and upright . . . concerned about ONE THING. If we are more concerned with the things of this world, our children know it and they won’t hear us. If our talk is of the world all week and of God only on Sunday, our children will pay no attention to our religion. Like Lot in Sodom, we will seem as one that mocketh. If we murmur and complain all week and are down in the mouth, then come to give thanks to the Lord on Sunday; it is all a pretense to them. If we speak critically of the people of God and the preacher of God, our children will have no love and respect for God’s people or God’s preacher, and they will not hear the Word of God preached, and they will not be saved.

Let us do as Job did, let us do as the Lord tells us: “These words, which I shall command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down and risest up (Deut.6:6-7). Let us be as Abraham, “And the Lord said . . . I know him, that he will command his children after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment . . .” (Gen.18:19). Let us be as Job.

O’ Lord, grant us the greatest love we could have for our children, love for their souls. And Lord, grant us wisdom from above, true wisdom, the wisdom that is Christ, in dealing with our children and others. Amen.

“Ask and ye shall receive” . . . “Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it”