Pillars of Faith

Our Great High Priest

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Jim Gilley, Pastor

Series Code: POF

00:25 Hello and welcome to, Pillars of Faith.
00:28 A word for today in today's world.
00:32 My name is C.A. Murray and it is my privilege
00:35 and pleasure to welcome you to an hour of power packed
00:40 preaching as we examine the pillars of our faith;
00:43 those truths for which we stand and in which we stand
00:48 as we seek to lift up the mighty and matchless name of Jesus,
00:52 and to take one more step along the road
00:55 that leads to glory.
00:57 We thank you for joining us for this every special time
00:59 of preaching and of prayer.
01:02 Our speaker today is one who is no stranger to this pulpit.
01:05 Some months ago he retired.
01:08 And I put that in quotes because as an Adventist preacher,
01:10 you never really retire.
01:12 You simply retread and retrace.
01:15 And so he is back to be with us for five presentations.
01:19 That is our own pastor and friend, Pastor Jim Gilley.
01:23 For those who do not know him, he was a pastor for many years,
01:28 a conference president in the Arkansas Louisiana Conference
01:31 for many years, a vice-president of the North American Division
01:36 for a period of time.
01:38 He returned to pastoring, and then from pastoring
01:40 he came to be the president of
01:42 Three Angels Broadcasting Network.
01:45 And now he has relocated to California,
01:48 but we've called him back to give us a word from the Lord.
01:51 And we are quite sure that God will bless him as he speaks
01:54 from his heart to your heart as we sit together
01:58 for the next five sessions.
02:00 Today's particular sermon title is, Our Great High Priest.
02:06 And we know that our great High Priest is Jesus.
02:09 And we know that Pastor Jim Gilley has much to say
02:11 on that particular subject.
02:13 He is joined this week by his wife, Camille.
02:16 He is the father of two boys and two girls,
02:19 and a number of grandchildren at this point,
02:21 who he dearly loves.
02:23 We're happy to call Jim back to this pulpit,
02:26 and we know that God is going to bless him as he speaks to us.
02:29 Would you join me now in a word of prayer?
02:31 After we shall have prayed, the next voice you will hear
02:35 will be that of our friend, Pastor Jim Gilley.
02:38 Hear ye him. Shall we pray.
02:40 Father God, how we praise You and thank You now
02:44 for the privilege that is ours
02:47 to listen to a word from the Lord
02:49 as we re-examine these pillars of truth;
02:52 these things that make us what we are in Christ,
02:56 that define who we are, and how we are to live in You.
03:00 We pray, dear Father, that You would bless the speaker
03:04 this time as You have blessed him so many times in the past.
03:09 Give him the words to say to us that will be meat in due season
03:15 to our thirsty souls.
03:17 Bless him so that he can be a blessing to us.
03:21 Use him so that he can speak words of truth
03:24 that will give us hope and courage and enlightenment
03:28 as we seek to serve you.
03:30 We surrender ourselves to You.
03:32 We ask You to bless the technical aspects of
03:34 this program; the cameramen, the audio,
03:38 and all of the technical aspects.
03:39 But more than that, be with the human instrument
03:42 that You have chosen to speak a word for You.
03:44 And we thank You, Father, for Your promise
03:46 to hear and answer the prayer of faith.
03:49 In Jesus' name, amen and amen.
03:58 Thank you, sir.
04:01 Thank you, Pastor C.A.
04:03 And it's good to be back at 3ABN.
04:05 It's good to be back in this pulpit
04:07 and back in this auditorium.
04:09 Because this is a place where my wife, Camille, and I
04:13 spent almost eight years in working with this ministry.
04:18 There is no question in our mind that this was the highlight
04:23 of our ministry working here.
04:25 I believe so much in 3ABN.
04:29 I have seen even more since we left here
04:32 than when we were here the results of this ministry.
04:37 And I want to thank Danny Shelton for the invitation
04:41 to come back and to be here.
04:43 And I hope that over the years we'll be able to return
04:47 from time to time, and be able to come and be with you
04:52 and to minister God's word from this pulpit.
04:56 I believe that the Lord is coming soon.
05:00 I want to be ready for Him when He comes.
05:03 And I believe that we have a message to proclaim
05:06 to the world that actually 3ABN is doing the greatest job
05:12 of proclaiming of any ministry anywhere in the world.
05:17 I believe that with all my heart.
05:19 And I want you to know that I fully support the outreach
05:25 of this ministry and of those that labor here,
05:28 and Danny Shelton and the entire team.
05:32 Because I know that spreading the gospel
05:36 is number one on their hearts.
05:39 I want to read to you a text that we find in Hebrews 4
05:45 beginning with verse 14.
05:47 "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest
05:51 who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God,
05:56 let us hold fast our confession.
06:00 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize
06:04 with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are,
06:09 yet without sin.
06:11 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace,
06:16 that we may obtain mercy and find grace
06:21 to help in time of need."
06:25 And then it says in Hebrews 2:17-18,
06:32 "Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren,
06:37 that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest
06:41 in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation
06:45 for the sins of the people.
06:48 For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted,
06:52 He is able to aid those who are tempted."
06:57 Our High Priest, the Bible says, is not a High Priest
07:01 who is not acquainted with what we face.
07:06 When you look at the role of the High Priest in Scripture,
07:09 it begins with Aaron, the brother of Moses.
07:13 It passed down through the Levites, the tribe of Levi.
07:16 And it was a very spiritual position.
07:20 That is, until the time that the Romans took over.
07:24 Because the Romans really ruled Israel
07:29 at the time of Christ.
07:31 Before and after the time of Christ they were in control.
07:36 The role of the high priest had become a political position.
07:41 It was a position that people bought, so to speak,
07:45 with money and with influence.
07:47 And it was this type of high priest that was in control
07:52 when Jesus was here on this earth.
07:55 The high priest was corrupt.
07:57 And it was the high priest that was gaining the money
08:02 from all of the sales of things that were happening out there
08:06 in the outer court of the temple.
08:10 Remember when Jesus came and He cleansed the temple.
08:13 He ran the money changers out.
08:15 He was affecting the income of the high priest.
08:20 Now that had not been true in years gone by,
08:23 but the corruption that was there at the time of Rome
08:28 was something that was just unbelievable.
08:32 And Jesus, His righteous indignation, was stirred.
08:36 And He went into that place and He cleansed that temple
08:41 of all those money changers.
08:44 But you see, that brought about the wrath
08:47 of that high priest upon Him.
08:50 And it was that high priest who was the influence,
08:54 was the one that caused Pilate to go ahead
08:58 and to make that death decree.
09:01 They were all in cahoots together with Rome.
09:05 But that's not the kind of high priest that you and I have.
09:12 The Bible says we have a pure High Priest, Jesus Christ.
09:19 The Bible says that this High Priest is standing
09:23 at the right hand of God.
09:25 He has entered into the Sanctuary,
09:27 into the Most Holy Place.
09:29 He has gone there to minister for you and for me.
09:34 But not only that, this is a High Priest
09:39 that understands you and He understands me.
09:45 The Bible says that He has been tempted in all points,
09:50 just as we were tempted.
09:54 We go to Israel and we often go down and visit a place
10:00 that's very interesting.
10:02 I do not believe that the temple is ever going to
10:05 be rebuilt in Israel.
10:07 And in fact, we are always asking them,
10:09 "Well if they rebuild the temple,
10:11 are they going to do animal sacrifices?"
10:14 You know what kind of a problem that would bring
10:17 today in today's world?
10:19 And we asked them some questions that they don't like to answer.
10:23 But we listen to them as they tell us what kind of
10:27 high priest they would be looking for.
10:31 First of all, they say they're looking for a high priest
10:35 that is wealthy.
10:37 Because they don't want him to be able to be bribed.
10:42 They're looking for a high priest who is very handsome.
10:46 Because they would not want him to envy somebody else.
10:51 And they go down through this whole long list
10:53 of what they're looking for in a high priest.
10:58 And I often stop and think, "Wow, how misguided
11:05 these poor souls are."
11:08 We have a High Priest.
11:10 Jesus Christ is our High Priest.
11:16 And He has already done that which was necessary
11:22 by laying down His life.
11:25 He was the Lamb of God which takes away
11:29 the sin of the world.
11:32 And those are the words that He heard when
11:36 He came to John the Baptist to be baptized.
11:40 He said, "Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away
11:44 the sin of the world."
11:46 Now this was an amazing thing that Jesus, when He comes
11:51 to John, submits Himself to baptism.
11:54 Even John realized that this should not be.
11:57 If you understand baptism from the standpoint of the Jew,
12:01 you realize that Jews were not baptized.
12:07 They were not baptized normally.
12:10 Prior to John the Baptist, the only Jews that were baptized
12:15 were proselytes or people who were going to become a Jew.
12:20 But the Jewish person was not.
12:23 Seven days, one week after their birth, they were circumcised.
12:27 And that was their becoming a Jew.
12:31 Then at the age of twelve, you remember that they became...
12:36 They came to the temple at that point when
12:38 they came to the age of responsibility, accountability.
12:41 And they have now what they have, the Bar Mitzvah.
12:46 Something of that nature.
12:48 The Bat Mitzvah for the girls, the Bar Mitzvah for the men.
12:51 And they become an actual Jew.
12:54 But there was no baptism involved except for those that
12:57 came out of other faiths and became a Jew.
13:02 John the Baptist comes along.
13:04 John the Baptist says we have all sinned,
13:08 we have all come short.
13:10 And he said we need to all be baptized.
13:15 And this is the first real illustration of baptism
13:20 taking place by immersion on a wholesale basis
13:24 anywhere in the Bible, is by John the Baptist.
13:29 And now Jesus comes.
13:31 And Jesus, who has been accepted as a young Jewish boy,
13:39 remember that He went to the temple at the age of twelve.
13:41 And He began there to teach.
13:44 And He was away from His parents for days before they
13:48 realized that He was missing.
13:50 And they went back and they got Him.
13:53 And He said, "Wist ye not that I might be about
13:56 My Father's business?"
13:58 And so Jesus now comes to be baptized.
14:04 Why?
14:05 Jesus, who had no sin.
14:08 Why would He be baptized?
14:11 Why?
14:12 He said, "Suffer it to be so now to fulfill all righteousness."
14:18 In other words, Jesus was doing this as an example
14:23 for you and for me.
14:26 My friend, if you have not been baptized,
14:29 you need to be making that decision to be baptized.
14:35 To give your life totally to Jesus.
14:39 If Jesus, who knew no sin, would be baptized
14:43 in order to be an example to you and to me,
14:49 then we should not hesitate to be baptized.
14:54 Over the years I've held many evangelistic meetings
14:57 as a preacher, as a singer, and as an organizer,
15:01 something like over a hundred evangelistic meetings.
15:04 I lost count a long time ago.
15:08 And so many times we would find people...
15:10 I've had people tell me, "I don't need to be baptized.
15:13 I'm not a sinner."
15:16 I said, "Look at Jesus. He was baptized.
15:20 He was certainly not a sinner."
15:23 We, all of us have sinned, the Bible says, and come short.
15:27 So we are all sinners.
15:29 But Jesus was not.
15:31 He was baptized as an example.
15:33 I remember one time, and I've told you this story before,
15:36 but I'm going to tell it again,
15:38 we were in Taunton, Massachusetts.
15:39 And I was holding an evangelistic meeting
15:41 with Pastor Bud Roberts.
15:44 There was a man coming to the meetings.
15:47 You know, there's just something at times you just
15:50 see people and you like them.
15:52 This man was not well dressed.
15:56 But there was something about his personality
16:00 that just was shining through.
16:05 And so I began to talk to him about the Lord.
16:08 We gave call after call in the meetings, but he didn't respond.
16:12 I went to his home.
16:14 When I got to his home to visit with him,
16:18 I realized that he was someone who horded things.
16:24 You could barely get into the house.
16:26 We made our way down through the path,
16:29 walking actually on newspapers,
16:32 and finally found a place to sit down.
16:35 And I said, "Brother, you need to be baptized."
16:41 He said, "Brother Jim, I'm afraid of water."
16:47 I said, "What do you mean?"
16:48 He said, "I'm so afraid of water that I don't even drink water."
16:54 And I said, "What do you drink?"
16:57 He said, "I drink Pepsi."
17:00 I said, "What?"
17:02 He said, "That's all I drink is Pepsi."
17:05 "You're not afraid of Pepsi?"
17:06 "No, I'm not afraid of Pepsi."
17:09 So I looked at him...
17:11 And you've got to remember, I was a very young evangelist
17:13 at the time in my twenties.
17:16 I looked at him and I said,
17:17 "Brother, I'll baptize you in Pepsi."
17:22 And the pastor looked at me like, "What on earth
17:25 are you doing here?"
17:28 The man kind of laughed and he said,
17:30 "Well, I don't think I'm going to be baptized.
17:33 Maybe not right now."
17:35 I said, "Listen," I said, "I'm afraid that one of these days
17:41 people are going to come by here, they're going to say,
17:43 'Where's the old man?'
17:46 And they're going to look for you.
17:48 And they're not going to find you.
17:51 And then they're going to come in here and they're going to
17:52 find you dead in this place.
17:56 And you will not have given your life to Jesus."
17:59 Now I probably shouldn't have been talking so direct,
18:01 but when you're in your twenties, sometimes...
18:05 In fact, I'm beyond that now and I'm still a little
18:07 too direct sometimes, but.
18:09 I said, "I'm just afraid you're going to
18:14 wait until it's too late."
18:17 When I got out to the car, Pastor Bud Roberts
18:20 looked at me and he said, "How in the world
18:22 are you going to baptize him in Pepsi?"
18:25 I said, "Well, you know, we'll just go to the Pepsi place
18:30 and we'll get some of the bottles of that syrup,
18:33 and we'll just pour it in the baptistery.
18:35 It may not be carbonated Pepsi, but it'll be Pepsi."
18:39 And he said, "You know, I've worked for a lot of evangelists,
18:42 but you're the wildest fellow I've ever worked with."
18:45 And we went on down the road.
18:47 But our friend didn't do it. He wasn't baptized.
18:51 About a year later I came back to the area.
18:56 In the meantime, I heard a story.
18:59 A few months after we were there,
19:02 they missed this gentleman.
19:05 They went into the house and they found him.
19:10 He was alive.
19:12 They took him to the hospital, he recovered.
19:15 They took him to a nursing home to rehabilitate.
19:19 When he got there, those nurses said, "You're taking a shower."
19:24 He said, "No, I'm afraid of water."
19:26 They said, "You're going to get over that."
19:29 And before long, they had him bathing.
19:34 And then something happened to him, his whole personality.
19:39 They found out he could play the piano.
19:42 Then soon he was entertaining all of the folks
19:44 there at the nursing home by playing the piano.
19:48 And Pastor Bud went by to see him.
19:51 Then the next thing you know, Pastor Bud told me,
19:56 "You know, I was holding a meeting near by," and he said,
19:58 "I'm going to bring this gentleman over."
20:01 And he said, "We're going to baptize him."
20:03 And we did.
20:05 We baptized him in water.
20:10 And he gave his life to Jesus.
20:12 Lived the rest of his life as a positive influence
20:17 for the Lord Jesus Christ.
20:19 Baptism. So important.
20:21 Jesus, our example, He was baptized,
20:25 though He had no sin of His own.
20:28 He was baptized as an example for you and for me.
20:34 And when He came up out of that water,
20:37 He heard a decree from heaven.
20:41 The silence of heaven was broken and here were the words,
20:46 "This is My beloved Son."
20:50 Which was a quote from Psalms 2:7.
20:54 And it's considered a Messianic quote.
20:57 "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
21:02 Which is a quote from Isaiah 42,
21:05 and I believe it's about verse 7.
21:07 But it's in that area, Isaiah 42, which leads on
21:11 to the suffering Messiah in Isaiah 53.
21:16 "This is My beloved Son."
21:18 And these were the words that came to Jesus,
21:25 signifying that He was the Son of God.
21:32 Can you imagine, my friend, what a day that was?
21:37 The people that heard that.
21:42 They hadn't heard God speak from heaven since Sinai.
21:50 And now they're hearing Him audibly speak,
21:55 "This is My beloved Son."
21:58 And Jesus, the Bible says that He was led by the Spirit
22:06 into the place of temptation.
22:11 Led by the Spirit.
22:14 These words are in His ears, "My beloved Son."
22:19 "My beloved Son."
22:22 But now, after this great spiritual high,
22:27 there's to be a temptation.
22:29 I want to tell you something.
22:32 Almost after every spiritual high, you have to be so careful.
22:38 Because the devil will take the opportunity
22:43 after a spiritual high to tempt you as perhaps you've
22:48 never been tempted before.
22:53 The temptations come right after there has been something
22:58 very spiritual that has come to you.
23:03 Now He had been led of His own to be baptized,
23:06 but now He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
23:11 You know, when I go to Israel, I'm an interesting person
23:16 in some respects.
23:18 I don't really understand a place until I've been there.
23:23 Until I had walked along the fields of Gettysburg
23:28 I never had a feel for the battle of Gettysburg.
23:32 Until I actually walked up to the place where Lincoln
23:36 gave the Gettysburg address, I just never had
23:40 quite a feel for that.
23:43 Until I had been down here at Anna and walked out there
23:47 where there are two monuments, you might say.
23:52 They're actually, they've done some likenesses of
23:58 Lincoln and Douglas where the Lincoln-Douglas
24:01 debates took place.
24:02 Until I was there and I saw where that took place,
24:07 it did not seem real to me.
24:11 Until I went down to the Texas School Book Depository,
24:16 even though I had driven by there as a young man
24:18 many, many times, but until after the assassination
24:22 and I had gone there and looked at that spot,
24:26 and seen with my own eyes what had taken place there
24:32 and how the assassination took place in that area,
24:39 I never could really kind of grasp that whole scene.
24:45 And when I go to Israel, I like to go down by the
24:49 spring of Elisha there in Jericho.
24:52 There's a little place there called,
24:53 The Temptation Restaurant.
24:55 I like to go out there and...
24:57 And by the way, they have some wonderful vegetarian foods
25:02 that are very tempting in that place.
25:05 They've got fruits and they've got all kinds of
25:09 different things that are made that are so good and tasty
25:14 in that restaurant.
25:15 But when you go down there, you can look up to what's called
25:18 the mount of temptation.
25:21 And you see that desert area, just above Jericho.
25:27 That desert where this temptation took place.
25:33 It's not a pretty place.
25:35 You know, when we go for a retreat, we like to go
25:39 some place where it's really pretty.
25:42 We like to go out to some place where it's real nice.
25:47 But this was not that kind of place.
25:50 But when you stand down there not far from where the
25:53 walls of Jericho fell, and you look up to where Jesus
25:57 was tempted, I've been able to feel more
26:03 that experience by having been there.
26:07 And it's why that...
26:09 I know that everybody doesn't need to have those kind of
26:12 experiences to really have the Bible come alive to them,
26:16 but I'm the kind of person that does.
26:19 And I learn more every time I go to that part of the world.
26:24 And you look up there where Jesus was fasting
26:31 and where that temptation took place.
26:34 You know, there was no hesitation in His stride.
26:39 There was no doubt in Him as He went forward to be alone.
26:44 There are times you need to be alone.
26:47 This was a time when Jesus needed to be alone.
26:52 He knew that He was the Son of God.
26:56 And He also knew that He had to go to the cross
26:59 and die on that cross.
27:03 And now He's going into this place to fast
27:09 for forty days and forty nights.
27:14 I don't know if you've ever been on a fast or not, but I have.
27:17 I sometimes speak to my friends and tell them I'm a missionary
27:24 to those who have had to battle with weight.
27:26 Because when I was a kid, I was so skinny.
27:30 And people never would have dreamed that I would ever
27:33 have a battle with weight.
27:35 I've told you many times the stories of my different coaches
27:38 when I was playing ball trying to just put another
27:41 twenty pounds on me.
27:43 They would give me all these add weight drinks to drink,
27:47 and all this type of stuff.
27:49 And I would try to gain weight and just could not gain weight.
27:54 And then when I hit my thirties, and then eventually the forties,
28:00 I began to battle with the gaining of weight.
28:05 And so I would try all manner of things to not gain.
28:10 I cannot eat three meals a day.
28:13 I remember going on a trip one time with a friend of mine.
28:15 And he was always giving me such a hard time about being heavy.
28:21 So we went on a trip.
28:22 And on that trip the meals were prescribed.
28:25 They were just set down. They just give you a plate.
28:27 That's all you got.
28:29 The church we go to now, we get nice buffets.
28:33 But in those days we didn't.
28:35 And he was giving me a hard time.
28:38 And so I would sit with him and eat as much as I could,
28:43 but I was running the trip so I had to get up and run around.
28:46 So I never really finished even my whole meal.
28:50 During the over two weeks that we were out together,
28:54 I gained ten pounds and he lost fifteen.
28:58 His metabolism was just a whole lot different than mine.
29:03 He couldn't get enough to eat with those plates,
29:06 I wasn't finishing the whole plate.
29:09 It's just a battle that some of us have.
29:11 And so I've been on some of these fasts.
29:14 And I remember going on a forty day fast once
29:18 from a liquid protein.
29:20 All you had was just some liquid to drink.
29:23 That's it.
29:25 And you drank that, and you did that three times a day.
29:29 And that was all you had.
29:33 You know something?
29:36 At the end of forty days, I'd lost quite a bit of weight
29:40 on that particular diet.
29:42 If you can maintain that, you will lose weight.
29:47 But I had lost so much strength.
29:50 And I was in a board meeting down in the
29:52 Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
29:55 And I began to just feel terrible.
29:58 I got up and I went out of the board meeting,
30:01 and I sat down on a bench outside there in
30:08 Weslaco, Texas at the academy.
30:11 And I sat there, and I was dizzy.
30:15 And I hadn't felt this bad throughout the whole
30:18 forty days of my fast.
30:22 And I said, "I've got to end this.
30:25 I can't handle this."
30:27 And so I got hold of a phone and I called a friend,
30:35 two friends of mine, Larry and Patty Dittburner.
30:39 And I said, "You know, I feel so weak.
30:43 I feel so much in need of some food.
30:47 I think that some enchiladas would probably be a great way
30:51 to end this fast."
30:54 And they said, "We'll be right there to pick you up."
30:56 They took me over the border to a place called, Arturo's.
31:00 And we enjoyed ending my fast at Arturo's.
31:07 Forty days, forty nights.
31:09 I was about to die.
31:11 Jesus did not even have a liquid protein drink.
31:17 Jesus was completely fasting forty days, forty nights.
31:26 Another time I was at Andrews University.
31:28 And I went on a one week diet.
31:30 And that was just strictly you drank a little bit of juice
31:34 three times a day.
31:35 A prescribed amount of juice three times a day.
31:39 At the end of that week, in fact that weekend,
31:41 I went over to the Wisconsin camp meeting.
31:44 A meeting in those days at the old campground.
31:47 I've been there at the old campground,
31:49 I've been to the new campground.
31:50 There's just nothing quite like the Wisconsin camp meeting,
31:53 for those of you that go.
31:55 And you know what I mean.
31:57 It's a wonderful place, a wonderful atmosphere.
32:00 I've been invited to go back there and preach several times.
32:02 And I really have enjoyed it.
32:04 Going to enjoy going again some day.
32:07 When we got to the Wisconsin camp meeting,
32:10 Elder E.E. Cleveland was speaking.
32:13 I just had met him in those days.
32:18 And I went up to him and was talking to him.
32:21 He said, "Come on, I want you to go to lunch with me."
32:23 I said, "I'm not eating today."
32:25 But he said, "Just come on and we'll fellowship together."
32:28 So we went over and the people had invited him
32:31 under a great big tree.
32:33 And they had spread out all of this wonderful
32:36 fresh food from Wisconsin.
32:38 All the corn, and tomatoes, and all kinds of salads,
32:43 and everything that was so good.
32:45 And I wasn't eating.
32:47 And I want to tell you, that was a very difficult time.
32:50 And Elder Cleveland turned to me and he said,
32:52 "Brother Gilley, we want you to have the blessing."
32:56 Now you're having the blessing and you're not going to eat.
33:00 And I had the blessing.
33:02 And then I walked out under the tree and
33:05 drank that little bit of juice that I was suppose to drink.
33:10 And then later that day I had the opportunity
33:13 to drive Elder Cleveland down to the airport in Chicago.
33:19 It was during that drive that we sealed our friendship.
33:22 We became lifelong friends.
33:26 Brother C.A. Murray and I had the great opportunity
33:31 of interviewing him for our Heritage series
33:35 and hearing his life story.
33:38 You'll want to get a copy of that because
33:40 it's just tremendous.
33:42 On that particular series they've got Elder Bradford,
33:46 they've got Elder Brooks, and Elder Cleveland.
33:49 You'll want to get a copy of that,
33:51 because it is worth watching time and time again.
33:57 But then when I finished letting him off at the airport,
34:00 I went back to Andrews.
34:02 The next day late in the day, I was playing on a softball team
34:08 there during the summer, and we had an opportunity
34:12 were just playing the game.
34:14 And on that day I hit what's called, the cycle.
34:17 Which is a single, a double, a triple, and a home run.
34:21 And I'll tell you something.
34:22 My fellow team mates told me this.
34:25 They said, "You need to quit eating all together."
34:27 They said, "You've never played a better game
34:29 than you did today."
34:31 But I want to tell you that during that week,
34:33 I don't think I lost a pound,
34:36 even though I was eating nothing and fasting.
34:41 But Jesus was not fasting for weight loss.
34:44 He was fasting because the great task of bringing
34:49 life eternal to you and to me was before Him.
34:53 The great task of saving us was that which He was facing.
34:59 The great task of knowing that He was going to
35:01 go to the cross, that He was going to die on the cross,
35:04 that He was going to be tempted not just these three temptations
35:08 that came to Him at this time.
35:10 Bu He was going to be tempted and tempted and tempted
35:15 throughout Him ministry.
35:18 And He was preparing, and He was submitting,
35:23 and He was giving Himself totally to His heavenly Father.
35:30 And then it came time for the fast to end.
35:33 They say that when you fast without any food at all,
35:38 that at about six weeks you either eat or you die.
35:43 Your body begins to die.
35:47 Christ was willing to die rather than to end the fast
35:52 until His Father said to end the fast.
35:57 I look at that scene, it was probably early in the morning,
36:05 I see the scene when the devil comes.
36:10 The devil says to Him...
36:13 It says that Jesus, when He had fasted forty days
36:16 and forty nights, afterwards He was hungry.
36:20 And then it says, this is reading Matthew 4:3,
36:25 "Now when the tempter came to him, he said,
36:28 'If You are the Son of God, command that these
36:32 stones become bread.'"
36:35 Now Jesus had heard the word from heaven,
36:37 "This is My beloved Son."
36:41 There was no "if" about it.
36:44 There was no question about it.
36:48 And He was now having this angel of light that was coming
36:54 question, "If You are the Son of God."
36:59 Now when He looks at this bread...
37:01 You know when I was a kid, I would read this story
37:04 and I would think in terms of bread like,
37:09 you know, a loaf of bread.
37:10 Like your mother would bake a loaf of bread.
37:13 Or you would get it at the store.
37:16 You know how a loaf of bread looks.
37:19 But that's now how bread in the Middle East looks.
37:22 Not how it looked then, not how it looks now.
37:25 If you look at the pita bread, it's kind of flat and round.
37:28 And then there are other breads.
37:29 There's a bread that is more like a flour tortilla.
37:34 A very thin bread.
37:36 They cook it over a hot stone or rock.
37:41 They have the fire under that rock.
37:45 Now they use other methods today, but in those days
37:49 it was over a rock.
37:51 And I've seen people even do it in recent years
37:53 over a hot rock.
37:55 And they put this batter like substance over it.
37:59 Like a thin crepe or like a pancake or something, see.
38:05 And then that cooks.
38:07 They flip that over and it cooks completely.
38:11 And then they roll that up in something like goat's cheese,
38:15 or something like that.
38:16 They roll that around it, and it's delicious.
38:21 Absolutely delicious.
38:23 And Jesus, when He saw these stones,
38:28 and the tempter says to Him, "You can turn these into bread.
38:34 You can end this fast."
38:38 I would imagine that Jesus thinks back
38:41 to His mother at home.
38:44 Probably early in the morning and she's fixing
38:46 the bread for the day.
38:48 The mother rising long before anybody else.
38:52 And here she's fixing that bread.
38:55 And I would imagine that He thought about that bread.
39:00 How good it would taste.
39:03 And He knew that all He had to do was speak
39:08 and those rocks could become bread.
39:11 That He could use His powers to make bread out of anything,
39:17 or out of nothing.
39:20 You see, the devil was tempting Him not only in appetite.
39:24 Because He'd gone for forty days and forty nights without eating.
39:28 What's one more day?
39:30 But he's tempting Him to use His own powers,
39:35 the powers that had been given to Him, in a selfish way.
39:40 To use these powers in a manner that would be self-serving.
39:46 To use His powers to attract attention.
39:50 If He becomes the bread king and He's making bread
39:53 not only for Himself, but for everybody else...
39:56 You see only a couple of times; the feeding of the 5000,
39:59 the feeding of the 4000, He actually did make bread.
40:04 And He could have become the bread king.
40:07 And everybody would have followed Him.
40:10 But He would not have been doing what God had called Him to do.
40:16 He would not have been using the gifts that God had given Him
40:25 in a way that He was supposed to.
40:29 That temptation.
40:30 He answers back, "Man shall not live by bread alone,
40:38 but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."
40:47 You see, He said you're not just to have bread to eat.
40:52 Not just to have it.
40:55 You're not just to live by that bread, but by every word
41:01 that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
41:07 Then the Bible says that the angel took Him up
41:11 to a high place.
41:14 Takes Him to a place that is called
41:18 the pinnacle of the temple.
41:21 There are two places where this could have been.
41:24 And the one I believe it was is the temple porch.
41:28 The temple porch was high above the temple itself.
41:32 It was the place where the priest would go with a horn
41:35 to call all of Israel to worship.
41:38 Where they could look out and they could see,
41:43 as the dawning of the day came,
41:46 that it was time to begin worship of the Lord.
41:51 The priest would cast it, would blow the trumpet.
41:54 Those great massive temple gates would open.
41:58 And then the people would come in to worship.
42:02 This was called the pinnacle of the temple.
42:06 Now there's another place that it could have been.
42:09 And that is off of the edge of the great temple mount area.
42:17 I think it's the first.
42:20 Because both have been called the pinnacle of the temple,
42:23 when you're studying it.
42:25 But I think it's that temple porch.
42:26 Now I'll tell you why.
42:29 You see, there had become a tradition.
42:32 And we'll look at that tradition in just a moment.
42:36 But now we'll see that the angel had come
42:43 and had taken Jesus to this pinnacle.
42:49 And now he said, "Jump, because the Bible says that
42:56 He shall give His angels charge over Thee,
42:59 lest Thou dash Thy foot upon a stone."
43:03 Now he says, "Jump."
43:07 You know, when I was a young man, I would read this and
43:11 and I'd say, "Wow!"
43:13 I'm looking at these temptations, and I'm saying,
43:17 the first one He's already gone forty days without eating.
43:21 Is that a temptation to go forty-one days?
43:23 To go one more day?
43:25 Is that a temptation?
43:27 And then I looked at this and I said,
43:29 well now he's tempting Him to jump.
43:32 Now I have been to the Empire State Building.
43:36 I have been to the top of the World Trade Center
43:38 before it came down.
43:41 I've been to the edge of the canyon at Grand Canyon.
43:45 I've been in some places that were so high.
43:49 And not once was I tempted to jump.
43:52 Not once.
43:54 In fact, I was tempted to back up and not get
43:57 too close to the edge.
43:59 And I'm saying, "What kind of temptation is this?"
44:03 What I didn't realize is, the devil had planted
44:09 a tradition that the Messiah would announce His Messiah-ship
44:17 from the pinnacle of the temple by casting Himself down.
44:24 And that the angels would bear Him down
44:27 into the temple courtyard.
44:30 And from there He would begin to be the Messiah.
44:37 And they would come to Him, accept Him, worship Him.
44:42 And He would then be the one, the accepted one.
44:49 Do you see now why this was a temptation?
44:53 Because this was the tradition.
44:56 One of the reasons they didn't accept Jesus
44:58 is they said, "He didn't jump off the temple porch."
45:01 And there were all kinds of people that had come along.
45:04 And they've got some of the names of them in history,
45:06 you can find some of their names, who thought that
45:09 they were the Messiah.
45:10 They would climb to the temple porch and they would jump off,
45:15 and smack, hit that floor down below and be dead.
45:22 In fact, it had come to the place where they had to lock off
45:28 the stairway to that temple porch
45:34 so that these people could not get up there.
45:38 Because it was getting dangerous to run around down below.
45:41 There may be somebody thinking that he's the Messiah
45:44 and he's up there getting ready to jump.
45:47 Oh my friend, you see, we have no idea
45:54 the length to which the devil would go to tempt Jesus.
46:00 He was tempting Him to come the way
46:03 that they expect you to come.
46:05 "If You come the way they expect You to come,
46:09 then they'll accept You.
46:13 You don't have to go to the cross.
46:15 You can cut short the cross.
46:18 You don't have to do what Isaiah says," Isaiah 53,
46:24 "that You're to suffer.
46:25 You don't have to suffer.
46:28 You can be accepted by the people if You'll just come
46:35 the way they expect you to come."
46:39 And Jesus said, "No."
46:41 He said, "You shall not tempted the Lord your God.
46:48 You shall not tempt Him.
46:51 It is written, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'"
46:58 And then the devil, the Bible says, to Him to an exceeding
47:01 high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world
47:04 and their glory.
47:06 "And he said to Him, 'All these things I'll give You
47:11 if You'll fall down and worship me.'
47:17 And Jesus said, 'Away with you, Satan!
47:22 For it is written, "You shall worship the Lord your God,
47:25 and Him only you shall serve."'"
47:33 In other words He's saying, "This is My Father's house.
47:37 This is My Father's world.
47:40 You have stolen it, you have taken it away from Adam,
47:46 who We made the guardian of it.
47:48 You have taken it.
47:50 But I have come to take it back.
47:54 You cannot give it back to Us.
47:57 My Father, He and I are one.
48:01 But I will take it back at the cross.
48:05 I will go to the cross, I will die on the cross.
48:10 I will give My all so that we will once again have this world.
48:20 Bring an end to sin and sadness."
48:22 You know, when Satan takes Him up there and shows Him
48:25 the world, he shows Him all the beauties of the world.
48:27 He shows Him all the wonderful things of the world.
48:30 But he doesn't show Him the sin, the dirt, the death.
48:40 The different things that bring pain to people.
48:46 He doesn't show Him that.
48:49 He doesn't see all of that.
48:53 You see, Satan tries to make the world look good.
48:59 Tries to make the world look great.
49:02 But down underneath, all of these things that
49:06 Satan has to offer, there is sadness, there is sin,
49:14 there is degradation.
49:17 There are people who cannot find anything,
49:24 anything to hold onto except if they come to Jesus.
49:33 Years ago, I needed a haircut and I went to the barber shop.
49:41 The barber there was a very well-known person.
49:44 He knew everybody in town.
49:48 Knew all of the fellows out at the school where I went.
49:51 And just about all of the guys that ever got a haircut in town
49:56 would go to him.
49:58 Haircuts weren't that expensive in town.
50:01 So if you had a chance, and you wanted a good haircut,
50:04 you went there.
50:06 One day I was there with him and he was cutting my hair.
50:14 And I looked out and there was a lady, a woman,
50:20 and she had an old tow sack with her.
50:24 And she was going through the garbage cans out in front
50:28 of the barber shop.
50:31 She would dig out a few things.
50:33 She found an old cigarette butt and she started smoking that,
50:37 that was on the street.
50:40 And then she coughed.
50:42 And I could tell that she was very, very ill.
50:46 And I said, "Ernest, tell me, who is this lady?
50:52 Why doesn't somebody help her?"
50:55 "Oh," he said, "let me tell you about her."
50:57 He said, "People have tried to help her."
51:00 He said she had one son.
51:02 Nobody knew who the father was.
51:05 She lived in a little shack down by the railroad tracks
51:08 that didn't even have anything but a dirt floor.
51:12 And he said people always said that the little shack,
51:17 all the walls leaned in, if they had leaned out
51:20 it would have fallen long time before.
51:24 And she had one child.
51:28 And as I said, they had no idea who the father was.
51:32 Some transient that came through.
51:36 The boy began to grow.
51:39 He was small, would run around with no shoes, half clothed.
51:48 But it was amazing that he seemed to be very bright.
51:53 The truant officers came when it came time
51:56 for him to go to school, and they said,
51:58 "You know, he needs to be in school."
52:01 And the mother said, "Oh no, he's okay."
52:03 They said, "No, he's going to go to school."
52:06 So they started taking him to school.
52:09 He had no clothes.
52:10 Some of the teachers went out and got him some decent clothes.
52:13 He got some hand-me-downs from other children, and so forth.
52:18 And they gave him some clothing.
52:21 He was very quiet in his class.
52:26 They didn't know if he was really very smart or not.
52:29 Then they found out that he was very smart.
52:35 When he became a little older he stared helping
52:38 the janitor there at the school.
52:40 And he would help that janitor.
52:43 Over and over again help him with the tasks
52:46 that needed to be taking place.
52:47 He would dust the boards and clean the erasers
52:52 and get everything ready with the janitor for school.
52:55 When he got a little older he was looking for a job.
52:59 He went around the square there in that town and
53:02 he was looking for a job.
53:04 He couldn't find a job anywhere.
53:05 Finally, the last place on the square was the bank.
53:08 And he thought, "I'm certainly not qualified
53:11 to do anything here.
53:12 But I've got to have a job."
53:14 And he went in.
53:16 And the bank president said, "What can you do?"
53:19 He said, "Well, I can clean, because I've been doing that."
53:21 He said, "You know, we need somebody to clean.
53:23 You come in after school."
53:25 And so he did.
53:27 All the way through high school he cleaned.
53:29 He graduated with honors.
53:32 When he graduated, the bank president said,
53:34 "What are you going to do now?"
53:36 He said, "Well, I want to try to go to the university.
53:39 So I'm going to go down and get a job and
53:41 see if I can work my way through."
53:43 And the bank president said, "I'll tell you what.
53:45 We'll pay your way through if you'll come back here
53:48 and work in the summer.
53:50 And then if you will do something else for us.
53:56 And that is, work full-time when you graduate."
54:00 He said, "I'll be happy to."
54:01 So he finished up his degree, came back to the bank,
54:06 became a teller.
54:08 And then he started working as a vice-president for the bank.
54:12 And at the time that I was told this story,
54:16 he was the executive vice-president of the bank.
54:21 In fact, the bank was right next door to that barber shop.
54:27 When his mother was in the garbage cans,
54:32 she was only a few feet from him through the brick wall
54:36 from where his office was where he sat in a nice office.
54:40 And his mother was in the garbage cans outside that place.
54:48 "Oh," I said, "why doesn't he help her?"
54:52 "Oh," he said, "Jim, he's tried."
54:55 When he first got his first job, he would take food to his mom.
55:00 Because he had moved out.
55:01 He found some place to live and he had moved out.
55:06 And he would take food to her and
55:08 she would say, "Just leave it.
55:11 I don't want it, but just leave it."
55:15 She wouldn't have anything to do with him.
55:18 "This place isn't good enough for you."
55:22 And then he found clothing for her.
55:27 She actually, when he brought her a dress one time,
55:30 she threw it out in the front and said,
55:31 "I don't want anything from you.
55:34 I don't want anything from you."
55:36 And after he got working at the bank, was making good money,
55:40 was out of college, he found a little house.
55:45 Clean little place with a white picket fence around it.
55:48 "Oh," he said, "that would be just great for my mom."
55:52 And he went down and he said,
55:53 "Mother, I want to move you into this place."
55:58 And she said, "My home is my home.
56:02 It's good enough for me.
56:04 Not good enough for you, but it's good enough for me."
56:09 And she wouldn't have anything to do with it.
56:12 When I left the barber shop that day, I walked across the street,
56:16 I'll never forget, I thought,
56:19 "Wow, that's the way this world is."
56:24 Our Jesus, He suffered all temptations.
56:29 He went to the cross and He died to give us life eternal.
56:35 He comes to us and He says,
56:36 "I want to give you the bread of life."
56:39 And we say, "Oh no, I'm going to keep raiding the garbage cans
56:43 that Satan has to offer."
56:45 He comes to us and He says,
56:48 I want to give you a room at the Father's house."
56:53 "Oh no, I'll just stay with the shacks here."
56:57 He comes and says, "I want to give you My robe
57:01 of righteousness."
57:04 And we hold on to our filthy rags.
57:09 Today, give your life to Jesus.
57:14 Father, we thank You for Jesus and for life eternal.
57:19 We thank You in Jesus' name, amen.

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Revised 2017-01-23