BIBLICAL INNER SPIRIT
by Dr. Henry Brandt

I’ve been talking about what goes on underneath your skin. I want to impress upon you the fact that it’s your skin and there isn’t any place that you can go to get away from your own skin. And I can’t think of any subject that’s more important than dealing with the spirit of a man because that’s the part that actually does go on underneath your skin. Now, I want to start off by sharing with you a little story that happened to me. I’ve alluded to it a few times, but it was a life-changing experience for me, and it started during World War II.

In those days, I was an engineer and I had this boss that delighted in riding us. As I mentioned, when he wanted one of us he’d load his jaw with chewing tobacco, and he’d glare out across the engineering department chewing his cud like that, and we knew somebody was going to get it, and we all braced ourselves. And then he’d let out an Indian war whoop, ”Brandt!” and as I said, that made me instantly furious. Instantly furious, just as mad as I could be.

Well you don’t tell off your boss unless you want another job, and so as I said, I developed the art of looking like this; even though I was mad. I have discovered that this is true of so many people that enter the consulting room. We always start off the same way. They’re smiling and I’m smiling, and I say, “Hi, how are you?” and they say they’re fine, and I know that isn’t true or they wouldn’t be there. We seem to get the idea that Christianity is to control your emotions.

As long as I don’t let my anger show, I’m being a good Christian. But I just want to remind you that just because you hold it in isn’t dealing with it, Because there’s where you suffer the most, Because it’s under your skin that this anger is going on, and it tenses up your muscles and it messes up your digestion. What a foolish thing to try to contain your hostility. Well anyway, I did, and I found that I couldn’t do it twenty-four hours a day, and I would go home and maybe the radio was on too loud or something, and I’d say to Eva, “Shut that radio off!,” And I would say to myself, “Well who wouldn’t yell when a woman is that inconsiderate of me?”

Or I’d say to my little preschool boy, “Pick up that toy.” And if he didn’t pick it up I’d whack him one all out of proportion to anything that he did. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever behaved that way, but I know that I did. And I would tell myself day after day that I’m going to cut it out, and yet I found myself doing it all the time. And I began searching the scriptures for a key, and there’s a few important Bible verses that I want to share with you because they changed my life. In fact, not only did they change my life, but they changed my profession.

The first one is in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 31. Ephesians 4:31, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.” Now that verse says that you can let that happen. And when I read that verse, I didn’t like it, because I didn’t even want that to happen. And I argued with myself that there’s nothing wrong with me being bitter, and wrathful, and angry, and malicious toward my boss. After all, the way he treats me and the way he talks to me I’m entitled to feel that way. And I didn’t like that Bible verse.

You know, in my profession as a counselor for the last twenty-five years, I’ve been using that Bible verse and I’ve been watching people respond to it initially the same way that I did. I mean you’ve got to be kidding. Why do you expect me to change? What about the other person? You see, there’s a rejection of that verse.

I like the next verse less. “Be kind one to another and tenderhearted, and forgiving even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” When I read that verse it made me mad.

Now the reason that I bring it up is because I run into this all the time where people get angry at the Bible. Oh, you know, it’s easy to say that this is the most precious book in the world, and this is God’s Word. That’s easy to say, but in practice I might just be describing your struggle like I was describing mine. That’s the last thing in the world that I wanted to have happen to me, to be kind and tenderhearted, and forgiving to that man.

Then when I thought of my wife and the lack of consideration that she had for me, and not making any attempt to understand all of the pressures that I’m under, why shouldn’t I get mad at her, and that little brat of a kid? I guess I was thinking that if my world would disappear, I’d be happy, and we often do that don’t we? If somebody else would change, I would be happy. If my wife would be more considerate, it would release all of these good, fine qualities within me, and it’s her fault that they’re locked up in there.

Now that’s about as wrong as you can get, but that’s the way I was talking to myself, and I was convinced that that was true. That I’m glum and miserable and sad, and it’s all my boss’ fault, and my wife’s fault, and that little child’s fault. I’ve had mothers say to me, “Oh these three children are driving me mad.” Three little preschoolers. Imagine a woman’s mental health in the hands of three preschoolers. Obviously that’s not where mental health comes from, or most mothers would be sunk.

You know I got to thinking about those verses, and I decided that they were right after all, and so I was going to be kind and tenderhearted, and forgiving toward my boss. You know I can make up my mind to do things. I’ve done a lot of things just by making up my mind to do them, so I decided I was going to cut it out. I was not gonna be mad at him anymore, and I screwed up my determination.

You know in a few days, one day he reaches into his back pocket and takes out his pouch and loads his jaw, and there he is, and he said, “Brandt!” And you know what? I was just as mad as ever. I found out that I couldn’t just decide to cut it out. Maybe you’ve had that experience, too. Well, I know since several of you have come up to me and said to me that, “I have asked the Lord to change me, and He wouldn’t do it.” I mean you’re serious. A lot of us take that position. I’m different, I’m a special case. God never had one like me.

Or people would say to me, “Doc if you would just listen to my story you would understand why the scriptures don’t apply to me. I mean I’m really something else.” Well anyway, that’s the way it was with me, and I spent a lot of days mumbling and grumbling about a book that tells you to do something you can’t do. I repeat, I’m telling you this because I hear it over and over and over again. “I’ve tried to do what the Bible says, and it doesn’t work.” That’s right, if you tried to do what the Bible says, it won’t work.

It isn’t difficult to do what the Bible says, it’s impossible, and you just can’t crank yourself up to do what the Bible says. Well I finally, I kept reading though, and I found a passage of scripture that changed my life, really changed my life. I’m talking about something that happened way back in the forties, not only changed my life, but changed my career. And these are the verses in 2nd Corinthians chapter three starting with the fourth verse. “Such trust have we through Christ God ward, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything is of ourselves.”

When I read that I didn’t like that either. Did you listen to what I was reading? “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything is of ourselves.” And I had to say to myself, “That’s simply not true. I am not insufficient. I got an education all by myself without God’s help.” Our universities are full of students getting educations, and they don’t need God’s help. In fact, they are consciously rejecting Him. You don’t need God’s help in order to get an education. “I got a job without God’s help, and I acquired some wealth without His help. I can live up to the etiquette book without His help.”

When you stop to think about it, there’s a lot of things that you can do without God’s help, aren’t there? Oh it’s easy to say I can’t do anything without the Lord, but you can, too! I’m bringing this up because a lot of us stumble over that. After I got through sputtering about that verse, I started reading again and I found the answer. And a lot of times when we read the Bible, we quit too soon.

Now let me keep on reading. “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything is of ourselves but our sufficiency is of God who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament not of the letter but of the Spirit.” Did you get that? Did you follow that? You know every once in awhile I will read a Bible verse to my clients, and I’ll say, “Isn’t that great?” And they’ll say, “Yeah that was great.” And I’ll say, “What did it say?” and they would say, “I don’t know.”

Now I’m not just going to assume that you followed that. I didn’t get it right away. Now let me go through that a little slow, because I want to make sure you get this point. This can be a life changing point for you. “He will make you an able minister of the New Testament, not of the letter but of the Spirit.” Now you, by sheer willpower can live up to the letter of the law. You can control yourself. You can act decent. As I say, I can be furious with a smile on my face, and a lot of us are saying that way.

I wouldn’t let my anger go because I’m a Christian, but the thing that I finally got through my thick head was that living up to the letter of the law, that is simply taking charge of myself and controlling myself, would kill me! It was making a bundle of tensions out of me. It’s the Spirit that giveth life! And what I got through my head was that one thing that I can’t do for myself is to control my Spirit. I can’t make it, I can control it, but that’s all. I cannot live up to the Spirit through the law.

Oh, I can sound loving, and I can act loving, but I couldn’t be loving, and I hope you get the difference between sounding like a Christian, and being one. Now anybody can improve their acting ability. If you work on improving your act, that is, you're gonna sound more like a Christian a year from now than you do now. You will succeed. If you determine to act more like a Christian a year from now than you do now, you’ll likely succeed. But I’ll tell you, you’re going to be cold and empty on the inside. You know the Christian life is not a matter of improving your acting ability.

The Christian life is a matter of yielding yourself to His Spirit, and one thing that I was absolutely sure of, and that is that I couldn’t love my boss, or my wife, or my little boy. I could act like it and I could sound like it, but that’s not the same as being. Being quiet on the inside like you sound. You know, I asked the Lord. First of all I had to recognize the fact that one thing I can’t do Lord, I’m helpless. All my boss has to do is holler, “Brandt!” and I’m instantly angry, and I can’t help myself, but I want to love him.

I don’t know, nothing happened. But you know, I remember the day very well when my boss loaded his jaw with his tobacco, and he’s scanning the engineering department and he yelled, “Brandt!,” and to my surprise, I wasn’t mad at him. I wasn’t! For the first time that I could remember, the smile on my face reflected my spirit, and I want to tell you, that was an incredible experience for me. I’m not trying to say that I yielded everyday to the Lord, but everyday that I did, the Lord was always there.

Across these years it’s made a tremendous difference in my life, and it’s made a tremendous difference in the live of thousands of people. You know, one day my boss called me in the office, “Brandt!  Come in here!” And by now he amused me. I mean I actually enjoyed watching that guy. I tell you, what a difference to enjoy watching an old crab being an old crab, because he’s an old crab. What a pitiful thing to see an old crab. Wonderful to be released from that, and as I say, I began enjoying him. I walked in, “What do you want?”

He says, “What’s got into you? You seem to be in a good mood lately.” You know, I didn’t realize it, but he noticed something different. I didn’t change my smile, I didn’t change my tone of voice, but he noticed something different. You know, one day one of my fellow engineers, we’re walking out into the plant to look at a machine, and he said to me, “Hey Brandt, you seem to be happy lately. Are you?” You know that’s how an engineer thinks, he’s not going to take anything for granted, like the two scientists riding in a train and one says, “Hey look out the window. All those sheep have been sheered.” And the other scientist said, “Well, at least they’ve been sheered on this side.” That’s how a scientist thinks. And this fellow wasn’t going to take any chances, and so that’s what he said. “You seem to be happy, lately. Are you?”

Well, you know, I hadn’t thought about it too much, but sure enough I was. Oh what a difference between being happy, and seeming to be. I tell you it’s the difference between cranking up your determination to look like a Christian and sound like a Christian, and yielding your Spirit to the Lord.

Now you see, in yielding my spirit to the Lord, you see, I had to be willing to like my crabby old boss. You know I used to pray, “Oh God change him!” Never occurred to pray to change me because, you see, I figured he was my problem. You know, after a while it didn’t make any difference to me whether he was crabby or not, because now it was a matter of me changing and not him. Well I told this fellow, “Yeah, I guess I am happy.” He said, “You know I’m a miserable guy. Do you suppose you could help me?”

Well you know I couldn’t, I was a brand new Christian. I was so new that I had to use the table of contents to find the books. I told him, “No, I guess I really couldn’t help ya, but if you give me a few days I’ll do a little research and see if I can figure out what happened to me, and I’ll let you know.” That’s what an engineer does when you have a problem, you study it out. So I went home and studied it out, and you know I made a presentation. I started, well, one day anyway, I told him, “I’m ready for ya.”

So he and his wife came over that night, and the poor fellow, I started out in the Garden of Eden, and I took him through Moses’ problems, and the kings, and the prophets, you know I wanted to be thorough. I touched on a few Psalms. This took a couple of hours, and pretty soon I got into the New Testament, and I gave him the gospel, and I explained to him that Christ came into this world and He loved the world so much that He died for us. God sent His only beloved Son to die for us, and that as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God.

I very gingerly asked him if he was ready to receive Christ. He said, “You know, I was ready an hour ago.” I’ve boiled my presentation down a little bit since then, but that fellow is working for me today. My first convert, and you should see the change. They were on the verge of splitting up, and my, what a nice family life they had. And what a pity for anybody to be sitting here, and your goal is to perfect your acting ability, and the thing that’s keeping you from letting the Lord change your Spirit is that you’re unwilling to be nice to some old crabby old person in your life.

Sure, they don’t deserve it. We don’t deserve our salvation. It’s free. And we ought to be willing to envelop these people in our love freely, whether they like it or not. Your partner can’t stop you from loving them if you let the Lord give it to you. So Jesus says to you, and this is in Matthew 11:28, I mentioned this this morning,” Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you for I am gentle and humble in heart.”

You see, you’re going to have to be willing to have a gentle, humble heart toward that person that you're thinking about. You might as well forget about praying, “Oh God change that person.” The prayer that’s really going to work for you is, “Oh God, give me a gentle, humble heart toward that nasty person, just like they are.” You know, so many of us would rather be miserable than do that. Would you be that kind? Would you rather be miserable than to do that?

You’re not going to have a gentle, humble spirit toward that person. Well, you know, if you don’t want it, nobody can make you take it. There it is, and you can have it. If you don’t want it, nobody can make you take it. Isn’t that a pity, that we would take that position? John 15:11 He says, “These things have I spoken unto you that My joy might be in you, and that your joy might be full.” You see this is His joy. This isn’t something you crank up, this is not your joy, this is His joy.

You can enjoy any day you want to, but you have to be willing to enjoy where you are at. You know, it's not a question of, “Oh God, take me out of here.” You know, if you’re a cranky character and you get out of here, you know what you’re gonna be when you get there? A cranky character in another state. That's all you’re going to be, and only the Lord can do it for you, and He isn’t going to do it for you if you don’t want Him to.

Romans 15:13, “The God of hope will fill you.” Did you get that? It’s the God of hope that fills you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s the power of the Holy Spirit that will fill you with hope, and joy, and peace. But you’re gonna have to be willing to let it happen to you right where you’re at, without anything changing. You see, that’s the hurdle that so many of us are unwilling to tap. Now I want to make clear that there isn’t anybody going to approach God without His Son in your life.

One time there was this learned man, you know the story very well if you’re a Christian, Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night and said, “Rabbi we know that You have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” And Jesus answered and said unto him, “Truly, Truly I say unto you unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

You can’t see it, you can’t understand it. You know, we stumble over the simplicity of that little step, don’t we? Asking Jesus into your life. It’s a simple little step that you can take anytime. Simply ask Him to come into your life. And you know, I’m stumped. There’s no way for me to do anything for you unless you have Him in your life. I believe that as a counselor, that one of the most important things that I can say to anybody who rejects Christ is that I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do for you. I think it is important that people go away realizing that Dr. Brandt said that there was nothing he could do unless you invite Christ to come into your life.

And sometimes these people would say, ”Well, can’t you refer me to somebody else?” I say, “Sure, I can refer you to somebody else, but I’m telling you that they’re not going to do you any good without Christ in your life.” I want to make that as plain as I can.

Well, you know, I’ve spent the last thirty-five years helping people find the Spirit. About a year ago I was in a conference like this, and a lady came up to me, and she was telling me that they were married over thirty years, and she was fed up to here, she said, with him. She couldn’t stand him anymore. And well, her story was this man was a professional man, and he kept, he was a Christian, he was even on the board of a church, and the church rules said you shouldn’t drink, but he kept a bottle of vodka in his office. Every once in a while he would come home tipsy, and whenever he came home he expected a hot meal, even though she never knew for sure when he was coming home. And he’d come home all kinds of odd hours.

And she said, “For over thirty years I have cooked him that hot meal, and he’s taken it for granted, and he expects me to sit down beside him half drunk while he’s eating his meal. Then he expects me to sit beside him, and hold his hand while he watches T.V. and falls asleep. And I just have hated it all of these years, and I despise him. Now that the kids are gone, I can’t stand him any longer.”

Well, now what are you going to say? I said, “Do you mean that he doesn’t know how you feel?”

“Oh no, I’ve never told him.”

“You’ve never told him?”

“Oh no. You know I’m a Christian, I keep those things to myself.”

“Well then, why don’t you keep on keeping them to yourself?”

“Well I can’t stand it anymore.”

“Well that’s right, that’s your trouble; you haven’t been doing it right. Now I’ll tell you what’s the matter with you. You are a deceitful woman. You are a phony. You are an actress. All these years you’ve been deceiving your husband.”

“Yes, but haven’t I cooked for him all of these years? Haven’t I washed his clothes all of these years?”

“That’s right, you did all of those things and you acted like a committed lady, but it was only an act.”

You know what she said? “Ooo, you make me mad. You're just like all the other men.”

I’ll bet you that a lot of you ladies have taken sides already. You know what you’re saying is, “How could a woman be spiritual with a man like that?” Listen, being spiritual doesn’t have anything to do with your partner. Did I say something wrong? Did I? I said that being spiritual doesn’t have anything to do with your partner. This simply involves a relationship between you and the Lord. You know, she went away very disgusted. But I got a letter from her and I want to read you part of it.

She says, this was several months later, she says, “Nothing has changed in our marriage, but I am content. I felt so angry with you for what you said to me about myself, but you were right. Before that I hadn’t really recognized my own sin. And God had to do some throwing down in my life, and that is never easy at the time, but the result is beautiful if you are submissive to the strong hand of God. And He has forgiven, and cleansed, and filled my heart with joy. I praise Him for this mercy and grace, and once again, I want to say thank you from the depths of my heart.”

How about that?

One time this young lady came up to see me. She was crying. Her life was awful. You see she had been running for the junior league, and they hadn’t let her in. She was a nervous wreck, she had had a break down, and she was a bundle of tensions. You know I tried to say, “I’ll tell you what’s the matter with you. You are a bitter, angry woman.”

So she goes, “Boo Hoo Hoo Hoo! I didn’t expect you to say that.”

Well I get used to that in the consulting room. That’s just one way of shutting me up. But you know, after she was through crying, I tried to remind her that she’s a bitter, angry woman.

Now how do I know that? Well she has just gotten through telling me how angry she was at these people who didn’t elect her. She went away disgusted, but I got a letter from her. Now I’ll read it to you. “I told you my problem was not being invited to join the Junior League, and I really had a hang up about this. I’d never been interested enough to do all the work and buttering up to League members that it took to get in, and so I didn’t make it.” She didn’t tell me that then.

“I was extremely disappointed, and I’ve never felt as crushed or deeply hurt over anything, and most of my friends are members of this group. And I felt completely rejected and guilty that I let my family down, and especially my daughter. And I cried and cried over this for hours at a time, and so many people could have helped me and I got mad at them, and you helped me to see that I even had the audacity to get mad at Almighty God.”

That’s what she did. She was praying, “God how could you do this to me?” Have you ever done that?

“Even though I have a Christian husband, and a lovely family, and most every material thing I want, I was miserable and I told God to even take my life. I kept telling you my problem was getting out of the League, and you kept telling me my problem was my attitude toward what happened. And during my second session with you I asked God to give me His perfect peace, and I can’t tell you exactly how it happened. The situation remained the same, but God erased all the hurt feelings from me. I literally felt as if a huge weight had been lifted, and then I wondered if the peace would last.

“He brought to my mind that part of John 14 where He says “My peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives give I unto you.” and I always thought this verse was for funerals. Only a couple of times in these three years have I felt a little pang of the old hurt, and each time I immediately thank God for the peace He’d given me, and I claimed it. God even changed my wants so that I honestly can’t imagine how I ever desired this. Hope that doesn’t sound too pious.”

I had a lady come to me one time in a conference and she was wondering how she could get the Lord to get her husband to let her conduct Bible studies, because he wanted her to work in his store. And she was bitter. And she thought that that was pretty legitimate to be bitter because, you see, she wanted to teach the Bible, and it’s all right to be mad at somebody who keeps you from teaching the Bible, isn’t it? Well, she didn’t like it, but I got a letter from her.

You know ladies and gentlemen, I’ve come to the place where I’ve learned to depend on your second reaction to me, and not your first. And you may not like what you hear, but if what I say to you is the truth and you go home and think it over, you’ll cool off and you’ll begin to realize that what I’m telling you is the truth. So she went away disappointed because I didn’t care about Bible studies, and I get this letter several years ago, this is several years.

“I came to see you for help with my resentment over my husband’s insistence on working in his store, and I wanted to spend my time in church work. You dealt with me about my retched attitude, and I didn’t like it, but I thought it over and came home determined that my work in the store would be a labor of love. Of course you know that God filled me with His peace and joy as I worked in that store.”

Did you get that point? Some of us flatly say, “God, get me out of this mess and that’s not negotiable.”

“God filled me with His peace and joy as I worked in the store, and worked at being a better wife, and it sure is true that our joy is dependent on a relationship with Christ rather than our circumstances, isn’t it? By the way, my husband changed his mind about a year ago, and agreed that I should get involved in ladies’ home Bible studies, and it’s a fine ministry. And I thank the Lord that you were honest enough to tell me my faults.”

What a pity for anybody to walk away from here tonight and turn your back on the love of God. You’d rather be mad than glad if your situation doesn’t change. There’s a common thread winding through all of these stories. You see, somebody was required to do something they didn’t want to do, or they were blocked from doing something that they did want to do, and in each case, the reactions were similar. Anger, bitterness, stubbornness, rebellion, hate, and that becomes intolerable, and you’ve got to do something about it. You’re going to run away, and you know one of the tragedies today is the number of men walking out on their wives.

Now some of the women are asking for it. You know I used to, in my counseling, women would come in, they would get beat up and they would show me their bruises, and my immediate reaction was, “Where’s the brute?” I’ve changed my mind, and I’ve come to realize that in some cases, it would take a spiritual giant to keep from hitting some of these women. You know what I mean, don’t you? You can needle, and I’m not defending the men that are walking out, but I’m simply saying that a lot of these men are leaving a pretty lousy situation at home.

I would also like to call upon the men to realize that God can give you the grace to live with your wife no matter how hard she tries to make life miserable for you. But I say that one of the tragedies of the day, wherever I go nowadays, including this place, where I’ve heard, in more than one instance, of a man walking out on his wife, rather than turning to the Lord for help.

You know I had a man come to me. He lives on two hundred acres. Big, sprawling, rolling hills, he’s got the most beautiful place. He’s got a million dollar jet airplane. His company makes so much money; he doesn’t know what to do with it. Listen, he didn’t come to me to tell me all of that. You know what he came to ask?  He said, “I’m sick and tired of being an old crab, and can you help me?” I tried to say, “Yes I can help you, but your millions aren’t going to do you a bit of good. You can’t buy it. You gotta reach out an empty hand. You have to come to God and admit to God that you are a hostile, angry, bitter, evil man in spite of your 200 acres and in spite of your jet airplane and in spite of all your money. You can’t buy cleansing from God, and you’ve got to come like everybody else. You’re going to have to be willing to love these people in your life that are unlovable, and otherwise there is no help for you.”

You know that’s hard to do. This is what Jesus said, and this is in John 3:19-21, He said, “This is the judgment that light has come into the world but men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil and you will not come to the light lest your deeds be reproved.”

You can be a Christian for years and years and years and turn away from the truth that you hear every week, and just keep on being a cantankerous character, and Jesus says that this is the condemnation that you, in spite of what you know, you keep right on being wrong. You're not condemned and miserable because somebody else is wrong. You’re miserable because you are.

Well, you know, there are some riches available to us. Let me just read you a few and then I’ll be through. I read you this one before; let me read it to you again. You remember what I’m talking about now? I’m talking about what goes on underneath your skin. Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind to one another.” You know what that means. That means to be kind to the person you’re sitting next to. Oh well, to be kind to somebody in another city, but to be kind to the person I’m sitting next to?  Yes. That’s the issue. “Be kind one to another and tenderhearted and forgiving one another even as God for Christ sake hath forgiven you.”

Colossians 3:12-13, “And so those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved.”

Listen to this. “Put on a heart of compassion and kindness and humility and gentleness and patience and bearing with one another, and forgiving each other whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also do you.”

I Thessalonians 5:18, “In everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

I Peter 2:20, “What credit is there if when you sin and are harshly treated you endure it with patience, but if when you do what is right and suffer for it and you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.”

Well now, if you can imagine a cafeteria counter, and laid out on that cafeteria counter, you got the picture, is kindness, and tender-heartedness, and forgiveness, and compassion, and humility, and gentleness, and patience, and peace, and thankfulness, and reasonableness, and mercifulness, and you can walk up to that table and help yourself. It’s all free. You can turn around and leave just like you came. And so the choice is yours, if you’re a child of God, whether you will turn to God or whether you won’t. Which will you do?

Let’s pray. Father, we do thank You that You did so much for us. And I pray that there wouldn’t be anybody here that would turn their backs on what You have freely given. And this I pray in Jesus Name. Amen.