The Same
Category: Obedience to God’s Will
Key Passage: 2 Timothy 2:1-2
Speaker: Paul Chisgar
Date: June 7, 2024
Turn your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 2, if you would, please. 2 Timothy chapter 2 of God’s Word. We will read just the first two verses, 2 Timothy 2 and verse number 2. Well, we will start verse number 1 of God’s Word. 2 Timothy 2, verse number 2.
Every once in about a year, I believe the Lord would have us just give a little bit, if you will, of a state-of-the-union type sermon. This is who we are, what we are, and what we are going to stay. Every church, once in a while, needs that. I appreciate your help on a night like that. That is always encouraging. You understand that saying, “Stick them to the preacher” when you do that. I appreciate it very, very much. The title for online will be “The Same.” Would you please stand as we read God’s Word together, 2 Timothy chapter 2? We will start in verse number 1. 2 Timothy 2 and verse number 1. If you are there, would you say amen? Amen.
Good deal. You are ready to go tonight. I appreciate that.
Verse number one, he says, “Thou therefore, my son.” Of course, ultimately this is God speaking, but God is speaking through a man named Paul, directly to a man named Timothy. But in the overview, it is God speaking to you. He says, “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” The good thing about that is, because it is in His grace, you can be strong. Even the weakest person can be strong. I like that. “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” I do not know about you, but sometimes I feel overwhelmed. I do not feel very strong. But even in those times, you can be strong through His grace. I like that. And then verse number two, what we are going to focus on tonight is, “In the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who should be able to teach others also.”
Would you pray and ask that God would speak to our hearts, all of us tonight? Would you do so as I do the same?
Father, Lord, we come. Lord, it is all in vain unless you come and you do the work. Father, it would be foolish if it is just me trying to do it on my own without you, for we do nothing. So, Lord, would you please come tonight and would you guide us tonight? You have been so good. You started this church and you have kept it right. Father, I pray you continue to do so. Use tonight just to strengthen us in the truth you have taught us. Father, we will thank you. We will brag on you for what you do, Lord. Father, we are asking for that. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
Thank you so much for standing. Would you please be seated?
Just a couple things I want you to notice, if you would, very briefly, at this verse. First thing, notice there are four generations in this verse. Would you look at verse number two there? “And the things that thou hast heard of me”—that is Apostle Paul. Among many witnesses, it was not just in private him talking to Timothy; he preached it and taught it all over the place. He said, “the same commit thou”—thou was Timothy. So we have Paul, we have Timothy. “Commit thou to faithful men”—that is another generation. We have four generations: Paul, Timothy, now the faithful men. Look at the rest of the verse: “who should be able to teach others also.” So Paul gave it to Timothy, Timothy gave it to faithful men, and those faithful men give it to others. That is God’s design. They have four generations in one verse here. I want you just kind of notice that. Then I want you just very briefly, just some kind of introduction things. Notice, he says, “commit thou to faithful, faithful men.” Invest your life in faithful people. I do not always determine who I invest my life in; they determine that by who is faithful.
I never forget years ago, a little after my father had passed, and Brother Duane, the head deacon, had passed in our church. My wife had cancer. We were just going through a tough time. She was on chemo, whatnot. I never forget, I went out to the park, and I do not journal like I ought to. I really do not. But I wrote some things down in my journal, and I wanted to remember it—just several things. I said, “I want to try to learn what I can going through this trial.” I do not forget one of the things; I believe God just spoke to me very clearly that day, and it was just on my heart. Things were just so busy; you are just trying to hang on. One of the things God let me write that day—I looked it back up today—was, “Life is too short to try to help people that do not want help.” If I am not careful, I will spend all my time trying to reach somebody that does not want to get reached. And the people that do want to get reached and do want to get helped, I do not have time for them because I am spending all my time investing in those that, at the end of the day, really do not want help. It is interesting; God told Timothy, “Hey, look, I want you to find some faithful men, invest in them, who should be able to teach others also.” Can I say our church is a big-hearted church? It is a wonderful, wonderful church. Praise God for that. But we must be wise, and we do not want to spend all our resources on those that really do not want help at the end of the day. Only God can determine that. But God, in His Word, said to faithful men, “I want you, Timothy, I want you to find some faithful men. You should be able to teach others also.”
Now I want you to notice all that, but we are getting to the heart of the message. We will be there at least by 9 p.m., I promise you. We will get going by then. Amen. Would you look at this verse again, please? At the beginning, “the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses”—Paul was not shy about it, and I knew where he stood. Notice what he says, the next word: “Same.” The same. The same. Can I just add some emphasis? As he is saying, “I do not want you to change it, Timothy. I do not want you to water it down. I do not want you to weaken it. I do not want you to tamper with it and try new experiments with your methods and all.” The same. The same thing. Friend, we have been given a wonderful heritage from God, and past generations have passed down a wonderful heritage. If we are not careful in our day and time, everybody wants to change things. He said, “No, the same thing.” The things that godly people have invested in your life—the same—that is what I want you to pass down: the same things. Is it not interesting that in the book of Jude, he said, “I want you to earnestly contend for the faith,” yes, for the faith, “which was once delivered to the saints”? I wonder if our Christianity resembles what Christ passed down. He said those are the same. “I want you [to] earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints.” In every generation, if we water it down a little bit and we change it a little bit and we want to put our thoughts and our methods and our techniques in there, and if it is not—if God—no, no, he said the same.
Very interesting. Luke 18—what a wonderful passage that is. The beginning of that chapter is a great chapter about prayer. He starts off, “Men ought always to pray and not to faint.” If I am fainting, it is because I am not praying often enough. Then he gives that parable about the unjust judge, and just like she had to hound that judge and hound that judge, God said, “Hey, I will answer speedily on your behalf. You have just been after it and been after it and been after it.” Then Jesus makes His statement in that verse; he says, “I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” If we are always just changing and watering it down and making it man’s religion and man’s Christianity and man’s method, is he really going to find faith on the earth when he comes? Prayer is a big part of it. The same.
Just for a little bit, let us just talk about “the same,” just briefly tonight. I am talking about Rutherford County Baptist Church. Praise the Lord. It is a wonderful church. God has been so good to us. We want to make sure, as we are leading up, God just gave us that building permit this week. Praise the Lord for that. Our real estate agent was here this morning. I mentioned him a couple of weeks ago, and he had asked what time the services were and all that. He said, “Man, you come. We will get the people praying over it, you know, to sell that property.” He said, “Man, they will flog me if I do not sell it,” you know. That is why I was all smiles this morning. He is a good man and a good Christian man. Praise the Lord, he was here this morning. But when we get over there in the new building, we want to be just set on who and what we are. Some things are just going to remain the same. Let me just say right off the bat, right at the beginning, we are always going to have the same old-fashioned approach: just trying to go out and get people saved, shake the bush, talk to them about their salvation—just old-fashioned soul winning. I mean, I am just talking about it. You do not have to spend 20 years building a relationship. You just go up and build a relationship around trying to get that person saved. Just old-fashioned soul winning. You know, the Bible still says in Proverbs 11:30, “He that winneth souls is wise.” Jesus said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Now, good fishermen have all kinds of different lures and methods. Oh, Brother Fontaine had plenty of those. He had his favorite lure. I will tell you, I do not think I will share this at the memorial service, but his favorite lure—it was a good one. He could catch fish on the lake out there. It was a vibrating lure. It was from way back; it was called a Gayblade. I was back in the day, I think from Zorro and all that. I said, “Brother Fontaine, we have to change the name of this thing. This does not work in our day and time.” So we called it the KJV Lure, amen, you know. That was our name for it. Now, hey, in soul winning, he had a lot of different fishing techniques and lures, but somebody somewhere has got to get a burden and go out there and sow some precious seed. You cannot bypass one person loving another person to tell them how to go to heaven. There is a whole lot of churches that are losing that soul-winning fervency and concern and burden about souls; we cannot lose that. The same. The same. I mean, just old-fashioned, go try to tell him how to get saved, trying to get the fish in the boat. That is what I am talking about. I am for it if you can get any kind of witness in their face; God bless you. That is better than nothing. There is something about somebody that just goes up to somebody in love—I am not talking about trying to force it down their throat—but in love saying, “Hey, friend, I have been working with you for a year now. I have been thinking about you, praying about you. I am not sure if you are going to heaven. I love you enough to ask if you died, you know, for sure you are going to heaven.” Old-fashioned soul winning, amen. I mean, just going out there and shaking the bushes, trying to get a lost soul saved. The same. Somebody said, “Well, preacher, I do not know if everyone has a minute or not.” Well, if it is half a minute, I will take half a minute. By the way, we do not do this one, two, three, repeat after me stuff. I am talking about when they understand you cannot trick somebody into getting saved. I am talking about you doing your best to tell them about Jesus Christ and how to go to heaven. You say only half of them get saved, but praise God, I would rather have half of a hundred or whatever than none of not doing it at all. By the way, if you have a better way, bless God, get out there and do it. I would like to see you do it. Friend, do not let that stop you from going and trying to tell somebody how to go to heaven. Just keep giving the gospel out. Do your best. Be honest about it and sincere about it. We are not trying to put a little notch in our gun; we are trying to keep people out of hell. That is what it is all about. The same. The same. It just seems more and more to me when somebody says, “Well, soul winning does not work,” it is like a cold word; they are not soul winning. Every Saturday this spring, I do not know how many we had our soul-winning campaign—ten, twelve weeks—every Saturday, and we did not have great numbers of soul winners sometimes. But every Saturday, somebody was out there, and they wanted to know; they just needed someone in love to tell them how to go to heaven. They are ready. They just needed someone to guide them. I am talking about old-fashioned trying to get them in the boat, soul winning. That is what I am talking about. Praise the Lord, our church has been about that from day one. I do not want to change on that.
I remember years ago I went to a church, and they knew us when we started out, and I was so thankful God had given us a reputation like this. The preacher said this: “There is proof over there, Brother Paul,” I think he said, and Brother Paul is fine with me. It is always funny to me when I have known somebody for about 20 years, and they try to say, “Brother Chisgar,” you know. I have heard everything from Chisangor to Chisard, all the rest of it. It is comical to me, but I am all right with Pastor Paul. I am good with that, preacher, Brother Paul. That is good for me. If it was not my name, I could not say it anyway, you know. But we went to another church, and the preacher said, “Hey, Brother Paul is over there, proof that you can start a church from scratch just going out trying to win souls.” Paul has always had that reputation. I am so thankful. Years ago, somebody went to a Southern Baptist church—and it is not a… For Southern Baptists, probably one of the better ones in the area—but the wife’s great aunt (or great uncle) was passing; he had open-heart surgery the next day, I believe it was. They came and said, “We know your church is about soul winning.” They came on a Wednesday night, sat on that back row over there, and they said, “Would you go witness to my uncle? He has open heart. I do not know if he is going to make it tomorrow.” I am so glad they came. They knew our church was about that. They came to their church. We went up to Centennial about 10:30 that night and went to the dark room; that man was just alone in that room. We kind of snuck in there, as this was before COVID. Amen, you could do that in those days, you know. We snuck in there, and all the lights were right. That man was tossed and turned before open heart the next day. By the way, he died a week or two later. But that night, about 10:30 at night, in that dark room, that man bowed his head and asked Jesus Christ to be his Savior. I thought, praise the Lord. The reputation around town is that church is about winning souls. Every church ought to have that reputation: winning souls, the same. And listen, old Paul there, he said the same thing. Paul is the soul winner.
Praise the Lord, we had two new riders on the south route. Brother Richard, Brother Gregory, and old Brother Gregory—praise the Lord, he is out of Bible college—his Bible college, but he is out of college to be computer designed or all that, but he is mad that he is to serve the Lord. Man, two new riders on the bus. Brother Gregory met them; he got them in handcuffs, got them in court, and started witnessing to them. Mine is the handcuffs, amen. But I like it, man. Two new riders. First, he said, “Man, we are going to find out if those kids are saved or not.” Started telling about Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord, both those kids asked the Lord to save them. I like that. I have a burden, and I do not want—and you cannot make anybody saved—but sometimes I am burdened. I do not want somebody just to slip through the cracks and not get a witness. Sometimes I need a personal witness. The same.
Think about old Paul telling Timothy, “Timothy, the same thing.” Maybe Timothy could think back: Well, Paul, he was out by the riverside over there washing clothes. Paul started witnessing and led Lydia to the Lord. Maybe old Timothy could think about old Paul. He is in prison. He is in jail. He was not over there sucking his son; he is in jail, led Onesiphorus to the Lord in jail. I mean, I do not know what all went through Timothy’s mind. The same. Later on, Paul is on trial before King Agrippa. He is in a court case before the king, and old Paul said, “Man, I am glad I can testify.” He began to testify about salvation, get the gospel in there on trial. Old King Agrippa said, “Almost, Paul, you’ve got me right there, almost.” And Paul said, “Not only you, but everybody listening; I want them all to get saved.” Same. Paul was an old-fashioned, I mean, shake the bush, soul winner. Try to get him saved.
It just seemed like Paul would go to a city, start winning souls, and the Jews would get mad, start persecution, chase him out of town. Paul would go to the next town, start witnessing. Often he would start in the synagogue. It was Paul speaking to the Ephesus Church in Acts 20:20, and he says, “How I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you, and I have told you publicly and from house to house,” the same. Oh, listen, friend, if we get over there, you say, “What are we going to do?” We are going to go soul-winning. It is the same, the same. He said, “We are going to try new methods and all that.” We are going to try the same old method we have been trying for 21 years, called the Old King James Bible. That is what we are going to try. While we are on this “same” thing a little bit, let us just talk about church. We are Rutherford County Baptist Church. It is not going to be “The Rock” one day. It is not going to be “The Cave” or “The Gathering Point.” You have to have some kind of focal point or some kind of point. We are not going to be all that. The Bible says Jesus shed His blood for the church He purchased. “Upon this rock I will build my church.” Do you remember back in the '70s, some of you remember that, when the big thing was to have family worship centers? Man, they had to get that worship center. Hey, it is hard to find one of those nowadays. Friend, let us just stick with what the old Bible says: “Hey, it is a church.” Call it what it is, amen. It is an old-fashioned, independent, fundamental Baptist church. God is using old Paul, and he is speaking again to the Ephesus church, and he said, “To feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.” We are just going to call it what it is: church. We are going to have a sign out there in front of that new building. Sure we are. It is going to have “Church” on it. We are not going to take “Baptist” off either. It is the same, the same. He said the same thing: the same Bible.
We are not going to say, “Well, we need to get some watered-down version that people understand.” Bless God, you get saved, get the Holy Spirit living inside, and you start studying that book; you will start understanding some things about it. Ronald Reagan—I like what Ronald Reagan said. He said, “What would you say if someone decided Shakespeare’s plays, Charles Dickens’ novels, or the music of Beethoven could be rewritten and improved?” About 10,000 million times better than that is the Old King James Bible. No, you say, “Well, what if somebody comes in and says, ‘Well, we need you to support this cause,’ and I say, ‘Yeah, we might print some other versions and whatnot, but we need you to support it.’” We are going to say, “No, friend, we are not enemies with you, but we are going to support Old King James Bible print, and that is what we are going to print.” There is not going to change. The same. The same. You know, America was brought up on the Old King James Bible? Check it out: when America was great and had some morals about it, it was old-fashioned, rock-ribbed churches all across America. Check out what Bible they had back then. Well, we have changed. It is a sad thing. The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association—surprise, I got the whole name out, amen—as of January 2020, they said the number one selling Bible in America was the NIV. And we wonder, we wonder why we have such weak, watered-down churches. That is our foundation, what we stand on right there. You know, the NIV, the most popular, they say—the whole King James Bible has “hell” in there 54 times. I forget years ago; we had a family visiting our church in one of the storefronts, and one of the boys, I do not know, was about 12 or so—he is a very intellectual young man now—but he told his parents when they left that church (they were not church attendees at the time; they became so, praise the Lord). He said, “Mom, that preacher said ‘hell’—I think it was seven times this.” Young people need to know there is a hell, by the way. That old King James Bible has “hell” 54 times in it. The NIV, the most recent one that they say they got right this time—yeah, the new NIV, the revised NIV—has “hell” only 15 times. It has taken “hell” out 39 times out of the book. This old world needs to realize there is a hell out there, yet they have taken it out.
Look over in John 14, if you would. It is a great passage. You will know it. John 14, you will know it. What a comfort, what a blessing it is. John 14—in the Bible, the real Bible. Would you look it up? John 14, look in verse number one, if you will please. John 14, you will know the passage. It is a wonderful one.
John 14, verse number one, Jesus speaking here, He says, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many…” What is the next word? Oh, yeah: “mansions.” I have a mansion just over the hilltops. I like that. My wife and I have been down a lot of country roads, seen beautiful houses, and we will say, “Well, that is nice.” And we will say, “Man, that is nothing compared to our mansion one day.” How many of you are looking forward to your mansion one day? Brother Fontaine lived in an old farmhouse built, I think, in the '40s. Praise God, he is living in the mansion right now. Man, they have not seen anything like he is living in right now, no millionaire, no billionaire. Let me read for you what the NIV says, John 14: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms.” Friend, I do not want a room; I want a mansion. I am not going to listen to some doctor messing around who says he knows Greek and is changing the Word of God to “rooms.” I do not care what they say. That old Bible for over 400 years says it is mansions. Do not take my mansion away from me. I have been working on that thing for a long time, friend. We are just going to stick to the Old-Fashioned King James Version Bible. The same.
Talk about the NIV; you know, it is not even a word-for-word translation. They call it dynamic equivalence. That is a fancy word for a thought-for-a-thought translation. They will take—let me read for you what the fancies say. He says, “Translating means… dynamic equivalence means translating the meanings of phrases or a whole sentence.” Now wait a second. So, in other words, you are getting—they take that sentence, and they think it says this, and then they put it out there. I do not want what someone thinks God said; I want what God said. We are just going to—you say they are going to think we are old-fashioned? They are right if they think that. We are just going to stick to the Old King James Bible. The same. The same. Do not let them intimidate you. Do not let them kind of have you back down and get quiet. The same thing. That is what we are going to stick to. The same.
Same soul winning, same church, same Bible, same music. Amen. We are not going to bring some rock and roll band in and put some drums over here with some glass things over there and push the pulpit over to the side and have about an hour of music and have about 15 minutes of sermon time out. We are not going to do that, friend. We are going to sing the old hymns, and we are going to enjoy singing them. We are going to sing them for a little bit and shed some tears over them and enjoy singing. And then I am going to have some old-fashioned preaching from the King James Bible. The same. Talk about preaching for a little bit. He said in 1 Corinthians 1:21, “God hath chosen the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” Just old-fashioned. That is what God says. It is a shame how we are just demoting preaching. “Well, it’s good every once in a while.” Old friend, that is where you come. The family of God comes to the house of God, and the man of God is supposed to have a meal prepared from the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. God’s people come and dying after the Word of God—the washing of the water by the Word, Ephesians calls it. It is preaching, old-fashioned preaching.
I have heard them say, “Well, don’t name sin. Let the Holy Spirit convict over sin.” Yes, He will convict over sin with an old-fashioned preacher; preachers preach against sin. That is what He does. Whatever happened to Isaiah 58, verse number one, when he says, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins”? That is what the Holy Spirit said about it. He has already told us to preach on sin. That is what God says. 2 Timothy 4:3 says, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lust shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” Teaching—God is for teaching. I am probably a poor teacher, but I try to be a good teacher in Sunday school. Teaching is proper; it is right; it is biblical; it has its place. But it is a little different than preaching. All good teaching ought to have some preaching in it. All good preaching ought to have some teaching, but there are two different things. America has a lot of Bible teaching, and America loves teaching. But bless God, there is a difference when an old-fashioned preacher gets up there and says, “That is wrong. That is sin.” It is preaching. Somebody says, “Well, it says, ‘Preach the word.’” That is exactly right what it says over there in Timothy. But finish the verse; he said, “Preach the word; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching.” It is preaching. Do not hide behind that; preach the word. Get out there and preach the word and preach on sin. Kind of like the Church of Christ. I like that Mark 16:16, but they never finish it: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” But they do not finish the verse: “But he that believeth not shall be damned.” They do not want to finish it. Some of these skinny-jean preachers, they do not want to finish. They do not want to finish the word, yes, but reprove and rebuke, amen. Finish the verse. Preaching. The same. The same.
You say you are trying to lift up yourself? Old friend, I honestly hope I am not trying to do that. I am trying to stick to the same thing God gave us. The same. Someone told me not too long ago; they said, “You know, I came to your church”—they did not end up going to their church—“they said it came to your church, and I had no idea, of course. And he said, ‘You looked at me while you were preaching; you said a little statement.’” He told me what it was. He said, “To be honest with you, I was on the brink of divorce at the time.” He teared up just a little bit, and he said, “You know, that little statement just changed us.” My wife told me later on, she said, “You know, that is the happiest I have seen him and his wife together.” I am saying God uses preaching. That is God’s method. We are just a simple, old, nothing-fancy, just a simple, old people trying to follow God’s method and God’s plan. God uses that. It is God that does the work. We honor His Word. The same. I just hope you get a burden tonight. We want to stay the same. The same. He said, “Timothy, the same things that I have committed, you find some faithful men, give them to the same things.”
Sunday is the Lord’s Day. I was—oh, I do not know—maybe borderline discouraged, maybe borderline angry. I am not sure. A couple Sundays ago, I rode down Morton Lane before I came out on a Sunday morning and rode by the baseball field over there. It was packed out on a Sunday. I rode by Hurricane Creek on Sunday and saw that road leading to the park, both sides of it, full of boats, ramps, trailers, and trucks and all that—fuller than I have ever seen it was on a Sunday. Some of you remember better than me back in the day when Sunday, if you wanted to get gas or bread or something, you better get it Saturday night because on Sunday everything was closed down because Sunday was the Lord’s Day. You say, “Well, it is cheaper to fly on Sunday.” Bless God, you do a whole lot better to spend 25 or 50 extra bucks and honor God. God will take care of your finances. You say Sunday is the Lord’s Day. Amen. Yeah. We might change midweek service to Tuesday or Thursday, or Thursday during Thanksgiving week or whatnot. We will do all that. We are not changing Sunday even if it is Christmas. Hey, we might change the time, but even if it is Christmas, we are going to have church on the Lord’s Day. Yeah. The same. The same. We will do—how Moody used to say, “Every time you walk a mile to church, you preach a sermon a mile long.” I want my neighbors—I want my neighbors to know Sunday their cars are gone. We know where they are at. I think about it. We talk about it every once in a while. Man, if somebody wanted to break into our home, they know Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday nights are times to do it. But praise the Lord, we have an old watchdog out there. Amen. Had their little food, digs, you probably let them in, you know. Our dog—what are we passing down?
Look at Brother Dylan and his generation and what it was like back then. I wonder how much it has changed. The world is going to change, but are we changing? Hey, Timothy, the things I have given to you—the same, the same. Do not change it. Do not weaken it. Do not make it more palatable. Let the Holy Spirit take care of those things. The same. Let us make sure it is palatable to God. The same.
You are going to feel the pressure to change. Our church will move onto that new property, and God bless us, and new people will visit and all that. We are going to love them and do our best to make a difference in their life. But we are going to feel a pressure to change here. But the same. Same.
This month, our grandson—I just got my wife’s attention when I said that. Look at that. She just woke up, my goodness, wow. Our grandson will turn one. I do not know how much longer we have. Who knows? We are living in the last days, I am sure of that. If the Lord were to tarry for about 20 years, our grandson would be college age. I wonder what kind of world—let me go, Father—I wonder what kind of church he would be heading toward. I have been blessed, so blessed. I was born when my dad was going to Temple College. As just a baby, I went to Highland Park Baptist Church, Dr. Lee Robertson. As a boy, I can remember going in there and just seeing God work. I still remember the crowds. I just have visions in my mind of the auditorium, the old auditorium. I have been so blessed. I wonder—and old Dr. Robertson, he would get there and preach—he had to; he is tall. He had to; he was always crooked his finger: “Say the same, stay the same, read the Word, die to self, die to self, die to self, reach the lost, reach the lost, reach the…” How many of you know Dr. Robertson? Yeah, O. Lee Robertson, Brother Dylan’s hero. I call him sometimes; that is Lee Robertson right there, walking to the church. But Holy Robertson, I wonder if my grandson will have something that resembles that. Will it be the same? The crowds and the numbers—that is up to God. I tried to change all that; that is God’s business. But will he have something the same? The same.
Paul, through the inspiration of God, said, “Now, Timothy, I want you to find some faithful men. And the things I have given you among many witnesses”—everybody knows where I stand, Paul. He was not trying to hide it. He was not taking his church or Baptist office sign down. He said the same thing. You have heard me among many witnesses talk about it. I want you to take the same thing passed down to the next generation. I wonder, if the Lord tarries with us 20 years, what kind of church, what kind of religion, what kind of faith will it be? Will it be the same, or will we change it?
Would you bow your heads and close your eyes, please?
Our heads are bowed, eyes are closed. I am not going to pinpoint things tonight. You say, “Hey, preacher, God spoke to my heart.” Maybe I needed it. Maybe the old world just kind of beating you up and pushing you, always trying to conform us to its image. You said, “Preacher, I just need it. God spoke to my heart somewhere along the line. I just need to determine I am going to stay the same for the Lord what He wants me to be.” God spoke to my heart. If that is you tonight, you slip your hand up. “Preacher, God spoke to my heart.” God spoke to my heart. Oh, God bless you. Me too, me too, me too, me too. The same. Satan is always trying to change and twist what God has given. It is always what he is doing—the same thing today. Would you please stand? We will have a word of prayer. Would you come to an old-fashioned altar? You would just spend some time with the Lord. Would you do so?
Father, thank you. One thing, Lord, thank you for Your Word. We will know where we ought to stand. Lord, You have given us something solid that does not change. It causes us and teaches us where to stand. Thank you for that. Lord, help us not to shift and change in slight variations. Help us just stay the same, the same. Father, bless our church. Lord, in the coming days, we sure would like it if You would use us to reach more and more people. Father, help us to stay the same. Lord, I pray that their lives would be changed by You, and Your help, and Your love, and Your healing would be in their lives. Help us to stay the same so You can do that more. Bless the people tonight during the invitation. Bless our church, Father. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Original File: The Same - Pastor Paul Chisgar Sunday PM 6621