A Sustainable Revival

All is surrendered, Lord divine, are we true to thee? All that I am, now can be signed, are we true to thee? Are we true to thee, Lord, are we true to thee? Where the leaves be, I will follow thee, are we true to thee?

I will go with thee all the way, are we true to thee? All my bidding will obey, are we true to thee? Are we true to thee, Lord, are we true to thee? Where the leaves be, I will follow thee, are we true to thee?

Good morning. You can turn to Nehemiah chapter 10. This is a very exciting chapter. Something happens here that I think actually changed the trajectory of the nation of Israel in a way that nothing before had ever done it.

The story is told that in a certain church, there was a man who always ended his prayer, "Lord, clean the cobwebs out of my life." Now, there was a member of that congregation that got very irritated at hearing this Sunday after Sunday, or prayer after prayer.

So the next time, he interrupted this by blurting out, "And Lord, while you're at it, kill the spider."

We need to kill the spider. We just sang some wonderful words. "I will go with thee all the way. All of thy bidding will obey. Though it may cost me friends and home, I will be true to thee. Cause me in lands afar to roam, I will be true to thee." Now, our forefathers followed and did that. They left their properties behind.

They could have made some easy compromises and stayed in Europe. They made tremendous sacrifices to be true to God.

Now, one of the things that began to irritate me in teaching Bible school, where they had these meetings in the evening, where they had altar calls, was when I was there and in some of those Bible schools, I taught a number of years in a row.

Many of the people who came to that altar every year were the same people. And I totally lost faith in that approach. I really did. Now, Nehemiah wanted to make sure that this revival was real. And so the title of the message this morning is A Sustainable Revival. Now, they did something that I don't think Israel ever did.

Moses wrote down God's law, and the people gave a verbal assent to it. But for the first time, they wrote down their own covenant and swore an oath, "God, make me like that animal we cut in two pieces if I break this."

And it is true that no time after this did they lapse into idolatry. Now, they went off in the other direction, which we were talking about this morning. But they basically kept this covenant, especially the Pharisees. The name Pharisee means separated one, and so we have that here. And so this is very interesting to me, what they did in this chapter and the effect it had on the nation. Now, I didn't thoroughly research this, but if you can find another time in Israel's history where they actually came up with a covenant and wrote it down and swore an oath to it, I don't think I can remember that ever happened before. This is new. And the results were new.

I don't know how much the rest of the nation's history depended on this, but we do know that the nation had a there was a different trajectory, if I can get that word said, to the nation's course after this. And there was a faithfulness to the law of God that there had not been before. And I think that carried through right up to the time of Christ, despite all the hypocrisy and all the other stuff we were talking about this morning. I really do believe that what happened here did change the course of this nation, or at least kept it on course like nothing ever did before. All right.

Now, Nehemiah had built the wall with much opposition. This man was quite a man. The more I read, the more I say, "Oh, God, make me like this man." He had built the wall with tremendous opposition from without and opposition from within. He had the lazy nobles who wouldn't build. He had the people who were allied to Sanballat and Tobiah right there in the temple. He had tremendous opposition and threats on his life. But they got that done.

And of course, his whole goal was to reestablish temple worship. And so in chapter 8, we have God's law read, and we have the people calling actually for a seven-day Bible conference where they read the law of God six hours every day. And people responded to that. And then in the last message, we have the tremendous repentance that came about, where they acknowledged God's greatness, God's goodness, God's grace, if you recall.

And they agreed that their ancestors had outraged God's grace time after time after time and time after time. God had been faithful to his covenant. They acknowledged all of that. They recognized that God had granted them unmerited mercy time after time.

And they could only hope that God would be faithful to his covenant one more time. They didn't make any request. They simply come and say, "Lord, can you see how we are in bondage to the Persians, high taxes, we're cannon fodder for them? Here we are." That's how it ends. They don't ask God to do a thing for them. They're only hoping that God will extend his mercy one more time and keep his covenant one more time.

And so what could they do to make. There. And guess what Israel did? They re-enslaved these people. They said, "Oh, that was really stupid. We shouldn't have done that. These slaves are useful after all. Now that we have a little reprieve, we better get them back again."

And God says, and from the Amplified Bible, "You will be like that calf in that covenant." And of course, they were. They were destroyed.

Now, this covenant involved three things. And I'll write them down so we can look at them. I always pick this up with a little bit of faith because I'm never quite sure if it's going to work.

Oh, my faith is justified. Anchoring in God's word.

And that will be 10, 27, and 29.

Number two, alienating from the world.

10, 28, 30, and 31. And finally, if you want to do an outline like this, this is a real challenge. I would hate to tell you how long to find this next word.

Accommodating for worship. Okay. Those will be our three points.

All right. So let's look at this.

Well, you have a long list of names here. Obviously, I'm not going to read them. I'm not sure I could get them all said very well. But the governor takes the lead here.

And there are 22 priests listed. They signed this. There are 17 Levites who signed the names for their families. And there are 44 chiefs of the lay people who are listed. And this was signed only by people who knew what they were doing. I want you to notice down in verse 28. Well, I'll just read that whole verse. And the rest of the people, so everybody signed to this one way or the other. The priests, the Levites, the porters, the singers, the Nethanim, and all they that had separated themselves from the people of the lands unto the law of their God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, everyone having knowledge and having understanding.

So they had just studied this. They had just instilled in these people what this was all about. And so they had a good understanding of what they were signing. Okay. So that's what happened here.

In order for us to have a sustainable revival, God's word must be continually studied and internalized. And we must come back to it again and again and again, what we have said and what God has said, and commit ourselves on a daily basis.

It must be applied to all of life. It must be applied to the places you go. It must be applied to the things you buy. It must be applied to the activities you pursue. Everything. I mean, look at your life. I mean, I see people doing all kinds of things. I think, "Well, how did they apply the law of God to that?

How did they apply the law of God to that?"

With my wildest imagination, I can't imagine how they applied the law of God to that decision. And I have to say that about my own decisions sometimes. I mean, this is a rigorous experience to say, "I'm going to apply the law of God to every activity, every purchase, everything I do, every place I go, every relationship I generate. I'm going to apply the law of God."

That's the only way this can be done. Otherwise, we rationalize. And we have a tendency to rationalize anyway. There's a place in my message where I'll make it very clear that Mennonites have a real problem rationalizing in a certain area of their life. And it was called to my attention last night because I got a call from Hartville. The Hartville Conservative Church right now has three seeking families that just walked in the door and are all out because they discovered that the Mennonites actually obey God. And they came from settings, typical evangelical settings, where people don't really obey God.

They divorce and remarry. They swear oaths. They go to war and kill people. They accumulate wealth. And they just pretty much ignore what Jesus has clearly said. And they found these Mennonites who go there and, "We're going to do exactly what God says."

And then they discover there's one area where God has made it probably as clear as he's made anything in his gospel, and they totally ignore it. I shouldn't say totally, but pretty much ignore it. And he called me to say, "John, why is this?

Why do I find that on this subject, when I try to talk to your people, I get a blank look or I get rationalization? I can quote specific verses, and I have excuses made and reasons given." He said, "Why is this?" Well, I'm ahead of my story.

You probably have a good guess if you've been guessing where that area is. All right. So in order for people to have a sustainable revival, there has to be a personal love and a deep involvement with the scriptures, especially the gospel scriptures.

I read that there was a group called Back to the Bible group that did a survey of 400,000 professing Christians. This was a massive data summary that they did. And they made a surprising discovery because with these people, they investigated their lives to see if their lives had actually changed from what they had been or what the world does.

And they found this, that if a person involves himself in the scriptures one to three days a week, nothing essentially changes in his life. If a person involves himself in four days or more per week now, you're talking about a person who's pretty serious about his involvement with the Bible.

Some marvelous things happen. Among those people, 407% were more likely to memorize the scripture. 228% were more likely to share their faith with other people. 50% were less likely to view pornography. 30% were less likely to struggle with depression just because they studied the Bible a little bit more or maybe a lot more than other people.

That's a very interesting observation. So my question is, how much are you involved with the scriptures? How much do you study it? How much do you pour over it? How much do you memorize it? How much do you internalize it? How much do you let it speak to you day after day, every day of the week?

That's a good question.

Now, we get to this person who called from Hartville. He was reading verses about economics from Jesus' teachings.

He said, "I do not understand you people. You are so dedicated to obeying Jesus explicitly except in this area." And he knows the scriptures. Let me turn you to some of them. Luke chapter 3.

There were a group of people who came to Jesus, wanted to be baptized, and John the Baptist. And he said, "I won't baptize you until I see evidence of repentance." And they said, "Well, what kind of evidence would you be looking for, John?" Well, verse 11, "He that hath two coats, let him depart to him that hath none."

So John is saying evidence for repentance is you have gotten rid of your extra stuff. You have nothing accumulated. You've given away the extra stuff. And he said, "If you have extra food, do the same thing."

Chapter 12.

And that's what Jesus said. Jesus said, "Don't accumulate anything on this earth." I mean, it's plain words of Jesus and John the Baptist. In fact, I wonder how many people would ever have been baptized into our churches if that would have been the criteria.

We're going to look at your extra stuff. Do you have any? If you do, we're not sure about your repentance. I don't know. I'm just throwing that out. Chapter 12, verse 32, "Fear not, little flock. It's your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell that you have." I don't think it means everything you have, but basically, become a distributor.

Whatever you can get rid of and give alms, provide for yourselves bags, and you know the rest of it. Let's turn to Luke chapter 11, back a chapter. This one was a shocking one to me recently. And I was preaching in Chambersburg, at the Chambersburg Christian Fellowship, and I gave this and David Brissot all of a sudden started smiling. And after the service, he said, "You know, John, that verse just struck me recently." He said, "I read it many times like I did." He said, "It never struck me."

This is the occasion where Jesus is accusing them of cleaning the outside of the platter but not the inside. Now, how would you have said you get the inside clean? What do you think he said? Look what he said. "But rather, give alms of such things as you have, and behold, all things are clean unto you."

Now, what ungodly people accumulate? They want security. They want all the benefits of that. And God's people don't place any priority at all on accumulating. They become givers. And they get anything they can to distribute and give and help further the gospel and help people in need.

That tremendous change takes place. That selfishness gives way to a lavish generosity as the best evidence for repentance, as the best evidence that something has happened here. In fact, selfishness, I've told you, is our big problem. And this is the biggest evidence that something has changed there in that area of a person's life. And this man was just absolutely perplexed.

He said, "These scriptures are especially in the book of Luke." In fact, I don't know if I ever told you this, but what got me started on this whole subject in my own life was one year at Hartville in Bible class, I decided to teach the book of Luke.

And I think God was smiling, and I think he had a twinkle in his eye when I made that commitment because it didn't take me long to realize that in about every chapter of this book, this subject is addressed.

And I went to Virginia, and John Snyder was the only person I had known at that point who had the same convictions I had. And I asked him, "Well, how did you happen to this?" He said, "Well, I was teaching at Clinton Christian School in Indiana, and I decided to teach the book of Luke one year."

You read the book of Luke and be honest when you read it. It'll revolutionize your life in this area, I guarantee you. Okay. Well, that's the first thing.

Anchoring in God's word. And I don't mean anchoring with words or ideas or opinions or interpretations or rationalization. I'm not talking about that at all. I'm talking about going to God's word and saying, "How does this apply to this decision and this decision to every decision of life?"

That's what I mean. Okay. The second thing we have here, alienating from the world. Now, I will start reading here a little bit in Nehemiah.

Well, let me start. I did read verse 28. Let's start reading verse 29. "They claved to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse and oath to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses, the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our Lord and his judgments and his statutes, and that we would not give our daughters unto the people of the land nor take their daughters for our sons.

And if the people of the land bring wear or any fiddles on the Sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy it of them on the Sabbath or on the holy day, and that we would leave the seventh year and the exaction of every debt."

So their commitment here is to be a separate people and to do it together. Did you notice that word clave in verse 29? "They claved to their brethren." This was not individualism. This was a group of people that were doing this together. They were cleaving to each other in making this oath. They were doing it together. And whatever it meant practically, they were going to practice together. Okay.

So here they are. This is a strong cultural agreement that would affect their finances, would affect their marriages, would affect their debts. It affected practical things in their culture. I was impressed. We visited three communities in the last three months. We visited McDowell, Virginia.

Southeastern sent a scouting team into the surrounding area 20 years ago to decide where it'd be a good place to place a church. And they went back over three mountains and many hairpin curves that I was afraid to negotiate at night, so we came home the next morning and established a little church back there.

And then a group from Franklin, Kentucky, established one in Ripley, West Virginia. That's where Harold Dean's sons are, some of them. And then we were recently at Garber's Church over here in Adams County. And I was impressed with the cultural commitment. I'm talking now about practical cultural commitment of those congregations.

And it was interesting to observe how easily the beliefs and values of those people were being passed down to their youth. In all those congregations, there were a bench or two. They weren't large congregations of young men. You could see by their demeanor. You could see by their interest in the message, the way they listened, the way they turned to scripture, the questions they came and asked afterward, their appearance. Everything was indicative of the fact that the church had a very, very well-defined culture that gave tangible expression to their beliefs, their values, their belief in simplicity, modesty, identity, separation from the world, the whole thing.

There's nothing like a culture to ingrain if people are genuine. Now, people can be hypocrites. I understand that. But they can be hypocrites the other way too. They can say they love Jesus and walk around with the world all over them. That's hypocrisy as well.

I was impressed by the young men. I stood there, and I said, "This congregation has a faith that will endure. They're picking it up. They're engaged. They're passionate. They're involved." And I think it had a lot to do with the cultural commitment of those three congregations.

I'll give them for what it's worth. Okay.

If our distinctive beliefs and values are to survive, we need to give tangible expressions in the practical areas where those distinctive beliefs and values are expressed visibly and tangibly. I believe that with all my heart. I think in many ways, the congregation often has misunderstood me in this area.

But I'm just giving that for your consideration. We accept our position as a marginalized subculture, even an ostracized subculture, as we interact with the world. You notice in verse 30, who was going to be sure that the children did not marry heathen, the dads?

The dads. It says in verse 30, "We would not give our daughters unto the people of the land nor take their daughters for our sons."

I think fathers need to be active in the marriage partners of their children. I'm not saying they should tell them what to marry or make them marry anybody, but I think they should take a very active role. In the first place, I think the children should grow up knowing that their father has a great interest in who they marry and is talking about young men that have those qualities or young women that have those qualities.

And when it comes then to the choosing, I think there should be a lot of advice given and a lot of heartfelt conviction communicated in that area. Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived, was led astray by his wives.

I have a friend I just talked to on the phone in Virginia. I have no doubt I could say his name and some of you know him, that he would be in our conservative Mennonite churches today except for the woman he married. And I've watched the progression little by little by little by little by little. She's sweet. They have a very good relationship. Very sweetly but persistently and unrelentingly took him step by step by step by step by step. And the last we met them, she was wearing slacks, double-knit slacks with no covering.

And I know what he believes, but there he is. He married the wrong person.

Now, he loves her. They have a good relationship, a wonderful relationship from what I can gather. When I go to their place, they communicate. They read the same books. They talk about them and so on and so forth. And spiritually, everything, it just seems like they really are one. But I know what he would like to be, and he isn't in the very major part of his life. It's extremely important who our children marry. All right. And I don't know what parents should do. I'm not telling you what to do, but parents should be very involved to do all they can by prayer and passion and communication and conviction and example to get this to happen in the right way.

So that was one area of culture. The second was the Sabbath. This was their greatest culture-defying tool, business. Here come these people, and oh my. If we could just do business with them today, look at the deal we and they're, "Oh, we're going to lose that deal." And what are they going to think? And the whole thing, yeah.

It was a constant reminder of the difference between them and the world. Every seventh day, they rested. Every seventh year, they rested for the whole year. Every 50th year, they rested for three years.

Now, there's some wonderful things about this. God is interested in our rest. He's not interested in our going out there seven days a week and working our tails. He's not interested in that. He wants us to have rest. He wants us to be refreshed.

Number two, he wants us to have uninterrupted time to meditate on him, to fellowship with these people, to get into his word. He wants that for us. He wants that refreshment spiritually.

Yes.

Merle Voorhees wrote the song, "Let There Be Light in Our Hymnal." Now, Merle Voorhees was a Presbyterian who went to Japan as a well, I don't know if he would have said he went as a missionary. He was an architect, and he went to Japan. He loved to hold Bible studies. And his favorite part of the Bible was the Sermon on the Mount. And his most important part of that, well, one of the important parts was nonresistance.

Now, here's a Presbyterian who's nonresistant, who goes to Japan to teach the Sermon on the Mount. And he became a Japanese citizen. He married a Japanese girl, even though that was forbidden. I mean, after all, he was not royally. He was just an American.

But the queen, well, in fact, the queen at that he walked in the door, and she immediately saw he was different from her husband, who was a womanizer and a whino and whatever. And she wanted her daughter to marry this man. And so they married. He learned the Japanese language. But he also had his architectural projects. And on one occasion, they were building a building on one side of the street, and the Japanese regular workforce was building pretty much the same structure on the other side of the street.

And sort of a contest developed. Who was going to get done first? These people worked seven days a week, sun up to sundown, long hours, cheap pay. And everybody thought, "Well, sure." His people rested for two days. They had off Saturday and Sunday. They were paid good wages.

And no question who was going to win. He won. His men came Monday morning, rested, inspired by his encouragement and the way he treated them. And there's another story told of two men that got into a wood chopping contest.

And the one guy just, "Oh, he chopped, I mean, full time, the whole time." The other guy every now and then sat down to rest. And the guy that chopped full time, he thought, "Surely he would win." He saw this guy sitting down. "Ha, ha, he's going to win."

The other guy won. And so he said to him, he said, "Well, how is this?" He said, "Well, what you didn't notice, you were so busy chopping, was every time I sat down, I sharpened my axe."

God wants us to sharpen our axe. He wants Sabbath rest. And we can argue all day about what to do with Sunday, but I believe there should be a day of rest. I'm going to go on record saying that, where we put everything else aside, we give time for God's word. And by the way, it was an expression of their faith when they left that land rest for a year. So they didn't get anything off of it that year, nor did they get anything off of it the year after that because anyway, it was an act of faith in God.

Okay. So we have two things now that these people are doing to have a sustainable revival. They're anchored in God's word. They're willing to make God's word tangibly practical together. They're alienating from the world. And I gave you two areas, marriage and the Sabbath.

Now, the last part of this chapter is about accommodating for worship. They focus on the house of God. What you have to remember is what was going on at Jerusalem was essential to their salvation. If the burnt offering somehow lapsed and all those ceremonies were left to lapse, there was no salvation for Israel. It all depended on those sacrifices being made for their sins and all those rituals and so on that had to do with giving them access to God and giving them a salvaging experience with God.

The house of God is mentioned nine times in this passage. And it's obvious as you read down through this, they wanted to make sure that the house of God was their first priority. Okay.

They were to look after the house of God first before they did anything themselves. Now, a lot of people let me get a hymnal here. Would you take your hymnals? There's a song in the hymnal that I don't know if we sing it. And we can sing it at the end, by the way, Brother Jared.

This is 965.

"Lord, in the fullness of my might," notice this is in the section to youth, "I would for thee be strong while runneth o'er each dear delight to thee should soar my song." Now, here's what he's not going to do. "I would not give the world my heart and then profess thy love. I would not feel my strength depart and then thy service prove. I wouldn't wait to the end to give you my service.

I would not with swift-winged zeal on the world's errands go and labor up the heavenly hill with weary feet and slow. Oh, not for thee my weak desires, my poorer baser part. Oh, not for thee my fading fires, the ashes of my heart. Oh, choose me in my golden time. On thy dear joys have part.

In thy dear joys have part for thee the glory of my prime, the fullness of my heart." That's what God's aiming at. He's aiming at you giving him your best. Are these people giving the best? I thought about this. Suppose people treated their mortgage payment like they treat the church. And they would say, "Well, I have all these needs. I'm going to pay my bills first," which you should maybe do that. I don't know about that. And then I have these things I'd like to do. And whatever I have left, that's what I'll give to the Lord. What would the bank say if you did that?

In order to keep on good terms with the bank, you pay that mortgage first. You make sure that gets paid before you pay anything else. That's what he's saying here. Make sure God gets his due. And then you can start thinking about the rest.

Okay. Make sure it's a priority. Make sure the kingdom of God and the congregation and the church and all its activities and its missions, make sure they get your support first. Now, their giving had seven characteristics. Number one, we're just going to look down through here and pick out some characteristics.

Number one, it was responsible giving. Look at verse 32. "We made ordinances for us to charge ourselves yearly with a third part of a shekel for the service of the house of God." So they made themselves responsible. They said, "We have rules concerning this." All right.

Number two, it was obedient giving. Notice verse 34.

The last part of the verse says, if I can find it here.

Anyway, we brought things for the altar of the Lord, our God, as upon the altar of the Lord, our God, as it is written in the law. We're going to do we're going to be obedient. We're going to do what the law we're going to give what the law told us to give.

Number three, it was systematic. In verse 32, you will see they gave one-third of a shekel yearly. It was systematic. It wasn't haphazard. They just did it when they felt like it. No. They obligated themselves to a certain amount systematically every year.

The first fruits were brought each year, verse 35. Verse 34, lots were cast for the times to bring wood. Well, that was a very important part of temple worship. I mean, those fires burned continually and tremendous amounts of sacrifices done. And there had to be wood. That had to be supplied. And they made sure that was done on a regular basis.

Number four, it was proportionate. The poor could bring wood. If they had nothing else to give, they could at least bring wood. In the New Testament, we find out they could either bring a lamb for the dedication of a child or they could bring a turtledove. I mean, God does have us. And the Lydia gave a mite. She didn't give as much as the other people. And God recognized this.

If we're giving proportionately, we're giving what we can give. And these people could bring wood. So number five, it was sacrificial. It was the first fruits. You didn't eat the best fruits yourself. You gave that to the Lord.

It was comprehensive. They not only tied their crops and their money, they tied their children. The firstborn was given to the Lord or redeemed. You could do that. Their animals, the first of the animals was given. Everything. This was comprehensive.

And of course, Jesus talks about them tithing their mint and their root, counting out their little seeds. I don't know if that was required or not, but they did that. It was comprehensive. It included everything. And number seven, it was prescribed. They were told how much they had to give.

They were to give the tithes to the Levites. The Levites were the people that did the backbreaking work of killing the animals and doing all the sacrifices. And then there were the priests. The Levites then tithed out of their tithe to support the priests. So it was prescribed.

It was crucial. I told you before, if something lapsed in the temple, their whole salvation was in jeopardy.

Now, it's still crucial. I want to turn you to a few New Testament scriptures. I want to turn to 2 Corinthians 9. And you all remember, I like to quote verse 8. But I don't know if I ever clearly showed you how it connects with the verses that preceded it.

I want to show you how much depends on your attitude and your practice of giving. But this I say, "He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly." You're going to get from God in proportion to what you give.

And he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. He's talking about giving.

"Every man according as he purposes in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth the cheerful giver." And based upon your lavish, unlimited attitude toward giving, God does the same. God is able to make all grace abound towards you that you always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work. So don't ever claim that verse if you're stingy with your giving.

God gives in proportion to the way you give. And if you're a lavish, unrestrictive giver and you'll gather up the last thing you can possibly do without to give, if that's your attitude toward giving, that will be God's response to you.

Okay. It's also a crucial means that's a crucial means of God's grace. So when we say there are no means to grace, come on. This is a means to grace. This is a means to God pouring out his blessings on you.

It's also a crucial demonstration of God's grace. I want you to turn to Luke chapter 6.

"For if you love them which love you, what thank have you?" And if you look up that word, it's the word charis. "What grace have you?" Or "What Christianity have you?" That's what he's really saying. If you just love the people who love you, anybody can do that. You're not proving anything about any kind of special grace of God.

And if you do good to them which do good to you, what Christianity have you? Sinners can do that. Now, look at this one. "And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thank have you?" Sinners can do that. Look what they can do. They can lend to receive as much again without any interest.

And Christians haggle over whether they should charge interest to their brother. And he says, "The world can do that for their friends. They can lend money without interest. You haven't proven anything."

And then he says, "But love your enemies and do good and lend hoping for nothing again." And I shall never forget teaching the old men's Sunday school at the Row. And I read this verse and right here's where somebody blurted out, "That's not lending. That's giving."

And that's the point. Do Christians even lend? I'm not saying there's not a place for that. There's people who invest money and they make money and you maybe can help them and they can pay you for your services with your finance. I don't know what you do with all that.

But this idea of interest really bothers me. There are people who call themselves Christians who have huge amounts of money invested and they collect interest. In the same congregation are people who have borrowed money and they are paying interest when that money could eliminate the interest.

But you'd have to make a sacrifice. You'd have to demonstrate some grace.

I told you I'm going to give this to you for what it's worth. I'm amazed at what the Bible has to say about this subject. I've come to believe that what you do with your stuff is the most telling evidence of who you are. I really believe that with all my heart. What you're doing with your stuff is the most telling evidence of who you are. And I'm saying that to myself. And we have to face this every day. I can leave the liquor in the store. I can leave the pornography in the store. I can leave the tobacco in the store. But I've got to carry this stuff around and I've got to make these decisions we're talking about every day.

And I don't always make them right myself. This is a very, very searching aspect of our lives. And that's why it's so telling because it reveals our heart probably more than anything else that we do.

I probably have told this story before. John Roar raised a family of 15 children. I don't remember how many he had. How many remember John Roar?

Every one of those children is basically living out what their father taught.

And you say, "Is there a reason for this?" Well, I heard John Roar tell one story. Of course, he had a big family. They farmed a lot of land and did farming in a big way. And he sent his son on a tractor to do something in a distant field. And on the way home, the tractor overheated and blew up. And the boy walked home. And his father said, "I was just about to give him a scolding and ask him why he didn't stop when the tractor overheated." He said, "Dad, the only place I could have gotten water for that tractor was a little repair shop." And he said, "I was in that shop one time and the whole place is plastered with pornography.

And I did not want to expose myself to that." And I heard John Roar say with tears coming down his cheeks, "What is the worth of a tractor against the price of the soul of my son?" And that said worlds to me. Our children catch the nuances of our heart. They know what is next to Dad's heart. I've seen many, many men who preached a conservative message and talked about conservative standards and so on. And almost none of their children followed.

And then you look, oh, they did get something. Their dad was into making money and they all learned to get rich.

He thought he believed most of everything he believed was up here with this conservative standard. Uh-uh. What really was next to his heart, really, really more than anything else, was that money. And whatever that is, I think we should go and ask our wives. We should ask our friends. We should ask the people we work with, "What gets us the most excited?" What that is is going to tell you what that nuance is that's going to be communicated.

And now, children make their own decisions. Some children make wrong decisions no matter what the parents' nuances of heart are. I understand that. And I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad at all. But that is an important consideration. It is.

These people were committed to putting God first, first in life, first in their schedule, first in their finances, first in everything they did. That's what you see here. And they wrote it down. And they signed their name and said, "If we don't keep these things that we wrote down, may we be like that calf we cut in half when we made this covenant."

That might explain to you why this had such a hold on these people from here on in their history. It was that serious.

You see, the essence of worship is what it is you worship. Whatever's most important to you, that's what you're worshiping. That's why Hebrews 11 is the chapter of faith.

It says almost nothing about their morals. And in a lot of our circles, we spend most of our time talking about morals. And that's good. Christians don't lie. Christians don't cheat. Christians don't fornicate. I mean, all of the list we have. But after we said all that, there's this whole area of values that we should be addressing even more because that's where faith is.

If your value system shows that you're looking for a city that has foundations, who's builder and maker is God, that nobody sees but the Christian, ah, you're a man of faith. If your value system centers around what you're all excited about and what you're doing most with and it's this tangible stuff, is that faith?

The essence of worship, what we have, what we do with our practical decisions is inextricably connected with our faith. Life as God intended. The life we're talking about answers the desire of every heart. Harvey, I was so blessed by that illustration you gave that time of selling that tractor and those two old-order men saying at the end of their observation, "There's something that isn't right about this deal.

Harvey's not charging enough for this tractor." I've told that story many times, Harvey. That's the attitude of the Christian. Our world understands money. They don't understand most of the other stuff we talk about, but they do understand money. And if you went to a garage sale and there was an expensive tool being sold for $5 and you knew that it sold new for $75 and it was in good shape and you walked up to the owner and you said, "You know what?

You're not charging enough for that tool. I'm going to pay you $40 for it." They'd look at you and say, "What? I better find out what this man's all about." We're going to speak loudly to the world in this area. We are.

Not only that, but what's the world looking for? The world looks for the opportunity to live in an equitable society. That's why they vote for socialism. Socialism promises to do all this. Finances equal everything out and treat everybody right. Of course, it's a horrible idea. They don't have any solution for selfishness, so it turns into a selfish nightmare.

But the church should be able to say to the world, "This gets practiced in our community voluntarily. And Jesus deals with our selfishness so that we actually do all these wonderful, unselfish things to each other." I am still convinced that the message our world still needs to hear and see is the kingdom of God, God's people, a little island of sanity and the way life was intended to be. That's what the world's looking to see. I believe this is the strongest appeal of the gospel, a countercultural island of heaven on earth.

That's what the world's waiting to see. And that was my vision, by the way, for Shippensburg. That was my vision, a countercultural island of heaven on earth that they not only would know that this is what we believe, but they would know who we are when we were out there. Oh, he belongs to that group where they share their things. He belongs to that group where they don't believe in accumulating wealth. He belongs to that group so the witness would be out there and people would know who we are.

That's my message for the this is a very exciting chapter to me, how these people finally solidified their faith by a written document sealed with a covenant. And it seemed it passed down through the rest of their history to Christ with some of the people. Obviously, they did with it what we said in the Sunday school lesson. That was wrong too, but it was a different thing. They were not idolaters and they were not doing the things that they had been doing before. Are there any comments on the message?