Talking about praise and thanksgiving, I'm so thankful
for being here tonight. It was quite a surprise
to me to be invited to come
here tonight and speak to you. I just don't
know whose idea was, but it's
great to be with you tonight and see so many
friends. You just have to be my
friends in order to be here tonight, so I need
to thank you for it, for coming
tonight and giving me the opportunity to be
still more thankful because of you
tonight, present here. I would like to mention
my wife is present here tonight
with me, Lety. We call her Lety, L-E-T-Y, and
my wife and I have three sons in
Guadalajara. We ask you to pray for us. We need
your prayers. Sometimes we feel a
little bit lonely because there are very few
Christians, still very few Christians
in a big city such as Guadalajara. Guadalajara
is a five million city, five
million people city, and it's large, large
enough to make you feel lonely. And we
need your prayers. Lety, Quisiérase pararte
Para que Te Conozcan. She's my wife and we feel
very proud of her because she's been a very
loving lady and an extremely good
mother, and she's putting up with me for a long
time. When we talk about David, and
I wish Dr. Lynn Anderson were here last, here
tonight, I don't see him. In fact, he
had offered me to be my translator tonight, and
he's failing me tonight. But
anyway, if Dr. Lynn Anderson were here, I would
have to let him come to the front
and speak instead of me tonight because he's an
expert in David. But you don't
have to be an expert to know a little bit about
David. David was a tremendous
man of God, a very close friend of God, and
whenever I read through the Psalms, I
really want to become like David. I know I'm
like David in many ways. My
humanness is so much as David's that I feel
David very close to my heart
because I have so many of the same problems he
had. I'm not a king, though. I
wish I were. But, you know, I'm a human being,
and I have the very same
temptations and many of the problems that David
had. And when I read the Psalms,
especially the Psalms assigned to this theme
tonight, Psalms 30, 32, and 40, I
feel so close to him because of his problems
trying to please God and trying
to please his own sense, his own humanity, his
own passions. David was a
tremendous man, tremendous man of God. And the
main thing about his being a
tremendous man of God was that he wanted always
to repent and become a very close
child of God, very close to God's hand and very
close to God's love. David was a
very good-looking man. That's a different thing
from what I am, too. He was a very
good-looking man, and due to the fact that he
was a very good-looking man, he
also had some problems because of it. I don't
have that problem, but I still have
the very same passions David had to fight. One
of the most beautiful
characteristics of being a Christian is the
fact that we can get closer and
closer to our Father through his beloved Son.
Being a Christian is a very special
privilege that the whole world should have. In
fact, when the Father sent the
Son, his Son, to become Jesus the Christ of
Nazareth, Jesus of Nazareth the Christ,
he wanted the whole world to be saved. Not just
some people in the Middle East,
but the whole world to be saved. And being a
Christian, being a child of God,
is one and the only reason that would make us
feel so happy, that we would be
tremendously thankful and ready to praise that
God that has saved us from
our own passions and from our own sins. Sin, a
life of sin, is a life of death.
The dead go through sin and enjoy it and never
repent from it. There are
so many people in Guadalajara where we live. A
lot of people are so happy
sinning. A lot of people don't know anything
about praising God and being
thankful to God because they love sin so much.
And when we love sin, we are so far
away from God that we cannot understand why
anybody, just anybody
anywhere in the world would praise Him and be
thankful to Him. David had been
through a series of a very difficult, of many
difficult problems caused by his
enemies. David had a lot of enemies, but his
most difficult enemies were his own
passions. His most difficult enemies were
within himself, and he had to
fight himself in order to be able to be
forgiven and in order to be able to feel
free from sinfulness and in order to be able to
praise God and be thankful to
that God. David loved God deeply, very deeply,
and God was his first and most
important love. And that's one, one of the most
important things I find in David.
He loved God so much, but in spite of the fact
that he was always trying to
love God the best way he could, in spite of
that, he always had to fight his
own passions, and sometimes he had the problem
of falling in sinful life, in a
sinful life. It is not enough for us to try to
love God the best way we
can. It is not enough if we don't want to
surrender our lives to Him. Sometimes we
say, and it is a very common thing in Mexico,
we say that we love God, and in
Mexico we have, we use the form and in Spanish
diminutivo, diminutive, I think
it is in English, diminutive form. And we call
things, we love using the
diminutive form. We ask people if they would
like to have some
coffee, we offer them a cafecito, always ito or
Ita. And most of the Mexican
people would call God Diosito, which means they
really love God, you know,
Diosito, in a very, very friendly, loving way.
But you know what? People in
Mexico may say that they love God, but most of
the people I know in my country
are lost. And I really feel so bad about it,
because people really think
they love God, but they have made a very
important distinction in loving God as
just an abstract concept, and loving God as a
way of living, you know. In
Christianity, the way we had to preach it, and
we are preaching it in Mexico,
is always a way of life. Christianity is always
a way of life, and then because of
it, we will be able to praise God and be
thankful to Him, because of a new way of
life. Public worship is not acceptable to God
if it doesn't come from a surrendered
life. It is a beautiful sight, you know, when
we see a lot of people getting
together to worship God. It's a beautiful thing.
I love to see a lot of people
worshiping God, but I tell you one thing. If we
are not like David, and if we are
just loving God as a concept, and not living as
Christian people should live,
our worship to Him is in vain. It is in vain.
David was really deeply in love
with God. Nevertheless, sometimes he is sinned
against God. But God forgave him,
because David was ready to repent, ready to
accept the fact that he had made a
tremendous mistake, going against the will of
God. And that's one of the main
things in the character of David. David knew as
soon as he made that mistake
that he was wrong, and he was sinning against
God, and he wanted to be
forgiven. And that's one of the main reasons
David is such a personality for
many of us, you know. And through the Bible, I
think it's one of the main
characters that teach us to be closer to our
Lord, our God. In Psalm 30, David
wrote this Psalm number 30 for the dedication
of the temple. Excuse me. A
temple that he wanted to build himself, but you
recall very well that God didn't
allow him to build that temple. But
nevertheless, he wrote a Psalm, Psalm 30,
for the dedication of that temple he will never
see. He never saw it. But he
wanted it so much that he was ready to write a
Psalm that was going to be used
in the dedication of that temple. His song was
to build it, and he did. And I'm
sure that this Psalm was used there, at the
dedication of the temple. But when
David was writing this Psalm, he says something
that is very important to me.
He says that the Lord's anger lasts only a
moment. The Lord's anger lasts only a
moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime. That's
beautiful, isn't it? Our Lord, our
Lord's anger is very, very short. How different
are we from the Lord, from our
Lord, you know. Our anger sometimes lasts for a
lifetime. You know, I've met
families in Mexico that are really still
carrying on angers and resentments for
generations. You know, something like some of
these Italian families that you have
probably heard about, that they fight each
other for long, long periods of time.
Well, in Mexico we have some of these replicas,
you know. Some families
carry on resentments, anger for generations.
And our Lord, David says, has a
very, very short anger, doesn't last long. That
may be the reason that Paul says
that our anger should not last long either. But
how about his favor? Our Lord's
favor lasts a lifetime. If we are ready to
straighten our lives, giving our lives
to our Lord, recognize the sin that it's in our
life, and ask the Lord to be
forgiven, and if we are ready to comply to His
will, His favor to us, to us, is
going to be for our lifetime. Of course, when
we are in a very good relationship
to God through His Son, we may feel very secure.
You know, security is a very good
thing. Sometimes I have to do some counseling
in Mexico and Guadalajara
because of our TV programs. A lot of people,
many more than I can ever deal
with, try to have an interview with me because
they are looking for someone to
counsel them. I'm not a counselor. I wish I
were. I don't have the training to.
I'm doing it, but I don't have the training to
be a counselor. But there's
one main thing in many of these people that
come to me looking for counseling.
Most of them feel unsecured. Unsecured people.
They have so many misgivings about
themselves, their lives, their relationships,
and they just cannot feel
secure. They don't feel like functioning the
way they should. A Christian should
be one who is really secure, who is really
convinced that he or she is doing
exactly what he or she or he has to do. We need
to be really secure about our Lord.
Not too secure. I'm talking about being too
secure. Sometimes when we feel too
secure, it's just the right moment for us to
fail. Nobody is too secure. We cannot
take our Lord for granted. Well, we may be able
to do that, but we should not take
our Lord for granted in any way. They are not
senior Christians. They are
senior citizens, and I can see two senior
citizens here. I need to tell you this.
I've been thinking about it all night long, you
know. Dr. J.W. Treat and his
wife are so close to me. I hope I'm so close to
them, too, but I feel as if my
parents were present tonight, and I really love
them deeply. They've been so
good to me in so many ways. So patient. So, I
don't know, I think patient would be enough, at least
for my, from my vocabulary. So patients are
loving people, you know, and when
people like that come to our lives, that's a
tremendous blessing that give
you security. You know, whenever I see them, I
know there's hope for me. Not
because they are going to save me, but because
they are such a good example of
loving Christianity, of love, practical love,
being a blessing to so many people
in so many places. Those of you that may not
know them, you need to know them.
The tremendous ministry for so many years. They
are a good reason to be praising
God and be thankful to God, because He has
raised people like Him and like
her, you know, like them. People who are so
loving and such a good example.
Whenever I see Christians like that, Christian
people like that, so many
friends, I feel so secure, but we never be too
secure. We need to be always checking
our lives, verifying that everything in our
lives is complying, complying to the
will of God, because otherwise we're going to
fall. We're going to fall and
have a tremendous experience that is going to
hurt our lives for a long time.
We need to be secure because of God. If we feel
secure because God is loving us
and we love Him, that's the right kind of
security we need to have in our lives.
But when we are depending on things, on
beautiful things, you know, yesterday
Lou Seckler took me to the Mercedes-Benz dealer
here in Abilene. He had
promised me to buy me a car, and when I chose
the car I wanted, he repented. He
didn't want to spare 80,000 bucks for it.
One way to find out how much we trust things is
to verify how much of our time
and our resources are used to buy some kind of
security for our lives. How much
of our time and resources we use to buy some
kind of security. And I'll tell you,
I'm not against any insurance man here, you
know. I like insurance and I have
some kind of insurance too. But things will
never make us really happy. Things
will never save us from sin. Things will never,
never give us the very important
love, the essential love that only can come
from God. When David was forgiven,
he was ready to really go on dancing. You
remember David, he was so
open. He was a very open man, and whenever he
felt some way, everybody knew
about it, you know. If he was happy, everybody
knew he was happy. If he was
sad, he was so sad that everybody knew he was
sad. And when he was forgiven,
he was ready to even dance. He was a tremendous
man, a tremendous example for
us. One thing that is very important, David,
also, is the fact that he was ready
to be humble. When Glenn came to lead us in our
prayer tonight, I really like
what he said about humility, because that's so
important. It is so important
because otherwise we will never be forgiven. If
we are not humble, we will
never be able to praise God and be thankful to
God. Humbleness is just a
necessary thing, a necessary characteristic
that we will have to show
before God in order to be forgiven. If we are
not humble, we will never be
forgiven in spite of the fact that we may be
saying the right words before
God. Sometimes we may be able to say beautiful
words to God, but that's very,
very, very intelligent. He knows everything,
and he knows the way I'm feeling, you
know. And a person is what he thinks and what
he feels. We may think we are being
humble before God, but if we don't feel it the
same way, our personality is just
split. And just one part of our personality is
telling God that we are
humble, and the other part is not telling the
same thing. And God doesn't want us,
just 50%. God is asking for a 100% of our
person and personalities.
So remember, we need to learn from David to be
humble. We need to realize that
even though we may be very important to the
sight of some people, even
though we may feel so important in many ways,
we need to be humble. We need to be
humble and never, never take ourselves for more
than we are. We are very prone
to think a lot about ourselves, you know. At
least I'm talking from my heart. I
don't know about it, but I may be telling
something that's wrong from your
point of view. But to me, it's very easy to
overestimate myself,
and to look at myself as being someone who is
really important. I know I have an
important mission, but I'm not important guy. I
have something important to do,
and I hope the Lord will give me the
intelligence and the wisdom and the
physical ability to achieve that what I must do.
But I'm not important one. The
only important one is the Lord. You know, and
for David, it had to be very
difficult because being keen and humble at the
same time, it's not an easy thing.
We don't have that problem. At least I'm not a
king, you know. I wish I were. But
those who have a lot of power may think they
are kings, and it is so difficult
for them to be humble. But let us not fool
ourselves. You don't have to be a
powerful person to be proud. A lot of weak
people, feeble people, feel so proud.
Feel so proud about their own feebleness, their own
weaknesses. Pride is a tremendous cancer that
is hidden almost everybody's
lives, and we need to surrender that pride to
God in order to be forgiven and
be able to praise and be able to thank God for
his work in our life.
Whenever I see myself and I'm honest to myself,
I had to realize that God's love
is really amazing. I remember getting a
cassette, an audio cassette from Glenn
Owen about amazing grace. A beautiful thing. I
don't remember if Glenn knows
about it or not, but it's a beautiful, a
beautiful audio cassette talking about
grace, how amazing it is for us that a being
which is perfect, a perfect being,
a perfect love, a very, there is no grade, a
pure being. God himself would care for
us. I look at myself and I find a lot of
failures, a lot of mistakes, a lot of
ugliness, and I wonder how come God will love
me, but he does. David had fallen to
several pits, slippery, slippery pits, and
whenever we are way down, we are not
lovable, we are not attractive, we are not the
kind of people that would be really
welcome anyway and anywhere, but in spite of
the fact that we may be as ugly as
ugliness, God is ready to love us if we are
able to realize that he is loving us,
if we are able to understand that he is waiting
for us to repent so that he
would be also forgiving us, and in that way,
liberating us, freeing us from our
slavery and a sinful life. God is amazing, it's
astonishing, God is so great that my
human intelligence cannot describe him, but I
know one thing, and in spite of the
fact that I am so imperfect, he loves me and he
has to be perfect to be able to
love me.
No human action can be a work of merit, only
the grace of God is the one that
can save us through faith, and faith is
expressed in a belief and also in the
action that implies and the willingness to
please God. Faith is believing, yes,
but sometimes we forget that faith also implies
necessarily action, an action
that is aimed at the fulfilling of the will of
God in our lives. We will never
be able to have any works of merit. I cannot,
and you cannot, do any work of
merit before God, but all of us are able and
should be willing to make so many
works, to do so many works of faith that we are
going to be pleasing to God. The
aim of our lives should be to praise God, to
please God. The aims of our lives
should be to share a message that's going to be
the Light of the World and
the salt of the earth, and from the attitude of
David, we can feel, we can
sense that he's telling us how important it is
for you and me to be ready always
to surrender to God, to be able to give our
lives to the fulfilling of his will,
so that his love would generate joy and peace
in our lives. Joy and peace are so
scarce in our society. There's a tremendous
scarcity of love, joy, and peace.
We hear of wars. There's a tremendous war going
on right now. Why? Because God wants
it. I don't believe so. It's human foolishness,
pure human foolishness, that
is causing so many problems, so many pain to so
many people. Love, joy, and peace
come only from God, and when we feel truly
forgiven from God, his love is going
to generate so much joy and so much peace in
our lives. That's the only way
we should be going in our lives. That's the
only way for us to find an answer to
every question we have. Joy and peace are so
scarce that a lot of people are
trying to buy it. A lot of people are trying to
find it in a political way, in
economics, in so many ways, but nobody is going
to find it in a permanent way if
it is not through the love of God. And David
was praising God because God was
giving him joy and peace in spite of his
failures, in spite of the fact that David
had to fight his own passions, just like we
have to do it tonight.
God wants his people to be intelligent and wise.
When I read Paul writing to
Romans, I sense that very fact. God wants his
people to be intelligent and wise.
Every human being, normal human being, has some
degree of intelligence, but God
wants us to use that intelligence to find his
wisdom. He wants us to use that
gift of intelligence to find and use to
appropriate his wisdom for our use. If we
ever are able to do it that way, if we ever
convinced ourselves that that
intelligence we have is for us to use it and
find it, God's wisdom, and use it for
our lives, we are going to be able to share
with David that tremendous
choice and peace, joy and peace that God had
given him. One thing I need to tell
you tonight is the fact that I have found many
Christian people, or people who
consider themselves Christian, themselves
Christian, that still have a lot of
problems with guilt. God's forgiveness is
perfect, and it is forever.
If a human being wants to be forgiven, that
human being has to surrender his
life to God through humility, an act of
humility, and after he does that and ask,
confesses his guilt, he is forgiven. He is
forgiven. And after he does that and ask,
confesses his sin to God, and asks God to
be forgiven, God is going to forgive that human
being forever and completely
forgiven. There's no room for guilt. Any sense
of guilt in a Christian person is
of a lack of faith. God's forgiveness is
perfect, and if we love God the way he
wants us to love him, he's going to forgive us
completely, totally forgiven.
And we don't need to wrestle with any sense of
guilt. Jesus Christ died on the
cross just for that very reason, for us not to
have the sense of guilt and be
fighting ourselves with that guiltness, that
attitude of finding ourselves guilt
before God. Jesus Christ died for us so that we
won't have to be guilt before
God. So if you are a Christian, you don't have
to feel guilt. In fact, if you felt
any guilt in your life, you need to strengthen
your faith because God is
forgiven totally, completely. That's the way he
forgave David, and that's the way
he's forgiven us. No guilt, no guilt at all
because of the forgiveness God is
granting us through Jesus Christ. If you need
to be forgiven tonight, there's an
opportunity for us tonight. Tonight is just
perfect for any of us who need to
be forgiven. If you have not surrendered your
life to the Lord of lords, you need
to do so. You need to do so because it's the
only way you're going to find joy
and peace in your life. Nobody is going to give
you that joy. Nobody is going to
give you that peace because there is no other
way to achieve it. There is no
other way to find it. Only through the act of
humiliating ourselves before God,
we are going to be given that joy and that
peace because the love of God is
going to generate it in our lives. If you need
to be forgiven in any way, remember
there is hope, always hope. As long as we live,
hope is our hand, is at hand, and we
can grab it and make it a way of life for us.
There is faith and there is love, a
love that is perfect, a love that is going to
be a tremendous boost and asset
for our lives. Thank you so much for being with
us tonight. May the Lord bless you
richly, and please don't forget to pray for us
in Mexico.
338. If you have any needs that this body of
Christ is represented here can help
you with, would you please come forward as we
stand and sing this song?