How do you buy something that is not to be sold?

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South Bay SDA Church

Phil Mills

Buy the Truth

Father in heaven, we want to hear your voice speaking to our hearts.

We want you to be here as you were many, many years ago and met with your disciples, met in the synagogues, and met in the open air, speaking to the people, healing their diseases.

And we just are grateful that you've planned to be here.

Buy the truth and sell it not, do not sell it.

Also wisdom and instruction and understanding.

I was interviewing an individual who was applying to work at our home for a few weeks doing lawn care while we were away with our children in Michigan and then in Spokane.

And when you're away you don't want the grass to grow up and it to be obvious that you're away.

And so we wanted somebody to be taking care and mowing the yard.

And I asked him about whether he could fix lawn sprinklers.

And he told me he didn't touch sprinklers because you had to dig.

Now, not wanting to work very hard is not a good line for someone applying for work.

The Bible's brightest gems and greatest beauties are not strewn carelessly across the surface.

A verse to be seen and picked up and understood at a glance.

And that's why a brief read of a scripture in the morning is only of minimal benefit to you.

If we want the gold of God's Word, we must dig for it and enjoy the digging of it.

I find it helpful to memorize a verse or even a portion of a verse so that I can think about that verse while I'm working or doing something else and I can think about it through the day or maybe through the week or in the case of our scripture today through several weeks of just thinking about it meditating it a couple of weeks ago my wife found a very perfect picture for the entrance of our home.

The colors all matched, it was the right size, everything was ideal.

So we brought it home, we measured it, we measured the wall, We decided how high it should be put in.

And we made sure it was centered and leveled.

And I want the scripture to be perfect, all decorating the halls like a picture, the halls of my memory.

To do that you measure the verse, you measure the wall, you see where it fits into your life and how it applies.

And a good way to pick a verse is to pick the memory verse of the Sabbath school lesson.

I want to begin by looking at just 8 words of this scripture verse.

I think everyone here this morning can memorize these 3, 8, these 8 words.

Text messaging was not invented by the cell phone, the smartphone.

God has been text messaging people for millennia.

When a text of Scripture comes to your mind through the day, think of it as a text message from your heavenly Father.

God's text message to me for several weeks.

Now if these 8 words seem too long to memorize, memorize it from the King James.

God's Word is designed to strengthen our minds and make us able to think.

Only those willing to study God's Word, to dig, to apply these words practically in their lives, are going to gain the real value from God's Word.

I have a friend that has a very large room in his basement and it's filled with exercise equipment that could rival any fitness center in the city of Chattanooga.

When he wants to run, he has sophisticated treadmills to run on.

When he wants to pump iron, he has any kind of weight he would like to choose.

He has equipment for stretching, enlarging, strengthening his muscles.

The strange thing is he doesn't use it much because the 1 thing he doesn't have is time.

It takes time and the Bible is a mental fitness center.

The Bible builds character by stretching and strengthening.

It activates and stimulates every aspect of the mind.

It gives us puzzles and mysteries that to solve makes a Rube Cube or a Sudoki, child's play.

But lots of people with this mental exercise gym right in their possession and they don't use it because it takes time it takes effort and like the man applying for the job they don't like to dig This morning we're going to dig together.

Let's look again at the first part of this verse, buy the truth and do not sell it.

There's a lot of information packed into those few words.

These few words give us a priority and an urgency in life.

This verse tells us it's possible to acquire truth and it's possible to dispose of it.

1 command in this verse, it gives 2 commands.

1 command is positive and the other is negative.

The positive command gives us something we must do and the negative command gives us something we must avoid.

Don't sell the truth yesterday was what day black friday and in 2 days there will be cyber Monday this week probably most of us received urgent messages some with maybe countdowns 23 hours 22 hours for this particular sale and the opportunity to purchase this item at this cost was going to be time-limited.

We must buy the truth now without delay while it's still available.

2nd Corinthians 6-2, Paul says, in an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.

The scripture reading this morning gives a fuller context for our passage.

In the passage the father gives his son some warnings and some advice.

The father tells the son about the dangers of alcohol and the other dangers in life.

And then the father tells the son, buy the truth and do not sell it.

The father speaking to this child is our heavenly father speaking to us.

It is your heavenly father speaking to you, and it's an urgent message.

Isaiah 38, 18, and 19, for the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee, they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

The living, the living, he shall praise thee as I do this day.

The father to the children shall make known thy truth.

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Buy the Truth

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