Latest / INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living / For These Reasons, Lord, We Thank You (Part 2) Msg 22 - Pastor Chuck Swindoll Insight for Living

Transcript

For These Reasons, Lord, We Thank You (Part 2) Msg 22 - Pastor Chuck Swindoll Insight for Living · INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: We're spending these two days Sundays. In Psalm one thirty nine,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: we were in the first twelve verses last Sunday, and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: we learned that God knows everything, not only everything about us,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: but everything about everything that's known as the doctrine of omniscience.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: He knows it all Verses one through six. When we
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: got to verse seven down through verse twelve, we discovered
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: that God is everywhere at once, and no more in
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: one place than another, and always fully aware of wherever
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: He may be, and that's everywhere of everything that's happening.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: So God does not learn or discover, nor does God
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: ever late, never delayed, He is forever there. Today in
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: verses thirteen through eighteen, we're going to make a journey
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: where the scriptures rarely go to the womb of a mother.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: We're going to see an unborn child being formed by
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the hand of God, as we realize, right down to
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the minutia of that prenatal stage, God is omnipotent, all
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: powerful at work in the life of each one of
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: us as we are formed in the womb. These unique
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: verses are found in Psalm one thirty nine, thirteen through eighteen,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and then we'll conclude our reading with the last two
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: verses of the song. Once you find your place, please
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: stand for the reading of the scriptures, remain standing for prayer.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I'm reading from the New Living trans Please follow along,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: beginning in verse thirteen. You made all the delicate inner
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: parts of my body and knit me together in my
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Your workmanship is marvelous. How well I know it. You
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: You saw me before I was born. Every day of
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: laid out before a single day had passed. How precious
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: are your thoughts about me? Oh God, they cannot be numbered.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I can't even count them. They outnumber the grains of sand.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: And when I wake up, you are still with me.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Search me, o, God, and know my heart, Test me
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: that offends you, and lead me along the path of
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: everlasting life. What a prayer. And we join our voices
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: with Davy the Psalmist as we pray together. How grateful
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: we are our Father, for the minutia interest of your
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: will and plan. Write down to the very details of
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: our lives, from conception to the end of our days,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: from the womb to the tomb. You are there, You
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: are ever aware, You are touched with the feelings of
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: our infirmities. You care about the things that make us anxious.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: You meet our needs. You remind us again and again
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: that you are here, now, ever available, full of compassion,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: marked by mercy and always grace. Thank you for giving
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: us what we don't deserve. Thank you for doing so
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: in such a bountiful manner that we run out of
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: ways to express our gratitude. At this time of the year,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: we're especially aware of your provisions, and we need them.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: The pandemic continues. Many sigh and mourn as they bid
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: farewell to loved ones that have been taken. Others sit
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: anxiously beside the sick, and even those dying. Give us
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the grace to endure, the strength to be sustained by you,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: to trust you, to lean on you. Now, minister to us,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: our Father, remind us of the truth that our worth
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: is not in what we own. It is found only
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: through your grace in our lives, in the name of Jesus,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: we pray. Everyone said, amen, please be seated. The obstetrician
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: who delivered our first born had a fascinating testimony. We
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: had chosen him because he was known in the city
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: as one of the best in his career and in
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: his field of work. We respected him, though we really
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: didn't know much about him until that period of time
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: when he worked with us as Cynthia was preparing for
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: our first born, who was a little boy that God
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: gave us. When our position began his schooling, he was
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: interested in the sciences, and he found that the more
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: he studied in that field, the less he was drawn
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: to the things of God, and the more he was
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: attracted to humanism and the things that would normally be
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: a part of the intellectual world. In fact, he came
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: to the place where the idea of faith in God
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: was rather naive and unsophisticated. His years in medical school
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: didn't help his faith. In fact, his profits, almost to
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: a person, drew him further and further away, until finally,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: by the time he graduated with his medical degree and
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: began to practice his obgyn work, he took pride in
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: telling patients from time to time that he was an
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: atheist without question, but his career worked against him. As
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: he put it, for he said, if not every day,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: certainly every week, sometimes several times a day, he found
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: himself holding what amounted to a miracle in his hands,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: a newborn. In the closer he studied these features, adorable
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: little eyes and eyelashes, and fingers, and tiny fingernails and
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: toes and toenails, and different parts of this wriggling, little squirming,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: screaming creature. He realized that the design of something like
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: this certainly called for a designer, though he never talked
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: about that, He simply and secretly bought a Bible. Now
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: track me on this. Having had no teaching in spiritual things,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: he started with Genesis one and began to read through
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the Bible all the way into the Gospels, where he
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: realized that one had been who had been predicted a
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: number of times in the Old Testament, was now fulfilling
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: those predictions in the New. As Jesus came born of
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: a virgin, grew up to minister to those in need,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: helping the sick, raising the dead, cleansing the lepers, and
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: in fact dying for the sins of the world, and remarkably,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: miraculously bodily coming back after his death in the grave.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: He rose triumphant, and our physician all alone trusted in
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Christ as his savior. I never did, but I, thinking back,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: wish I would have asked, when you got to Psalm
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: one thirty nine, did you pay much attention to verses
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: thirteen to eighteen or Like no other scripture, the Lord
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: uses those verses to take us into the most sacred
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: place on earth, where life is formed in the womb
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: of a mother. And there God is at work in
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: an intricate, incredible way, even though he's beginning with and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: initiates life when it's smaller than a period at the
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: end of a sentence, tiny tiny microscopic cells coming together,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: life forming. There's no other scripture like this, as omnipotence
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: pays attention to each conception, each prenatal stage, all the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: way from conception to birth. God is right there.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: To make this even more intriguing, the song is written
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: not by a medical doctor, and even if it had been,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: the study of embryology was unheard of when this song
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: was written. There were no advanced medical schools, and if
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: there had been, David certainly wasn't a student in one
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: of them. He's a shepherd. Here is a shepherd, no doubt, unschooled,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: who had kept his father's sheep during his growing up years.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: If he was school it would be in the local synagogue,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and they wouldn't learn of anatomy there or of the
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: things of medicine there. They would study the scriptures there,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: if in fact he attended, for he wasn't really that
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: appreciated by his father. You remember when Samuel came to
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: choose the king. God had led him to the home
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: of Jesse, and Jesse paraded his sons in front of Samuel,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: and Samuel said, the lord's annoying, and it's not here.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Are these all your sons? And Jesse thinks for a moment, says,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: you know, I've got one more. He's out in the field,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: he's keeping the sheep. And Samuel said, bring him. And
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: when David walks in, because of course David's never read Samuel,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: he doesn't know what's coming. Suddenly there's oil running down
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: his neck and he hears words like the king's the
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: anointed one is standing before us, the one who will
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: be king. David knew nothing more of that than he
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: did of this as he's led with the spirit of
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: God to write truth that is intriguing, and whoever gives
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: attention to it, as we want to do today, leaves
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: realizing how carefully God has put each one of us together,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: no two alike, each one of us unique because of
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: what we learn from these verses. So, at the risk
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: of sounding a bit pedantic at times, I'm going to
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: do a little dissecting of nouns and verbs and pronouns. Well,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: let's take this first word you. Verse thirteen begins you,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: and it's an emphatic you in the Hebrew. You and
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: no other, not nature, not mother nature. There is no
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: mother Nature. It's God, You alone, God and God alone.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: And look at how the verse reads. You made all
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the delicate inner parts of my body. See those words,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the inner parts of my body. It's a reference to
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: the visceral, vital organs, the brain, the heart, the lungs,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: the kidneys deliver that which is such a vital part
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: of our lives. You were right there, shaping, forming, placing,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: connecting those inner delicate parts of my body. In fact,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: in doing so, you knit me together. Look at your Bible,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: You knit me together in my mother's womb. This is
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: the inception of life. Knit me together has in mind
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the idea of a of a network like like a thicket,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: except in this case the network is the veritable thicket
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: of bones and muscles and glands and veins and tendons
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: and arteries, and along with the lungs, with the air
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: later in life and as after birth, and the blood
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: that flows through the system to cleanse and consistently flow there,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: energizing the body. It's a phenomenal system. You put it
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: all together. You did that, Oh God, you and none other.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Several years ago I came across an interesting article titled
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: this is You, And in that article I found these words. Today,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: your heart will beat an average of one hundred three
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: thousand times. Your blood will travel one hundred and sixty
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: eight thousand miles, causing two hundred and fifty pounds of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: blood to pass through your heart. You will breathe twenty
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: three thousand times inhaling four hundred and thirty eight cubic
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: feet of air. You will speak an average of thirty
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: six thousand words. You will move seven hundred and fifty
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: major muscles, and you will use seven billion brain cells. Truly,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: We're fearfully and wonderfully made. And it all begins within
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: the womb when you stop and realize that that speck
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: of cells so tiny leads to all of that. No
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: wonder David doesn't go on before verse fourteen. He has
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: a burst of praise to God. Thank you. He says,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. The message reads,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: thank you, Hi, God, You're breathtaking and soul. I am
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: marvelously made. The New American Standard Bible renders this in
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: the familiar words, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Isn't
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: it true? The human body is a phenomenon, phenomenal blend
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of strength and beauty, coordination and balance and efficiency. And
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: the deeper you look study the make up within it
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: gets even more complex and intriguing. Think about it. Your
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: temperament is uniquely yours, your set of emotions uniquely given,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: your giftedness, your personality, your glands, your senses, your memory,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: your fingerprint like no other, your DNA like no other,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: all part of this intricate system made by our one
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: and only God. I wondered if the physician, when he
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: read those words, connected it to the very things he
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: had been training himself not to believe in I never
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: asked him, and so I will never know. But as
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: we read these, David's words end with how marvelous, how
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: well I know this? And then he goes back, says,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: you watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Look at that, he goes, where at that time in
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: life no one had ever gone. And he looks deeply
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: at the secret place where our frame is put together.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: The word means bony substance. It would have reference to
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: the spine and the skeletal structure of our body. And
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: next you will observe, he says, it is all woven
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: together in the dark of the womb. The term has
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: in mind. Get this variegated, like multicolored tapestry, like fine
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: needle point, we might say, or even intricate embroidery, not
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: unlike the veil in the ancient tabernacle. When you stop
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: to study it, you'll find in Exodus twenty eight, verse eight,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: that it too was multi colored. Remember the colors gold, blue, purple,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and scarlet. But this isn't referring to the veil of
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the tabernacle. It's referring to the veins and arteries, an
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: organic tissue, and the nerves within our anatomy. Perhaps a
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: paraphrase will help. My skeletal structure was not hidden from
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you when I was being formed in that place of
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: complete protection within my mother, when my veins, arteries, nerves,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: and organic tissue were embroidered together in variegated colors, just
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: like fine needle point, prepared by the skill of your hands,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: according to your sovereign plan. In our earliest days and
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: hours actually of life, God is there shaping us, forming us,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: making us who we would become. The early part of
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: verse sixteen is equally intriguing. You saw me before I
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: was born. If anyone attempts to tell you that life
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't begin until after birth, remind them of Psalmonth thirty
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: nine thirteen to eighteen. God is at work, not as
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: planned parenthood would tell you, with fetal tissue fetal matter,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: but with a baby, a living human being. He watched
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: as we were in that womb before birth. Your eyes
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: have seen my unformed substance. The words come from the
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Hebrew word to wrap or to fold, to fold together,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and in this particular noun form. It appears only here
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: in the Sacred Text, and it has reference to the embryo.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: It appears first in the sentence, my embryo, Your eyes
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: saw me in my very first stage of life, hours
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: and days of existence, still wrapped an embryonic form. You
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: were there, watching over every moment of my being formed.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: He goes on and looks at life after birth. Did
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: you notice in verse sixteen, every day of my life
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: was recorded in your book? Now I pause because this
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: is mind boggling. You and I are able to handle
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the dimensions of life fairly well. But when we get
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: beyond that ability, we get into the foreknowledge of God,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the sovereignty of God. Theologians have for centuries attempted to
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: unscrew the inscrutable. Explain this which is inexplicable, but we
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: believe it. Look at what he says. Every day of
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: laid out. Your Bible reads ordained. Good word there. It's
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: often used in the scriptures to refer to the potter
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: at his or her wheel as she works with a
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: lump of clay, shapes it and forms it rendered here
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: or ordained. Every moment was ordained or laid out before
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: a single day had passed. Now for a moment, hold
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: your finger here and go back to Job fourteen. Just
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: a quick glance at two verses in Job fourteen. I
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: love these cross references that verify what is said in
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the previous passage. Fourteen One job writes, how frail is humanity?
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: How short is life? How full of trouble? That sort
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: of wraps up life in one sentence, doesn't it? How
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: frail is humanity? How fleeting is life? How full of trouble?
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Now look at verse five? Hold on now, verse five.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: You have decided the length of our lives. You know
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: how many months we will live, and we are not
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: given a minute longer. Isn't that great? I got people
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: worried about when they're gonna die. You have to worry
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: about it. God's got it under control. When it's the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: moment you go, guess what you don't stay, You're gone.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: I see people on the airplane going through their beach.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Tell me the mill that I'm gonna well, I'm gonna I
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: gonna go. Please, you know, if we're gonna go down,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: we're gonna go down, and this may be our last flight.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I just don't have the heart to say that to
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: somebody who's worried sick over it. And but the fact is,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: one day will be our last day. For my mother,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: it took place when she laid down for a nap
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: and never woke up, only sixty three years old. My
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: dad lingered ill and infirmed for seven or more years,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: lived with us when we were living in California, and
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: we literally watched the process of death transpire. But he lingered.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: And your loved one may linger, or may be taken suddenly,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: or it may seem to you prematurely. There's no such thing.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: There's no such thing. We need to get words like
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: mistake and fate out of our vocabulary. And luck, oh,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: I guess he had good luck. He lived a long time,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: had nothing to do with luck, had everything to do
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: with the Book of God. God's got it all under control.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: And he's making you, or he has made you like
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: you are, back to psalmone thirty nine. He's intimately engaged
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: in our my dad used to call our put together.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: He is determined because of our skeletal structure, our size,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: our height, And that gives your kids encouragement. Let's say
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: you've got one who is six feet seven in middle
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: school and she's a girl. Guess what she needs to know?
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Someone thirty nine, thirteen to eighteen. This is not a
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: freak of nature. She's exactly the height her God wanted
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: her to be. There's a purpose, there's a reason, there's
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: a difference, and this is a great moment for me
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: to add, let's stop comparing. That's why I used to
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: say to parents, and I'll still do one occasion when
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: I speak to them and they'll listen to somebody my age.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Don't compare report cards. It proves nothing except that you
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: can read. It doesn't help any kid, especially the one
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: who doesn't bring home a boring report card. My brother
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: who had an IQ approaching genius true, I think it's
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: one sixty eight, one seventy two, some ridiculous number. And
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: he would he would bring home the same letters William Wigan,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: month after month month that my devil. Oh look at
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: that I had variety. I offered a lot of letters.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: He didn't seem to value the letters that I offered.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Why because he compared the two of us. My brother
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: was interested in science and the things of science, and
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: he's still brilliant. I love him dearly. We no longer
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: being compared. Uh, it was hard for my folks. And
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: then there's my sister along. She came, yeah, she knows
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: my sister beck here. My sister never like to study
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: that much, and so my dad paid my brother to
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: be her tutor. The problem was she hated my brother.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: So when you hate your tutor, you don't learn very well. Finally,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I remember my brother brought back the money and said
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: that here's the five dollars. She can't learn. She took no.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: She says I won't learn because I hate you. That
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: would be her response. Loving family, delightful time. My brother
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: be in there playing Paderewski's menuet and box ovajetto on
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: the piano. My sister and I are in there doing dishes,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: singing you or my sunshine or whatever. Different different kids.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: When I got to high school, they thought I'd be
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: as brilliant as my brother or as popular as my sister.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: And all I could do was stutter. I couldn't give
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: my words out, and thanks to a wonderful high school teacher,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I learned to speak. How helpful was that? And Dick
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Nemi didn't even know the contribution he was making to
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: my life and that's another subject. Three different kids born
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: from the same womb, born in the same place. My
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: dad used to brag, same ven on which you were conceived,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: you were born. My mother never liked it that he
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: told people that, but he was proud of it. Little
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: tiny garage apartment in El Campo, Texas. Three kids made
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: by God, planned by God to be used for his
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: purposes every day of our lives. Recorded in his book.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: I never knew my sister would die before my brother
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: or I. My brother's older, and I've not lived such
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: a great life that I deserve to live longer. She
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: is terrific, by the way, don't get me started. She
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: was a terrific athlete. She was all city and volleyball
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: and swimming and popular everywhere she went. So they expected
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: me to be a little bit of horriblee and a
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: little bit of lucy, and I was none of either.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Here I am taking algebra, and my teacher says, you're
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: really gonna use it, right, I've really used algebra a
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: whole lot in my life. It's another subject. I'm not
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: made to be a mathematician. My brother could do that stuff.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Thinking about something else. He built his own radios, unbelievable.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Not really, That's the way God made him. You see,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: we are fearfully and wonderfully made and looking verse seventeen.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: How precious are your thoughts about us? Oh God, you
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: really vote for all of us because you made all
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: of us. There's no reason to doubt you're importance, or
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: you're the reason for your being here, your significance. God
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: made you. You're made by God, and it reads. I
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: can't even count those thoughts. They outnumber the grains of sand.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: When I awake, I am still with you. Remarkable, Stop
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: and think you are the height you are because of
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: God's plan in your life. You have the color of
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: skin because of God's plan for you your life. You
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: have the color of hair, well, you used to the
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: color of hair that God wanted you to have the
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: color of eyes. The God wants you to have the
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: type of personality. Interwoven within you are innate abilities and
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: intelligence capacity and level artistic gifts that others don't have,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: and others even have more of. Some of you have
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: athletic skills, and you can just shine when you get
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: in that field of athletics. Others are not coordinated at all.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Some have an innerdetermination and others are emotionally frail, and
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: they're they're they're given to a much more delicate form
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: of life or way of thinking. It's the way we're made.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: How priceless are his thoughts, How numerous are his plans
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: for us? How near and dear he remains to us.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Realizing how thoroughly and beautifully we're made, David pauses and
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: makes a final prayer Verse twenty three. Search me, Oh God, Now,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: the one who makes us is certainly able to search.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: He knows every particle of our being. Search me, oh God, no,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: my heart. Now, God doesn't search us so he can learn.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: He never learns anything. He's omniscient. Remember, he searches us
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: so that we can learn the condition of our hearts.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: He can reveal to us the truth. See, he's able
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: to search under every rug of cover up, every closet,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: every room of our house, every secret, every passing thought.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: He even knows our anxious thoughts. Search me, o God,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: and know my heart, and test me and know my
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: anxious thoughts. Why not? Literally? The Hebrew says, any way
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: of pain in me? Isn't that interesting way to put it?
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Anything that pains you in my life? Show me he
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: does that. I've asked the Lord to do that in
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: my life, and there have been times that he's revealed
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: things that had been there for some time, and I
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: had never realized it until I had come to him
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: and genuinely said, show me anything that brings you pain.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Within a man matter of minutes, It's like it's clear
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: as the screen. We look at it, as clear as
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: the hands in front of us, and then lead me
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: along a path of everlasting life. Help me, Heavenly Father,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: to shape my life according to your plan which is
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: always perfect. Now I've saved something important to last to
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: the last, not only a fact, but also a story,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: true story. My message today is really politically incorrect, because
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: we live in a day when life really is not
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: that valuable. One of the most unprotected and scariest places
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: to be is the womb of a mother, for a
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: helpless child awaits birth to breathe and to carry on
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: life that began nine months earlier. There are those who
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: will take that life in the last term, or even
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: after birth, of all things. But you see, Pal one
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: nine is so pro life you can't see any other
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: position as you could defend how grateful we are that
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: our mothers had us when they didn't have to have us.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Years ago, a couple married in the Great Depression. Ten
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: months after their wedding day, she gave birth to her
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: first born. Thirteen months later, she gave birth to her
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: second born. The first one barely a toddler, and along
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: comes the second. And she wasn't too strong and didn't
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: do real well with small children. Her husband traveled quite
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: a bit selling insurance, and so he was on the
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: road a lot, and she was alone a lot, and
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the place where they lived was small, and they didn't
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: have much money, and adding a child only added to
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: the stress of the Great Depression, which must have been
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: a terrible time. And then, wouldn't you know it, before
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: their fourth anniversary in January of that year, nineteen thirty four,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: she's pregnant again. Abortion at that time was illegal, but
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: it wasn't impossible. You could get one. There were physicians
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: who would performed that, but you just had to do
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: so in hiding, and you told no one. But she
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: chose not to do that. Sickly struggling financially strapped, she
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: and her husband decided were Christians. We are to accept this,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: even though this baby wasn't planned by us, obviously he
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: was by God. So in October of nineteen thirty four,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I was born. Because that is my family's story, the
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: first two children, shall we say, planned, But as my
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: mother reminded me rather often, you were a mistake. I'm
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: sure meant that nicely, but just didn't sound quite like
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: you would hope. But I grew up realizing I was
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: the mistake in the family. But in God's book, all
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: of my days were written exactly as he would have
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: me live there. The same for my brother and the
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: same for my sister. We were close. We sang trios together.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: We used to stand on the counter of Red Hammer
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Shacks pharmacy and sing hold right in the viewer's face.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: It was a great trio. We sang for ice cream
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: codes and played together and did all kinds of stuff together.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: But we couldn't have been more different. All three of
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: us engaged in ministry, my brother over thirty three years
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: missionary and Argentine, my sister over twenty years with Women
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: of Faith. I've been involved in ministry for not quite
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: sixty years. And here we are, coming from a little
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: financially strapped family and a little tiny garage apartment in
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: elk Campo, Texas, by the grace of God. When this
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: is true in your own life, you realize God's sovereign
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: plan is at work. He gets all the credit, all
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: the glory, even in the life of a mistake. I
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: kind of like being a mistake. I kind of think
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: that's good. That means they didn't plan real hard to
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: have me. I sort of went hi. And from then on,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Oh the changes, Oh the grace that brought Salvation's plan.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: I speak to you today, though it's not about me.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: This about you and what you need to hear. Some
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: of you quite likely are right there. You may even
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: be carrying a child you hadn't planned, but God had planned.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: You may be weren't ready for what it would bring,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: but that's part of his plan. Having you not ready
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: requires you to trust him like my mom and dad
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: did when they had no way of knowing what the
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: future held. So so a great moment for you to
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: give thanks for your precious mother who bore you and
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: you and trained you in a day when parents really
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: are sort of glossed over like necessary evils, when in
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: fact we are the secret of the next generation and
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: the next and the next. May God use you to
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: help young mothers and mothers to be to learn from
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: what we have learned that God is at work even
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: when we can't see the plan unfold. Oh and by
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: the way, since we're here together, it's a great moment
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: for me to tell you that the Savior is available
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: to each one of you. Maybe you didn't know it.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: You may be a little like my physician, our physician
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: who helped in the birth of our first born. You
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: may just think there isn't a God. And all you
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: have to do is look at your hands and realize,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: just from the risk down, you're a miracle what your
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: hands can do, and the eyes what they can see,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: in the ears what they can hear. Your life is
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: a gift from God. How great that you give it
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: back to Him in faith and trust. Let's take care
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: of that right now now with me, will you. Let's
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: say you're just sitting alone in this big room, it's
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: just you and your thoughts. Think back. Can you return
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: to a time when you trust it in Christ. I
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: don't mean you could name the hour of the day
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: or the date. That's not important. The fact that as
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: you remember when you in Christ began to relate to
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: one another, you believed in him. If you can't remember
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: that that ever happened, it probably didn't. So this is
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: a great moment to take care of that. Simple words
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: and a prayer. Lord, thank you for making me. Thank
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: you for my birth, Thank you for giving me my life.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: I now want to give it to you. I want
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: to trust your son as my savior, just like my
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: physician did all alone. I believe in him now, I
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: trust in Jesus. I take him as my own. He
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: will hear you, and he will come to live within.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: He will forgive you of all those things in your
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: past that bother you. As far as east is from west.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: He'll remove them from you, and he'll use you from
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: this day on. Trust him now Now to him who
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: is able to guard us from stumbling and to present
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: great joy to the only wise. God be glory.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: And majesty forever and ever and ever and ever world
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: without end.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Amen. Amen.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: The preceding message for these reasons, Lord, we thank you.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: Part two was copyrighted in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one,
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: and the sound recording was copyrighted in twenty twenty one
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: by Charles Parcewindall Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.