Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
2002 Friday morning, August 5 Blind camp service
130 Plays1 year ago
in this episode, you will hear the service recorded August 5 Friday morning Blind camp service 2022.
Use my special link zen.ai/harmonicaplayerpodcast and use harmonicaplayerpodcast to save 30%
off your first three months of Zencastr professional. #madeonzencastr
---
Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/harmonicaplayer/message
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Zencastr Promotion
00:00:04
Speaker
Greetings ladies and gentlemen, this is Joseph aka harmonica player And I'd like to tell you about an awesome service that I use to get my podcast done Did you know that there's a service out there called Zancaster, which is a one-stop shop for all? For all podcasts you can do editing production and audio and video. It's a one-stop shop place and
00:00:31
Speaker
If you use a professional account, like a Zencast or Pro and higher, you can have your video imported to every video player that there is possible. That only works on professional accounts though. You have unlimited uploading, unlimited hosting, and you can monetize your podcast and earn money! Yeah!
00:00:52
Speaker
So if you want to take advantage of this, go to zencaster.com slash pricing and use my code harmonica player podcast and get three months off your zencaster professional. We are anxious to hear your story. Take care and happy podcasting.
00:01:24
Speaker
Gaining Dimmels and Other Interests On Joseph Weekland's Harmonica Player Podcasts
00:02:20
Speaker
Day by day and with each passing moment Strength I find to meet my trials here Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment I have no cause for worry or for fear
00:02:49
Speaker
whose heart is kind beyond all measure gives unto each day what he needs best lovingly it's part of pleasure and pleasure mingling toil with peace and rest
00:03:18
Speaker
Every day the Lord himself is near me With a special mercy for each hour All my cares he feigned would bear and cheer me He whose name is counselor and power
00:03:48
Speaker
The protection of his child and treasure is a charge that on himself he blamed. As your days, your sleep shall be in measure. This a pledge to me.
00:04:17
Speaker
Help me then in every tribulation. So to trust thy promises, O Lord, that I lose not face reconciliation offered me within thy holy word.
00:04:46
Speaker
Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble may be, Here to take us from a father's hand, One by one, the days of moments fleeting, Till I reach the promised land.
00:05:17
Speaker
We praise and thank you, Lord, for the promise of your tender care for us day by day. Yes. Moment by moment. We rest in you. We thank you. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen.
Assistive Technology for the Visually Impaired
00:05:30
Speaker
Before we get into the sermon this time, Larry's going to share about a tool that some of you know about, but some of you don't know about, and there's probably people who are watching online who don't realize how many people qualify for this because as we age, oftentimes we lose our eyesight and begin to be qualified for this.
00:05:52
Speaker
What I want to tell you about is a special digital player that is put out by the National Library for the Blind. And this has a cartridge in here. Some of you that have eyes, you can see this cartridge. And it's actually, I would call a glorify flash drive. But it's designed in such a way that the blind person cannot air. They can't put it in upside down.
00:06:20
Speaker
The only way it'll go in is this way. But then on the side, they do also have. Is it working now? Okay. Okay, should I start over? Did you hear anything I said?
00:06:49
Speaker
Okay. This player is put out by the National Library for the Blind, and it's available to everyone that is legally or totally blind. Also, the physically handicapped will qualify for this player.
00:07:06
Speaker
And oh, there it's on. OK, now I can hear myself. OK, now this is a player that's put out by the National Library for the Blind. And there's several chapters all over the country. You can just Google National Library for the Blind and it'll come up for your local area. But this is designed.
00:07:37
Speaker
It has a special cartridge in here that the blind people can't put it in upside down. They can only put it in one way. It does on the side have a flash drive thing too, so that we can download these meetings.
00:07:57
Speaker
And then we'll convert that, take the video out and convert it into MP3 and we can plug in here and we can listen to our meetings over again or whatever else we want to do. I have a little sample here. I'll start here with the power. Player on. For books. The desire of ages. The conflict.
00:08:26
Speaker
Okay, that just gives you a little idea of how it works. And there is a thing here where you can push and it says previous, you can go back, it'll go back and play something over again for you if you want to. I have a lady in our church. She's 98 years old.
00:08:47
Speaker
She's almost deaf and she's almost blind. I got her one of these players from the National Library for the Blind. And they send out their books and she can listen to that. But then she said to me one day, she says, Larry, I in the past have learned many memory verses. But she says, I forgot them. And I need to go over them and relearn them. What I need
00:09:15
Speaker
is the audio part of these memory verses and then so that I can punch this preview and go back and listen to it over again and go back and listen to it over again. And so I was able to download that off the internet
00:09:33
Speaker
I got somebody to help me convert it to what I needed and took it over to her and she's really happy with her memory verses. There's I think three, four, 380 some memory verses on this flash drive.
00:09:51
Speaker
So I can make copies for you, too. And if you want to put it in your player, if you have one, you can learn your memory versus that way. You go over it. You know, repetition deepens the impression, you know, and go over them and over and over again. And it's really great. So anyway, this is available. And we will have these meetings that we'll be able to play in. Every blind person doesn't have the internet. So this is available.
00:10:22
Speaker
And for those that are cited, that are donors, or whether they would like this, I might make it available for some of you that you can put in your computer, because this will play, these flash drives will play in the computer too. We continue our studies. We're in, still in Genesis. We've got all the way to chapter three though, because we're ready to look at Noah.
Noah's Faith and Righteousness
00:10:52
Speaker
Ah, Hebrews 11 has a word about Noah. Hebrews 11 verses six and seven, without faith it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. By faith, Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared in ark for the saving of his household,
00:11:20
Speaker
by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. Righteousness by faith. That's really what we're talking about. We've been talking about that all along.
00:11:32
Speaker
trusting God enough that we obey Him, even if it doesn't make any sense. We obey God rather than our scientific explanation of things. That's where Eve got in trouble, that's where most of the people in Noah's day got into trouble, and that's what we're looking at. Now, the story of Noah is a very interesting one. He was nearly 500 years old, 480, when God said, there's only gonna be 120 more years on this earth,
00:12:03
Speaker
And then the flood's coming, and you need to prepare an ark. Why was Noah picked? Genesis chapter six says, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Do you find grace in the eyes of the Lord? He wants to give you grace, but you have to believe that grace in order for it to be found in you.
00:12:31
Speaker
Noah believed God. And it was counted for him for righteousness. We must also choose to believe God and he will count it in us for righteousness. The righteousness of Jesus covers our impurities and cleanses us from all sin. So there's a lot of parts of the stories of Noah that we have curiosity about and we only are told what we're told, but
00:13:00
Speaker
He had been working on the Ark for about 20 years when the three children who are named came along. Now, some people have said that to all the children he had. Well, I don't know. But I've seen enough families to know that oftentimes parents are weeping about some of their children who have gone astray. And I can't help but wonder if Noah may have had some who were not faithful.
00:13:31
Speaker
Japheth came first. I know we usually name Shem first, but Japheth came first. Then two years later came Shem, two years after that, Ham.
00:13:50
Speaker
We see that while God oftentimes, perhaps usually, is the oldest son who is the one who is the progenitor of the Christ child, it's not always the case. It's going to have to do with the choices we make. We've got to be making right choices as we go along. I believe he was strongly influenced by some of his ancestors.
00:14:18
Speaker
Adam had been dead for 120 years when Noah was born. Seth had been gone for 10 years when Noah was born. But Enoch, well, he was translated 70 years before Noah's birth. Well, Enoch's son Methuselah, yeah, his granddad. Noah's granddad, Methuselah. What's his name, Enoch? When? When he dies? The end.
00:14:50
Speaker
I believe he had a marked influence in Noah's life. And when Noah said, grandpa, God just told me to build an ark, Methuselah says, oh, that explains it.
00:15:05
Speaker
We better get busy. And they worked, I think they worked together. And I think Lanmick, too, the daddy of Noah, were involved in the building of the Ark. Lanmick died about five years before the Ark sailed. So we kind of get a picture on this. Remember, I told you before, it was just weeks before the Ark got closed that Methuselah died. And you would have thought that that would have been a lesson for folks. What was going on in that time?
00:15:35
Speaker
Well, Genesis 6, verse 5 tells us, every intent of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually. People were thinking about wickedness all of the time. Well, what's happening in this world today?
00:15:56
Speaker
basically the same thing. And what are the sins of today? 2 Timothy chapter 2 chronicles the sins of today. And lest some of you are listening to this and saying, well, this is some of what you shared with us at blind camp in winter blind camp, the virtual blind camp we had. Yes, I'm picking up some from there. And if you're going online and looking at the Holly
00:16:25
Speaker
You can compare those two sermons and see there's some similarities. Or you can even go to the Midland Church. They've got this sermon archived. I've preached a series there. They don't all get them archived, but some of them do. But here it is. 2 Timothy 3. Let me see. 1 to 5. Okay.
00:16:53
Speaker
In the last days, perilous times will come. The thoughts of men's hearts are only evil continually. We're seeing what it means. Men will be lovers of themselves. Selfish, self-centered. Lovers of money. My, oh my, what's going on with the money market today? Boasters. Oh, and have you got into the cryptocurrencies? Lovers of money. And some people are making a mint and some people are losing their shirt.
00:17:21
Speaker
That's what happens if you love money. Boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient to parents. You see that in the grocery store. The disobedience to parents is
00:17:39
Speaker
Parents today don't know how to guide and direct their children. The children are growing up thinking that they're the boss of the family. Tragedy, disobedient to parents. God predicted it. He said it was coming. Unthankful. I'll tell you, I thank God for Jamie. He's quick to commend, quick to thank, quick to recognize something good. Thank you, Jamie.
00:18:08
Speaker
and we need more of that. But what we see around us, unthankfulness and unholy. People not wanting to be set aside for a holy purpose, not wanting to be on the side of God, very unholy. Verse three, unloving, unforgiving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal,
00:18:37
Speaker
Oh, the things that have gone on. Every once in a while Billy Reed tells me some of the stories from his prison experiences and this brutality is becoming so pandemic in this world. Despisers of good.
00:19:00
Speaker
Have you had it when you did something nice and people say you're, you're foolish or careless or they put you down for doing something nice, despises of the good. Verse four, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness without the power.
00:19:25
Speaker
They have a pretense of worshipping God, but they don't have the connection with God. That's happening today. That was happening in Noah's day. We should see a connection that Noah's day is a prophecy for our day. And the poem says that God washed the world with water the first time, but he's going to use fire next time. This sinful world will be cleansed, and water was not sufficient
00:19:55
Speaker
to cleanse it is going to take fire. And hallelujah. God knows how to bring us to fire. We're not blessed by looking at wickedness. We need to guard the windows of the soul. Be careful what you see. Be careful what you hear. Focus on the good and the right themes. Refuse to look at evil. Noah believed.
00:20:21
Speaker
When God said I'm gonna bring a flood, Noah believed. It was against science. There had never been any rain. The rivers and seas respected their boundaries. Science said a flood of water cannot happen. But God said the flood is coming.
00:20:46
Speaker
Noah had to choose whether he believed science or God just like his great great great great great grandma Eve had to choose whether she was going to believe her scientific senses or the word of the Lord and so must we. I believe the times will come when we have to believe
00:21:06
Speaker
What God says, rather than what we sense with our senses, our hearing, our eyes, our fingers, we will have to say, I know that that's a lie because it doesn't match with God's word. Noah believed what God said. I believe God told him just how to build the boat. Gave him some blueprint instructions.
00:21:33
Speaker
told him what kind of wood to use. It does matter. Wood's not all alike. And Noah chose to do what God suggested, instructed that he is a better one. When we look at woods today, we find a wide range. Some woods are very hard, some woods are very soft, but none of the woods today are as hard as the woods that were available for Noah to use in building the ark.
00:22:03
Speaker
Some of that wood worked much more like we work stone today. It was tough going. Building the ark was very, very hard work. It took 120 years to do it. It was hard work. And no, it didn't do it by himself. It's not a one-man project. I'm sure his father's helped, Methuselah and Lamech. I'm sure his sons helped, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. But I think they also hired some help.
00:22:35
Speaker
It cost Noah everything he had to build that ark. He didn't save anything back for a, well, we call it for a rainy day, but he didn't save anything back just in case this plan doesn't work. If the boat hadn't floated away, he did not have a spare house where he could live. It was all invested.
00:23:00
Speaker
in the Ark. Everything that he had, everything that he was, was trusting the word of the Lord, and so must we. We need to live with responsibility, but don't think that we can depend on anything of ourselves rather than God. We need to put an omen on the altar.
Living Ready to Meet the Lord
00:23:29
Speaker
I am, yeah, my phrase here and my note says, live ready. God says, occupy till I come, but live ready to go. And in our own experience, in the group that we have here, some of us have faced death this last year, and some of us are gone. I still miss Dr. Jim.
00:23:51
Speaker
We recognize that we may not all, probably not all of us, will be translated without seeing death, but we need to live ready to meet the Lord when he's ready for us. It's a lifestyle, a life commitment. When we read this story, we recognize that Noah's wife and boys will meet him.
00:24:20
Speaker
They were ready to get on the Ark. And somewhere, the boys found godly wives. That's something to always be praying about, that we find a spouse who will help us get closer to God rather than lead us away from God. I praise the Lord the gift he gave me in Bonnie. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. In your own life experience, it matters that you have a spouse
00:24:49
Speaker
that can help point you to God, better to not have any at all than to have one that doesn't. So it's huge, it matters. An interesting thing, you know, we sing the song about red, brown, yellow, black, and white, all are precious in his sight. We learned that in children in Sabbath school. There are three races, three major races in the world today, the Oriental, the Negroid, and the Caucasian.
00:25:19
Speaker
And if you are a student of history, you know that all three of those races have been stigmatized, enslaved, looked down on at some point in history. And we're all precious in his side. There's really no difference. It was when I was doing census work in 2020.
00:25:39
Speaker
that I discovered that 500 years ago, the most expensive and sought-after slaves were teenage Caucasian girls from the Caucasus Mountains in Russia. And even yet today, calling somebody a Caucasian is virtually the same as here in America calling somebody a nigger. It's a stigmatizing phrase. And here on our question, you know, what race are you?
00:26:10
Speaker
We check that one that says Caucasian and don't realize that there's a stigma to that. But every race has been stigmatized, and we must each recognize as children of God, we're his. We're all part of the human race, and he loves us each. And we dare not look down at anyone, nor do we need to think of ourselves as anything less than children of God. Amen.
00:26:39
Speaker
Three sons, and each of those sons found a wife, and now we have three major groups of people in the world. Isn't it strange that in the face of several marked miracles, the people who chose not to get on the Ark, still chose not to get on the Ark, they were unrepentant? Methuselah died right on time.
00:27:05
Speaker
And people didn't say, well, Methuselah has died. I guess that's a sign that whatever Noah has been preaching is true. It did not persuade them. People are not going to be persuaded by miracles. I believe soon after Methuselah died, the animals started coming, two by two. And you can buy in the stores, you can buy arks with two by two animal pairs. It's really precious.
00:27:34
Speaker
Very rarely do you find the ones with the seven clean animals, and I don't get involved in the argument about, was it seven pairs of clean animals, or was it seven clean animals? When we get to glory, if you need to know those details, you'll share with us. But the people saw the animals coming.
00:27:56
Speaker
directed and guided by God, walking up into the ark and Noah directing them to their own stall. Each one had its place. God had told him how to do this. And the building of the stalls in the ark would have provided some structural stability to that ark. People did not recognize that miracle and changed their minds. Convert, turn to God.
00:28:25
Speaker
Which animals came? Well, in Genesis 1, verses 24 and 25, God speaks of the kinds of animals. I think those are the ones that came. I do believe that the antediluvians, that is the people before the flood, had done a bunch of, gene splicing is the word we use for it today, amalgamating various kinds of animals, and God let those die.
00:28:54
Speaker
He did not bring them onto the Ark. He brought his Genesis kind onto the Ark. And I know we've done some specialized breeding. There was probably just one pair of cows and now there's what, 50 different breeds of cows and there was probably just a pair of, they're suggesting now there was probably wolves and now we have
00:29:15
Speaker
200 or 500 different breeds of dogs in the world. We've done some specialized and selective stuff in this, but God didn't need to bring all 500 breeds of dogs two by two. No, one pair, and then we have done amazing things with it. I think there was some really messed up species that they're finding in the Vassar record. Dangerous, scary stuff.
00:29:46
Speaker
They didn't come onto the Ark. And one more miracle that should have said to people, God's in charge of this, the door for the Ark was something big enough that humans could not pick it up and put it into place. Now I know there's levers and that kind of thing, but that's not how it was closed.
00:30:14
Speaker
God had directed and Noah left this door open. I think it became the ramp into the Ark. And when everybody was on it, God, with the light of glory, sent angels to close this door. And the people saw the door closed, miraculously saw the door closed, and they still did not repent. Why is that important? Because the story of
00:30:43
Speaker
Jonah and Nineveh lets us know if they had repented, God would have given them more space. God is a God of mercy and grace. The fact that they did not repent but ridiculed Noah, how is any of their old men? Is it starting to stink yet? They shouted their insults up at him.
00:31:10
Speaker
rather than repenting and saying, God, I'm on the wrong side. Help me. I believe that there were religious leaders calling themselves servants of Jehovah God, doing sacrifices, going to church, who ridiculed Noah, called him a fanatic, said he was way out in the left field.
00:31:38
Speaker
And that's still happening today. There are religious leaders in all of our communities who are saying that our commitment to obeying and believing that God meant it when he put the word remember in one of the commandments that he wanted us to remember that particular commandment. But the religious leaders are saying, forget that one, set it aside. Let's do something different.
00:32:08
Speaker
I believe Noah had to face strong leaders of religious groups who told him he was very wrong. Now, I believe there were also those who were steeped in wickedness and didn't even come and listen to Noah's sermons. They were having too much of a high time. We're facing that today.
00:32:34
Speaker
And God's calling us to be as it were Noah's in these last days, preaching righteousness, inviting people to have a walk with God, as did Enoch, ready to walk from this world into the next with our Lord.
Miracles of Grace and Faith
00:32:52
Speaker
2 Peter 3, 3 through 7.
00:32:56
Speaker
scoffers will come in the last days walking according to their own lusts and say, where is the promise of his coming? Do you hear the echo of those people that were criticizing Noah as he got in the ark? Since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. They said it was impossible for rain to fall. And now people are saying it's impossible for this world to end in a cataclysm.
00:33:26
Speaker
in the clouds of glory, this they willfully forget by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water by which the world that then existed perished being flooded with water.
00:33:46
Speaker
The evidence of the flood is all around us in this world. But the so-called scientists have set that evidence aside and give alternate explanations so that they can refuse to believe the Bible story of creation and the flood. A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. God invites, but he does not coerce. The conversion is
00:34:16
Speaker
always a miraculous process. Praise God that God found you where you were and brought you to himself, and you're here at Blind Camp sharing the love and the joy of serving the Lord. Hallelujah! There is a miracle in each one of our stories. And we thank you for that. And we look at those who are refusing the miracle of His grace, and we weep, but we cannot force.
00:34:47
Speaker
We personally choose to believe the promises of God and honor him. Let go of self, let God work on us. There is a benefit in those. Some of you remember the churches that had the mourners' bench. The front row was reserved for those who were seeking the Lord, wanting a walk with him, and they would come to that front bench and they would
00:35:12
Speaker
pray and they would be prayed for. There's room for that. Asking God to come into our life. It's a very personal and individual experience opening yourself up to God. God does invite us to test him. I think of Malachi 3 verse 10. Noah put everything he had into the ark.
00:35:34
Speaker
God says to us, bring the tithe into the storehouse and prove me, test me down herewith, if I will not, open the windows of heaven and pour out upon you. So much blessing that you don't know what to do with it all. And I know it personally and experientially, but you see where it starts. Put God first in your life and He'll take care of the rest. Oh, how He does.
00:36:04
Speaker
When you're filling out your tax form, you try to figure out everything you can to reduce your incomes, and you don't have to pay taxes on any more than you absolutely have to. Returning tithe to God is not like taxes. Use the biggest number you can find to say, God, this is how I want to respond to your grace. Use the biggest number, the gross, not the net. Try to say, how much more can I give to God? And watch what he does.
00:36:33
Speaker
Watch what he does. He multiplies it in ways that I didn't know it could work like that. No, you don't have to know that it works like that. Trust him, it does work. He blesses what he has given to us before.
Noah's Survival and the Rainbow Promise
00:36:50
Speaker
It was only the power of God that Noah and his family survived that flood. The storm was so terrible
00:36:58
Speaker
that if the angels had not held that ark together, as well built as it was, as strong as those timbers were, it would have been destroyed. But God protected the ark. In fact, I am convinced from some study I've done that Satan was afraid that he was going to drown in this storm.
00:37:19
Speaker
that it was so bad that he was afraid for his very life, even though he was still trying to figure out how he could take out Noah and the promised seed of the Messiah. When Noah exited the ark.
00:37:35
Speaker
from his scarcity. Remember, there were only a few of any of the animals, but of course, one clue on this, the only clean animals are appropriate to use as a sacrifice. But he took some of those animals and sacrificed them to God as a thank offering. Thank you, Lord, that you have preserved us from this flood and brought us safely on the other side.
00:38:04
Speaker
God instituted a rainbow. I know the rainbows men then misused. Of course, any symbol God gives for righteousness is being misused. The devil tries to take us away from God, but go back to the beginning and recognize those beautiful symbols of God's grace. The rainbow is a sign of God's promise that this earth will continue
00:38:28
Speaker
until he does the restoration work that needs to be done. And that's particularly in the lives of humans. He's much more interested in the people than he is in the environment. Not that we should be careless with the environment, but God is looking for us. God recognizes and respects the gifts that we return to him, but he invites us to trust him.
00:38:54
Speaker
He wants us to trust him with our very lives, as did Noah, that he can be glorified. May we understand his grace experientially and walk with him day by day and through his passing moment. Praise his Lord. What a story we have in your protection and guidance to Noah.
00:39:19
Speaker
And in our own lives, we recognize that you have protected, you have guided, you have helped us. We praise you, Lord, and we thank you. You are God. We are so glad that you are our God and that you are our Savior. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you again. Pastor, we really appreciate these messages. We need another week of this.
00:40:13
Speaker
This completes another episode of... Thank you for listening. Until next time, God bless.