The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his117/looking.lzh/LOOKING.TXT

Text File | 1991-07-08 | 31.6 KB | 523 lines

SER:Looking unto Jesus

   You know, if a man could just keep his eyes on Jesus all the time,
he'd have it made. But the trouble is, these eyes are made to see
things that are material, and they're not made to see things that are
spiritual. Now, looking out across this building today, I don't see
anything spiritual. I feel; I sense something. But I can't see it. I
mean, there's the building; I see that; that isn't spiritual. I see the
light bulbs; that isn't spiritual. There's the board; that isn't
spiritual. I see your bodies; I see your clothes; that isn't spiritual.
Your eyes are made to see things that are physical. And this passage
says, "Looking unto Jesus." Well, where are you going to look for Him?
I mean, if I look around there, He's not there. If I look behind me,
He's not there. I look inside, I can't see through my body. The Bible
says my body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, but I couldn't see the
Holy Ghost if I could see through my body. And so I've got a problem.
And if you ever solve that problem, 95 percent of your problems are
solved.

   Looking unto Jesus. Now, the first thing I want to say about the
text is, that He's yours to look at. I mean, some people don't have
him. But if you're saved, if you're God's child, then, He's yours to
look at. He's mine to look at. He's mine to behold. He's mine to dwell
with. He said the Holy Spirit will dwell with you, and my Father and I
shall come into that man and abide with him. He's mine to dwell with;
He's mine to behold. He's mine to bear my burdens. He's mine to conquer
my enemies. He's mine to share my load and carry it for me.

   One time a man went to a hospital in London and got to dealing with
different people, and as he was dealing with different people, he came
up to one fellow there, and he said, "Can I help you any?" And the man
didn't answer. And every day that young preacher went through that
hospital he stopped by that bed and he said, "Can I help you any?" And
the fellow never did answer. And about the fifth day he went through
there and went by the same bed and said to this young fellow who was
dying, "Can I help you any?" And the young fellow said, "Well, I've
been very rude to you, preacher." He said, "Maybe you can, I don't
know." But he said, "Would you please me something?" He said, "Can you
undo my sins?" He said, "They're a burden to me." And, of course, there
isn't a preacher in the world who can undo your sins. But He can.
Looking unto Jesus. He can, see? He can carry them. He can tote the
load.

   He's yours for a burden bearer. He's yours to dwell with. He's yours
to love. He's yours to share things with. He's yours to prepare a place
for you in heaven. He's yours in life. He's yours in death. He's yours
in the grave. He's yours at the judgment. He's yours at the marriage of
the Lamb. He said, "Unto him that is able to present you faultless
before the presence of His glory, with exceeding joy." Uh, you can look
unto Him. See? He's yours. He's gonna get you through. He's gonna get
you through clean, spotless, perfect, sinless. My, what a job! What a
task! But He's gonna do it!

   One time a lady back east hung a bunch of clothes out on the line on
winter afternoon. She was talking to a visitor, and they were remarking
how white and clean the clothes look. And about that time a snow flurry
came up and turned into a mild blizzard, and the snow began to fall,
and she said, "Well, my clothes don't look as white as they did." And
the visitor said, "Well, they're just as white as they were. They just
don't look quite as white alongside God's white." See? When God's white
comes down, the rest looks real dirty.

   And when you look at Jesus, see, you see the real thing. You see the
real whiteness. You won't see it looking in a mirror. You see it
looking unto Jesus. Keep looking unto Jesus.

   All right, look unto Jesus. Look unto Jesus--how? Looking unto Jesus
crucified, buried, risen, coming again. And LOOK to Him. As long as you
can look to Him, look on Him, you're safe. Simon Peter was out there
walking on the water, and he goes along that water, and pretty soon the
winds begin to blow, and the waves begin to come up, and he says, "I'm
sinking." He said, "Lord, save me." And Jesus hauls him out and says,
"Wherefore didst thou doubt, O ye of little faith?" He was all right as
long as looked to Jesus, and when he quit looking at Jesus, then he had
problems.

   All right, we're to look at Jesus, and we're to look at nothing
else. Looking unto Jesus--not Satan. Looking unto Jesus. You shouldn't
be ignorant of the devil's devices. You ought to know what he's up to,
but don't look at him too long. He'll hypnotize you. Looking unto
Jesus--not the devil. Not your obstacles. Not your defeats. Not the
sorrows. Not the troubles. Looking unto Jesus. Don't look at the
troubles. You'll quit. Don't look at the obstacles. You'll give up.

   Young people--especially young men--they--uh--something about them,
this generation, I guess I was a bigger puzzle to my mother and father.
But they come along and they amaze me how soon they quit a thing. It's
just amazing to me how they start a thing and then just drop it, you
know. Just go along--QUIT. You turn around--where was it, man? I don't
know what in the world happened to the thing-- just--PPPFFT!--and go
on!! I don't know what in the world happens to folks like that. Uh, yes
I do. They quit looking to Jesus. They get looking at the wind, see?
They get looking at the waves. They look at the troubles, and they quit.

   Why, a fellow said to a soldier over in Heartbreak Ridge in Korea,
he said, "Young fellow," he said, "wouldn't you like to be a
Christian?" And the fellow turned and said, "Who are you?" And he said,
"Well," he said, "I'm a newspaper man who came over here, but," he
said, "I'm a saved man." He said, "I've been talking to some of these
boys up here on the front in these holes." And he said, "Well, what do
you think the trouble with this war is? If you don't want to be a
Christian, talk to me and tell me something I can give the paper."

   And the young kid said, "Well, I'll tell you what the trouble with
this world is. And I'll tell you want the trouble over here is." He
said, "Your God has let us down." The fellow wouldn't get saved, you
know, he wouldn't trust God, but he told the Christian, "You're God let
us down." He was looking at the obstacles, see, looking at the troubles.

   Why, I know a Christian family one time, they're godly people, they
love the Lord, just about as fine a couple people as you ever saw, they
fell in love with each other, they got married, they didn't have any
children for five years, and they prayed all the time for God to give
him a child, and they finally got one. And it was a baby with Down's
syndrome, you know, what they used to call Mongoloids. You know what
they had to do? They had to look to Jesus, see? You can't look at your
troubles. You can't look at your problems. You'll quit. You'll just
give up. You'll give up.

   Looking unto Jesus, not your problems. Not your defeats. Not your
troubles. None of those things. You can't let them get you down. Not
looking at Satan. Not looking at those problems. You know, God doesn't
always interfere and stop the wicked. God doesn't always interfere and
stop the devil. Sometimes it seems like He just lets the devil just run
away with the whole cotton-picking thing. And you can't look at it too
close.

   There was a godless ol' captain back along there about, oh, 1600,
1700, called Hawkins. An English captain, and was of Bloody Mary's kin.
And he used to take a ship down around the African coast, and he'd
steal the Africans, you know, and sell 'em for slaves. And he'd steal
'em and put 'em in chains on his ship. When he put them in chains on
his ship, they all sat there on the deck chained together, and they saw
the name of the ship on the bow, and written several places inside the
ship. And he christened that ship "The Jesus." "The Jesus." You know.
So every black fellow who was sold into slavery would come over there
thinking about Jesus carrying him off as a captive and carrying him off
in chains to sell him. Wasn't he a fine fellow?

   And, you know, that fellow didn't die until he was about 85 years
old, and God never sank that ship, and it never had a wreck, and never
got caught. And, you know, if you just look at the obstacles, you'll
just quit. The power of the devil is too great.

   You look to Jesus, not your troubles. You look to Jesus. A fellow
one time had one thirteen operations and thirty-nine blood
transfusions. And a preacher talked with him at the hospital, and said,
"What do you think about these things? You're a saved man, what do you
think about them?" And the fellow said, "Well, preacher, I don't know
what to think about them." He said, "I know the end of this thing is
going to be death." He said, "I know in the end I'm gonna die." But he
said, "I just pray death will come right along, but it doesn't seem to
come." And, you know, when you get in a thing like that, you know what
you have to do? You have to look to Jesus.

   Looking unto Jesus...there's no other place to look! See? Your flat
on your back. You've got to look up. And my text says, "Looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." All right, you can't look
at the world. He says, "Looking unto Jesus, not to the world." Looking
unto Jesus, not to your brethren, not at other Christians. Don't look
at the world too long. I don't take any newspapers or magazines any
more at the house. I'm getting to the place where if a newspaper or
magazine comes to the house, I have to smuggle it out of the place and
burn it. If that stuff goes into the trash, any more there's people in
my neighborhood who come by and look through your trash, pass the
information on, sometimes throwing something away isn't enough, because
it could still do damage. Maybe you should burn it. You can't look at
the world too long. I have a radio in my car, but don't have one in my
house. I have a TV set, but I'm finding less and less time or
inclination to turn it on. I don't take a great deal of time any more
to try and find out what's going on in the world. KNX NewsRadio used to
be my favorite radio station. Then, back around Christmas, my radio
went dead in my car, and I didn't bother to fix it. I found out I
didn't miss it! Things in the world are just too stinkin' bad! You
know, if you just get that ol' world in you and in your eye all day
long, you'll quit too! Cause it's a mess.

   And looking unto Jesus, not at the brethren. And that's hard to do.
That's hard to do. You know, I see you all the time. And you see me all
the time, and we see US all the time! And those eyes just keep-- you
know--looking and staring, and folks just get looking at each other and
criticize each other and analyze each other, and figuring each other
out. Why, you know, the dumbest person in the world is just like a
psychologist, you know that? You know some people are proud of their
education, of their degrees. Some men DIE by degrees! I've met ol'
folks up in the farm country, you know, never finished high school.
They got a mind just like a razor, boy. Eye just like a gimlet, just
figure you out in five seconds. You know what people do? They just sit
around and analyze folks and criticize folks and weigh folks up and
match folks out and compare folks to folks. You know what they do while
they're doing all that? They're not witnessing, they're not passing out
tracts, they're not winning souls, they're not praying, they're not
bearing fruit, they're not doing anything but looking at each other.
That Bible says, "They measuring themselves among themselves, and
comparing themselves by themselves are not wise" (II Corinthians
10:12). You know what they ought to do? They ought to look unto Jesus.

   Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. That's it.
You have to keep your eyes on Jesus. Looking unto Jesus, and, listen to
me. Not only looking unto Jesus, but looking unto Jesus and not to the
dearest loved one that you have. God's people, they say, "Well, it's
wrong to look at everybody and criticize them, but what's wrong with
loving your mother? What's wrong with loving your wife? What's wrong
with loving your children?" Well, I'll tell you what's wrong, if they
get your eyes off Jesus, the dearest person in this world can be a
stumbling block to you.

   Looking unto Jesus--not the dearest and closest to you. It says,
"Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who for the
joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and
is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

   The dearest person in this world, the dearest thing in this world,
if they get your eyes off Jesus, will cause you trouble. They say many
years ago, over in Germany--and this is just a story they tell--they
say there was a shepherd out on the hillside. And he found a beautiful
white flower that he had never seen before. And he bent over and picked
up that flower. And when he picked up that flower, a hole opened on the
side of the cliff, and that shepherd kid looked in there, and there
were diamonds, and rubies, and jasper and gold and statues and vases
and jugs and pottery and tapestries and silver and gold and God knows
what. And that shepherd boy RAN in there, just elated. And he heard a
voice say, "Take anything you want. Help yourself. But don't forget to
take the best." And, man, that kid dropped that flower and began to
pick up that stuff and crammed his pockets full of that stuff, and he
went through there and got loaded down with so much junk he could
hardly walk out of there. And, as he walked through the hole, the voice
said, "Don't forget to take the best." And the kid went back and looked
around there to make sure he had the most valuable thing in the place,
and walked back out to the hillside. And, as the story goes, when he
stepped out that old cave closed up behind him, and everything in his
pocket, his jacket, and his haversack just turned to ashes. And the
voice said, "You forgot the best!" And then he thought, well, "I'd
better go back and get it." And when he went around but couldn't get
back in the place. And then he began to look for the flower. And then
he remembered he dropped the thing, you know, inside the cave, and it
was back there in the cave. And he never did get in again. You see, he
forgot the thing that opened the thing up.

   And Christian people, I'll tell you, there was a time when some of
you were poor, but you're not poor any more. Some of you were in bad
health, and you're in good health today. And there was a time when some
of you were nothing but tramps and bums on the face of this earth, and
now you're somebody. And, listen, there was a time when you had no
treasure in heaven, your heart was down here, and God has saved you,
and you've got a lot of good things, see, but DON'T FORGET THE BEST! I
mean don't forget the One who gave it to you, that's Jesus. If you
hadn't run into Him you wouldn't have anything.

   So, He says, "Look unto Jesus," see? That's the best. Looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Don't look at your
beloved. Don't look at the brethren. Don't look at some cause. I don't
care if it's the greatest, most precious cause in this world-- it isn't
the best. You know, you and I live in a day and age when work is a
substitute for loving Jesus Christ--you know that? You get to going
doing something for him, and all the accent is on what you're doing for
him instead of you and Him. And the best is Him. The best is Jesus.

   The text says, "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith." Don't look to some cause. Don't look to yourself. If you want
the blessing, we shouldn't look to ourselves, people. Don't look at
yourself. You're weak, you're stumbling. Don't look at your successes.
Don't look at your failures. Don't look at your weaknesses. Looking
unto Jesus. Don't look at your doubts. Don't look at your personality.
Don't look at your gifts. Why, you can't get the victory that way. I
know some Christians spend all the time looking at the gifts God gave
them. Why, you look at the gifts God gave you, and what if you lose
them? You'd think God took them away from you. But then you say, "Well,
the gifts and calling of God are without repentance," so I still got
'em. Then you get proud of them. You say, well, "So and so can't speak
in tongues. But I did!" You get your eye on the gift.

   Looking unto Jesus. You don't look at your doubts. You don't look at
your faith. Why, I don't even try to analyze my faith in Jesus Christ.
I've known people in the last five years that got so busy analyzing how
they felt about Christ, and whether or not they exercised the right
kind of faith, and whether or not they did the right thing, they just
about went stark raving mad thinking about it. You don't look unto your
mind, you don't look unto your feelings, you don't look unto your
heart, it's looking unto Jesus.

   Don't look at your victories. Don't look at your defeats. You know,
a person who looks at their victories all the time, they're going to
get a false view of things. Nobody wins every time. I think some young
people think you've got to win every time, you know, or you're a
failure. Well, man, you're not anything till you've flopped three or
four times in a good faith way. I'm not recommending that you drop out
or anything, you know, but I mean you'll learn some things by messing
up you can't learn any other way. And you'll never learn to outdo
anything unless you make some mistakes. Uh, you take ol' Adolph Hitler.
You know what one of his main problems was? He never looked at his
defeats. He just looked at his victories. And, pretty soon, he got to
thinking that EVERYTHING was a victory, when it was a DISASTER! Did you
know the Union armies had that trouble in the Civil War? All they
looked at was their defeats. They were just the reverse. Every time
they got whipped, they'd go home and think, "Well, good night, we're
outnumbered, we don't dare attack, we don't dare counterattack." And
when ol' Robert E. Lee hit them in Gettysburg, after that battle was
over, General Meade could have wound up the war in about three hours,
if he would have attacked. But he was scared to death! You know why he
was scared to death? He'd been whipped so many times before, all he
could do was get his mind on the defeats. Same thing at Antietam; they
could've cleaned them up them. You can't look at your defeats. You
can't look at your victories. You gotta look unto Jesus. You gotta look
unto Jesus.

   You take ol' Elijah. He was out under a juniper tree, remember, and
he got there under that juniper tree, and lay down, and wished that
he'd die. And he said, "I'm no better than my fathers." Of course, that
was true. But the Lord knew that all along. And he said, "I'm no better
than my fathers. Take my life," you know, and all that business. You
know what his trouble was? He had a tremendous victory. And when he had
that tremendous victory, he got his eye on that victory, and then right
after that victory, he had a defeat. And then he got his eye on the
defeat, and he just was up, and down, and flopped, and ready to quit.
You can't look at your victories. You can't look at your defeats.

   The verse says, "Looking unto Jesus." Paul said, "Forgetting those
things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are
before, I press forth for the mark of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus." The Christian should keep his eyes on Jesus. I wish I could
keep my eyes on Jesus like some unsaved man keep their eye on a goal.
You know, I've known some unsaved men, and God knows they're lost and
going to hell, and that was that. But, I'll tell you one thing. They
sure had an eye, and they could sure keep their eye on the goal too,
brother.

   I think of a fellow whose name was Adolphe Topervine. In 1906 he was
the world's best rifle shot. He put Annie Oakley in the shade. And
Adolphe Topervine, you know what he said? He was a Vaudeville trick
shooter, and he told a bunch of folks out in Texas one time, he said,
"I'm gonna do something nobody's ever seen, and the world's never seen
before." And bets were wagered on it, and here's what he said. He said,
"I'm gonna have a man throw up little clay squares, and they were
manufactured two and a half inches square." And he said, "I'm gonna
have them thrown up eight hours a day for twelve days." And, he said,
"I'm going to try to hit every one of them." And he went out there in
front of a big crowd, and for twelve days, that old boy fired that
rifle, not a shotgun. A rifle--EIGHT hours a day in December 1906--out
there in Texas. He fired those shots EIGHT hours a day for twelve days,
and he missed NINE pellets--NINE of them--out of 72,000. They threw one
up every five seconds. And threw that things up, and out of 72,000,
that bird missed nine of them. You know that's some shooting? And about
the ninth day that fellow came out to shoot, and that arm was almost
paralyzed from bursitis. Just about tore to pieces the ninth day. He
fired for twelve days. Now, that fellow had an eye, you know that?
Just--bam, and bam, and bam, and bam, and bam--eight hours. I mean,
eight in the morning to four in the afternoon for twelve days. That
fellow had his eye on it.

   You know, if I could just get my eyes on the Lord like that, you
know. And, I imagine his arm was hurting him, but he had his eye on the
pellet, see. And, I imagine his body was hurting him, and his eyes were
going bloodshot, and his mouth getting dry, and his arm muscles
twitching. But he had his eye on it, you see? And the verse says,
"Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." And I don't
care how bad it gets, and it's going to get pretty bad, folks, if the
Lord tarries--there's ONE thing you should do. Like the Lord said in
one place, "One thing is needful." And, I'll tell you, if there's
anything in this world that's needful for the Christian, it's to keep
his eyes on Jesus Christ. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith.

   We shouldn't have our eyes on our sorrows. We shouldn't have our
eyes on our disillusionments. We shouldn't have our eyes on our ideas.
We shouldn't have our eyes on trials and tribulations. They ought to be
on Jesus.

   A fellow one time, an old Dutchman, was up in the rigging of a ship
many years ago, when they had the old sailing vessels. And he fell
down. And when he fell down and hit that deck, they thought he was
dead. And he came to about thirty minutes later, and asked how manage
had been done. And they said, "Well," they said, "You're just bruised
up pretty bad, but you did break a leg." And he said, "Well, thank God
it wasn't my neck!" You know, that's the way to face it, see? Don't get
your eye on the leg that was broken, get your eye on the one that isn't
broken.

   One time a railroad man lost an arm in an accident, a railroad
accident, and had to have it amputated, you know. And he said, "Well,
thank God, it was the one that had arthritis!" That took care of that,
brother! And, you see, there's a way to look at that thing, you see?

   Now, many of you folks you know me. I'm about as negative as I can
be when it comes to a lot of things. But like I told someone recently,
there's one place you can ALWAYS be positive, and that's in the Lord's
dealings with you. See? I mean, Romans 8:28. There's one place you can
be positive, if the Lord's dealing with YOU now, it's gonna work out.
Looking unto Jesus.

   Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Don't put
your eyes on your sorrows, your joys. Look unto Jesus. Look unto Jesus
NOW, brother. NOW! Look unto Jesus ALWAYS. Look unto Jesus, and look
unto Jesus ONLY. Don't look anywhere else. Don't look at the Law. By
the law is the knowledge of sin. Don't look at your feelings. Your
feelings change. Don't look at your neighbor; he's probably just like
you. Don't look at yourself--you're no good, never have been, never
will be. These folks--I mean, until the Lord comes, you'll get by, the
Lord'll feed you. But you're never gonna be perfect until Christ comes.
There's no use looking at yourself. I'll just let you in on a little
secret--I think about 80 percent of all the psychologists in the world
are half crazy. I really do. You know why I do? I've lived with myself
and tried to counsel people over these years enough to know that if a
man just sits around, analyzing his own mind and other people's minds
all the time, he'll go BUGS, man! You can't keep looking at yourself
forever, you'll crack!

   They gave a South Pacific woman a mirror, you know, one of those
missionaries. She took one look at that mirror and she slapped that
thing down and broke it all to pieces, and they heard her say in her
own dialect, "Well, now I won't look like THAT any more!" You know, she
got rid of the mirror, thought she got rid of herself! They say, these
love birds die of a broken heart. I don't know what kind of birds they
are, but they're two little birds, you know, you buy them in pairs and
put them in a cage, and if one of them dies, the other one dies, you
know. You take one out, the other one dies. And they said one fellow
found a way to beat that thing. He bought one bird and put a mirror in
there. Every time that bird would hop around and see itself in the
mirror, you know, and think it was another bird. And one day somebody
broke the mirror. And that little bird, instead of dying of a broken
heart, he died of a broken mirror.

   But, you know, the moral of that thing is, folks, you just can't
spend all your time looking at yourself. I think of a couple of folks I
know, that I've watched over a period of years, watched those people,
and instead of those folks growing in grace and growing in the
knowledge of the Lord, and instead of them appreciating their blessings
more and feeling sorry for other people, and getting out ministering
and doing something for God, I've watched those people through the
years, and those people have withdrawn into themselves, and withdrawn
into themselves, and withdrawn into themselves, till I honestly believe
if they don't quit it they're going to wind up in a sanitarium. You
just can't go that way! You got to get out with them. You got to deal
with folks. You got to minister to folks. But most of all, most of all,
you got to keep your eyes on Jesus.

   Now Paul said this. He said, "Forgetting those things which are
behind," he said, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus." In plainer words, upward, brother, and
onward.

   Years ago a daddy was doing some carpenter work at a certain house,
and his own house was right next door. He was helping out a neighbor.
And he got up there about a third story, and was doing some work up
there. And he was horrified. He looked down the shingles where he was
working, and coming up that ladder, which was over 15 feet high, was
his four-year-old boy. And that four-year-old boy had seen the daddy
climbing up the ladder. And the little boy was just following Daddy,
you know, took him on up. And so the boy climbed up the ladder after
his daddy, the daddy looked at that boy and hardly dared breathe to see
what that boy was gonna do. And then, what he feared would happen
happened. That boy suddenly looked down. And when he looked down at the
bottom of that ladder, he got dizzy and giddy. You know, the ground
began to swim up there, he was up about 13 feet high in the air. And
the old man thought he was going to fall off for sure. And the old man
said, "Boy," he said, "look up!" And that boy was hanging on that
ladder, and suddenly looked up and saw his daddy and smiled, and came
on up the ladder and forgot about how the ground was going, you know.

   And when it gets rough, you know, and that thing begins to swim
under your feet, and you begin to lose your balance--look up! Look up.
Looking unto Jesus, see? Looking unto Jesus. Looking unto Jesus. Not
yourself, not your neighbor, not the devil, not the world, not your
feelings, not your victories, not your defeats, not your successes, not
your faith, not your doubt, not your sincerity, not your resolutions.
Jesus! Jesus! Looking unto Jesus. The author and finisher of your faith.

   Napolean at the battle of Marengo had a drummer boy. And that
drummer boy was supposed to know all the beats a drummer boy was
supposed to know. And at a certain place in the battle things really
got bad. And Napoleon thought his troups were going to have to retreat,
and saw it was going to be a disaster if they didn't retreat, and he
called that drummer boy and he said, "Beat a retreat." And that drummer
boy said, "Sire, I don't want to seem insolent." And he said, "I can't
disobey an order." But he said, "I was never taught how to beat a
retreat." And Napoleon said, "Well, WHAT do you know how to beat?" And
the kid said, "I know how to beat a CHARGE!" And he demonstrated,
BRRRRRRRR he rolled that thing on! And those troups were all heading
one way, they heard it and started heading the other, and they got to
the main point and got passed the plank, and the battle turned, and the
thing was over, and it was won!

   And I'll tell you folks, when it gets bad, real bad, there's only
one solution in the world for the Christian, and what I'm going to say,
I say for every man, woman, and child in this building, you gotta look
unto Jesus. And, listen, if you're an unsaved person here, the solution
is exactly the same for you. You unsaved people, you get your eyes off
the preacher, you get 'em off your wife, you get 'em off your husband,
you get 'em off your kids, you get 'em off the church, you get 'em off
the government, you get 'em off the newspaper, you get 'em off
yourself, you get 'em away from the mirror, and you get your eyes on
Jesus, you'll be saved before I finish this message. That's the trouble
with folks. Looking. Looking. What you lookin' for? Look unto Jesus.
Look unto Jesus, brother. Don't look at the person sitting next to you.
They may never lead you to Christ. Don't look at the person sitting
next to you. You're going to stand at the judgment alone. There may be
20 million between you, when you get judged, and the person sitting
next to you right now. That Bible says "Every one of us shall give
account of himself to God." Maybe God will judge you, and after He
finishes judging 300,000 other people, the person sitting next to you,
it'll be their turn. Looking unto Jesus. Looking unto Jesus. You know,
I've drawn you kind of a wild picture here. And I guess you know that
song about stairway to the stars is not exactly a scriptural thing, and
yet you know Jacob went to sleep one night, and when Jacob dreamed he
dreamed about a ladder, and he saw a ladder whose bottom was on the
earth, and the top went to heaven, and he saw the angels of God
ascending and descending on that ladder, and Christ said to a man in
the New Testament, "You're going to see the angels of God ascending and
descending on the Son of man." So, you know what a Christian is like? A
Christian is like a man who's got the ladder, he's got the One who
said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," and he's just trying to
keep his eyes on the right place. See? You don't look behind you. Paul
said, "I press forward." You don't look down to the earth. The things
that are seen are temporal. The things that are not seen are eternal.
Keep looking up.

   And my text says, "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of
our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of
God."

   Let's bow our heads for prayer.