<TITLE>06. Par 22-26</TITLE>L-22 And we're grateful that we have hungry hearts to hear Thy Word. Continue to hunger our hearts for Thee, Lord, as David of old said, "As the hart panteth for the waterbrook, my soul thirsts after Thee." Thinking of the little hart, the deer as we would call him today, that he's been torn by the wild dogs, and he's bleeding. He's losing his life, and he must find water if he expects to exist. Once he finds water his life is renewed. May we be that thirsty, Lord, that we must have Christ if we exist, we must have Christ if we become the Church that we're asking for. If we live the lives that we are wanting to live, we must have Christ or we will die.
Now, as we open Thy Word this morning to find consolation and stepping stones to bring us closer to Him, I pray, Father, that the Holy Spirit will open the Word to us, that we, Lord, as Thy servants, will be better equipped to face the new year. For we ask it in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

L-24 Now, thinking this morning that, on the basis of being New Year, I thought it would be good maybe that I would lay aside my New Year's message until tonight, and go back here in some Sunday school Scriptures, and take a text to talk on for a while, on one of the most vital subjects that I know of in the Bible. It's a doctrine that our Lord preached first, the first doctrine that Jesus preached, and I suppose it would be good to make it our first year's teaching.

L-25 Now, is it cool for any of you, raise up your hand, feel a little chilly? I thought I felt it up here. Doc, wherever you are, kinda turn the furnace up just a little, because I feel it here moving around. I know you're bound to out there, some of you people, especially with the children.

L-26 Now, let us turn in our Bibles this morning to Ephesians the 4th chapter of Ephesians, and let's begin reading at the 11th, the 11th verse of the 4th chapter of Ephesians. And then we're going to turn then from then--from there, to John 3:1-12, and read two places in the Scripture. Reading now from the 4th chapter of Ephesians and the 11th verse, beginning...
And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets;... some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
For the perfecting of the saints, for the working of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Till we all come into... unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto the perfect, a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
But speaking the truth in love, may grow up unto him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
For whom the whole body is fitly joined together and compact by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, making increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.


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