I did everybody so glad you joined us. I'm telling you, I consider it a tremendous blessing. When I think that you would take time out of your schedule here on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings from 7.30 to 8 o'clock to join this old preacher around the Word of God. I know there's a lot of other things you could be doing.
And if you happen not to have time to join us at the regular time, you can always make sure you DVR this or record it in some way and just listen and watch and join us anytime you can. It's a joy to be here on WVLR. We're from a little town called Atkins, Virginia. Let me say here as we begin tonight, you can look us up on Facebook, Freedom Tabernacle Ministries, Atkins, Virginia, our website, ftministries.org.
And you can find out so much more about us there. We have expanded the ministry yet again here recently. We have a shelter facility for young ladies that are having some difficulty in their life. Either just getting out of jail, homeless, struggling, addictions, things like that, and able to help them back on their feet.
We also work with families there, and we're the only shelter, sadly, within miles around of our locality. So pray for us. Check us out. We have recently purchased this almost 5,000 square foot house with another 1,500 square foot in the basement.
So you're looking at about 6,400 square feet, nine bedrooms, six bathrooms. Our insurance company tells us to cover it and then reconstruct it. If we lose it and have to build it back as it is, you're looking at almost a million dollars. Roughly in this day's time with Billie McTierls, it's maybe a little bit more.
You know what? The Lord enabled us to get that place for $180,000, as less than a quarter on the dollar. Just a few months ago, we started on this project. As of right now, we've got about $115,000 in the account in hand designated for this house.
We very rarely, through the multiple decades of being on radio and television, ever even say one thing about money, and I'm not saying anything about money right now. But if you would like to be a part of finishing this up and where the church and ministry will completely own this house without paying one penny of interest, we're almost there. I put out a list of, not a fleece with God. I said, Lord, all through this half a century of ministry, plus everywhere you guide you provide, so God is our peace and He's our provider.
And just in a matter of a short period of time, $115,000 is God has provided. So that means another $65,000 and it's paid for its hours. And it's not going to require a whole lot of upgrades. The home was built as an adult assisted living facility in the 90s.
So you're looking at a structurally sound facility, a building and home. We have uncovered the septics with our local health department. We've made sure that all of that's good, the waters are everything. We've done, trust me, want to tell you, we have done immense amounts of preliminary things because this is not the first project we've ever entered into.
And we know what the possibilities are. So we've got all of that taken care of and we're raising these funds and you may want to just help. And if you want to PO Box 631, Atkins, Virginia is the mailing address. We've got the information on all of our own line giving.
Here's the beautiful thing, every penny, every single penny, 100% of every dollar. She ain't going into my pocket. I'll tell you that. I'll try to give back myself.
And it's just a joy that every penny will go to get this house and then there will be families there that are in trouble. Little children won't have to be separated when they go into foster care, like one little sibling going to one county and other than the other county. Our Commonwealth of Virginia is trying to do better now, thank the Lord on our child services. And we work with them every day.
There had also house and freedom house and now this great extension of this ministry. So God bless you, just pray for us. And if God sort of tingles your heart just a little bit, just everybody do a little bit. And that's how we've done things for all these many years in ministry.
We all just do a little and a whole bunch of folks doing a little bit. Then a whole great big bit gets done in the kingdom of God. And I know your ministry is busy there where you attend church or where you're involved in the work of the Lord. And we're all serving the Lord Jesus together.
You do what you can do. We do what we can do. We are as the body of Christ. I am who God says I am.
Let's rejoice in our redemption. That's what we're going to talk about tonight here in Colossians chapter 1. We were in the clutches of the evil one, but we were set free by the Holy One. And we've been saved out of this world and now being saved out of this world, a Savior who saved us from this world.
He has now sent us back into this world to be a blessing to those who are in the same shape that we used to be. Such were some of you. So help us get the gospel to these broken folks that Satan has wallard in the mud. And Jesus wants to clean them up with his blood, dress them in his righteousness, and they are now our brothers and sisters.
So, Hallelujah. What a joy, laboring together. Little Trio there at the church of the day. I am who you say I am.
Hallelujah for our identity with Christ and for Christ. I bet the high I was lost, but he brought me in his love, for his love, for who the sun has set free, for his free, my child. Free at last he has ran some meat, his grace runs deep. While I was a slave to sin, Jesus died, oh yes he died.
Paul said plainly in Romans 1-16, the famous verse that so many of us preachers know well, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, or it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Don't you ever be ashamed of who you are in him? And may I never be ashamed of who I am in him? May we never be ashamed of the gospel, but to stand boldly and declare with clear, confident communication to this world that Jesus is the very one they need so desperately, to keep them out of hell forever and to keep them from sin right now.
Sin is a reproach to any people, it is righteousness that exalteth the nation. And now sin running rampant across the fabric of America should stir every child of God and wake us up from our slumber and from our sleep. And stop sleeping while the world is getting worse and getting in a tighter grip of Satan. Get out of our slumber of bragging on one another in our little group and then ending up divided and fussing and grumbling.
May with jealousy and hatred and pride and all the rest of it, let's get out of that stuff because it is imperative brothers and sisters that the church, we need a revival absolutely positively, but until repentance comes to us individual Christians, revival will never come to the church and therefore you can forget about restoration to any country, even the United States of America. If we think God cannot do without us, we might be in for a very rude awakening. God is God. We need Him.
Now He needs us in the sense that He needs our eyes, our ears, our hands, our feet, that we would go and do what He has called us to do, not from the sense of some kind of religious organization, but from ultimate reality and our relationship with God, that we are His children. Therefore in our family business, the greatest business on earth, we are a royal priesthood, a chosen generation, a holy nation, sent into this world to all nations to preach the gospel clearly and confidently. So God bless you brothers and sisters. If you're saved by God's grace, let's look into the Bible together now here in Colossians chapter 1 as we said last week, they were having unnecessary difficulty in Colossae.
The devil had used not the perverts and the drunks and the heathen around the area, but false doctrine from other regions there in Asia Minor had infiltrated itself into Colossae. And there were divisions and Epiphers had gone like we said last week to Rome to see Paul. There he met Onesimus, a runaway slave from Colossae. Now, yeah, God had to be in that.
And Paul had met Onesimus when Onesimus was saved and Onesimus told him he was a runaway slave from Colossae at Philemon's house. By the way, just interject something real quickly. When you hear a lot of folks today slamming the Bible and using Philemon and saying, well, Philemon is a book in the Bible that can don't slavery. That's a lie.
The book of Philemon doesn't condone slavery, he condemns it. Paul said, don't receive him as a servant but as a brother. They're all one in the Lord. I don't care if you're poor rich, Jew or Gentile, Bond are free, black or white, whatever race and nationality creed, all humans bleed red.
We all come from Adam. We all got off that boat in Ariad according to Biblical history. And whether we're Asian, African, European, whatever and everything that's going on with the social justice and the racism and all the rest, it's a powerful people thinking they're so much in control. It's like it's happened all down through time.
So let's wake up brothers and sisters, even my fellow citizens in the United States of America, but especially my brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. So here comes Onesimus back with this letter in his hand. It's been reserved in the Bible as the book of Philemon. And Paul said in there, if he owes you anything, put it on my account, oh, the great compassion and the love of God.
And in Epiphesus he had, of course, the entire letter of Colossae to the Colossians. And here's what the Apostle Paul begins to say in these four chapters. That Christ has the preeminence. He is God's supreme.
There he has no equal. So therefore, how can he possibly have a superior? It is not our ideology. It is not our philosophy.
It is not our religion. But it is him, his truth. So there's four chapters here and chapter one I would call us redeemed by Christ. We have been saved.
We have been redeemed. The word redemption means to be bought back. We were stolen from God in the Garden of Eden by the subtle lives of Satan, the serpent, more subtle than he means to the field. Stealth, camouflaged, and yet Eve very comfortable around him.
And he began to get her to doubt God. And if he can get us to doubt God, then he'll get us to deny God. That's the subtle serpent. Talked about, you can read about, not just there as we're introduced to Satan in the Garden of Eden, but then from Isaiah and from Ezekiel and then from Jesus.
Jesus himself called the devil a liar, a thief and a murderer. The Apostle Paul referred to him in 2 Corinthians 4 as the God of this world, Ephesians 2, the prince of the power of the heir. Peter said, be sober, vigilant in chapter 5 of 1 Peter, because you're adversary of the devil. John on Patma is saying to be the dragon and the beast of the creature who he is, the great tempter who would even see the very elect sake if possible.
And I think we're seeing in our lifetime the setup of the strong delusion that will be coming during the tribulation period and knowing the terror of the Lord we persuade men. Jesus himself said, I've got to work the works of him that sent me while it is day, the night comes when no man can work. So seeing the night coming, seeing the summer ending and we not being saved, then we need to get stirred. And the first step is humility, true humility, dying to self every day, coming alive unto Christ every day.
And so he's talking about now the preeminence of Christ, the power of Christ, it's not through philosophy of man, vain to see religious traditions, all these things that people were trying to bring back. Can you imagine the shock on those Roman soldiers who had retired from years of military service and they it's kind of like Arizona or Southern Florida back in our day compared then. And a lot of the Gentile guys that had give 20, 30 years of military service, now they're in their 50s and early 60s, they're retiring there and they like that north eastern area of the Mediterranean in Galatia and it's a perfect place for them. They bring join it.
Here comes Paul and Silas, Jesus, God and flesh died for all sin. They heard the gospel, they were saved, they were thrilled to death about their new lives in Christ and serving the Lord Jesus. And then here comes some flopier, long tongue, big eyed religious somebody. I don't mean to be flippin' or funny, but self appointed authorities who told them then after Paul and Silas and everything going on, Epiphephus and David started the church in Colossae, but all through the region's relation, you guys aren't saved, you're not circumcised.
Now, ain't that ignorant? It's still ignorant today to start putting Jewish rights and laws and expectations as necessities for someone to be right with God. Just as foolish as that was, we have the same foolishness today, just repackaged in other things. If you don't look like me, if you don't believe like I believe, if you don't cross everty and not ever like I do, then you're not where God wants you to be.
So that's the background again on this letter to Colossae. Chapter 1, redeemed by Christ. It's beautiful in verse 3 that Paul was praying for them. We need to be praying one for another more so now than ever I think in my lifetime.
Then verse 11, we are strengthened with all might according to his glorious power. Not my ideology, not my philosophy, my interpretation, because it's a fact. We're all different. We're each unique.
So God didn't make you to be like me, did he? And God didn't make me to be like you. But once he saved us with all of our individual unique qualities, personality traits, personal history, all of the factors that make us who we are, God loves us for who we are. And there's no preacher or no child of God that's perfect, only Jesus is.
So here comes the trick of the devil again. If we just want to surround ourselves with people who are exactly like us, we're not going to find anybody there. That's why he said last week, such a master, mental manipulator, that he creates frustration and frustration creates division. God wants to create faith and even stronger faith.
That real faith creates unity. It eliminates the immaturity and it eliminates the insecurity because we're mature in and of Christ. And we know that Christ is the source of our security. So that reality of who we are in Him, each individual, then we come together collectively in unity as local churches.
Maybe then we wouldn't have so many fusses and fights and divisions and splits that we have been having for the last half century in America among our local churches. So we have glorious power that enables us to have patience and long suffering with joyfulness. Always being thankful unto God who delivered us from the power of darkness and who places in the kingdom of his dear son. Here's the key verse verse 14, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.
Hallelujah. First John 1 7, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with each other. We're not going to be frustrated with each other. We're going to have fellowship with each other.
Can you imagine even in the Knoxville area here? If all the fundamental of the faith churches would have the love of God ruling and reigning in our individual hearts and then in our ministries and at least respect one another who are saved with the grace of God. I believe that that would happen with turn knocks full upside down. But what happens?
Oh, you have to baptize over here. You got this group over here and this group over here. And all the while the devil has so effectively and strategically in his plan been dividing us simultaneously. He's been unining this world from Hollywood to the news media to the giant corporations to the big tech and all the rest of it coming together to promote all of these new ideas in the what they boldly say publicly, the reconstruction of American society.
Are we so blind or we so deep as God's people that we think it's more important to stand against somebody's mode of singing or find something that we can stand against. All the while our precious sons and daughters and grandchildren are being seduced by seducing spirits and doctrines of devils and have been in their little minds that created toward this book. And the hypocrisy of the church does not help anything. So Paul's a listen, all that crazy doctrinal division and all this stuff needs to stop.
We've been redeemed by Christ. We need to pray for one another. We need to have enough compassion for a lost world and camaraderie within those of us who have been saved. Listen, Christ is the image of the invisible God.
That's who we are. We're the redeemed relationship of the Lord Jesus. We're one with Him. He's with God and join.
He's with Christ and as servants as soldiers, soldiers fully armored servants with tender, humble hearts filled with the love of God, the compassion of Christ and the great power of the gospel to boldly stand and preach. Don't back up from political correctness. You don't have to worry about what this old world's doing out here. Last I read 1 John 4, 4, still in the book.
Greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. We've been redeemed by Christ. He is our hope of glory and he is this world's hope of glory. In the body of his flesh through death, he did all that can be done on that cross into his resurrection.
And now we are to go into this world continuing in the faith that we would be ministers of this dispensation, redeemed by Christ and preaching that redemption to this lost world. The last verse in chapter 1, we're in two also, labor, striving according to his working, which worketh in me, mightily. He that hath begun a good working you, Philippians 1, will perform it. We can absolutely Philippians 4, 13, still in the book.
I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me. Don't say you can't. No, you can't in your self. There's no way in the world.
We can love the unlovable. There's no way in the world. There's a wicked flesh in my own efforts, but he that died to save my soul ever lives to control my life. And he lives to control your life too.
And there's one thing I guarantee you, the Holy Spirit will do in us and through us Church. That's glory by Christ. And he said in the gospel of John, if I be lifted up from the earth, I'll draw all men unto Me. Thank you so much for watching.
Join us on our other online ministries, please. Come by the Facebook page anytime. Look us up online anytime. Help us to get this humongous house paid for here in just a few weeks.
and we'll continue the work of the Lord together. Thanks for watching everybody. Let this book control your life. See you next week.
Till then may God bless you richly. Then may he use you for his glory and to be a real blessing to someone else. I have the privilege of pastoring and being the director of Freedom Tabernacle Babb of Distchurch and Freedom Tabernacle Ministries in Atkins, Virginia. And we are going to get to know one another a lot better through the weeks and months to come.
It's my prayer. But right now you can join us on our Facebook page, Freedom Tabernacle Ministries, Atkins, Virginia or our YouTube channel, Focus of Freedom, Atkins, Virginia, our website, ftministries.org. Before you can download our app, the Freedom Tabernacle app downloaded for free from any app store and we can stay in contact that way as we labor together with our Lord for his glory and for the advancement of his glory as gospel of grace.