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  DOGS, PIGS, AND FINDING THE PEARL
  by Duane Troyer
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Summary: This sermon delves into the importance of seeking God with a
deep longing and desire, emphasizing the need for a genuine partnership
and relationship with Him. It explores the concept of not casting pearls
before swine, highlighting the significance of not sharing valuable
spiritual truths with those who do not value or appreciate them. The
message also touches on the idea of asking, seeking, and knocking in
prayer, emphasizing the need for a sincere heart and alignment with
God's will. Ultimately, the sermon underscores the fullness of Christ
and the deep longing for a meaningful connection with God.

Topics: "Desire for God", "Spiritual Discernment"
Scripture References: Matthew 7:6, Luke 13:24, Colossians 2:9, 2 Peter 2:22

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon delves into the importance of seeking God with a deep
longing and desire, emphasizing the need for a genuine partnership and
relationship with Him. It explores the concept of not casting pearls
before swine, highlighting the significance of not sharing valuable
spiritual truths with those who do not value or appreciate them. The
message also touches on the idea of asking, seeking, and knocking in
prayer, emphasizing the need for a sincere heart and alignment with
God's will. Ultimately, the sermon underscores the fullness of Christ
and the deep longing for a meaningful connection with God.

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CONTENT
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I greet everybody in Jesus name this morning. And glad to be here with
you. Glad for this place to gather and a beautiful day to gather.

Yeah, I had a lot of thoughts about the opening two there. I appreciate
it. I probably won't take time to expound much on it.

I can identify with things that I wish would go away in my life that I
just continually struggle with. And then every now and then somebody
will say something that makes me realize, oh, it's good for me.
Something I wish, some quality I see in others that I wish I could
attain better.

But, let's take another look at the Sermon on the Mount here today. For
those of you who may be the first time here, we've spent the best
portion of the last year going through what's called the Sermon on the
Mount. What I believe and I think Jesus expressed is foundational to
Christianity.

The hearing and doing these teachings is foundational to Christianity.
As I was sitting back there watching Norman here, I was checking out
this crack in the wall. And I can almost guarantee you that this is not
a wall problem, this is a foundation problem.

And that is all the cracking and crumbling and sagging that goes on in
Christianity, in our personal lives, or in this thing called the
Christian Church. I think it's pretty safe to say like always, almost
always, there's a foundational problem here. Somewhere these teachings
of Jesus that he gave here on the mountain are not being heard and done.

So anyway, I want to get into the next section. We're in Matthew 7. Why
don't we stand up and we'll read this, Matthew 7, verses 6 to 11. Do not
give what is holy to the dogs, and do not throw your pearls before
swine, or they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you
to pieces.

Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it
will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who
knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who when his
son asks for a loaf will give him a stone? Or if he asks him for a fish,
he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how
to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who
is in heaven give what is good to those who ask him? Let's pray. Our
Father in heaven, we pray that you would be with us today, and thank you
for gathering us all together.

And I pray, Lord, that you would give us understanding of these words
that you gave us. Help us to draw out of them something that would draw
us closer to you, and give us this heart that wants to seek and to ask,
and that longs to be with you and one with you. And we ask that you
would guide my thoughts, and that you would help us to look into this in
light of all the treasures that you would like us to have.

We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. So, the first verse here that
we're looking at is verse 6. Do not give what is holy to the dogs, and
do not throw your pearls before swine, for they will trample them under
their feet, turn and tear you to pieces.

What a strange teaching. Jesus is giving this illustration of perhaps a
man with a bag with some really precious and valuable pearls in there.
And he's going along, and here comes a pack of dogs, or a herd of pigs,
you know, the big ugly kind that have the capability to tear human
beings to pieces.

And he takes these pearls and he offers them to them, and after all,
these are valuable, right? They're precious, they're pearls. But these
beasts who value nothing except something to eat and to fill their
bellies just take one bite out of these things and decide they're
nothing to eat, and they're dissatisfied with what they've been offered,
and they turn around and they turn on this man and they tear him to
pieces and eat him. What a devastation.

These pearls are marred from being bitten on, they're trampled into the
mud, and the man who possessed them at one time is tore up and dead. The
pigs and the dogs are the winners. So, Jesus is implying here that the
problem here was that these pearls were offered, these pearls that were
valuable were offered to something that didn't value them.

So, what's going on here? What does this mean for us? Pretty certain
Jesus is not just giving us some instructions on how to raise pigs and
dogs, or how not to. So, we call this sermon the Sermon on the Mount,
but Jesus didn't call it that. He called this sermon, or these
teachings, he called them the good news of the kingdom.

In Matthew 4, that's what the scripture calls this teaching that Jesus
is bringing. He is preaching the good news of the kingdom. It's good
news, it's precious, and this precious promise has been long waited on.

For thousands of years, there's been this promise that there will come a
king, he will deliver the people, he will rule forever, he'll sit on
David's throne. The promise goes further back than David. It goes back
to Moses, who said, yet one more prophet will come after me, and he will
tell you God's word.

It goes further back than that. It goes to Abraham, who it was promised
that in your seed, all nations will be blessed. And it even goes further
back than that, all the way back to the Garden of Eden, where there was
this deliverer promised, who would crush the serpent's head, and he
would restore to humans what they had.

This relationship and this partnership that God had created when he made
Adam and Eve, and put them there in the garden, and said, keep this, and
dress it, and multiply it, and cover the earth with my goodness, that
work was stopped. And there's a promise that someone would come and
restore that again. And so this kingdom was highly anticipated.

The Psalms and the poetry and the Hebrew literature is full of this
promise. They were familiar with the idea that they would be, promised
that they would be rulers of creation. The Psalms and the prophet used
terms like the kingdom of God, the Messiah, the proclamation of the good
news.

And this kind of literature is drilled into every Hebrew boy and girl,
and they are familiar with it. Every mother is longing to give birth to
this promised one who would come. It's a highly, highly prized promise.

It was a pearl of great price. Jesus refers to this kingdom later. He
refers to this kingdom as a pearl of great price.

In Matthew 13 he says, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant who is
searching for pearls. And when he finds this one of really great price,
he goes and he sells everything that he has, so that he has the means to
go buy this one. So I think it's reasonable to think that what Jesus is
saying here, when he's saying, don't cast your pearls before a swine,
that he's saying, don't take the kingdom of God and give it to, but who
are the pigs and the dogs? So, dogs and pigs are... the scriptures
hardly ever have anything good to say about them.

They're these unclean animals. The dogs are these creatures that return
to their own vomit and eat it again. And the pigs go, you know,
wallowing in the mire.

You can clean them off and they go right back into the mud holes.
They're not considered a good desirable animal. And so the people, the
Jews, would refer to outsiders, those unclean people, as dogs and pigs.

The Gentiles, in numerous places the Gentiles were referred to as dogs.
I don't know if this is in scripture, but I've heard that they
considered the Romans in particular as pigs. And so, but Jesus here,
he's breaking this kind of thinking down.

He's already been saying things like, you know those loving things you
should do to your neighbors and your brother? You should greet your
brother and those things? Everybody does that. But you, I want you to
love your enemies. I want you to bless the people who curse you.

I want you to not only greet your brethren. And so Jesus is breaking
this down and he's presenting this idea that those who are not fit for
the kingdom of God are not identified by their nationality or their race
or their class or their caste or whether they're a slave or a landowner
or all these kind of things. And if the point isn't clear yet to the
Jews, it's going to be clear as soon as he comes down off this mountain.

Because who's the first person? When Jesus comes down off the mountain,
who's the first person that he extends this precious thing about the
kingdom, the thing he came to do, this bringing healing and restoration
to people? The first person he meets is a leper. It's an unclean leper.
And he heals him.

And who's the second person he meets? It's a Roman centurion. And he
heals his son that's at the point of death. Or maybe died.

I'm not sure. But anyway, it's becoming real clear to them that Jesus is
thinking outside the box concerning who are the pigs and the dogs. But
what Jesus is not saying is he's not saying that everyone, under any
circumstances, is worthy of this pearl.

Or is ready for this pearl. We just got done, and we talked about this
in the last message, Jesus just got done talking about judge not. That
you be not judged.

And we talked about that Jesus, in saying that, Jesus is not saying we
should throw out our moral compass and not have a discernment about
what's right and wrong, what's good and evil. We also talked about how
he's not talking about that we should not discriminate at all. And this
teaching here makes that obvious.

He's saying that you should have a moral compass and that you should do
some discernment here and you should evaluate some things. Not everyone
values the kingdom of God. Not everyone considers this the good news of
the kingdom.

Not everybody considers this is the precious promise. The dogs and the
pigs here are people who don't value heavenly things. They do not value
the things of the Spirit of God.

They are people like Esau, who lightly esteemed his birthright and he
sold it for a bowl of soup. They're not ready for it. It doesn't mean
that they might not get there, but they're not ready for it, and
therefore, you are going to devalue, you're going to ruin this pearl and
yourself by sharing this something that's super valuable with someone
who sees no value in it.

That's one of the ways that we can devalue something because there's a
disconnect between you and this other person. You found something and
it's really precious to you and you're trying to persuade someone else
and insist upon the preciousness of this and he just doesn't see it. And
two things happen.

One is you're devaluing this thing that's so precious for you and the
other thing is you're potentially turning this person further away from
seeing the value of it. There's examples in the Old Testament of when
this happened. Solomon, when he was king, God granted, gave him all this
splendor and glory in the kingdom and what did he do? He brought in all
kinds of people from all over the world and he shared and he showed this
splendor to them and they did not value the God who gave these things.

And by and by, these strange women were his downfall and they rent his
heart from God. Hezekiah, when he was king, he showed those messengers
of Babylon his full house of treasures. He showed them all the silver
and the gold and these valuable vessels, things that were holy, things
that were sacred, things that were of and about God, things that
represented God.

He showed these to people who had no interest in this God. And Isaiah
the prophet came and he said, this is what's going to happen. This same
Babylon, who you shared these things with, is going to come in and
they're going to take all these vessels and they're going to take them
out of here and they're going to take them to Babylon and your kingdom
is going to be destroyed.

This principle is seen in other teachings, like Proverbs 9, 7, where he
says, He that reproved the scorner gets himself to shame. Jesus told his
disciples that when you go out preaching and you take this gospel of the
kingdom into all the world, once people have shown to you that they're
not interested in it, shake the dust from your feet and go, move on.
This same principle is applied when Jesus spoke in parables and he told
these stories that the person who longed and desired for truth could get
it out of it.

And the other people just heard a story. So practically, what does this
mean for us? I've often heard this verse used in reference to not
evangelizing, not taking the gospel to people that aren't coming to you
or people that aren't asking about it. And though I think the principle
can apply to some extent, I think we can and do sometimes waste our time
and energy by trying to insist the good news upon someone that just
scorns it and doesn't want it.

But some years ago I came to the conclusion that I don't think this is
the main place where these kind of things happen because for one thing,
Jesus said that we should take the gospel into all the world and we
should preach it to all creatures. And not only that, they are not the
ones who turn around and rend us. So I might try to... After all, isn't
it... I mean, the Scriptures say that it's not the will of God that any
man should perish but that all should come to the knowledge of truth.

I think it would be the will of God that every human being in the whole
world would at one point or another have the gospel preached to him or
presented to him. Now, if I go out and I present this or preach this to
people and they mock me, they ridicule me, they say all kinds of bad
things to me, that's not turning and rending me to pieces. The time when
that really happens is when we bring people who do not value the kingdom
of God and we bring them into the fold.

And we bring them in and we make them a part of us. We take people who
are not really seeking this pearl of great price and we baptize them, we
bring them into our love feasts and we make them a part of us and
there's a disconnect between what they value and we value. Those are the
people who will turn around and they will rend the body of Christ.

It was later, after I had came to those conclusions, that I found out
that numerous early church writers wrote exactly that. The Didache says
something along those lines when it's talking about communion and it
says, let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist except those who have
been baptized in the name of the Lord. For concerning this, the Lord has
said, do not give that which is holy to the dogs.

Tertullian wrote about it, others wrote about that same thing. I do
think it's a broad principle that is applicable in more areas than just
that but I think those are some of the real ways that it happens, has
happened and does happen to people today. So God follows this same
principle with us.

He shares His treasures with those who see them as treasures. He sheds
light to the person who wants light and He sheds more light to the
person who appreciates light. He gives truth and more truth and more
truth to the person who loves and desires truth.

He gives His kingdom to those who deeply desire it and value it. And
that brings us to the next thing that He taught here. Ask and it will be
given to you.

Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone
who asks receives and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it will
be opened.

The treasures of God are for the desperate. They are for those who long
for them. The truth is usually hid in plain sight.

It's visible to those who long for it and it's invisible to those who
don't want it. God dwells in enough obscurity that we must seek to find
Him and He dwells in enough light that if we seek we can find Him. You
know, sometimes I play hide and seek with my little children and I'm
never far away.

I'm always just around the corner and partly visible and easily findable
and yet these little guys who can't see over everything, they really
have to look for me. And something like that is the way God is. He needs
to be sought after and yet He's very findable.

When Paul, we read in Acts, when Paul was preaching there on Mars Hill,
he said he made mankind that he would seek God if perhaps they might
grope for Him and find Him though He is not far from each one of us. He
made mankind to seek Him and that is one of the distinguishing marks
between a man of God and a man of the world. The one seeks God and the
other one doesn't.

I think perhaps, I don't know about all, but I think perhaps the huge
majority of problems in a believer's life and even within the church is
a lack of an intense desire to know God. And a lack of a deep longing to
seek and to press into the things of God. We can set up all kinds of
structures.

We can come up with programs. We can come up with accountability groups.
We can come up with discipleship classes.

We can come up with all kinds of things like that. And if the heart to
seek God is not there, they are all worthless. Notice how Jesus here
first says, Ask and you will be given.

Seek and you will find and then He says, Knock and it will be opened to
you. I tend to think there is like a progression here. If someone here
told me of some great man somewhere who has a great estate and he is
just a really great man and you really benefit from knowing this man and
it would spark my interest.

First I would start asking questions. What is great about him? What does
he do? Where does he live? And I would gain knowledge about this. And my
next step would be to go seek him.

And I would go. I would seek. I would cross the mountains and through
the rivers and I would go until I have sought and I have found his
place.

And I would look at his estate and I would start gaining more than what
I had heard when I just asked. I would start seeing and experiencing
some of this greatness. But if I really want to know this man, what is
my next step? I will be knocking on his door.

And I will be knocking and knocking until he himself opens the door and
I get to know this man. Those are the people who God reveals himself to.
And he enters a relationship with that person because that person and
God have something in common.

And if I can drive any point home today, this is the point I would like
to drive home, is that God does for us the thing that he is asking us to
do for him. In Luke 15, there are these three parables of something that
is lost and then a really diligent seeking after. There is the parable
of the lost sheep.

And the shepherd, he leaves the 99 and he goes through the hills and the
mountains and the wilderness and the gullies and the brush and he
searches and searches until he finds this one lost sheep. And he brings
it home and he calls his friends together and they all rejoice. And then
there is the parable of the lost coin, about the woman who lost the
coin.

And she lights a lamp and she sweeps the house and she cleans and cleans
until she finds this lost coin. And then she calls all her friends
together and they all rejoice about this thing that is lost. And the
next parable is of the prodigal son.

And the son is gone. He is lost. He has left.

And the father is daily, he is watching out the way in which he went and
he is looking for him to return. The reason I am convinced that the
father was doing that constantly or regularly is because it says, once
the son turned and started coming home, while he was a long way off, the
father saw him. And he forgot everything else and he left everything
else and he ran out to meet him and to be united with his son again.

These three parables are depicting the heart of the father. They are
depicting the heart of the father. A father who so deeply longs for us.

He so deeply longs to know us and be united with us that he leaves
everything for that. And that very same thing that he does, he wants us
to do for him. And when we do, there is a connection.

There is a oneness. There is a knowing each other. We are of one heart
and one will.

It produces a deep and meaningful love, faith, relationship. Not just a
relationship based on feelings and emotions. Neither is it just a
relationship based on knowledge and logic.

It is a relationship that the maker of heaven and earth and us come to
know each other. And I think this is what Paul was preaching on Mars
Hill. I think it's what Enoch had when it says that he walked with God.

I think it's what Abraham had when it says that he believed him. You
know, in the book of Daniel, there are these couple times in the book of
Daniel where the angel is communicating with Daniel. And in the
Masoretic text, the angel says to Daniel, O man greatly beloved.

Or depending on what translation you read, it might say, O man highly
esteemed. But do you know what the Septuagint says? It says, O man of
great desires. Sorry, it says O man of desires.

It says O man of desires. And if I think of someone who would be called
a man of desires, I would think it to be a man with deep longings, deep
yearnings and searchings for something. That would be a man of desires.

And I think for that reason, he is rightly called a man greatly beloved
or highly esteemed by God. We see this same thing when we read through
the Song of Songs. There's this intense longing for each other.

Between the bride and the groom. You know, when one of them realizes
that they're not quite sure where the other one is, especially when the
bride realizes she's not quite sure where the groom is, it consumes her
thoughts. She goes and she searches and she asks the keepers in the
city, Have you seen him? I need to know where he is.

Just a little snippet of this kind of heart there in the Song of Songs
is in chapter 3, verses 1 to 4. It says, In the night on my bed I sought
him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but did not find him. I called
him, but he did not hear me.

I will rise now and go about the city and the marketplaces and the
streets. I will seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him and did not
find him.

The watchmen who do the rounds in the city found me and I said to them,
Have you seen him whom my soul loves? If you get toward the end of this
song, the groom says in chapter 8, verses 6-7, it says, Set me as a seal
upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is as strong as
death, jealousy as cruel as Hades, her spark are sparks of fire, even
the flames thereof. Much water will not be able to quench love, nor will
rivers drown it.

If a man would give all his possessions for love, men would utterly
despise them. Our desire, the desire within us to find and know our
creator, should be so great that if someone would come and offer us
everything in the world to buy it from us, we should utterly despise the
offer. In Matthew 13, it says, The kingdom of heaven, in verse 44, The
kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man
found and hid again.

And from joy over it, he goes and sells what he has and buys the field.
And again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls.
And upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he
had to buy it.

He's saying the kingdom of heaven is like this. Like a man who is
walking out through the field, somewhere out through the field, and he
came upon a treasure. And what did he do with it? He quickly went and
hid it, and he went home and he sold everything he had so that he would
have the means to go and buy that field and make a rightful claim to
this treasure.

There was nothing that could stop him. He was willing to forsake
everything for it. The same way with the man who found this pearl.

He found it, he went back home, he sold everything he had so that he
would have the means to buy that. This kingdom of God, this kingdom of
heaven that Jesus said, comes not without word observation, but is
within us. It's a new creation, it's a new reign that begins at the
heart of issues.

It's a place where we get to the root of things. It's a place where we
must go beyond simple commands and simple do's and don'ts, beyond the
words of paper and ink, in order to find it. And the Father knows this.

He knew it all along. The Psalms and the poetry are full of this
expression, Let me see your face. Would you reveal yourself to me? Make
your face shine upon us.

Let us hear you. People who long for God are expressing that, and have
been all along. Philip did it to Jesus.

He said to Jesus, Show us the Father, and it'll be enough. Show us the
Father, and it'll all be enough. And Jesus said, Philip, how long have I
been with you? And you still don't know who I am.

If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. You know, Paul said in
Colossians 2, He said, in Jesus dwells all the fullness of God in bodily
form. All the fullness of the Godhead, all the fullness of deity, is
dwelling in this one man, Jesus Christ.

He also says there, In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So, look nowhere
else.

It's all found in him. If we look at the life of Jesus, at the words of
Jesus, at the behavior of Jesus, at the mind of Jesus, we are looking
into someone in whom is hid all wisdom and all knowledge. Everything
that we would need or should need or should even get is hid there.

Now, the fact that it's hid means that it's probably not evident to the
casual observer. It must be asked for. It must be searched for.

It must be knocked for. The Father gave us this treasure in a form that
we can relate to, on a level that we can identify with. He did not keep
these treasures, all these treasures of wisdom and knowledge, He did not
keep them in some unperceivable form.

He didn't share these wisdom and truth in a way that they could not be
digested by us. He gave them in the form of a human being. Someone that
was right down here on our level.

God did what every reasonable father does. And that brings us to the
next thing that Jesus said here in Matthew 7. He said, Or what man is
there among you who when his son asks for a loaf, will he give him a
stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give what is good to
those who ask him? Physically, I'm sure none of us would ever do this.
If your son asks you for a piece of bread, you'd pick up a stone.

I do think that sometimes when our sons or our children ask us a
question, our little children ask us a question, and we give them some
highfalutin, lofty answer that is way above their level, it's kind of
like giving them a stone. They can't digest it. They can't comprehend
it.

And that's not what God did when he gave us Jesus. He gave us, when he
gave us all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, he gave it to us on a
very comprehensible, relatable, in a very relatable form, in the man
Jesus Christ. And so that begging question that sits deep within us
human beings, whether we've ever spoken it or not, show me God.

Show me my maker. God has heard that. And he sent his Son and he showed
it to us.

He showed himself to us. And yet, the multitudes miss it. Even those who
seek God pass over it and dismiss it.

In this passage we're reading today in Matthew, it says, Seek and you
will find. But you know that Jesus also said, Many will seek and will
not be able. In Luke he said, Strive to enter in through the narrow
gate.

And then he says, For many will seek and will not be able. People have
their assumptions, they have their expectations of how God is, of where
he is, of what he is, and they look for him, but they look amiss. And
they ask for him, but they ask amiss.

It happened when Jesus was here. When he was 12 years old, he went
missing. And what was the people's immediate assumption? They assumed
that he was with their kinsfolk.

They assumed he was among them. And this is a common problem that people
make. They think, Oh, my kinsmen and my people are good people and God
is among us.

And they just assume that. But when they went to seeking for him, they
found out he's not there at all. He's not there at all.

Another time that people sought for Jesus and didn't find him where they
thought they'd find him, is after he had died. And Mary, Magdalene,
maybe, and the other Mary, or a couple women, went to the grave. And
they were going to find Jesus there.

And they were going to put some ointments or something on him. And they
looked in there and he was not there. And some angels were there in
dazzling clothes.

And they said, What seek you? And they said, We're looking for Jesus.
And they said, Why do you seek the living one among the dead? This is
another common problem. When people are looking for the living one, they
are looking for Christ.

They are looking for God among dead religions, among dead structures,
with dead faith that has no works, or with dead works that have no
faith. They look for it among dead saints, and dead covenants, and all
kinds of death. And I think what God is saying, or would want to say to
us, is why seek you the living among the dead? He's not there.

There was once a band of people who did come seeking for Jesus, and they
did find him. It was in the Garden of Gethsemane. And it was a band of
officers and soldiers, and they had spears and staves and lanterns and
torches, and I think they were expecting a really big deal.

And when they came and Jesus said, Whom seek ye? They said, Jesus of
Nazareth. And Jesus said, I am he. And they all fell backwards.

They were blown away. They were taken aback. I think they were taken
aback at the simplicity, at the meekness, at the harmlessness of this
man who they came out as a band of soldiers to capture.

And so it goes with many seekers. Paul warned about this in Corinthians,
that he was concerned that these people would be beguiled, and be
carried away from the simplicity that is in Christ. When Jesus said, He
that seeks to save his life will lose it, and he that loses his life for
my sake will find it.

In that little kernel of wisdom is the answer to finding God and to
knowing our Maker. You know, Jesus said, Ask, and it will be given. When
Jesus is promoting a partnership, he's promoting a relationship, and
he's inviting us into this partnership.

It's what he had intended in the beginning when he made Adam and Eve in
the garden as rulers over his kingdom. To partner with him, and to
spread this goodness of God over the whole earth. And today's teaching
here, he's wanting us to ask him for what we need.

Now, we might ask, like, why? Because he's told us already in this same
sermon, he's told us that he already knows what we need before we ask.
It would totally make rational sense to us if Jesus would say, God
already knows what you need before you ask, so don't bother asking. But
that's not what he says.

Rather, he says something like, God already knows what you need before
you ask, therefore, ask. What's that about? It's because he wants this
partnership. He wants this relationship.

He's wanting our will to become his will. He's wanting those two wills
to become one. When those wills are in conflict, he wants to communicate
until they are together.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked God to remove this cup. Did the
Father do it? Was it as simple as ask what you will, and it'll be given
to you? Jesus himself was asking for something, and it was not being
granted to him. Jesus asked multiple times.

Until his will was surrendered, and he said, but, not my will, but your
will be done. Until he came to that point where he was ready and willing
to lose his life for the will of the Father. And therein was the secret.

It was at that moment that he had angelic support. It was at that moment
that he had support from heaven's angels. From there on out, he could
endure the cross.

He could look at his friends and say, don't weep for me, weep for
yourself. He seemed to be more concerned that his mother would be taken
care of than what would happen with himself. He had totally lost his
life.

There's a number of places in the scriptures where it says, ask what you
will and it'll be done. Or something kind of like that, that kind of
sentiment. These are not just name it and claim it, a promise for a name
it and claim it type of request.

Almost always, there's a condition. What happened here with Jesus in the
garden is a perfect example of that. There were two wills there that
were a bit in conflict with each other.

Only when those two wills became one was granted what needs to be
granted and the Father's will could be accomplished. I went through some
of these places throughout the Old and the New Testament where this kind
of sentiment is presented of ask and it'll be given to you. And I took
the conditions in the surrounding passage and I put them together.

If you would all put them together it would read something like, and I
probably missed a bunch, but it would read something like this. Ask what
you will and if you fear God and are humble and you call upon Him in
truth and keep His commandments and if you ask in faith with all your
heart if you're abiding in Him and you ask while He is near in Jesus'
name and according to His will it'll be granted to you. I want to close
here.

As I was putting these thoughts together and thinking about these things
I was reminded of a German song that we sang pretty often. It starts in
Wo ist Jesus mein Verlangen? Where is Jesus my desire or my longing? And
he goes, the first several verses you read this intense desire that he
has. The writer talks like I will call with Angst und Schmerzen I will
call with Anxiety and pain Where is He? There's no rest in my heart
until I have Him.

And he goes on to say Oh, if I just had the wings of a dove that I could
fly over the mountains and over the hills until I find Him. And then
later in one of the later verses it says something like he finds Him and
he says something like I will no longer search for anything else because
He found my soul. And I just think that that's how much this this
partnership and relationship goes together is that I think we could
rightly say that we seek for God and He finds us.

And that connection between God and man can be restored. What was lost
at the Garden of Eden by the Adam that sought his own will was restored
in the Garden of Gethsemane by the Adam that sought only the will of
God. May the Lord add His blessing.

And open it up for comments or corrections. Thank you, Duane. I had a
couple of thoughts.

One was the last thing or one of the last things you shared there God
God finds those that seek for Him. That was a good one. It made me think
of one of the one of the laws in the Old Testament something to do with
like if somebody's this sin involving two people if if one person can be
a fig could possibly be a victim if that person if that person cries out
then they're without guilt but if they if they quietly go along then
they're guilty.

It just made me think of God seeking Him is just like when you said it I
immediately thought of a lost sheep like how trying to find the shepherd
like how futile but they but they cry out at least and then the shepherd
the shepherd does the rest but if the sheep is silent like what can the
shepherd do? And then I thought of oh when you said I wish I could
remember exactly how you said it that God is looking to have a
relationship with people who did you say He shares something with or He
has in common people that have something in common with Him and I
immediately thought of the one that says that we would have fellowship
in His in His suffering and I just thought those who are those who are
willing to suffer you could say for truth or for the benefit of others I
thought it went along with what what you're sharing about those willing
to seek after this precious thing I think one of the precious things
it's in the two commandments one of the precious things is a right
relationship with Him and then the other precious thing is those is
others wanting to help them be a help to them being willing willing to
suffer that you'd be a help to others I mean that's Christ's example to
us and that's what God has done for us and He's He wants to He can we
can have fellowship with Him if we're if that would be our heart as well
Thank you Brother DeWayne I just wanted to address this passage Luke 13
verse 24 Sometimes the distinction I'm about to say would make no matter
to people that don't concern themselves with this false teaching of the
inability of man as Martin Luther taught kind of a semi-gnostic sort of
thing it's not so important but the way that it's translated King James
well this is the New King James Strive to enter through the narrow gate
for many I say to you will seek to enter and will not be able sort of
draw attention there's two different words in Greek the typical word
that has to do with somebody not being able would be Dunamai that's not
what this that's what not what this word is it's Iskul which is a root
that has to do with strength so somebody not having not being strong
enough or not having enough strength and that's that's probably a better
rendering of this and like I said if you don't concern yourself with
this you're totally on board with free will you don't even engage in
apologetics with people that would say oh no man lost his his ability to
exercise free will in the garden and all that kind of stuff then
passages that uphold that false teaching like this the way it's
translated then it then it then it makes it doesn't matter if you're not
involved in that kind of idea and you're totally focused on free will
and but if you do have either those conversations or you wonder like
well do we have totally free will or you know did we lose the ability or
those kinds then passages like this rendered like this is a problem and
so I just want to point that out it's a better rendering would be is
that some will not be strong enough and it goes back to the basic
teaching of Paul he's always talking about walking with the flesh
because you know you're not strong enough because you have these desires
for the flesh or whatever versus walking with the spirit where like
brother Buddy pointed out you know suffering to to do what is good and
to walk according to the spirit um so that's that's that's kinda really
I think pretty clear what Jesus is talking about somebody not being
strong enough they will seek will not be strong enough to enter through
the narrow gate so not strong enough to crucify the flesh and etcetera
so exercise temperance self control so anyway yeah I just wanted to say
Amen and and appreciate um everything you shared there and just
especially want to say amen just past year explaining about the passage
about not casting pearls before the swine I think just sometimes the way
those things go is you you wonder about like what does this really mean
like how does it apply what should we do and then and then when it
happens you know then you're like oh that's what this means and then it
then it becomes plain it's no longer a hypothetical yeah I appreciate it
the opening and the main message other things to think about and I just
appreciate the things we were brought out concerning thorns in the flesh
I I like to think of it and in the way he brought it out to more like
you know spiritual problems that we might have personally and I would
confess to that for sure that thorns in the flesh that want to stick
around are oftentimes way more devastating if you you know if they're
spiritual than just fleshly fleshly pains or something that Paul Paul
didn't sweat about those things see they were they were part of his life
he he was willing to face them and would seem like a small thing for him
to be asking God to remove this so I would think to you with something
something perhaps deeper that had more to do with salvation more to do
with with the well-being of his soul than something physical but that
again it's just one of my little ideas about it and yeah then just the
the beauty of the fullness of Christ is something that just keeps
keeping pretty precious for me and and it's pretty pretty much all over
the scriptures the Apostle Paul really was hitting that good in
Colossians 2 you know in Christ we find the fullness of the of the body
of the Godhead bodily in a human form we find the fullness of Christ of
Christ in other places too it's just obvious how Jesus said he didn't
come to destroy the law but but he himself was going to be the one that
that would fill it to the brink he would make it full and yeah for every
generation we can we need to go to him we need to find find him as the
thing that would fill ourselves fool anyhow that's some of my thoughts
god bless y'all one quick thing to add what you said Atlee is you know
Revelation remember when it says the tabernacle of God is with men and
like and it says that in Christ dwells the fullness of the Godhead
bodily and I just think like the tabernacle like is with us you know
Christ like when we're in Christ and I just think yeah I just just want
more of a life that's like just full of God being being at the
fellowship meal Thursday kind of stayed stayed a little late and just
just really appreciate this just want want to like talk with brothers
and sisters about God and just just like embrace the Lord and and just
have a life that you should start diminishing the diminishing the the
earthly things and and just like be full of love and compassion you know
and just just seek God with the whole heart just just that relationship
is really meaningful I just think like what is what is life about you
know what's what's the purpose of life and you know just want to go and
like go to a stream and just like fill the water you know on your feet
or something yeah just God bless you guys yeah my thoughts are very
similar I appreciate what brother Dwayne pointed out there at the
beginning I guess I'd never made the connection before he didn't dwell
on it much but I'll kind of come back around full circle draw attention
to it again so Jesus says talks about dogs and talks about pigs and the
only other place that I can think of in the scriptures that mentions
that is what Dwayne pointed out which I'd never made the connection was
2nd Peter chapter 2 verse 22 so Jesus says do not give what is holy to
the dog nor cast your pearls before swine Peter says what it has
happened to them according the true proverb a dog returns to his own
vomit and a sow you know female pig right having washed to her has
returned to her wallowing in the mire or in the mud so that's that's
interesting Jesus says lest or else lest they trample them under their
feet and tear you in turn and tear you to pieces so yeah similar similar
thoughts here yeah years ago or doing some street preaching when I would
be out there a lot of times just reading scripture just reading the
passages that talk about warnings about behaving like this this this all
these you know whether it's Galatians 519 or whatever Colossians 3
Ephesians 5 different passages and I remember a few times at least a few
times some men coming up to me and being very angry and and threatening
that they were going to hit me in some way or whatever choice of words
they use but but yeah they were going to use violence and I think it's
very similar to some accounts in the book of Acts that you see the
Apostles they're preaching most of the time it was to the Jews but
they're preaching to people telling them to repent and then when all of
a sudden they had this kind of problem they would then shake the dust in
their feet stop the preaching and and then go somewhere else or some
cases actually getting stoned right there or whatever and I know Dwayne
kind of had a little bit of a different thought more of it being which
I'd never thought about before and I think it's interesting about you
basically bringing those that aren't really regenerated in the heart
they're not really repentant but hey they want to join this this church
thing you got going on because it's I mean hey they got a family and
that'd be a good thing for their family or whatever who knows whatever
the scenario might be but they're not really wanting to turn from that
stuff and so they come in and pollute the church and it seems like that
was kind of what I was understanding Dwayne was saying but a different
perspective would be kind of like what Micah was saying and then similar
to my experience is is that you're trying to reason with somebody that's
irrational and not reasonable and they're actually threatening you that
kind of like the proverb and I'm trying to remember exactly how the
proverb reads but it basically talks about how you shouldn't try to
reason with a fool lest you also become a fool with them sharing their
folly something like that and so similarly when you're when you're
preaching you're passing you're casting pearls you know with the Word of
God to people I've had like I said these situations where people are
getting really angry about you calling them to repentance and then of
course you know the words which are the words from God are piercing
their heart of their conscience and they're feeling guilty and they
don't like this feeling and they're getting angry as a result rather
than getting humble and repent and then they're they're threatening you
that lest they turn and tear you to pieces I think kind of fits that so
there's a little thought there I think it was similar what Michael was
saying with his neighbor seems like Oh Oh Oh

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/fI5juOHDgk4.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/duane-troyer/dogs-pigs-and-finding-the-pearl/
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