What Goes In?

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Well, my love to every one of you. God bless you, I’m so glad for the privilege of sharing with you from God’s Word. Come with me now, to the fourth chapter of Mark. We’re studying in the gospel of Mark. Now, we look at Mark four and come to verse 24 and Jesus said, “Take heed what ye hear, with what measure ye mete”, that word mete, M-E-T-E, is an old English word for measure out, like a measuring cup, “with what measure”, you measure out like a measuring cup, “it shall be measured to you, and unto you that hear”. You put the word really under you who really hear, or are you who hear and pay attention, or are you hear and do something about it. That’s what that means, “for you who really here shall more be given”. Over at Luke chapter 8, there’s a parallel passage but uses a little different word, and I was interested to see that. I thought I’d pass along to you today, Luke 8:18, “Take heed”, he says, “therefore how you hear, for whosoever hath to him shall be given, and whosoever hath not from him, shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have”. Now, the verse turns on that would seem. It’s possible to go through all the motions of listening to God, and not really have anything of value from the exercise.

Millions of people are in church, laboring under that very difficulty. They go to church, they sing the songs, they rise and sit or kneel at the proper times, they drop their collection into the collection plate, they doze a little through the sermon and then get up and go on out, and they’ve been to church. Well, it doesn’t make very much difference. Good many years ago now, I had an acquaintance who had foreclosed, had foreclosed a mortgage on another believer, quite promptly. He didn’t wait many minutes after the deadline had passed before he foreclosed. I ventured to ask him whether that makes to the Christianity that he had expressed and experienced in church? He smiled and looked at me and said suavely, “Well, Bob religion is religion and business is business”. That was that. Well yes, I know you have to be a businessman, and yes I know there are religious people who take advantage of you financially, because of the religious connection, and they because you’re a Christian that you should allow them not to have to pay the bills. I know all that. I’ve been through this, but the point I’m making beloved, is that the world is full of people who go through the motions, who seem to hear from God, but who don’t have any tangible result accruing in their lives as a result, and so it says, “from him”, that person was a careless or thoughtless or shallow are rejecting hearer, “shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have”. And the law of diminishing returns sets in there, so that the less you have spiritually, the less you’re going to have, and it diminishes and diminishes until finally the life is cold, dead, and empty. You wonder what happened to the experiences you used to have. Well, let’s think about this just for a moment, it says, “That he’d want to hear”, verse 24 of Mark 4.

They tell me that is a person, a part of the brain, that is quite similar to the computer, and in that computer portion is lodged the memory of everything, every experience, every word, every sound, every impression that you have had since birth. Now, you don’t remember all of it consciously. People can bring memories back I’m told sometimes under hypnotism, but you don’t remember all of it consciously, but it’s there. That’s how God is going to judge people at the Judgment Day, because all He has to do is recall for you, those things that have happened, like some lawyer at a trial who says to the defendant, let me refresh your memory, he says with a slight snare, and brings out some document that has the poor, trembling defendant’s signature on it. Refresh your memory. God is going to do that. Tucked away in your, that big computer between your two ears, your brain, is the record of all of your experiences, and all that you said and done, and heard. Now he says, “Take care what you hear”, how can you help hearing if it’s going to come your way? There is such a thing, my friend, as the protecting spirit of God’s presence and power in your life. Someone was asking a military man who was also believer, who was required from time to time, as part of his military duty, to be present at certain events that were not, shall we say, consistent with his Christian testimony. People were drinking and carousing and cursing and telling lewd stories, and of all the rest, but he had to be there because it was his duty. And so they said to him, “Colonel, how is it that you as a believer can stand to be in a situation like that? All around you there’s all sorts of filth and the unbelieving people are cursing and swearing”. “Oh”, he smiled he said, “Well”, he said, “when I’m there”, he said, “I just pull down the curtains of my mind and get alone with my Lord”. I pull down the curtains of my mind and get alone with my Lord. Now, you know that’s possible to do, all you have to do, if you’re a parent or grandparent, is to remember the last time you tried to lecture Junior or his sister about something, and the child stood there while you were giving the lecture, and you knew that not a bit of it was sinking in, and then finally you said in some desperation, “Oh, if you would only listen to me”. You see, it is possible isn’t it, to screen out what gets into the computer. That’s why Jesus said, Take heed what you hear. Well, you say, there are some things I hear and I can help it. I know, but at that point, it’s possible for you to apply 2 Corinthians 10:5, “Bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”, and where there are unwanted impressions, you don’t have to fight them because if you fight a mental impression, you only drive it deeper don’t you? You don’t have to fight them, but instead you yield to your blessed Lord and then ask Jesus to take care of it. What a luxury that is. A real delight and a restful kind of luxury to be able to settle back and say, “Lord handle this for me”. Have you learned that yet? In cases of temptation or stress or worry or unwanted impressions that are coming your way from an unbelieving world, have you learned how to just rest in Jesus and say, handle this for me? Oh, how precious that is. “Take heed” He said, “what you hear”.

Now, let me talk to the small fry and the high schooler’s, and junior high, and college people especially. I know that you make a pretty good case for the fact that if you listen to rock, you can study better. The fact is that you’ve become conditioned to that like Pavlov’s dog. You know Dr. Pavlov years ago, taught his dogs to salivate when the food was brought, then he started ringing a bell at the same time, and then, then he took the food away after they’ve become accustomed to food and the ringing of a bell, and found out that their mouths would water, they would salivate, their mouths would water, just at the ringing of the bell. Why? They were conditioned. Now, that’s happened to many of you, and so you say to me, “Well Brother Cook, I just have to, I can’t study without the radio”. Or you have a cassette in there you know, the Rolling Stones or the Dying Monkeys or the Grateful Dead or whatever it may be, and you’ve got that thing turned up full blast, until a windows are rattling, and then you’re studying. Well, let me tell you something. Number one; you don’t have to do it that way. You do it because you want to do it that way. That’s the first truth.Number two; you don’t study near as efficiently with a lot of noise around you, as you would if things are more quiet. That is for sure. Number three; if you want to change, you may. The Lord Jesus Christ can monitor your mental intake, and also He can oil up the wheels, you might say, of that brain of yours, so that it runs smoother, if you’ll trust Him for it, but the most important comment about all of this is, that if you listen to the lyrics of many of these rock songs and country-western songs, of all that, you’ll find that they’re incredibly lewd. They go far beyond the, please help me, pass the night, spend the night with me, which has its unspoken invitation to immorality. They go way beyond that, as you know, and so what you’re doing is saying, oh I don’t listen to the words. Oh yes you do, unconsciously, they are getting into the computer, and so what you’re doing is, you’re filling your mind with all sorts of immoral and lewd thoughts, that are being telegraphed to you through the lyrics of the things that you’re listening to. Does that make sense for believer? Yes, I know you can argue about it, and many of you do. Listen, I wasn’t the college President for 23 years without hearing some arguments, but I think the facts are on the other side of the case. Jesus said, “Take heed what you hear”, don’t pour all that junk into your mind. Why should you give the blessed Holy Spirit a bad time, and grieve Him with the inpouring of all of that verbal sewage that comes wrapped up in some kind of rock music or country-western music, whatever it is. Now not all country-western is bad and not all was so-called Christian rock is bad, I know that. What I’m saying is, take heed. Watch what you’re getting into your mind because it stays there. Instead why don’t you turn the intake over to Jesus, our blessed Lord. Amen?

Dear Father today, will Thou monitor what we hear, will Thou control the results of that input by Thy Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name, I ask, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!