Full Strength Love

Full Strength Love

May 22, 2011 Morning Service

Immanuel Baptist Church, Wagoner, OK

Rick Boyne

Message Point: We must keep fervent in our love toward one another.

Focus Passage: I Peter 4:7-11

Supplemental Passage: But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, (2 Timothy 3:1-4 NASB)

Introduction: Relate examples of things being watered down, diluted, or half-strength:

Before his arrest, Robert Courtney served as a deacon at Northland Cathedral, an Assembly of God Church in Kansas City.

In 1990, Courtney began purchasing pharmaceuticals on the gray market and using them to fill prescriptions at his pharmacy. In time, he began diluting prescriptions to increase profits. Both practices were illegal.

In 1998, an Eli Lilly sales representative noticed a discrepancy between the amount of the cancer drug Gemzar Courtney bought and the amount he sold. Lilly initiated an internal investigation but found no evidence of of illegality and closed the investigation without further action.

In 2001, the Eli Lilly sales representative mentioned the matter to a nurse who worked for an oncologist in Courtney’s building and was also one of Courtney’s customers. The oncologist had medication supplied by Courtney tested. When the results showed the prescriptions were diluted, the oncologist notified authorities.

According to law enforcement estimates, from 1990 to 2001, Courtney diluted 98,000 prescriptions, which were given to 4,200 patients. Courtney is reported to have diluted 72 different kinds of drugs.

In August 2001, two months before his arrest, Courtney held total assets worth $18.7 million.

In 2002, Courtney pleaded guilty to 20 federal counts of tampering and adulterating the chemotherapy drugs Taxol and Gemzar. He also acknowledged that he and his corporation, Courtney Pharmacy Inc., had weakened drugs, conspired to traffic in stolen drugs and caused the filing of false Medicare claims. He was sentenced to 30 years in Federal Prison.

Courtney was also named as defendant in approximately 300 suits for fraud and wrongful death. In one case, a jury awarded plaintiff Georgia Hayes a judgment in the amount of $2.2 billion.

Investigators reported that before turning himself in, Courtney gave $80,000 in cash, and more than 100 doses of Prozac to his wife.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Courtney]

I. Last Days Behavior: Bad (2 Tim 3:1-4)

a. Lovers of self

b. Showing an empty love

II. Last Days Behavior: Good

a. Self-controlled and alert in order to pray (vs 7)

b. Fervent Love (vs 8)

c. Hospitable without complaint (vs 9)

d. Serve one another (vs 10)

e. Do all things in order to bring honor and glory to God

III. Last Days Behavior: Example

a. "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35 NASB)

b. For "Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." (1 Peter 3:10-12 ESV)

c. … "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY." (1 Peter 1:16 NASB)

Invitation: