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Just wondering if it would be alright to go into the third chapter and refer back.
Bruce kind of gave us a nice outline to close it, but we can have reference back that be alright.
Chapter and into the third.
And then? So where do we begin?
Along with the third chapter.
Ron suggested.
First Corinthians, chapter 3.
Thy brethren could not speak in the US under spiritual and as under carnal, even as under faith in Christ.
Said you with milk and not meat, and for Hitler to you were not able to spare it either. Yet now are you able? For you are yet carnal. But whereas there is among you can be strive and divisions, are he not carnal and walk his men? But while one says I am appalled, another I am appalled, Are you not carnal?
Who then is called? Who is a policy that ministers by whom he believed?
Even as the Lord gave every man, I have planted a Polish water, but John gave the increase, so then neither is he the plant anything, neither he the water. The God that give us the entry now he the slanted and heat of waters are one, and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.
We are laborers together with God. Your God's husband should be our God's building.
According to the grace of God, which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I've laid the foundation. Another build is their loss. And let every man take heed how you build us there on. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid.
Which is Christ or Jesus Christ? Now, if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stone, wood, a subtle, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's worth of what sort it is.
Many man's work abide which he has built their upon. He shall receive a reward.
Any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved. Yes, so as my Father, Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.
The temple of God is holy, which temple Enos that no man deceived himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise, for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
It is written, He paid us the wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Therefore let no man glory in men, For all things are yours, whether Paul or Paulus, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours, and ye are Christ.
And Christ is gone.
Bruce, would you give that little summary that Ron spoke up just again?
Running on it particularly.
Kind of a number now. It's all right if it doesn't come 55 links to the chain. Oh, that's right. OK. Thank you, brother.
From verse six of chapter 2 on to the end, he he shows us how the the truth of God really is taken in by the Saints and how we get the truth so that we have the mind of Christ, which is the closing words of the chapter, but we have the mind of Christ.
And they are first of all verse seven, that they are ordained before the world was found, that as God has as made these councils and purposes in the eternity past, we learned from another scripture in Titus and in Ephesians 3 that He made a promise in eternity. And it has been asked, well, who did you promise it to if there was nobody there?
There was number men at that time, but the answer is that God the Father made a promise to the Son of eternal life that there would be others that would share eternal life with them. And also, of course, the truth that is particularly before us here in this chapter is to do with the truth of the mystery of Christ in the church. It was first ordained before the foundation of the world. That's the first language. Then secondly, in verse nine, it says it was prepared for them that love.
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You might ask, well, how is it prepared? It was prepared by the foundation being laid at the cross from the Lord Jesus went and paid the price for our sins and made a righteous basis upon which God could come out and be a blessing to men, and whereby we would be secured for that. Then thirdly, you have in verse 10 He has revealed it by His Spirit. So there was revelation given to the apostles.
And the apostles have given it to us.
And then it goes on in verse 13 to speak about comparing spiritual things with spirit by spiritual means. It should really read communicating spiritual things. So there you have not just the revealing of it, but the communicating it to the Saints. And then that requires, fifthly, a state of soul in the states that they would be found in a spiritual state, and so that they can discern these things. So verse 14 brings out the thought of discernment. So let me speak.
It was first ordained, then prepared, then revealed and communicated, and lastly discerned. So these are the way. This is the way in which God ordained that the truth should be come to the Saints, and it's completely aside and apart from human wisdom.
In the third chapter he shows us some of the consequences of human wisdom if it's not checked and judged, and we have here in this chapter one consequence is that it it hinders the Saints from growing. These ones were still looked at as babes when they should have been, had grown and gone on in their souls. That's verses one and two, then verses three and four and five and so on. We have another consequence, maybe perhaps down to verse nine, and that is that.
There comes a a spirit of rivalry.
God's people, which creates division.
Which was particularly the problem that they had there.
And then thirdly, from verse 9 or 10 on to.
Verse 17 or so we have yet another.
Sad consequence of the vision of human wisdom at work and the things of God, and that is that it does not help in the service of God. In fact, if one serves along that line, he's going to be defiling the House of God and bringing in those things which would answer to wood, hay and stubble and will not receive the reward of the Lord's approval. So in every way, whether it's our personal growth, whether it's our getting along in the assembly life.
And so on. Or is our service for the Lord and each way we he shows here that human wisdom has no part. So it's not just in learning the truth as we've had in chapters one and two. It's the growing and the getting along with one another. And also our service. It is entirely shut out and will not meet God's approval and any standard in any way.
Paul was writing some three to five years after.
He had visited the court. Acts 18 gives you the account of it and here he says.
He could not speak up to them as a spiritual, but as unto carnival, fleshly.
Even as unto bathes in Christ, this was a shame. They ought to have grown at this time, and yet he was still having to address them as being babes in Christ. Now you'll find in the New Testament three kinds of babes. You've probably heard this before. Here we have a babe by carnality.
Carnal and fleshly things had attracted their hearts and had hindered them from progressing. Then in Hebrews chapter 5, you'll find another kind of a babe.
Again, it is to their shame, and that is because the Hebrews were wrapped up in the legal system of Judaism and it had hindered them from going on and making progress. And again, he speaks of them as babes. There you might say it's babes by legality. And then you turn over to 1St John chapter 2 where he speaks of the various stages of growth in the family of God as fathers, as young men, and then as little children or babes. And there he's Speaking of.
Not in any derogatory way, but in a sense that what they really were, they were just new to the faith. There were new consciousness, and so you might say they were babes by actuality. So we have babes by carnality or babes by legality and babes by actuality, which is the only real one that should be. It exists amongst God's people. But here it was because of their own failure, leaning upon the arm of the flesh, whether it was philosophical.
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Or just plain worldliness. Whatever the case was, the result was that they had not grown as they ought to have.
He spoke of the being, the need for being spiritual in the latter verses of the chapter before. We didn't exactly touch on it, but he does speak there about how that they are spiritually discerned and it requires one being in a spiritual state. But he says I can't speak to you as one, as a spiritual state because you've been hindered by the carnality that you've gone on with. And so he had to speak to them of the very most elementary things in Christianity.
As babes.
In Christ.
What does it mean in verse 14 of the last chapter? Natural land? What does that term?
It says but the natural man received it hot. The things of the Spirit of God. Who would be someone that's a natural man?
That's an unconverted man.
That has not the Spirit of God. Is that right, Ron? That is right. You have a striking example of Samson setting a Riddle before the Philistines.
And.
They thought about that Riddle and they just weren't getting anywhere and struggled with it for seven days. And finally they picked on the woman that he was going to marry to find out what the answer was to that Riddle, showing that the natural man cannot enter into the things of God, neither can he know them. And so Samson let it out.
And we're glad that there's an answer to that Riddle.
But it's just a sample of, as you say, an unbeliever cannot. He doesn't have the capacity or the tools as we may use to know that things have gone in the gospel to get the Lord.
Explaining things and when he takes the disciples away from the multitude.
I think it's interesting in our day we have so much Christian radio where really truths that belong to the Church of God are just broadcast everywhere. But it's interesting to see that natural men may hear that and to them doesn't seem to make much sense.
But there, there are family secrets, as it were.
It's that which God has given us by a spirit.
In Paul's writings he has a number of different men and been I studied to take up some time. Your young brothers are students of the Scripture he speaks about. Well, he had one already. The inner man and the outer man, and the old man and the new man. We have the 1St man, the 2nd man. We have the natural man and the spiritual man, which is in our chapter here. We have the carnal man and the wretched man.
Each of those Paul designates is Speaking of different states with regard to.
Humanity and and Christian doctrine.
But the spiritual man is one who has the Spirit of God and has is walking into the power of the Spirit so that he has the capacity to to discern what has been revealed.
God is not revealing truth today. Revelation was given to not to the Saints exactly, but to the apostles.
Who communicated those revelations to the Saints? But it requires on the Saints part a spiritual state to take it in.
Steve Coleman back home is quite a engineer with regard to.
Communications and so on. And he was explaining to us how that, you know, he has these Palm Pilots and he can, I guess it bounces off a satellite or something and comes back to someone else. But they were trying to hook one up there one day. I remember they were talking and the problem was that one was transmitting fine, but the other was not receiving. So they weren't getting anywhere. And so God has, in a sense, has transmitted the truth to us, but it still requires a state of soul.
For us to get it. And many Christians are not found in that. I lay my hand in my own heart, and it may be the reason why that I lack understanding and divine things. And so there requires a spiritual state. And this was what was missing in the Corinthians because of their allowance of human wisdom in their midst and leaning on this Greek philosophy and so on that had become mixed with Christian things. It was just nothing but muddying the waters up so that they could not get a hold of divine things.
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In the context of what you've been speaking, help me and.
On both others Galatians 61 Brethren, if a man do overtaken in the fault, ye which are spiritual.
What is the?
The sense of that.
Verse Spiritual.
Where the ancient roundabout way the Corinthian Saints came out of heathendom.
And whether it's he than them or from any other quarter of the earth, that when we come into God's assembly.
That we can't bring things with us that are going to benefit the assembly. And this is a very difficult thing to become as a little child. Lord could say, shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of God except you become as a little child. What's the point? We come in as learners. We have to start in kindergarten.
We don't understand and to be able to learn the truth of God, but you know, you come in.
As an adult in the event in his all these circles and you think there's got to be something that I was involved in out there that was a little bit right. And so I bring in that little bit right and that seems to pass and I bring in some more and I believe that was a troubling corn. And so consequently now the question comes up.
Who's spiritual to be able to meet some of these difficult situations?
Isn't part of it at least that we have learned our nothingness and do not stand qualified as the doctor, psychiatrist, or whatever that does not dissolve spiritual difficulties?
I think you maybe add more than that in mind.
Well this may be nothing more than an Amen to what you said, but in the previous chapter in Galatians it says.
Fruit of the Spirit.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. I've wondered if it isn't an individual in whom the fruit of the Spirit is manifested.
Oh, but you're more capable whether you've been in the path longer. You seem to know more scripture, but.
The fruit of the Spirit, one that is living in the Spirit, walking in the Spirit.
Could it well be that they're qualified?
To be considered as spiritual, to restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering myself.
Campfire.
It's it's expressed this way.
Inversely proportional, The amount of heat is directly proportional to the square of the distance away from the fire. In plain language, the further you get away from the fire, the colder you get. And if we keep close to the Lord, and we have the fruit of the Spirit manifested, we may hopefully be like Moses. That was not that as they shone.
But possibly that's the qualification.
Being able to go to someone and restore them. Scorch.
I had a delightful experience, the gratitude of a brother that came to me when I was a young person. He could see that my feet were getting on slippery ground.
And so he just entered into conversation with me at a very.
Good moment. And he began to speak and and I didn't know who he was speaking about. I kind of thought he was speaking about himself.
And he led me to believe that the Lord had to help him along in the Christian pathway. And, and, and so he delivered him. And you know, he went through that whole conversation without anything just being pointed at me. But afterward I thought, you know, I think he had a concern for my soul and he did.
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But I thought that's a spiritual brother. He didn't come down on me and say, you know, if you go on that pathway, this is going to happen and.
Someone that I just realized here, somebody had a care and it's deserved, should I say.
And I believe you saved my life.
Perhaps the spirit that he also speaks to the Galatians here. This was really an arrow directly to the huts. Unfortunately, when we take up with human wisdom, we tend to confuse it with spirituality. My son, whether for good or bad for journalism class, has to read a magazine and read it, browse it, but have an article and call the spiritualical the spiritual state of America.
And it really points to that fact that we confuse human wisdom with spirituality. So this is what the apostle Paul says in Galatians he which is spiritual. Well, they thought that was so spiritual that they were walking in the flesh trying to judaizing Christianity. What what a what a word to the heart in in kind of the way that you just spoke brother wrong. He just says ye, that is spiritual. What a check now sold.
He was a spiritual.
Notice the babes in our chapter are seen as being in Christ.
You see, that term in Christ refers to our position of acceptance. That's a position that every believer has, everyone who believes the gospel resting in.
Finished work of Christ.
Is engulfed with the Spirit of God and has a position of acceptance before God. And if the term is used in Scripture over and again as being in Christ, it simply means to be in Christ's place before God. That's the place that we're all in. The very place of acceptance that Christ has before God, with all the favor of God resting upon him is my place and it's yours. And it's got nothing to do with the question of our state.
Or how long we have walked in the path, whether we're new Christians or old. Here you find that they're spoken of as babes, but they're in Christ. They had not progressed as they ought to have been, but their position of acceptance had not changed or altered because of the work of Christ.
If that was seen, there would never be a soul that would talk about not having the sense of eternal security.
I worked with a fellow. He was. He resented deeply and pointedly that I would ever mention about internal security. He resented it. He almost thought that I was gloring in it. Well, God forbid I should go receive the cross.
So whatever truth we have, whether it's being gathered to the Lords name or eternal security or the like, it's not a question of glorying in it, it's a question of being thankful what God is revealing.
But to think of being in Christ and then being concerned?
Steve isn't here tough, but he has mentioned publicly that some of the fellows that he graduated from high school with went to a certain church. And I can tell you the address for that's not important. But they don't believe in internal security. And it was so devastating to them that they just quit the church and just quit thinking about Christianity because if they didn't have a sense of eternal security.
What chance did they have to think of what it gives to the believer? And as you said, babes in Christ.
You know, I want to repeat that.
Maybe there's a reason, maybe there isn't, but it be as it may, whatever truth that we believe, whether it's being gathered to the Lords name, eternal security, the light is not a question of pride. It's a question of rejoicing in the goodness of God and the grace of God that has given us to see.
God forbid that I should glory saving the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ.
And So what do we do if we were to meet a situation where ones have been stunted by their fleshly lifestyle and they have not grown or progressed as they ought to have? All we have it right here. Verse two, I have fed you with milk and not meat.
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We don't disregard them and say, oh, you're not, you're not worthy that I should speak to you or something like that. No, we seek to give them what they need, where they are. And so sad to say that they still needed milk and ought not to have been the case, but it was. And so he met them where he where they were by giving them milk. And I think milk would speak to us of the elementary truths of Christianity.
Those basics he had to go back and lay the foundation pretty much again for their souls.
You notice he did speak of the mystery, but he does not disclose the mystery. There's only two epistles that disclose the mystery.
Though you'll have it mentioned in Romans 16, you'll have it mentioned in Corinthians a couple of times, and only two epistles really open up to us what the mystery is, and that's Ephesians and Colossians. As you know, there are two pistols that will give us the highest line of truth in the whole Bible.
He didn't. I guess they were not in a state to be able to take that kind of thing at that point at least.
Suppose they had bottles in those day that they had on, and I suppose they had super cups that someone was being fed with milk. It was being nurtured as a mother nursing her children. We have a first read to us at the Tone this morning about nurturing. And so the thought here was more than just putting things on the table and saying, OK, you can. I'll leave you with a bottle in the crib or I'll put a Super Cup on the table. You just get the milk.
There must have been that real closeness and nurturing as a thought connected with his feeding with milk.
The difficult thing is to to seek to minister to ones needs where they are, as these ones were abates and yet they imagine themselves to be at least fathers, perhaps beyond that, if there was even such a category. And that's the sad thing about the the the flesh is that when the flesh begins to have a place in our life that we become desensitized as to our own state.
And what happens is that they would probably bore the most surprised of all that he would speak of them as babes.
Because they had this gift and they had the intellect and all of the eloquence that and so on that he speaks of elsewhere in this epistle, but he speaks to them, to their conscience as well. That really you're still in the state of being a babe.
It's quite a contrast.
Notice the 1St chapter he says to them.
We come behind it and no gift.
And yet the same people could be called carnal and bathed in Christ.
It would do us well to not be too concerned with whether they had a gift merely to exercise what God has given us.
How much it's another thing that factors into this and that isn't the apostle Paul had spent a year and six months with the Corinthian Saints and you say what did they learn while he was there and how many teachers patiently have taught the word of God and and they look at their results and they are just disheartened.
And that's the reason that we need to go over the truth again and again. We learn very slowly.
We can't take it in intellectually and and hold on to it. It's got to grip the affections of our hearts and it's then now that we're able to keep it. But if we're just gaining head knowledge here this afternoon, I can guarantee it'll be forgotten before the sun goes down. But that which reaches our hearts, it's got a lodging place for eternity.
I may forget things, but they're there.
And there may be circumstances that it rises up and it's food for my soul and a defense against the enemy of my soul.
And so I think it was brother one day that mentioned this, he said that every truth of God that comes through the conscience and it resides in the heart is there for eternity. You know, I just enjoyed that statement so that we're not just wasting time here this afternoon and our brethren have invited us together, knows the need.
And we can go over these things again and again.
Someone has said the things that we know the best that are brought out again are probably more enjoyed than some things that we've never heard before.
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I don't have the new translation open.
Isn't the word divisions in the third verse admitted? Yes.
I think there's a progression in the first chapter in Christ Divided.
Then it says here.
Where you're yet carnal, for as there is among you envying and strife. And then in First Corinthians 10.
11.
Well, first of all, when you come together in the Assembly, I hear that there be citizens among you.
So the third chapter is a little premature in connection with the thought of divisions.
But we see how the seeds of it.
They're developing and then we know what happens in the 5th chapter and so on. But then in the 11Th where there must be also a heresies among you that they which were approved. And so there was a progression, wasn't there? And with each one of us or an assembly, there is a progression which doesn't necessarily have to go on to that.
Net negative result God gives us. He speaks once, yet twice, and how important.
Individually, collectively, because it's going to be exactly what it says. I hear that there be divisions or systems among my partner beliefs, but there must be also Harris to do it.
Leave the assembly is the.
Greatest display the grace of God.
And you can find throughout the earth.
And the simple reason that we come from all walks of life, different backgrounds, different nationalities, different cultures.
And here we are all brought together.
And.
We say, well, there are natural divisions, but that's not what we're talking about. There's beyond in the old rich, in the fourth one, in the free, and we all sit down together and those are natural divisions, but they don't have to cause any trouble. Their divisions that we can't do anything about, but the divisions of Paul is speaking about.
Is the division that the will causes.
There's never been a division among God's people, and it hasn't been a long time coming. And finally, the Lord is not going to bear with it anymore.
And he knows exactly how to, I think it was, brother Judd said. He knows exactly how to get the weeds out of his garden. He's kind of a strong statement, but to help us to understand that when God brings in a division.
He's the one that's doing the dividing, but he's got material. We give him material to work with, sad to say.
So we think of rules that would have been relaxed.
And we're content to let the one who is the Son over God's house to manage his own affairs.
And let the assembly be the exhibition of his marvelous grace and love. Is that asking too much?
Or it is too much for the flesh.
Impossible.
I examine myself and if in any way my brother or a half a reflection of what I see in myself, it's hopeless. Hold up the tent is the Arabian and move on. But if it's.
Of the Spirit.
They take very sharp knife myself first.
Well, again in the book of Galatians, despite the devour as possible.
Not very spiritual.
Been a challenge to my own heart. My trust is to others.
Look around your home assembly.
Anybody sitting there that you would be glad to have gone?
Ouch.
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And if the answer is no, that's a wonderful answer. But if it's yes, beware.
Because they belong to Christ.
And there are different degrees of the understanding of the Word of God, different degrees of light, different degrees of entering into the Kingdom of God.
And can't we be patient about these things?
Patience always wins a day. We check that out and you think, well, I don't have any more. Patience is running out.
Ask God for patience.
And watch for His salvation as you do it.
So where there have been overcoming of avoiding division?
It's deep exercises so, but it's worth it.
Rather than to be scattered, I think of some of my dear brethren who have left the Lord in the midst, and I see them out there wandering, and our paths cross once in a while.
He is hardly know what to say because the distance is so great. You don't know whether they love you or whether they want to hear from you, and they want you to know how happy they are to shut your mouth and so on. But.
Let us keep close to the Lord and.
In the place of his appointment, so the allowance of human wisdom and the things of God will not only hinder ones progress and development as far as our our.
Spiritual growth is concerned. We had that verses one and two, but in verse three onward he brings up this other point that you've run and have already addressed and that is the fact that there develops a rivalry amongst God's people and division results. There is a undue emphasis to put on the servants of the Lord as well saying I am appalled and I am appalled as he says in verse 4.
And so that leads the apostle to speak of himself of apostles.
And speak of how the servants of the Lord should behave as they minister in the Lords vineyard. And you see how they work with perfect harmony. One was waterings, one was planting, the other was watering. It wasn't something that was taking away from the others work, but they complimented one another's work. And this is normal Christianity.
But when there's the flesh and carnality in amongst the Lords people, there is going to be this tearing down that we've been Speaking of, biting and devouring, envying and strike as we've had here. And it's a pitiful thing because as you've already mentioned, if it goes on it will develop to something worse. As you say, there is a progression that you find in the epistle that ends up in heresy.
And heresy is a outward split amongst the Lord's people.
It starts with a schism which we had in chapter one, which is an inward division amongst God's people, though they're still together. There's a there's a difference of opinion and feeling and so on. I think schism, which is an inward division, what will that is left unchecked, it will end up in an outward break amongst God's people. Whether it's a party that actually separates itself from the fellowship of the Saints and goes out on some pretense, that's a heresy.
And he mentions that in Chapter 11.
Just underscoring what you had said already, brother. Yes, Chapter 11 and verse 19. There must also be heresies or could be translated half the seconds among you that they which are approved may be made manifest. But what ended up with a heresy starts with a schism. And what precedes a schism is what we're reading about in our chapter. That's envy and strife and that.
Scripture speaks about a damnable heresy. Second Peter 2.
First one I think, and that's talking about a party that is gathering around soul damning doctrines, which he speaks of in second Peter.
But not all heresy are stammable heresy. But the forming of a party and severing that from the fellowship of God's people is a very serious thing. It's an ecclesiastical evil.
And as you've been saying that sometimes because God is sifting amongst His people, He may allow Satan to get in and do that work, that ones may be sifted out and He will deal with them if they're His children in his school and His time and in His way. But nevertheless, we don't want to be a promoter of such things and it can simply be pressing the truth.
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Until it's untrue.
In other words, getting along legged on one side and short legged on the other. You know, we are creatures of that, of that stamp of getting along on things and short on other things. And we think that balances things out and then.
That's what makes all the trouble is out of balance.
FW Grand.
Put together.
Track, if you will, on the subject of Old Testament Saints.
When you brought by the Spirit, he was told that it was not something that would encourage the Saints and he said I am going to publish that if it splits the brother and Cliff, I don't hear. I didn't hear this from Clifford on himself, but he said I looked 30 years later for a copy of that track and I couldn't find it. It was so important.
FW Grant View is willing to split the brother which.
But thirty years later, a copy of it couldn't be found. I'm not saying that there haven't been some here that have found a copy, but Brown could thought it was so relatively unimportant, or at least in the sight of God, that it couldn't be found. And yet he was willing to split the brethren. And you know.
There are things that come up, I may hear about them, you know about them, and if they're squelched, if they're held in their proper perspective, there are things amongst us that may not be exactly seen alive. I'm going to press that.
Sort of. There was a conference with dear brother Potter and somebody sitting behind him, said Brethren, baptism, it's vital. And without ever turning around, he said God has not entrusted vitals.
To his creatures.
That stopped. Now there may be something that I feel is far more important than baptism, but I have to be extremely careful that I don't press it to the point of yeah, I know this brother and that brother that agree with, I have automatically created.
Is that track that he wrote was called Life in Christ and the ceiling of the Spirit, was it not? And he taught all sorts of things in there as well, if you look at it more carefully, like the Old Testament Saints having eternal life and so on. And though we could have lived with some of those things someone said he showed himself to be.
A heretical man by forcing division.
And a heretic, just by the way, is one who engineers a division.
That would split off from the Lords, people said to say.
And you were going to say something more. No, it's just really just to say Amen. You know, it isn't like a ballot. There is going to be a city up north here about whether there's going to be a new Walmart store and they're going to put it on the ballot. But we're not putting the word of God on the ballot. I'm not. I should never think. Well, now, brother, so and so he doesn't see it my way, but this one does. I've automatically produced in my heart at least.
Heresy.
And I'm a hurricane. And if I can go on.
With my brethren, with some truth that I may think that I am the one, that I'm being a little bit sarcastic thinking that I see it better than the other, I would do very well to leave it before you or is going to be pressed just like the pressing of What is that?
Ringing of the nose bringing forth blood. So does the.
That's what happens. It will happen every time.
Mr. CalPERS form the progress of error. There's a little part of it that says must men go wrong with ingenious skill?
Bend a straight rule to their own crooked will, and with the clear and shining lamps applied, first put it out, then take it for a guide. Halting on crutches of unequal size, one leg by truth supporters, 1 by lies. They sighted to the goal, with awkward face secured, nothing but to lose the race.
I know others will do this, but you're our poet laureate.
I appreciate it. There's so much truth in it, you know?
00:45:01
The awfulness of the mind at work.
Things of God.
Question to be raised, it doesn't need an answer.
But how many of these men have been restored back?
To the Lord's Table.
The answer is solemn, isn't it? You give us some idea.
Get on this course, this unjudged course.
Never return.
The answer is what has been mentioned isn't. It's childlike. There's a verse in Jeremiah three I've shared with some here.
Struck me in meditating on it in the early part of well in Jeremiah's called the weeping prophet and in chapter one he.
Called to.
Throughout and pull down and destroy and throw down.
And to build another plant.
They had turned to idolatry. Israel had.
But when you come to chapter 3.
In verse 19.
I was trying to think of.
More than this, but there's at least two things that I that come to mind. Where God asks himself a question, He's never endowed the answer.
What in?
Genesis, he says, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?
And in this verse 19.
Says But I said, How shall I put thee among the children?
What's he talking about? Israel that had been turned to idolatry and had gone into captivity.
God asked himself the question. Job asked himself the question, How shall I put thee among the children?
Now I want to read the rest of it in the new translation.
And give the the pleasant land.
The goodly inheritance of the hosts of the nations, the footnote says. The most lovely inheritance of the nations.
Think of that. I believe in this verse. He's looking forward to restoring Israel in a future day.
And he says, I have to put you among your children. You and I as Christians have the secret of God.
Except you repent and become as little children. That's the answer, isn't it? He's looking forward to bringing in Christ.
And that Christ, the Messiah, what's it say they shall look upon?
In.
On me whom they have pierced, and mourn for him. What a change in language right there.
There's one mourn us for an only son. It's the childlike attitude that will restore. And no matter where men may go astray, if grace brings them to that again, they can be restored.
And here to think, to give thee the most lovely inheritance of the nations. And I said, thou shalt call me my father's, and thou shalt not turn away from me. Think of that future day in Israel.
And that's going to be the relationship they know, they shall not say each one to his fellow know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest. So it's going to come down to the person of the Messiah known and themselves. Nothing the childlike aspect.
Thank you.
Mr. Darby's remark?
I don't know I would quote it right, but something like.
00:50:02
You need to be content to be anything or nothing so long as Christ is glorified.
Apollos.
Felt differently than Paul about going to a certain place at one time.
Paul, certainly.
Was a remarkable servant of God, yet we talked I was thinking as we were talking about you with your spiritual restoring one such in one. And here's Paul. He's determined to go to Jerusalem and Agabus takes the girdle from off his his belt from somewhere and says whoever girdle this is.
It's amazing how God uses that man and that thing off of Paul's raiment.
To gently try to reach.
An apostles conscience.
But it didn't work.
I'm glad you mentioned that. That does fall and fall as that's in First Corinthians 16 and saying the book when verse 12 of the 16th chapter he says is touching our brother Apollos. I greatly desired him to come unto you with the brethren, but his will was not at all to come at this time, but he will come when he shall have.
A have convenient time.
You know, you think of the apostle Paul encouraging you to go. You feel like, well, maybe I should go. And so here's Apollos, and he knows that there's trouble in Corinth. And if there's trouble in a certain assembly and things are moving on, you might ask the Lord whether you should go there or not.
Because I believe that Paulus didn't want to go at this time because.
If you do go and you have a something on your heart, you may have two companies listening to try to figure out what side you're on.
Where you're going to lend your influence in this troubles situation?
The part of wisdom is not to go if you have a knowledge of difficulty in the assembly that's out of hand.
And so Paul was there. Paulus was not minded to go, even though he encouraged him to go and said, well, you know, you could be more of a help there than I can be. And so he don't dictate Dewey to one another as to what they should do and what they shouldn't do. We're not in that. They aggrandize upon us at Paul's expense, right? Paulus would not do it.
That's the point. Thank you.
Lovely words when it says Who then is Paul?
Who then is Paul? He's himself speaking, but that's the kind of self effacing whale which a servant should be. And they asked John the Baptist who he was. He said I'm just a boy.
I'm just a voice.
Who, then, is Paul?
You know the Saints make even too much of the Saints, or they give them to run the gauntlet the other way.
And of course, neither is right.
But Paul shows that they are but fellow servants or ministers of the truth and how that they work together.
In harmony, complimenting the word. And I believe that that's the way servants are to work. And this is a scriptural pattern. I don't just mean in the fact that one may come to a locality and administer certain things and another one come along and say, well, what he said wasn't exactly right and it was this that would be, I would be taking away and I'm doing what one has already done.
That certainly wouldn't be right either. But I'm speaking now at two or in one place at the same time. We have many servants here in this room this evening, this afternoon. And as we take part, even in a Bible reading like this, we should seek to work together. And they seem like a novel thought brother, but that should be the most elementary God. If one brother brings up a line of things, you want to work together with it instead of having a clash here trying to find out the other side of things and to make it a sort of a what was the word that was used?
A competition, all that kind of thing does not feed the Saints. It does not water. It does not plant, it does not water. It doesn't bring the increase. It tends to hinder the Saints from growing. Can you imagine the meetings in Corinth when they came together with these intellectuals were trying to outdo each other as to their philosophies mixed with Christianity. Saints were getting fed. The Saints were not getting fed. That's the point of what he's saying here and he's.
00:55:21
Down to the fact it was those teachers that were amongst them that were really hindering this growth as well as of course their state. And I understand that when he speaks of himself in the first chapter and also here and also in the 9th chapter that he's transfiguring his name here in a policies chapter 4 and verse six tells us that these things brethren, I have in a figure or in an application transferred to.
And to Apollo's for your sakes, that you might not think in us the lesson not to let yourselves, your thoughts go beyond which is what is written. I'm reading the other translation. What I'm saying here is that it was not exactly that the Corinthians were saying, well, I'm at the school of Apollos and therefore we're going to gather around what he teaches and the others about Paul and another about Cephas. He was only transfiguring his name in there rather than actually pointing out which teacher it was by name.
That would be not very tactful. And So what he did was he transfigured his own name and apologises there, but they knew very well who he was talking about. And there you see the Spirit of God left for the Spirit of God to reach their conscience. But whatever the case was, there were teachers in their midst that they were rallying around, making too much out of and the the the fleshly and intellectual.
Competitive type of thing that was going on there.
Was not feeding the Saints. In fact it was dividing them and so he shows from himself and Paul Apollos. Now in reality how they worked and that is the model for servants to work to get together today. An example in the Old Testament by type would be a holy and Bezalel. Remember the two men that that were used of the Lord to to build the Tabernacle or at least to oversee as contractors to make the Tabernacle.
They work beautifully together. And what did they make? That which God could use, that God could use to to for the glorious of himself.
Rather, we need to. I'm speaking now to those of us who take part in meetings, whether it's in a conference like this or in local meetings. Do we work together with one another?
This is something that we we need to be exercised about so that when the Saints come to our meetings week by week, that they actually get something. They don't come to see a war, they don't come to see competition.
Apollos was not jealous that Paul did the plantable.
That would be envious. It would be childish. We all have a different gift, even those who may be teachers, who may have a gift as a teacher in a little different way. But whatever the case is, we need to work together and value what one has and to build with it and build onto it. So Paul was doing planting there. He was the 1St in that area, as you know from Acts 18. But Apollos came along and sought to build up what was going there, and God blessed it with the increase.
That's a happy thing.
If you start to think.
Number one, that the Bible is the word of God. It's divine, therefore.
There are depths.
Beyond which none of us could just take our little bucket and we can fill our little bucket. So you have a bucket that's twice as big. How much was left in the ocean? And so if we think of it that way, if someone is used of God, maybe a little bigger bucket, maybe a smaller bucket, but to think of how much is there and to be thankful that God has given them.
An insight, I may not say it.
I wondered what adverse meant and many a time it's come out that and I think it's nice to let a brother end a statement and then there's dead silence and he wonders if maybe he was 270° off off center. But instead to say to say that was nice, you know, and if you want to say I've never seen it before.
Because it really was.
01:00:00
How much better?
Someone has said that if we wished we had somebody elses gift.
That we're neglecting our own just by doing that. God has given us each one a gift.
And if you want somebody else's gift, you're going to be disappointed at the results because it's not your own.
There you go. A lot goes into a gift, doesn't it? Born into a family, were raised there and trust that we're in a Christian household.
And we hear the word of God in the home and in the assembly, and the Lord takes us by the hand and leads us through some valleys and and we learn Him in the valley. This is all making up a gift that in the process of time it will be exercised and it will be profitable.
Are you telling us that these valleys have that kind of a?
Desired effect by our Father.
And there's something about those valleys. And that is we get to the other side and we look back and we say, well.
I wouldn't want to go through that again, but.
What I've learned in that valley, I thank God for it.
Brother Ron, you used to say.
Many may envy a servant's gift, but none will envy his discipline.
You see, a brother like Brother Landing was mentioned. Oh, I'd like to be like that. The young brothers. I know I was one of them probably.
You know what he went through. You know the Lord has to bring us through things before that ministry can be.
Have power. And so if we're speaking about the valleys, just remember that when you see a servant, you may be seeing some of the finishing touches on a servant as he ministers the word. But there has been a lot of discipline in the school of God. And while we may envy his, his, his gift or place we see amongst the Saints, you won't envy his discipline.
No, Sir, number one of Brother Lundings disciplines was headaches.
That he could not read very many verses at a time.
And it forced him to meditate between nurses.
Kick back his head and think of what he did.
Headaches.
I just wondered.
Tell you a little human interest story.
We were living in Pittsburgh and I guess we realized that it was Des Moines conference time. But we made my wife and I made a special trip and we stopped off and intended to stay and did for that long weekend at a nearby motel to be able to visit with Mr. Lundeen. So we were over there Saturday morning.
And there was a little bit of a smile came on his face and he said, aren't you going on to the Des Moines conference? And I said, no, we set out to come here and this is where we're going to stay.
Well, that was when he was very much older.
So we were able, I really forget whatever ministry there was, but I'll never forget the effect. And here was a brother that we had known him when he lived in Seattle, Bob Provolo's garage fitted out with an apartment.
Various things, but this was when he was just about ready to depart.
What a privilege. What a privilege to sit there.
Without your brother.
And I suppose he took it quite favorably that we thought that.
He was what God had directed us to rather than the Des Moines conference. But let that be as it made. That's what we enjoyed. That's what we got.
01:05:05
In a large orchestra.
There's the music set before each instrument.
Each one asked to have their skill.
But there are periods in.
The piece where some are totally silenced.
Maybe they play 3 or 4 scores and nothing else. The rest is a piece.
That there are others that are.
Seem to be out in front, but it's a composite, isn't it? The beautiful sound of the orchestra has to do with each individual discipline and skill and.
And it's.
It's far, far short of a good illustration what the Church of God ought to be as it functions properly.
Just add to that there was a great band and a great bandmaster and.
The hall was just filled with music and all of a sudden the bandmaster called a hoe.
He looked around.
They wondered why he stopped them and he says where's the piccolo?
And take a little looked at him and he said well I didn't think I could be heard so I stopped.
You know you can. You get the point, don't you?
As our brother was saying that every member is needed as a part and it may be the Piccolo party to say, well nobody's going to hear me so I'll just lean back and I'll don't.
We need the pit bull.
Go ahead. Well, I just close this first Christ from whom the whole body fitly joined together and impacted by that with every joint supplier, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part made an increase in the body onto the edifying of itself love.
Excuse me brother, I'm just going to say in the Tabernacle they needed the knot tires.
And Mr. Berry, I don't know how he figured it out, but he said that there were some 950 knots needed to be tide and united each time they fetched and moved on their night, their daily journey.
And that you may seem if you were one of the knock knock tires as being one that was insignificant. But what happens if one day they said, well, I'm not going to tie the knots?
Well, you know what would happen? It would fall down. And so we need every person, even the knock tires.
If I could just say a word for particularly the young people of mine, just put yourself in common. We've been speaking about what the Apostle Paul has been instructing them.
But think on me briefly, not well on it the other side, what it would have been like to be in that assembly. You say I come from a small assembly or a large assembly and this trouble, people are bickering and all these things you're talking about sounds so nice. They don't happen where I come from.
Put yourself in current. There were divisions. Move on to the fifth chapter of this letter. Move on to the 6th chapter of this letter. Read 1St Corinthians 3 Assault. Think what that assembly was like. Put yourself there. So what are you going to do? Well, I'm going to give up. I'm going to go to some church down the road.
Wait a minute. There was no church down the road. We live in a day in Christendom where we think we have options, where we think that, oh, if there's a better group that I can get fed with down the corner, then that's where I should be. Wait a minute. The very first issue that's addressed in current is this question of division. Sure, it's developed throughout the book, but why not Chapter 5? Immorality.
Why not Chapter 15, the resurrection? No, it's it's bickering the the infighting that's causing the division that's addressed first.
Don't think that you can go and join some little group that thinks like you do and that you're going to honor God in doing so. You may be more comfortable there, granted. You may even learn things there, granted. So I just want to make one brief comment about those others interested in around us. Do I condemn them? No, when I get a flyer in my mail that.
Glorifies Christ and speaks of the gospel. How thankful I am that there is some group down the road.
School preachers and carries on in some way the word of God, but it does not give me liberty to think that I can just go down there and pop out of the earth and.
01:10:21
Just to add.
We have fixed in our hearts that there's a.
No place else to go. We'd make good and we'd do better in our own souls and in in seeking to bring more where we are. But it's the thought that we have the option of some place to go. We don't have any place to go. Lord, to whom shall we go? But thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure there are the Christ, the Son of God.
When there was death in the pot, they were told to bring meal.
You might think there's death in the pot, so to speak, in my local assembly. I'm going to stay away. I won't drink it. That pot, no, he says. Bring meal. So it's what we need to contribute.
At such times rather than to to upset ourselves at second Kings 4.
There is, maybe you should say what the meal is. You know, people know what the branch the meal is, Christ the meal is. We need to bring something of Christ to the meeting. If you say I don't think I could speak up like some of the older brothers, well, you can bring Christ in your walking ways. You can bring Christ in your ministries. You can encourage a number of different ways of bringing Christ.
Into the situation.
There's a hymn I talked to knowing about it as far as a tune is concerned.
#240.
247 Of Thy love some gracious token grant us, Lord, before we go, bless Thy word which has been spoken, life and peace on all the stoves. When we join the world again, may our hearts with Thee remain, will direct us and protect us till we gain the heavenly shore where Thy people want no more.
#247.