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Will keep my soul and Jesus abiding still with thee brought to mind birth Peter one then I think the prayer was along that line, for we surely all need.
The keeping grace of our Lord Jesus.
In these parallel times.
So if the brethren feel that the mind of the Spirit first Peter chapter one Peter.
An apostle of Jesus Christ to the stranger scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bathinia. The electric according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit under obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
Grace unto you, and peace be multiplied.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to His abundant mercy, hath forgotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled.
And it fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith under salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, when you greatly rejoice. Though now for a season, if need be, He are in heaviness.
To manifold temptations that the trial of your faith be much more precious than of gold that perishes.
They will be tried with fire, might be found under praise and honor and glory.
That the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen ye love.
In whom, though now ye see Him not yet believing, do you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls, Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, Who prophesied the great that should come unto you, searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them, did?
By when I testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.
Unto whom it was revealed, that none unto themselves, but unto us, they'd administer the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into.
Wherever good at the loins of your mind, be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you.
At the Revelation of Jesus Christ.
As obedient children, not fashioning ourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but I see which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written, Be holy, for I am holy.
And if you call on the Father, who without respective persons, judges according to every man's work past the time of your soul journey here in fear for as much as you know.
That you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your Father's.
But were the precious blood of Christ as an alarm, without blemish and without spot, Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifesting these last times for you, who by him to believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory?
But your faith and hope might be in God.
Seeing you have purified your souls, and obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart, fervently being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is grass, and all the glory of manners and flower of grass.
The grass weather, and the flower there falleth away, but the word of the Lord and doeth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
And Paul and John's ministry and noticeably different doing the law gives us morality counsels of God, doesn't he? And John gives us the nature and it's Peter that gives us the ways of God. And so here in this epistle, we do have the ways of God in this first epistle.
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Pursued in relation to the believers we're called in that first chapter, and in the 5th chapter we wind up in glory.
But in between there are trials and difficulties. But we fought one who was able to sustain us and to strengthen us, to establish us and to help us all through this wilderness journey. We know that Peter was the apostle of the circumcision.
Or to the Jews, for as far as the apostles of the Gentiles. So Peter in the writing here he addresses the stranger scattered throughout protest. Galatians, Cappadocia, Asian dominion.
Remember when Paul was going about carrying the gospel through the heathen?
But he always went first to the city dog of the Jews.
My husband is rather interesting that Peter is following up in a certain way the ministry of the Apostle Paul.
For in these different countries mentioned here.
And podis Galatia, we know there are many assemblies in Galatia. The churches of Galatia were addressed in the book of Galatians.
Now, if there were Jewish believers in all these different.
Assemblies.
Real hard to receive the gospel.
Along with the Gentiles, well, the fall was more for the Gentiles and Peter for the Jews. Peter has a special.
Instruction for the Jewish believers Now when you read the strangers or the dispersion to see when the captivity took place.
The deals were scattered away from their land and there are many different lands so that they were found in all these different countries.
That's why it speaks of the stranger, Sir, the dispersant.
And if we just bear in mind that.
There is a certain Jewish cast about the.
The ministry of this successful, it will help us because the Jews have definitely.
Earthly prospects and blessings before them.
They look forward to possessing the land of Canaan and having.
Blessings in storehouse and barn. They had looked for the Messiah to come and deliver them from their enemies.
That they might serve God and righteousness and fear all the days of their lives as Tech arrived Thousand Speaking of John the Baptist.
Well, their hopes in connection with the Messiah had been.
Readily set aside.
Of course, because of the wickedness.
All the Jewish people who were murdered, their Messiah, their king, when he came, they only gave him a cross from the crown of horns.
And so they had sent back their king with this message.
We will not have this man to reign over us.
So that now they had to learn a lesson that was not easy for one trained all his days.
With travelling Jewish folks before him and that is that instead of having.
Earthly portions before him, he was to now have a heavenly portion before him.
So we notice that in the different epistles that.
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Very people to whom it suggests give U.S. special character to the writing in the epistle.
These.
Jews might have seen their national aspirations and hopes all dashed, and here they were scattered to these far off lands. But what a wonderful encouragement this must have been to them, to hear of a glorious hope through resurrection in Christ, if their hope had been drafted pieces when they were put taken into captivity.
You mentioned, Brother Barry, that this is a living hope that they have now.
Hope they had him nationally was dead as far as they were concerned, but now they have a living hope.
And not only so, but here the apostle reminds them that they were elected elect according to the foreknowledge of God.
This was number afterthought with God.
Doesn't mind all the time.
That there was to be a hope beyond the promises made to Israel.
This was a heavenly a living hope. I was thinking too that it's connected with the Trinity, isn't it? In this second verse it's elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.
Through sanctification of the Spirit.
Unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ we have God the Father, the Holy Spirit, as the Lord Jesus Christ brought before us here.
There are four areas of instructive.
Yeah, it's God the Father in connection with predestination and for ordination, for we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.
But then we are brought into time when he speaks of sanctification of the Spirit.
No matter of important tools that before you have the gospel.
Brought before us in the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, you have the work of the Holy Spirit.
In sanctifying the believer.
I love forever sets aside.
The popular teaching that is taught far and wide in Christendom that sanctification is a second work of grace, that After Earth saved and know the Lord as your Savior, you can go through an experience whereby you'll become wholly sanctified, the old nature burned out so you can live a holy life.
But we find scripture teaches the opposite as to.
That's true. Well, the 1St work of the Spirit is to sanctify, and I'm sure we all are acquainted with the meaning of sanctification, that it means separation.
God hath set apart that which is holy unto himself.
So when God the Holy Spirit begins the work in the heart of the center.
So that he is brought to a conviction of his sins, sees his lost condition.
Where there is a new life imparted by the Spirit of God.
Just as the Lord told Nicodemus.
The man be born of water and of the Spirit.
As the true instruments, the word is the water.
The Spirit uses the Word, applies it to the conscience, and for a Sinner has gone anew, has a new life, but he may have little understanding of the meaning of the gospel.
Perhaps he couldn't give you a reason for the hope that's in him. And you notice here that the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ follows the sanctification of the Spirit.
Now I'm sure we are, we have been taught to that there is a progressive sanctification as well as a positional sanctification.
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We find them the 1St chapter of First Corinthians and the second verse.
Under the Church of God, which is a car to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus.
All the calls to be Saints or Saints by calling so that before he enters into their instruction he assures them that they are sanctified, while you say where they are very holy.
So a class of people compared to other Christians because he starts out Speaking of their being sanctified. Why we only have to read on in the in the.
2nd and 3rd chapter to find that they were carnal, many of them.
That was characteristic of them. They were walking as men. They were divisions among them. So it shows that.
Sanctification.
Has nothing to do with our walk, it has to do with our position. Then, of course, as we were saying, that there is the practical progressive sanctification.
And which one seeks through grace to be more separated from?
The ways of this world.
And that you have more in the 17th chapter of John's Gospel.
And the 17th verse where Jesus in prayer to his Father says sanctify them through the truth.
Thy word is truth.
Then he goes on in the.
The 19th verse. And for their sake I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. So that gives us the importance of the reading, the daily reading of the Word of God. For the Word of God has a purifying effect on our lives.
It discovers to us those things that are inconsistent.
In our Christian life.
And leads us to judge those things so that we become more separate from the waves around the files and the conduct.
Or this simple world is hasting on to its final doom and judgment.
We need to get those two subjects clearly in our mind, first our positional sanctification and then the practical sanctification.
That continues as long as we're here. And it's a wonderful joke that set before that, the blessed Lord says, and that addressed it in that prayer to his Father. And for their sakes, I sanctify myself.
That they might be sanctified through the truth. Just think, Thy glorious One is set himself apart in heavenly glory, saving us down here to keep us from the corrupt and defiling ways.
While this guilty sinful world.
But be careful to heed his general voice speaking.
To us when we are turning aside, and how often have we not experienced beloved?
That some scripture has come with tremendous force to our souls at a special time of need. How did that happen?
We are singing in our little hymn, you know no infants changing Pleasure is like my wandering mind. Now, dear. Mr. Darby wrote that, and yet he goes on to say, But thou dost recall my heart to joy in all the fullness of peace, its beams and parts. What else would be here today?
Under the sound of God's holy Word.
If it were not for that sanctifying service of our blessed Lord.
Only a very interesting fact, but it's a very, very beautiful truth for the believer to see that the whole dog head is, as always has been, interested in the blessing of his people.
And very repeatedly brought in Scripture and brought out very distinctly, that is, even as to the birth of Christ, the baptism of Christ, the crucifixion, the resurrection.
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The descent of the Holy Spirit, the conversion of a believer, the keeping of His footsteps, the calling of his people home. If we search the scriptures, we will find that in every one of these steps the whole thought and is distinctly and specifically mentioned.
And I say it's not only something to follow with interest, but it should be a tremendously stirring truth to our heart to think that in a day when men are boasting of such great things, that we can actually sit here and know that the whole dog has this wondrous purpose in due for us, that around us they have their systematic.
Theology and you take up doctrines. I know I was in them at one time.
So you study the doctrine of Lamar theology, you study ecclesiology, you study eschatology, their doctrine. How blessed though that in the word of God doctrines are very practical. They have their import in our walk and our wage in our lives. The the doctrine of the coming of Christ, of of the rapture. Is that a gig thing? Is that something that we just know theoretically that we have it in our mind? No, every man that has this.
Purified himself, even if he is pure. So as our brothers mentioned, we are the the Trinity mentioned here. Is this a cold, heartless doctrine that we only learn intellectually? No, but we turn to Luke chapter 15 and there we find that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who goes and seeks that all sheep. We find the Spirit of God in in that symbol of a woman who speaks diligently.
Searching out that center. And then we find the Father's embrace and the kisses at the end, all triune God.
In operation on the behalf of receiving one Sinner. No, these doctrines are not cold, not unimportant, but they're related to our everyday walk in ways.
Notice tell that.
We next read Under obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Notice obedience precedes the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
And I believe that.
Shows the operation of the spirit and the soul.
The first breath, as it were, of divine life.
Is a breathable obedience to the word. Think of a thoughtless.
On the way to Damascus.
The light show shine round about him from heaven. Father his first words. Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Think of that rebellious man that hated Christ was trying to blot out His name from under heaven.
Submitting to his authority, ordering him as Lord, and inquiring, What wilt thou have me to do? Well, we know that he got the answer immediately that he was to go into the city, and there he would hear then.
God, for our talk to a man named Ananias, told him to go and visit Saul, for he says he's prayed and through him he hears what he is the instruction that he is inquired for at that time.
Then the next thing when there is that submission of thought to the will of God, then there is the entering into the sprinkling of the blood of Christ. But we now need to notice too that.
The obedience is the obedience of Christ, as well as the blood being the blood of Christ.
That is the character of obedience.
We see in the life of our blessed Lord. And what was it that characterized His obedience as a man down here?
It was this he could say, I do always those things that please him, that is, that please the Father. And so we're set apart to obey, just as our blessed Lord obey when he was a man going here among men in this very world of trials and dangers and sorrows that we're passing through.
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It was always a path of obedience.
For him, well, they are obedience there, that character. It isn't the obedience of the law with all the thunders and with all with condemnation, but it's an obedience that brings happiness and peace.
And left to the soul these the Lord says, Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. The powerful obedience is the powerful happiness the path where?
We find rest for our souls.
The application of the blood, is it not an everyday thing, the sprinkling of the blood?
This was all in quite contrast to the position that an Israelite had prior to this, wasn't it? He was, He was, he was set apart by Jehovah and to obedience to the law, as it were.
But how lovely this is to see to it is to see here that it's elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. What a relationship has been established now set apart by God the Father, and it's through sanctification of the Spirit, not.
Set apart to law now, but by the Spirit of God, set apart to obedience and unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, not the blood of bulls and goats, but the blood of Jesus Christ, that one that was obedient and always did the Father's will. So what a, what a portion, what a position these Israelites have been brought into now.
According to the elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father relationship.
And a position now not dependent upon their keeping something, but because of the obedience and the sprinkling of blood, who One of one who kept every precept one was perfectly obedient to the Father's will.
That there is definitely a reference here to the 24th chapter of Exodus.
They might turn to up their striking contrast there in the 24th of Exodus.
We get itself in the.
Third verse.
See Moses and Aaron and Nadab and the Bayou, and 70 of the elders of Israel went up the mountain and saw the Lord.
Then we get in the third verse. And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments, and all the people answered with one voice, and said all the words which the Lord has spoken. Will we do so? There is the obedience of the law, putting themselves under a solemn oath to keep that law.
In the fourth verse, and Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar.
Under the hill and 12 pillars, according to the 12 tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings.
Of oxen under the Lord. Now notice here. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar, and he took the blood of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people, And they said, All that the Lord has said will we do and be obedient. And those that took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant.
Which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.
All you see is the sprinkling of the blood of of of calves. There was sealing judgment upon the people who had put themselves under the solemn oath of keeping all that the Lord had commanded, just as all Moses said. Now here's the sign.
That if you break that law.
You're bringing death and judgment upon yourselves because of your disobedience. Well, what a contrast here. And this written to those who were familiar with their own scriptures.
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About the giving of the law instead of an obedience.
That required judgment. If they failed in it, why It was the blood, the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
That blood which John tells us, cleanses us from all sins.
So for they have he obeyed, and then to enjoy in one soul with certainty that the blood of Jesus Christ.
Has settled every question between the soul and the Holy Ghost God so that.
That there is no judgment of waiting. The one that's resting on that precious blood that flowed from the side.
About blessed Lord and death. Sprinkling of the blood in this verse refers to a daily repetition, but rather to the precious blood of Christ aside once and for all.
Every time they fail, they have to have a fresh recourse to the blood. They do not see the eternal efficacy of the blood of Christ. If we are viewed by God as blood sprinkles souls, we are under the value of that precious blood.
And this is wonderful to see. The value, the efficacy of the blood of Christ is such that once applied, the song is viewed by God is under the precious blood, and He is acceptable to God according to the value that God places upon the blood, not the value that we place upon it, but the value that God himself places upon it. And it does not have to be respratical.
One sprinkled, his soul is under its value for all eternity.
I for myself have always enjoyed the thought that came from.
Esteemed Brother Hayhoe, many years ago when I was talking with him about it, he says we all fail at times and Satan will approach us and he'll say, my, what a failure you'll be in.
You mean you're a Christian? Just look what you've done. All face can look up and say yes with the blood of Jesus has put that all away. The daily application of a brethren can be very precious to you.
Look at it in this way, Brother Wilson, in the way John speaks of it in his first epistle chapter one and verse 7 where he says the blood of Jesus Christ his Son.
Lenses out from all sins. You see, that is something that is ever and always true. We can rise them the morning and say the blood of Jesus Christ renders from all sins.
We can go on and happy enjoyment of His love. Will you go on in that same chapter? And we get the form of failure if we confess our sins. He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. As we know that is a matter of communion.
But even then we learn more of the infinite values of blood of Christ.
That way family of children that had settled every question. So every day that we're here below, no matter how Satan may kill us and he does he's accuser of the brother, we can always return to the assurance of God's love that flowed from his five there at Calvary. How settled every question between my soul and the holy God.
Well, remember writing, Mr. Darby.
Put it in a very simple and very nice way. He I don't remember the details of it.
An illustration like this that quinine puts away malaria.
And that's true, quinine does take away malaria, but you don't, you don't have to take it every day to have it taken away. And I that's what that illustration of, I haven't got it quite right, but that's the principle of it.
But there can be can and not the daily enjoyment of that truth. We can enjoy when we see that we have failed and we.
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Can rest in the assurance that our sins have been put away, and if we confess our sins, has already been quoted. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
I was enjoying your father Wilbur in a practical sense in this way to not only connected it with the chapter that has been read about Moses, but in this thought too. Remember in the consecration of the priest in Exodus the 29th chapter and that Ram was slave and then the blood was placed upon the right ear, the right thumb, and the right toe of the.
You and I have been redeemed by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and what's true there is tight is good of us that we have been bought with a price, and therefore we're to have the ear that's opened unto the voice of God in the Scriptures and to be obedient.
Were to walk in his ways according to the word of God is impressed just the other day before we left the Dorothy NJ and a brother mentioned he said you know this past year he was at a conference up in Lawrenceville and he said I was there a year ago a year ago. This is a brother from the West Coast came in and had left the young people.
And he spoke about the deportment of them, he spoke about the hair, he spoke about the length of the skirt. He spoke about things that would exercise their conscience.
I went back this year and I saw the same things all over again. What happened? What's wrong? He says. Why wouldn't that earn out back here? He says what we're doing is we're coming together at such times as this for social time, times when we can be together and meet one another. Well, that's blessed.
But there is something else. We have been brought with a price. The blood has been placed upon the right ear, the right thumb and the right toe, and that were sanctified into the obedience of Jesus Christ. We're here, dear ones, in the presence of God to hear what He has to say. And if it goes current across what we are now holding on to, give it up, all for the glory of the blessed Lord Jesus. Oh, let's hear with an open ear.
Carry out his bidding.
I like it very much, this expression. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and not with any thought of expounding on it at all, but just simply the fact that I believe fear soul expresses itself here. I know the words were written by divine inspiration, but Paul uses the same language in Ephesians 1.
Last would be the daughter and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings.
Well, if we omit the first few words of that verse, we still get the same thought, the same truth practically. But I just enjoy the thought that as this wonderful truth flows through the soul of the beloved apostles and through His pen to us, His own soul showed its enjoyment by the expression he uses. Now, I say it was written by inspiration, but I'm very sure it wasn't written as a stenographer would take down.
Peter was really enjoying it and Paul was really enjoying it. That to me it's a bit of a refuse to come to a verse like this and look at these words and say, did my soul ever feel this way when the truth of God has been unfolded?
Discover bit by fifth, the pit from which we have been digged in the wonderful place of blessing. We are ready for that. And what lies ahead? Have I ever once paused in all my life to look up and say, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? That sometimes, you know, even when a brother has oiled his heart in the most delightful expression of Thanksgiving to the Lord?
It can't even hear a whispered Amen when the brother is finished.
I think when we read a verse like this, we should be encouraged to say Amen, at least when our brother's done, pray.
Am I wrong? Brother woman, you're very nice and we get the scriptures for it too. If, if, if I speak to you in an unknown tongue, how can you say Amen? That's what the scripture says. And I, I screamed a very much.
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In a large meeting like this, you belong here. Two or three young men bring just as bad up at the soup. Where I live, it's only one person says Amen.
Of course, it may be we don't understand it, but it, it, it means, I think so too, doesn't it? Well, we're glad to say I say so too. When, when it's, when it's something that you truly can say.
Many years ago.
In up in central China, in the in the Hill Country, there was a what they called the Union Church and the missionaries from all sorts of societies used to meet there and have.
Have their regular services in this church. There was one, one point had to be permitted. Nobody was to mention the Lords coming. Well, there was no there was no primitive Methodist ministry there. And he came in.
See what it was like? And he grieved himself terribly that he he just, the next time he just left in the very back seat, not caring hardly very hard enough. And it turned on that way and he still kept going because he thought somebody had to make a protest.
And that last one day everything it was said was all right. And the old man with a loud voice, he said, Amen. All the people in the church jumped the the.
Interruptions, they thought, and they came to him to postulate with him. That wasn't the way to behave in church, where he said it's a pretty queer thing live an old primitive Methodist. When there's only one thing said in the whole service that he can agree with. It's a pretty strange thing that he can't even say Amen.
And all the people, all the people in, in the, in cooling where it happened.
They all got that story, and they all learned what Amen meant anyway.
Times Is it all right for sisters to say Amen?
Audibly so, I would like to ask that question. Nobody says Amen to that. Well, we need to go on and see what he was blessing by. He said blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and this was the reason.
But according to his abundant mercy, have begotten us again.
Until we that.
Living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, you say? The hope of Israel with Palestine?
And they had forfeited their land.
So that now he brings before them, that they were begotten again, but this time it wasn't a dead hope.
That they had previously entertained. But here is what has been brought into existence by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
And now he goes on with the inheritance to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not a wave reserved in heaven for you. Now we know that the land of Canaan was corrupted by idolatry.
And the sins and wickedness, all the very people that.
God had chosen and had given that country to.
But we're brought into an inheritance that can never be corrupted, can never be defiled. And instead of losing our inheritance as Israel lost their inheritance, we have an inheritance that paid us not away. But where does the Apollo direct their their thoughts?
Wade Rex there thought heavenward, reserved in heaven. That's where our inheritance is. It doesn't down here and whenever we try to settle down in this world and and.
And prepare as well. We're going to live for a century or more in this world. God blows on it. He lets us know that this is not our home.
Our inheritance is not here in this scene. My inheritance is up there.
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Hello beloved, when you look over this company and think in a few years how many will no longer be in this company? Should the Lord carry?
Our sojourn here is very short and in fact Peter continually mentions the time of your soul journey here in fear, the time of your soul journey. It may be even shorter than death coming in because the Lord may come and take us out of our homes and away from our occupation, away from this corrupt.
And defiled world.
In the very inheritance.
That is undefiled.
And the fate is not away.
And then how comforting it is to to know not only is the inheritance kept for us, but we're kept for the inheritance?
You who are kept by the power of God.
So the certainty of our being in that inheritance is just as secure and sure as God Himself.
For God cannot lie. You need to remember that. And if God cannot lie, we better pay attention to what he says.
Woman to the last clause in the second verse.
Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. Well, how much we've enjoyed in the second verse what we have in this second verse. And oh, how wonderful it is for our souls to be in a sense of all the grace is wrong. Grace is the source. How blessed and then.
Peace be multiplied, peace is the outflow, and we can go on in a dark scene that is filled with unrest.
Grace the outflow and in peace.
Peace grace the source and peace the outflow. We go on in this dark trouble, difficult scene enjoying our inheritance. Remember our brother Miss Cleaves saying one time that God likes multiplication. Peace be multiplied. God is a giving God and there's no limit to.
But he delights to be his fall upon the objects of his affection.
He doesn't want us to be going along just enjoying a major measure of spiritual blessings. He wants full of blessings enlarged and increased and growing continually. And if only our state of soul, that denies us the enlargement of our blessings.
Work first, when our brother Norman was picturing to us those who stood at the four points of Encompass, guarding the tension, the testimony to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled. And the debate is not away. Reserved in heaven for you. I thought of these four things by the Norman. When you spoke of these men and pictures of them standing at the four points of the compass, just think, there is absolutely no man on earth.
Who can provide for himself an inheriting protected against these things that are spoken out here?
He knows very well that within 24 hours his well planned future may all fall apart, but the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can look at a verse like this. You can see every point of the compass completely taken care of and inherited the incorruptible. Undeniably the state is not a way reserved in heaven for you and then he went on to point out and we also by the grace of God reserved for that inheritance there's.
Opinion. And I'm afraid we're guilty of contributing to us that.
The believer is willing to have a bit of a miserable time here and do without a good many pleasures because he's looking forward to having something worthwhile in the next World, so he's quite willing to live a rather drab existence along the way. If I'm not mistaken, this is pretty generally considered to be our viewpoint on things.
Time I face this, I feel utterly ashamed, I think, what kind of testimony are we putting before the eyes of others that they would for one moment think that we have a Dr. existence, but we're just making the most of it because we've got something better yet to come. Brethren, of all the opportunities to show what it really means to be a believer blessed now with all these blessings, this is the day in which it ought to stand out more than every student before.
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Because the generation that's growing up today is, as you and I know, so restless and frustrated and trying everything to find that which will give them just a little spark of pleasure. And they ought to be able to look upon those of us who know the Lord Jesus and see see peace and the joy and the happiness that should arrest their attention, even if we didn't say anything to them.
Marvelous result Paul and silent praying and singing praises to Godhead on the prisoners. Remember hearing brother close tweets in the room. Georgia jail when I was a young fellow. He said many thought his birthday was shaking the pieces. He said how many of you would stay in this jail?
Foolish grin came over their faces with told the meaning that they'd get out of there as fast as they could.
But so Fitness didn't get out of that jail there in Philippi. They stayed there. And it must have been the happy.
Enjoyment of Paul and Silas singing and praising, singing praises to God that held them there. I'm not saved the jailers life because if he lost his prisoners it would have cost him his life. And I thought I never heard anyone else suggested that when Paul went into the House of the jailer that he speaks the word of the Lord.
To Oliver in his house. Perhaps all the prisoners came in there and heard the gospel.
I don't know if I'm right in that, but I've enjoyed thinking of it in that way. Then you get the household of faith that are all his mentioned.
We don't know how many were converted through that earthquake. They've been more than the jail because it was quite an assembly there when Paul writes from Rome in later years.
Cut by the power of God.
What a wonderful statement that is, that not only are we kept, but kept by the power of God through faith. That's important through faith, isn't it?
Because the soul that God isn't just taking us.
Like you would move some baggage to another city regardless of our our exercises, but the way we're kept is through constant exercise of soul and that's where faith.
Comes into the way God is keeping us.
For our inheritance, that's before us, and the faith in His blessed Word takes the Bible away from us. And what have we? We have nothing, have we?
We'll never have. We've never seen heaven, we've never met anybody that's been in heaven. And yet we firmly believe as we sit here together.
That we're on our way to our Father's house. We have no doubt in our minds at all. Where does that come from? Oh, that's the face. So every blessing that Christians possess is a matter of faith. In fact, our old brother Haley used to say that we have a religion of faith. Take faith out and you have nothing. It just falls to pieces.
On God in his wondrous grace is keeping.
His own along the journey through the exercise of faith.
So that.
The precious things become more and more important to our souls as we hasten on our way. Thinking of the connection with what you've been saying, Brother Barry, the.
In the end of that second verse, grace unto you, and peace be multiplied.
Well, this multiplication, isn't it? And then the thought of laying hold of this by faith was thinking of what Peter says in his second epistle. The privilege we have now of using addition, modification, that is grace and peace be multiplied unto you. This is is to each one of the children of God, isn't it? And as you were saying.
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It's faith that lays hold of this.
And the enjoyment of it is walking in it. But I was thinking of the addition in the fifth verse of second Peter one and beside this giving.
All diligence add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge, temperance and temperance, patience and to patience godliness, and so on. But I was just thinking of The Walking in this, making it, applying it, adding to it, adding to our faith, moral courage.
Telling others about that Blessed one.
What is the? What is the relation of faith to being kept? I don't quite get that point.
Were kept by the power of God.
I want you to think that the way the power of God operates in a believer is by keeping.
Eternal things before the soul, so that we're we're preserved.
All along the journey.
That is the most important part of the subject.
If we close our Bibles and neglect the reading of the word, personal things gets possession of our minds and thoughts.
And the sooner or later we begin to adopt the ways of the world, and the ideas of the world is rested teachings and fears, so on.
So apart from the word of God, my way just let her drift in this world. But as soon as we bring God's word to bear upon our.
Our hearts and our consciences and our minds. Why? It takes us all into an entirely different world, an entirely different realm.
So we can't.
Urge enough the importance of the daily reading of the Word of God. Never, never neglect the Word of God in your life or you'll soon get the thoughts of this poor, sad, guilty world.
Lord of the Rings, Peter, be perhaps a little bearing on this. The Lord said to Peter, I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not now He was in the Lords keeping and was going to be safe in that keeping right till the end of the journey. But as you remark, he doesn't keep us the way. Shall I say an individual might control a robot of some kind?
He says to Peter, I have prayed for thee, kept by the power of God, that thy faith fail not.
Faith unto salvation. Peter's faith was sustained, but it was sustained by the power of God. And I believe that both together, shall we say, brother Norman was a very great blessing of Peter, although he couldn't boast of it, because it was sustained by the grace of God.
Just said really applies to every child in car.
It's often applied to being kept in the past. We speak of it and be kept in an ecclesiastical position. Well, that's an application. But the real meaning of reverse is applicable to all Christians. That is, every child of God will be kept by the power of God through faith. They will not give up faith in Christ.
Is that true, Brother Mary? Is that the human? I'm sure you're right, Brother Hendricks.
Last, we could refer again to the first chapter of the 2nd Epistle of Peter.
It's already been referred to what is to be added or what we are to have in our faith.
Yeah, second Peter one and verse 8.
For if these things be in you and abound, that make you, that you shall neither be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But he that like of these things.
Is blind, you cannot see a fire off and has forgotten that he was perished from his old sins.
That is, if one of the faith is not an exercise.
Where there is a going on in this world, we've lost sight.
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Of our heavenly calling.
Can I see a fall off that lost sight of the Lords coming and forgot?
First, from his old sins there's there is the possibility that one who has been saved actually has lost sight of the very fact that he is one of the Lords.
The solemn position to be in. But what Peter says here, that it is possible that one could get into such a position. But then you'd look at the next verse. Wherefore the rather brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things, you shall never fall.
There is a going on in the good of what God has given to us in going on the good of the promises he's made to us in order that we can be in the daily enjoyment of these things. Written by a man who fell, isn't it? Yeah. Don't know. Have you ever read any of your books? Very beautiful things. And he was used, greatly used of the Lord.
Eastern states at one time, but he lost the assurance of salvation and he went out to the West Coast to get away from everything that he'd been connected with. And Mr. Heaney, you this man, and he knew what had happened.
May check out. It wasn't easy in those days to go out, maybe trip out to visit him and he put it to him one one verse.
You. You do not always. You do not only.
Assam.
How? How did it go? They only can start to cast him down from His Excellency and Mr. Europe.
Instantly that was the means of his restoration, while yet he said, I've completely forgotten that he's just been the devil all the time. He told me God himself, well, we'll have nothing to boast of when we get to glory. We can't say that it was.
There was my faithfulness, my consistency that dropped me there. For faith is the gift of God, isn't it? And Bob will keep us to the end.
As His faithfulness preserving us all, we're kept.
The inheritance is kept for us, and we're kept for the inheritance through the power of God, through faith.
Which we missed out. A very sweet thing there. I think you notice that this letter was written partly to the Saints of the senior. Well, you remember in the 16th of that Paul wanted to go to the senior to preach the gospel and the Spirit suffered enough, but he must have been very much disappointed.
When he wanted to go there, that needy field to preach the gospel. But now here Peter, the Spirit of God had just worked for Peter to do instead of Paul. And so Paul, no doubt, as Peter speaks of Paul, so doesn't Paul spoke of Peter.
That he had done the work that he had so long to do himself.
For salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, the Spirit of God would never forget for a moment that the coming of the Lord is not at hand.
It's always immediate hope before the believer. Although Peter doesn't think of the Lords coming except in the second epistle, The Morning Star rising in your heart, Peter has more of a thought of the Kingdom before him.
But.
He were there only writers and if instructive to go over the writings of the different inspired writers like James and and like Jude and.
4th Peter and Paul and John. They all have the immediate prospect of the Lord's soon coming before them.
So here this inheritance is ready to be revealed. Everything is ready. The one who has accomplished redemptions work, defeated Satan, and brought in forgiveness and salvation. He's already wearing the crown.
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He's crowned with glory and honor, the mighty victor over all the.
Efforts of the enemy to defeat the purposes of God. So now there's nothing between us and that place seems that lies before us.
Fulfilled the coming of the Lord to bring us there. It's ready to be revealed.
And it's in God's due time that it will be revealed that it has been the last.
Time ever since the Lord was here. Because God has nothing further to offer. You're right brother, divide them. Although it stretched out a long time and yet it was the immediate hope of the apostles in their day.
Paul says we which are alive and remain, he doesn't put himself among walls that will be sleeping in the dust of the earth, that among those that would be expected to be alive when the Lord came in the air.
Because it not.
Long-suffering of God that has delayed or put off the coming of our Lord Jesus till the present time, not ruling that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. I like to think too, that in addition to that wonderful long-suffering.
You and I needn't be marking time in the meantime, shall I say, and I don't refer merely to opportunities to present the gospel, but to learn something of the heart of God in wondrous love that we would have missed had we been called away, shall we say, immediately after our being brought to know the Lord. I remember visiting with dear old Mrs. Johnson in Smith Ball. Some here knew her pretty well.
She spent many years in a wheelchair.
And I was returning one day from the funeral of a sister 95 years of age, called in to see Mrs. Johnson on the way home. She was in her 80s. She said, have you come from Mrs. Andersons funeral? Yes. And why didn't the Lord stop on the way by and take me to now? She's with the Lord and I'm still here in my wheelchair. Well, I said, you mean that Missus Anderson is going to be with the Lord longer than you are?
She said of course.
Well, I said, Mrs. Johnson, could you put a few weeks under one end of eternity and make it a little longer? No, she said, I'll be there just as long as Miss Sanders. And I said that's true. And in the meantime, every day and every week that you and I are left here is not simply marking time while his long-suffering lingers, but opportunities to learn his patience, his love, his comfort, his encouragement in ways that we will not be able.
After we recall, I believe the thought of his long-suffering lingering is a marvelous thing, and may everyone who has a heart for the gospel feel it very deeply in the means I'm what a privilege it is to bear his name here for a little while.
Perhaps it might be helpful for a few, I'm sure most to know it, but when it speaks of salvation as a future thing.
It's not Speaking of the salvation of our souls in the end of verse 9.
It speaks of the salvation of our souls. That's a present salvation that we have now. But this verse?
And let's see in the fifth verse where it speaks of the salvation ready to be revealed.
There is no doubt more connected with what we get in Romans eight in the eighth chapter of Romans that speaks of.
Christians waiting for the adoption to whet the redemption of the body. And it goes on to say we are saved by hope or should read in hope. Hope here is something that's assured we have the assurance of the redemption of our bodies.
We're going to be given bodies fashioned like unto our Lord's glorious body, and in view of that it says Romans 8. We are saved in hope. That's something we're waiting for, but we have the assurance of it, and that's really the salvation referred to in verse five, is it not?
How is our salvation nearer than when we believe or when we believe we got our soul faith that that salvation that you're Speaking of when we get our glorified bodies.
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Is nearing every day we're down here and then two, isn't there the thought of being taken out of this godless, evil, sinful world that is hastening on towards the judgment of God?
Getting the 5th of Rome, we shall be saved from Rock through him. I think that is we shall be kept safe. We I think that's the better reason. Not that the future, it's not a future thing. We're going to be saved, but we're kept faith day by day.
Making of that 8th chapter of Romans brings to mind just one thought wasn't commented on and that in verse four and Speaking of the inheritance, you know in this world.
People have parents who have very little of this world's goods, or relatives have very little. They don't think they have much of inheritance. There is much of an earthly inheritance to look forward to.
Those that are relatives of millionaires, why? They give a lot more thought to their inheritance.
What of an inheritance we have? I think of Romans 8. It says there in verse 17, those who are God's children were heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. My if we're, if we're God's ears, joint heirs with Christ.
What an inheritance is ours?
50 Bring before us one of the loveliest sites of the Lord Jesus Christ that we have in Scripture in the life of Joseph. And Speaking of this inheritance, again, I was meditating on just before the brothers spoke. But what is it? Is it just the fact of being in the Father's house? No, as he says, we're heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ. And that man Joseph, that one day was down to the pit. That one was a lovely type of Christ. One day he was exalted.
And he reigned over all. And who did he have alongside me? No prominence given to her, but he had a bride. Asian asked. Shared in all that glory. And so, dear one, that love that gives not as the world, but shares all it possesses with its love coheirs.