Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Peter one verse 13. Wherefore gird up 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 passing yourself according to the former lusts and your ignorance. But as he which has called you is holy, so be ye holy.
In all manner of conversation.
Because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy. And if you call in the Father, who without respect the persons, judge us according to every man's work past the time of your sojourning 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 with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without Flemish and without spot, who barely was for ordained before the found east of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who by him to believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God.
Seeing ye have purified your souls, and obeying the truth through the Spirit unto uncaned 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 as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.
The grass witherers, and the flower thereof falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
In the 9th, 1St we have what we already possess, the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. That is when we believe the gospel. We didn't get heaven at once, but we received the salvation of our souls and them. In the verses that follow, he shows what has been revealed to us as our future. The Holy Ghost has been sent down from heaven to lead our souls into the spiritual enjoyment now of that which belongs to us.
And those things are what sustain us.
As we go on in our wilderness life and then where we began, we have those governmental ways of God with us. He either woos us or weans us so that our hearts might be attracted to Him and drawn out to follow Him. But it's important for us to realize that God has not promised us now the salvation of our bodies. He hasn't promised us material things now. All that we can say that we have already received is the salvation of our souls.
But the blessing that belongs to us, our portion in Christ, the future that's ahead of us, they're such wonderful things that as he says, the Holy Ghost has been sent down from heaven. And these are things that the angels desire to look into because we're going to have a more blessed place than the angels who never sinned. This wondrous grace ought to fill our hearts and make us desire to live as the 13th person on, bring before us in a way that would be pleasing to him.
So that he can encourage us instead of dealing with us in his government.
The 11Th verse, there's an order that is important to notice, speaks of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow. We've had something of that in a type of Jonathan just now, and it was the course of Christ himself. These things were revealed in the Old Testament, the Spirit of Christ all through the Old Testament.
By the prophets witnessing to these things, the sufferings of Christ so fully told out in the Psalms and in Isaiah, for instance, and other scriptures. And then the glories that should follow. This should be plural, the glories that should follow, and they are infinite. Now for you and I in our course, it's going to be the same order. Today is the day of suffering.
00:05:15
With Christ and the glories are going to follow.
The cost of falling peaks of that that if we suffer, we shall reign with them suffering first. Raining time is coming, I'm afraid. Most of us perhaps would like to rain before the time, but it's suffering time now. And to be associated with Christ, identified with the Lord Jesus Christ, as we're in this world means suffering. Can we expect to escape suffering?
If the Lord didn't, the Lord already reminded his disciples about that, that if they persecuted me, they'll persecute you also. So we're not to be alarmed if we get persecution. Sometimes we think that becoming a Christian will mean a rosy path, force, but not necessarily. We may have our times of happiness and rest in the Lord Jesus if we really have him as our Savior and trust Him.
But we can't expect it to be easy here. But we have something in us that really wants that, and that's why we want to settle down. We want to make everything as comfortable for ourselves as possible. I I'm guilty of the same thing. We all have that in US that we want to make it easy for ourselves. We want it comfortable. But did the Lord have it comfortable? No. He suffered like no one else suffered in this sea. And he's going to have the glories. There's no one else.
But think of it, Paul speaks of reigning with him, and that means that we are going to be associated with the Lord Jesus in those glories. What more could we ask?
His first eleven I believe is a key verse to understand following chapters.
Some have had some difficulty.
In the third chapter in connection with the.
The the 19th 1St.
Well.
1919 and 20 I was thinking of the 19th verse speaking by which also he went and preached out of the spirit in prison.
Some of the and I believe is taught in criticism that the Lord Jesus went down into hell. The priests under those spirits. But I believe this 11Th verse of the first chapter really gives us to understand it's a key verse searching what or what manner of time the spirit of Christ which was in them. In other words, with the spirit of Christ in those those days and Noah's days that preach to those people. They're now in prison in the prison House of the lost.
The spirit of Christ of Noah's day that really preaches that so so I think it's helpful to notice this eleven first. It is a key verse to understand what we have in chapter 3.
It also shows us the difference between Old Testament revelations and New Testament. Those prophets had to sit down and study their own prophecies. You know, they realized that it was Speaking of a time to come, but they didn't know. They didn't understand the things that were communicated even through them. And they searched and they studied. But what a wonderful thing they were, prophetically Speaking of salvation that you and I.
Enjoy today and in the trials and difficulties. What struck me so in verse 6 is.
Wearing he greatly rejoice that is that salvation dough now for a season if need be here in heaviness to manifold temptations, beloved.
Let not the enemy rob us of their joy. Let's rejoice in that salvation.
And remind ourselves of how great that salvation is. This is what helps us to be sustained in the trials, and the difficulties to rejoice, as here he says greatly in that salvation.
That which the prophets prophesied has come to you and to me.
The word grace comes in placed in our chapter and it's rather important to notice that in verse 10.
00:10:02
Who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you? Well, it has come. It's all great, the salvation of our soul. It's all of grace, it's all it has come to us. But where we began reading in the 13th verse, it goes farther and says, Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, and be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
The grace there in verse 10 is connected surely with verse 9, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your soul. Now go back to verse 5 and you have another salvation work kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Well, this brings in surely the salvation of the body when the Lord comes.
So to me.
The verse 13 at the revelation of Jesus Christ is the first time we see Him. When He comes, we will get that salvation of the body too, and grace that just will go on and amplify and magnify throughout all eternity.
Verse 13 Country where, Wherefore, having girded up the loins of your mind.
And so it seemed, the one that girding up with the loins, that place of strength should take place.
Immediately or all the time, we should be constantly girded.
The more we read the precious Word of God girding up the loins of our minds, and then there will be that which would keep us.
Knowledge of the Word wouldn't keep us, but it should draw out our hearts to Christ. In Ephesians 6 we have.
Girding up the loins as part of the armor.
Your lawyers dirt about this truth.
We have to be careful how we allow our minds to wander, don't we? Because the enemy works upon the mind, the God of this world that blinded the minds of them that believe not, and we have to be careful. It was also read to us in one of the other meetings in Two Corinthians 10. It says casting down imaginations or reasoning and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. And so we have to constantly be watching our minds.
We find the same thing in the 12Th chapter of Romans. Just turn to it for a moment.
Romans, chapter 12.
Verse One. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable or intelligent service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
There are many things that the Levites were called upon to do, and the priests in Israel that was not an intelligence service. They didn't understand, but they did it in obedience. You asked them why did you cut the animal in such and such a way? He just did it in obedience to God, but without understanding mine. But you and I are called to an intelligence service, and we ought to know why we're doing things, because we have that instruction in the Word.
And we also have the Spirit of God indwelling us to lead us into all truth. And so we need to have our minds renewed, brethren, constantly in the world. We have the world's thoughts, the world's way of looking at things constantly before us. And we all know that all the advertising and all the comments that we hear are to look at things as men of the world look at them. But when we come into the presence of God and we read His words and we look at things from God's viewpoint.
And then our mind is renewed. And that's the importance of coming to the Bible reading and the prayer meeting. Very often we've had our mind filled with all kinds of worldly things and prospects, and we come to the meeting and our vine gets renewed. We learn what the will of God is. And if we have really learned this about presenting our bodies a living sacrifice, then we say, well, I'm not going to let my mind just call Helter Skelter after everything that the world thinks about.
00:15:11
But I'm going to bring my mind into subjection to the Word of God so that the things that we desire to do, the things that we live for are, shall I say, our true values in life are important things. They're all governed by the Word of God. And I believe that's what it means. Gird up the loins of your mind. Don't just let it run everywhere, but you've presented your body to the Lord. Now let your mind be under control of the Word of God, and you'll learn his perfect will. For in that will there is blessing out of that will.
He loves us too much to let us go our own way. So then we have what follows the governmental ways of God, how He may have to deal with us if need be, if there's something that He sees needs to be corrected and He brings something into our lives to correct that because we didn't allow our minds to be renewed by His word. So he says, well, you have lots of time to think about it if I set you aside perhaps for a little while, and now you have time to think about my will.
So that you'll do it.
Brother Gordon, would you give us some thought on the third verse of Romans 12?
The way that reads in the new translation, it says for I say through the grace which has been given to me, to everyone that is among you, not to have high thoughts above what he should think, but to think so as to be wise. And then.
Some thoughts on Colossians 218 but first Romans 312. Three, if you would.
While I'd like to connect that with if we could turn to Galatians chapter 6.
Galatians chapter 6 and verse 3.
But if a man think himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another, For every man shall bear his own burden.
I believe there's a reference here to the Levites. They were all brought to Aaron, and Aaron appointed to everyone his service and to everyone his burden. And the coat sites carried the ark. The sons of Barrera did a different work and carried different things. If one of the sons of Murray were to say, well, I'm going to carry the heart today, he was thinking of himself more highly than he ought to think because that wasn't given to him.
By one of the coercise said, well, I, I think I'm too proud to be always bearing the art. No, he was, he was having right thoughts because that was the work that was assigned to him. He was to do it humbly, but do it as something that was assigned to him and given to him. And I think you can see that context if you read on in Romans 11, because he talks about teaching, he talks about ministry and so on.
And prophecy and that each one was to know the function that was given to him in the body of Christ and to fulfill it. If he aspired for something that was not given to him by it was not really his particular word. But the Lord might give to someone like to the apostle Paul to be a foundation layer. Well, that wasn't given to me, but it was given to him. Was he taking up too high a place to save as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation.
No, he was thinking soberly. God had given him a work to do and he was seeking to do it. Did he do it with high thoughts? No, he said he was less than the least of All Saints. He was nothing, but he was seeking to do the work. And I think it's very beautiful there in Galatians. It says for them shall he have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another. I think it's possible for us to be wishing our lives away that we were doing some.
Workout in Africa or out in some other foreign country and thinking we're wasting our time here back in this country or at the desk day by day. God says, oh, not at all. If I called you to be at the desk every day, you're not wasting your time. You can be happy there because I wanted to witness in that office and that's why I put you there and I wanted somebody else out in Africa. They can be happy because that's where the Lord wanted them. And I might just comment that when it says.
00:20:03
Every man shall bear his own burden. There's a different word for burden than in the place where it says the verse before and the second verse there you want another's burdens. And then it says after speaking to us, having rejoicing in our work, then it says every man shall bear his own burden. Those are two different words for burden, brethren. In the first one, it has to do with a burden and heat of the day. And if you see a brother in trial or a sister.
Go and share the burden with him, help him. He needs help, he needs encouragement, and you can help him to bear that burden. But the other word is the one from Matthew Chapter 11 where the Lord said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Has the Lord given you something to do? Don't try to give it to somebody else.
The Lord gave it to you to do you do it and do it humbly. Do it with love for Him and love for His people. But that's the word that He gave to you and He wants you to be happy in it, whether it's being a help in the assembly or whether it's being a preacher or whether it's being a mother in the home.
What a wonderful service the mother of Moses and Aaron and and Miriam did, and just bringing up three wonderful children like that. I've often said to people, do you know the names of the mother and father of Moses and Aaron and Miriam? Very few people ever heard their names. I said, did you ever hear of Priscilla and Aquila? Oh sure, I've heard about them, but I don't know the names of the parents. Well, Priscilla had a different word, but these, this father and mother had a quiet work where they were hidden, but the results of their work were three children.
Who grew up to be so useful for God. So it's doing what God wants us to do and being happy in it. And you're not thinking too much of yourself, just to do what God wants you to do humbly. And is unto him not seeking recognition for mothers, just satisfied that that's the burden appointed to you.
In in Psalms 56 along what you just mentioned the different meaning of burden verse 22.
It says I'm sorry, it's 55 verse 22.
Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee. And the gut margin here has gifts, but.
JND in his translation has a note and it says you're assigned portion and I believe it is a gift of God, but it's your assigned portion. That's the thought of the second meaning of burden.
Would you please give us a thought now on Colossians 218? Peter tells us to gird up the loins of our mind, and there we read about something vainly popped up by his fleshly mind.
Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility in worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the hens.
Well, I suppose in what they were doing, they were introducing those things which had quite a good appearance. It looked very humble for them to put on a show of humility and worshipping of angels was something that had no proper place. But it looked like something that was done in a spiritual way. Just like even we find John falling down to worship the Angel. He had received such wonderful communications through that Angel. He got occupied with the servant who was just an Angel.
And that looked as if he was very humble falling down. But the Angel said, no, don't fall down before me. You worship God. We find the same with Peter. When Cornelius fell at his feet, he said stand upon thy feet. I myself also, I'm a man. So we can like put on a show of humility. And it's our own idea. It's something in our own mind. It's not by the direction of the word of God. The direction of the word of God would cause us to hold a hand.
And if we if God has granted to us those who can help us in the Scripture, we thank him for it, but we're not to exalt them.
Perhaps we recall that our brother Mr. Darby, in his time someone put out a publication and put a little introduction giving a great word of exaltation for Mr. Darby, for he was an eminent teacher and all this kind of thing, and he wrote a letter to the man.
00:25:14
And said to the man, he said, if you ever publish that again, don't put that in about me.
If you want to say I'm a servant of the Lord, that's enough to say about me. Well, it sounded very nice. And you can find in the publications of the day, you'll find pictures of people and all the degrees they have and all the things they've done in their lifetime. All. Let's forget that God won't forget anything that's done for him, brethren.
Let's forget anything that's done for him. God's got the record up there where to hold the head. But we can put on a show that exalts the flesh and gives honor to man, but the flesh profits nothing. Is it not food? Food, if you might think higher of ourselves than we ought to think. That's true. But I believe there is also a danger that the Saints put us in a place.
Which is not given to us of the Lord and to come right down to so we can understand what I'm driving. It is a brother is exercised about preaching the gospel and no doubt has a gift in it and he gives up his employment and he desires to serve the Lord. The Saints tend to give him the podium for teaching the Saints and all this kind of a thing I believe.
We sometimes spoil our brethren by trying to push them into a place for which the Lord has not qualified them, and really, the sphere of service that the Lord has given to them is suffering as a result of it. I believe there is such a thing. We certainly are happy for any encouragement that comes to the sayings by any brother, but let's remember that the brother has a sphere of service.
And let's not try to push him into a sphere that has not been given to him of the Lord.
That's what it says in Romans 12, doesn't it, the different services in the body of Christ and that each one, the person himself ought to recognize that though, and I know that our brother Martin has gone to be with the Lord, but he felt very much that he was called to the gospel and he he sought opportunities to preach the gospel and reminded the brethren constantly that his work was the gospel. Well, I thought that was good on his part and I think the Lord blessed him in his work of spreading the gospel.
There's another thought here in verse 12.
About the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.
We must not forget that the Holy Ghost was not sent down from heaven.
During the Old Testament times, there were certain ones that were empowered by the Spirit of God. The Spirit came upon them to do a special work, whatever work the Lord had called him to do. But that wasn't the Holy Spirit coming down here on this earth to dwell. What characterizes this dispensation is that the Holy Ghost is here in this world. He's in the assembly, and He's in the hearts of each believer.
And we must forget that the Holy Spirit is here, and the Holy Spirit will always guide us according to His Word. The Holy Spirit will not guide anyone, contrary to the word that He has indicted, because holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. I remember being in Kansas one place.
And having some gospel meetings in a schoolhouse.
And along in the preaching, a couple came in and sat in the back. Well, a lot of these people were not known to me when they came the first time, but this couple sat there in the back and they stayed there until I got back to the master of the service. And I got to talking to them. And I found out that both the man and his wife were preachers.
And I asked him, well, do you both get up into the pulpit to preach? Yes.
I pointed out to them that verse in first Corinthians 14 about the women being silent in the assembly and also in Timothy. I suffer not a woman to usurp, but to teacher, to your usurp authority over the man. All but she says, when the Spirit of God comes on me, I got to get up and preach.
00:30:10
I said the Holy Spirit is the one who filled the apostle Paul and guided him in the writing of this letter.
It's really written by the Spirit of God, a direction by God, by his Spirit. How can you go contrary to that? Well, there wasn't any answer. I don't know what the result of it was, but we take so much liberty with the fact that the Holy Spirit is here, and perhaps we get the idea. Well, now we can do anything we want to, but we must be guided by the Spirit of God who has given us that word. If we're not guided that way by the Spirit of God, we're not guided of God at all.
God guides us by His Spirit, using the Word to enlighten our hearts and enlighten our minds and empower us too to give out the gospel. It's not by miter power, it's by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. And I have seen pagans converted over in the mission field just reading the gospel, the word to them that I translated and preaching to them in a simple way in their own language.
And the first thing you knew, you know, there was something happened in them. It wasn't my preaching. It was the word of God used by the Spirit of God. He was the one that was working in their hearts. And we need to remember that when we're standing up to preach the gospel, whether it's on the street corner or in the in the meeting or even talking individually to people, it's not by my eloquence or the way I present it. I must be guided by the Spirit. But it's only by the Spirit of God that that word is going to do anything in the soul of people.
We must be remember that, but let's remember the Holy Spirit was sent down to heaven from heaven.
And he is here to guide us and to direct us and to empower, to do God's work, to do God's will, to please the Lord and to help souls. That's what he's here for. In the Old Testament, even they were exhorted to trust God.
Because Zechariah was told, or Zechariah says in his prophecy, not by might or by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. And what were they doing? Well, the children of Israel were back from Babylon, from captivity, and they were building the temple. Well, they got the foundation laid, and then it stopped. There was so much opposition there from the enemies that they got discouraged. Well, God says to Zechariah.
And tell them, and it's not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, if they will trust me. It's like God saying you trust me, you trust my Holy Spirit, and I'll empower you to finish that temple. And when the preaching was done, they began to work and the work was finished. Now it doesn't make much difference what it is, what kind of work it is we're doing. If we're in the Lord's will in it, He'll help us in doing it. But especially in spiritual things, we must.
Depend upon God by His Spirit to work and to guide us and to lead us and empower us, because without the Lord we can do nothing, and without dependence upon God to work in and through it by His Spirit, nothing will be accomplished.
Believe. That's why in the 14th verse we have as obedient children. It's a lovely thought because we are the children of God now, before we were children of disobedience.
And now we are the children of God, and we have the Spirit of Christ in us, as it says in Romans 8. And He always did the Father's will. That's obedience. And so that should characterize us, should it not? You notice in the second chapter he says in verse 7 unto you therefore, which believe he is the preciousness, the other translation. But under them which believe not, Oh no, under them which be disobedience, that's the Spirit.
Of us before and the spirit of all without Christ their disobedient and then the other translation is said is that disallowed said he's castaway as worthless to them that are disobedient. It's preciousness or castaway is worthless. And the difference is we have the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of obedience and it's lovely to see that as you say the word of God with the Spirit of God brings in the difference I just mentioned.
00:35:01
I was going to mention it for prayer, but there's a nice work going on up in Saskatchewan among the Crees and the reserves. It's a continuous work up there now and I think it's something we should pray about. It's an open door and a vast field ripe for harvest. And I've gone up there several years just to encourage Brother Harold Bateman, who does go up, and he's not as well. But there's a lot of young ones there and Regina that are going up and working with them and bringing them in. But at any rate.
This year Harold had it on his heart to get back and visit some that have received Christ and have the word sent into their house weekly, either by the messages of the love and tracts and other things, and have a Bible. And you know, I was so discouraged in former years on the reserves at the filthiness, the terrible degradation, the the terrible scenes that you'll see everywhere in and out of the cabins and houses.
But this time we went to seven reserves and just visited. Those who had one or more in the cabin received Christ. And the difference is beautiful. It's clean, it's picked up. The children are clean. They have text on the walls. They bring their Bibles. There's a difference. There's no one continuing with them like we have brethren where we have our brethren to encourage us. They're there alone in that, in the in the heat, darkness, in the terrible evil.
But the fruit is there and what is it? It's the Spirit of God within them, thou and the word of God taken by the Spirit of God. And it says here as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to former lust in your ignorance, but holiness. And that's done by the as you mentioned, it's, it's the Spirit of God now working within a soul. Well, pray for them up there. There's a nice work going on.
And it's continuing now from Regina and Craven on up. There's 200 reserves of Greece alone. And there's other thought holes and and the Sioux and the Jeb boy and the Sinner boy and others. But they're mostly Crees and they receive the word, the, the young ones, the little ones and the parents threw them.
Halloween knows the nature is that the Newman is created in righteousness and true holiness. And so being in the family of God, what characterizes the family of God is obedience and obedience and holiness, and holiness is the abhorrence of evil with delight in good. So this is the character of the new men. But we are affected by past habits and past environment and so on, and we have to remember that God's standard doesn't change with different nationalities or what His standard of holiness and what is due to Him. It's the same.
And so it's important that we should learn this. And then as it says in the 17th verse, if you call on the Father who without respect of persons, judges according to every man's work past the time of your Assad journey here in fear, perhaps we could put it simply like this. We don't get away with anything. Perhaps we can get away with things with our earthly parents because they don't always know what we're doing. But he says God doesn't make any respect of persons.
He doesn't have favorites. He doesn't say because we're this or that family, that he's going to let something pass. He's the one who judges without respect to persons, and we ought to fear his government. It isn't the fear of dread, but a fear of displeasing him. And I believe that's important for us. It says feed out in the fear of the Lord all day long. And again, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And so that ought to characterize the Christian.
That he's afraid to do something displeasing to his Lord. It isn't, as I say, dread, but it is that we don't get away with it. And God will have to deal in his government. But it's love, it's for our good, but he delights to bless, and he wants us to walk in a path of obedience. He said to Peter, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. And if we're not willing to put our feet into the hands of the Lord Jesus and let him wash our feet, we're going to lose the happy privilege of having part or fellowship with Him walking in his company.
His Leviticus 11 we had a chapter that speaks of the clean and unclean animals.
That the Israelite was permitted to feed on or not to feed on. And in that chapter we have this same statement that we have here in Peter in verse 45. Be holy, for I am holy. I believe this is very instructive. How can we form or how can we?
00:40:14
Be conformed by our former lives. I think you can learn from that chapter in Leviticus 11, because these characteristics of the unclean animals speak of not feasting on that which might have an adverse effect on our character. It forms our being in character. We take character from the things that we feed on, and we know what the world turns to for their enjoyment and pleasure.
And in most cases it has to do with lust and the flesh feeding the flesh. Well, we have to be aware that we have to avoid these things and otherwise we are still feeding the old nature, the flesh. And we must not be surprised if unholiness is manifested in our walk and in our ways. But we don't have just a negative side, we have the positive side.
Of feeding on that which speaks of Christ and that which speaks of the new nature. Like the animals they were permitted to feed on were animals that had split hoofs and chewed the cut, so they were taking in the truth and word of God. And it was shown in their walk outwardly with the fish they had to have fins and scales.
So there was that which spoke of the divine nature which by which we have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, and it doesn't allow the evil to penetrate. But it also had to have fins that would speak of the energy of that divine nature which enables us to go against the stream, not to be drifting along by anything that comes our way in the world of entertainment and pleasure. And that sort of a thing we can feed on that which will.
Creating us, you might say, the same characteristics and it might be reflected in US. Be holy, for I am holy. Let beware of what we feed on. It's significant, is it not, that in that chapter where it speaks of these clean and unclean animals, we have that same statement that we have here in first Peter. One be holy if I am holy.
And numbers 5. The children of Israel had to put out of the camp every leper.
Everyone had an issue, everyone that was defiled by the dead, that you defile, not your camps in the midst where all thy dwell. It's the same today, whether it's collectively in the assembly or as an individual. There must be separation from evil because the Lord is in the midst. We cannot go on with Him and go on with evil at the same time.
While I believe you're saying holiness is really a nature, and so it's the abhorrence of evil, the delighting good. Adam and Eve were innocent. They didn't have the knowledge of good and evil. So there's a difference between innocence and holiness. After they had sinned, then they had a fallen nature. They delighted in what's evil, but they didn't have delight in good. Their nature was fallen. But when you and I received the Lord Jesus as Savior, then we received a new nature.
And that new nature delights in the things of God, abhors that which is evil. So it's spoken of as being created in righteousness and true holiness. Now that's to be the manifested character in our lives. The world is to see that new life in US, and that's why it tells us in John's epistle, the world knoweth us, not because it knew him, not because we look like children of Adam, but we're really children of God.
And so they say, well, I don't understand those people. They have different motives and ideas and they live a different way. Well as far as the food that we eat, it's the same and many things that we do, but that which has to do with moral and spiritual things. While then we have God standards and not man's and they're in direct conflict. That is the morals that God sets before us in His word may not be in agreement with the morals that are taught in the world.
00:45:06
The standards of what is right and wrong. We have standards that have been founded upon the word of God and not Oh well, everybody is doing it. It can't be so wrong. It's important that we should see this and we have this character, though we have received this new life. Now let's just play it, he said. Because one is often said that Christian is like a house with two tenants. We still have that old nature. We still have that fallen nature that once did all those other things and it's there.
We're told to reckon the dead, but we're told that we should put on the Newman.
Or having put it on and display it in a practical way in our lives.
There's a verse in Numbers six. It's verse eight that brings it out to unholiness.
And the verse says, All the days of his separation, he is holy unto the Lord. Now this of course speaks of the Nazarite, who separated himself under the Lord, and wholly characterized him. And.
The word Nazareth, the word separation, the word consecration in the Hebrew, all from the same root word Nazar. It's the same thing. He consecrated and separated himself under the Lord, and he was only He is holy because the Lord is holy. Three things.
No wine or nothing from the grape, not even from the seeds to the skin. And that means all of his pleasure, all of his joy.
Was found in the Lord, not here in the Lord. The second thing was no razor to his head, and that meant that he would seek no place for himself in this world. It was all for the Lord. The third thing is what we're talking about. No dead body and that sin in its effects.
Holy unto the Lord, So you see, it says all the days of his separation. The key is separation. The key is separation.
From everything down here that defiles and then you can be holy because he's holy.
And we've got a life that can do that. It delights in the good things of the Lord and it hoards the things down here. It's only that old nature we've been speaking about that rebels in this things of this world. And Satan knows how to attract it. But we can be have the character at least of the Nazarite.
Today the Lord was the perfect example of a Nazarite.
And always it helps us to look at him, just to be watching him. And if you want to have a good look at the Lord Jesus Christ, just read the gospel. Read the gospel.
And read about him to see what the apostle said about the Lord. Jesus ought to have him before us and that perfect life, what a help it is to us. And we've groaned within ourselves when we see how far short we come. But if we go to the Lord who is on the throne above as a high priest to get grace and mercy to help us in our time of need, we'll get it. We must go back to Him.
It's not only to Calvary.
But it's to him as an example after we've been saved, and it's looking at him and watching him in his life, which we get in the Gospels. We don't have to have it portrayed on a screen. We don't have to have the movies and all of that. Just read what God has said about His Son hearing the word of God, and it will serve to sanctify us.
Like it's beautiful brother, instead of the connection which holiness is mentioned here going on the next few verses versus 18 and 19, and the Lord Jesus is brought out as the lamb foreordained, and the cost of our redemption is that precious blood of Christ. In the Old Testament there were two feasts of Jehovah that were linked together, the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
The Passover came first, and immediately following were seven days in which they had to be careful not to eat and not even have in their dwellings leaven, which speaks of evil. And so I really think there's a connection in these verses when it speaks of holiness and of passing the time of our soul journey here in fear, fear of displeasing Him. Why is it? It's because He paid such a terrible price on Calvary to redeem us to God.
00:50:06
And I think that's the real power in holiness is to get back to the cross of Calvary and see there that terrible agony that the Lord Jesus suffered for our sins. How can we stand there and gaze at it all and then go out and freely go into this life of sin? It's impossible to do the two things go together that.
Precious blood that saved us, that terrible cost that was paid. Contemplating that is what's going to help us to live lives of holiness to the Lord.
It says let us keep the feast.
In verse 81 Corinthians 5, Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness.
But with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, you speak of the Feast of Unleavened bread these seven days. That's a complete cycle. And when it speaks of keeping the feast here, I believe it refers to the whole time of our life that we're here after we're saved, all that cycle of our life till the Lord takes us home and not to give up.
They were not to give up this feast one day out of the seven. They were not to take any vacation, no holiday here. Let us keep the feast through the whole cycle that we're left here on this earth until we're taken home to glory, the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
We have on the end of the chapter, then the blood in the water. You have the blood that has put away our sins before God, and then we have the water of the Word and we have purified our souls and obeying the truth through the Spirit. We're born again by the Word of God and it lives and abides forever. So we have our past and all our sins. Not only our past, but the whole question of our sins has been settled and we have become creatures in Christ Jesus.
And so we find that we have a life here now that doesn't glory in the flesh, doesn't glory in all the things of this world, but now attracts us.
Brings before us those things that belong to Christ and what is pleasing to Him. So it's by the washing of water, by the Word, that we walk in communion with Him and to please Him.
160.