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170.
No, he comes from heaven.
Descending.
Serious. Seriously.
1000 thousand seems certainly.
Swallowed dry among his dreams.
Hallelujah.
I.
I.
Knowing so I'm born again.
And the same thy man return to worship.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
Sing a song for you.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Crystal love God here.
Is.
The brightness Spirit, Jesus, Lord, that goodly come.
On the glory to inherit.
And to take my deep home.
All creatures and all creation.
Froggles froze.
On creation.
All creation.
Travels from the house shall come.
Yeah.
All the boys came all along.
Chrome Savior, take the power and glory.
Thy home.
Who unfortunate?
00:05:26
Lord Jesus, we think of the first time that Thou didst come, the most momentous occasion in the history of this world, and when thou dost come again, as we have read, to set up Thy Kingdom in this world again, nothing like it have been seen in this world's history. And we thank Thee that thou has a plan for this world, many plans, that we are part of it, to be caught up, to be with the at thy side when thou does reign over this world. We thank Thee for that time coming when that will be honored.
Recognized by Thy earthly people, we thank before the hope that is before us, and that being soon to be caught up to be with the and for Thyself to have us to be with Thyself. We ask Him out for help as we purpose to be over Thy precious word, without guide and bless that Thou should be glorified to help us now. We pray in Thy most worthy and precious name. Amen. Amen.
Where do you suggest we start, Brother Bob?
Verse 11 Perhaps?
For a little bit since this it's the really the heart of what we're what we're having these verses that were not much was said about them and I think there's young people here who would profit by it and all of us would profit if we define these words and from 5 through 7.
Kind of camp on those verses for just a little bit and.
It really hurts, so maybe we should go back to there and read from there.
Second Peter chapter one, beginning at verse 5.
And beside this giving all diligence add to your faith virtual.
And virtual knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance, patience, and to patience godliness, And to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his own sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if ye do these things, ye shall never, never fall, for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you.
Abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom.
Of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them and be established in the present truth. Yeah, I think it meet as long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this Tabernacle.
Even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shown me, moreover.
I will endeavor, that ye may be able after my disease to be these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunning devised fables, when we may know unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but where eyewitnesses of His Majesty, For He received from God the Father honor and glory.
When there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven, we heard when we were with Him in the Holy Mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy. Where unto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts.
00:10:08
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy man of God speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
That previous meeting, I think I mentioned briefly those seven things that are to be added to faith.
And it seemed like we skipped right on, so I would too would like to hear.
More help on those seven things to be added. Brother Vern, I think you had some thoughts there.
Well, I would, I would just like to hear a definition of them and some illustration of them because it seems that this is the way that we'll have a successful Christian life. So maybe I would be happy just to hear, I've heard Bill speak on these things, so.
Well, I have enjoyed these things this way, that, and I've also enjoyed the way that the passage reads in the Darby translation. I appreciated Bob's comment about multiplication of grace and then addition on our part. But Mr. Darby puts it this way. Have in your faith, virtue.
And in your virtue knowledge, that is, all of these things should characterize the believer at all times. But there is an order here that I believe Scripture brings before us. We know, of course, that faith is paramount because it was the beginning of our Christian pathway to put our faith in the work of Christ. But faith is necessary all through the Christian pathway.
Not merely faith as to salvation, but faith as to our path down here.
But then is what was brought out yesterday we need virtue or moral courage? Because it's a pathway that is swimming constantly against the current, isn't it, in this world? And the moral courage has often, shall I say, been failing, been lacking in believers who wanted to be more acceptable and perhaps have an easier path through this world. And so they're very necessary.
That's, I believe, why virtue is mentioned at the end of verse three and the most important thing in the Christian pathway.
But then we need knowledge.
But it is not merely head knowledge. I believe that is in view here.
It's knowledge that comes from having heard something and lived and walked in the good of it. Because Paul could say to the Corinthians, knowledge puffeth up and it does. And so if it's merely head knowledge and an intellectual understanding of the Word of God, then we will find that that does not do us any good in the Christian life. In fact, knowledge by itself is probably a more sure way of missing the path than a lack of knowledge.
So my father used to remind me, he said if I took a gun.
With the sites that were off.
And I gave it to a poor marksman. And then I gave it to an expert marksman. Which one would be more likely to miss the target?
And of course the answer is, the expert marksman would miss it all the time because he would line everything up perfectly, but because the sights are off, he would always miss the target. The poor marksman might hit it by accident sometimes. And so the believer who knows the most, if he isn't walking with the Lord, can lose the path perhaps more quickly than one who is simpler in the things of God. But at the same time, God wants us to have knowledge, because he wants us to know not only the things that are given to us in the Word, but the person who gave us the Word.
And then of course, temperance is self-control, isn't it? And we need that self-control, self-control, not only in the matter of our old sinful self, because there's always the sin that besets us, but self-control and spiritual things. The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, aren't they?
00:15:01
And patience, I think Don commented on that yesterday and how we need patience because everything doesn't happen the way we want it to, and the Lord sometimes allows difficulties in our lives that exercise our patience. So we need that patience to wait for the Lord to work rather than taking matters into our own hands and expecting to do something without His leading and guidance.
And then godliness.
Believe the Darby uses piety. What is that? Godliness, I would suggest, is the constant daily living out of that new life that is within us in every situation in which we or which we encounter in our lives down here. Godliness, someone said of Mr. Wigram brother back in the 1800s. They said every time I see that man.
I am reminded of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Godly brother in the Toronto meeting whom I never knew, but I knew his daughter and his name was Mr. Gosby. And when he lay in his casket in the Funeral Home, his next door neighbor who was standing around in the room said to some of those that were in the funeral parlor, he said, you know, that man never sinned.
It wasn't true, but it was a good testimony, wasn't it? From the world around him. And so godliness is that which shows itself in every aspect of our everyday life. None of us do it perfectly, but it's a necessary addition.
And then brotherly love.
And it's interesting, the order that's given here, because the brotherly love is put first. If I had been writing it, I would have put charity or love first, which is divine love, but it puts brotherly love first.
A most necessary thing among believers and an important thing to remember, because sometimes our zeal and energy for the Lord can overtake that brotherly love that should be shown, and how important that is.
If you've got a minute, I'll tell you a story that really struck home to me. I can remember my late father-in-law, Albert Hayhoe and our late brother Clarence Lundeen at a Bible conference quite a few years ago. Now, obviously because my late father-in-law has been gone almost 35 years and Clarence Lundin a good many as well.
And it wasn't characteristic of them. But at a Bible conference, Albert took issue with something Clarence Lundin said and adjusted it somewhat.
And I saw Clarence open his mouth about to enter into the controversy with Albert, and then they locked and made eye contact across the room.
Nothing more was said, Clarence said. Well, going on to the next verse.
Why did he do that?
Brotherly love. He wasn't going to hold several 100 people hostage to a discussion on a minor point that wasn't that important. They could work it out afterward among themselves. It was brotherly love there.
And so that needs to be shown. But then divine love tempers that, doesn't it? Because brotherly love, if we're not careful, can carry us beyond.
Where true love would not go and might make me forego a necessary.
Rebuke, or a necessary word of warning or something that I might hesitate otherwise to do because of brotherly love. And so I'm to have that divine love with it. But all these things ought to grow together in the believer, shouldn't they? They should be all tempered.
Together with one another in our lives. And as our brother Vern has pointed out, they do result if they're exercised in our lives. A very, very happy Christian pathway. And I believe it's true for all of us to remember.
You pointed out that these things, these are things that were swear to have in our faith.
Not something we go looking for or working at a.
Are striving for in this in the natural sense these are things that are available to us and.
It's not interesting, Bob, brother Bob when he last time we were in this.
Brother Bob pointed out that the word diligence appears at the beginning and at the end, just to draw attention to that.
00:20:00
A verse five and beside this giving all diligence and then I.
Verse 10 Wherefore the rather brother give diligence.
I discovered and speaking to young people, the diligence is a word that is not in the modern vocabulary.
And diligence means giving attention and effort to something.
And it's contrasted by a helpful version, Proverbs 19, Proverbs 19, you get the word slothful. Verse 24, That's the opposite of diligence, slothful. And I read this verse many times in my life and never quite understood it until I read it in Darby's translation. The King James says a slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again.
And I couldn't figure why a slothful man would hide his hand in his bosom.
But the Darby translation and other translations as well. I checked others as well. Say a slothful man hideth his hand in the dish.
What's that mean? Well, the Oriental custom was for the people ate together. They put a big bowl, a big dish out in the middle and everybody would help themselves. It was commonly, it was material. It was commonly available. It was right there in abundance. And the man would bury the his hand in the dish and not bring it to his mouth. And you know, it's so easy in meetings like this to enjoy the truth. We can, so to speak, bury our hand on the dish. We need to make sure we bring it to our mouth.
These things that were exhorted to do are available to us. God doesn't make it hard.
Virtue here that self-control is that in here.
Skip over that.
It's like flying off the handle, right? But the way the road says, it's flying off the handle.
No, you didn't mention that the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets. Maybe just, I mean, if you understand what it means, it's, it's rather obvious, but perhaps it's not so obvious to everyone. Well, I didn't enlarge on it, so go ahead. And Nick, how would you explain it? self-control.
And I did mention that, yeah, I did say self-control, but I didn't say very much about it. And it might have seemed as if I glossed over it, but self-control is very important in every in every facet of our lives. We, of course, with the old sinful self.
We're to reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. So it's it's not a matter of seeking to control the old nature by human energy. That isn't the thought.
But self-control is to recognize under the leading of the Spirit of God.
What the right thing is to do for that particular occasion and so you find, for example that.
The man who was healed, who was the demoniac in the tombs?
When it it says he was healed, it says he found himself at the feet of Jesus, clothed and seated and in his right mind. It was a mind that was under the control now of the Lord, instead of being under the control of the devil. It was his whole being that was under the control of another, so that he would do that which was proper and appropriate to one who was a child of God.
I've known those who claim to be under the control of the Spirit of God who have done very inappropriate things. And when they were questioned about it, they said, well, the Spirit of God told me to do it. God told me to do it. And that's all that it seemed to be in their minds that they needed to say when it was very questionable that the Spirit of God had anything to do with it because it was certainly not suitable to what would be the mind of the Lord.
So there needs to be self-control in every area of our lives.
Does this have anything to do with our habits in life? There's many things that if we allow our habits to control us, then we it becomes an addiction and.
We no longer are able just to do the will of God as we might say in everything it can be. I'm not going to name things because I don't want to touch my own conscience or others. But you know, it's, there's many things that we allow in our lives that if it becomes an addiction, it it controls us. Is that is that a part of it? I believe so.
00:25:07
And it's a fact and some of us feel it a little as we get older that the tendencies in our hearts that we don't judge and deal with before the Lord when we're young to as we get older, they tend to, in the words of the 19th Psalm, David could say, let them not have dominion over me. They tend to have dominion over us because when we're younger, we can perhaps control them a little more with human energy. But when that human energy.
Starts to fail. The sin takes a measure of precedence over us and.
It's a frightening thing, isn't it? And so we need to remember that.
Eric Smith one time this is a perhaps be. I mean, I think it's humorous. But we were, we were eating a meal after the breaking of bread and the dessert came around. It was cherry cheesecake. And he'd had a piece. And I said, brother, would you like another piece? He said, brother, I don't want to be brought under the power of it, you know, but we can be brought under the power even as simple things, can't we? And they control our lives.
If one can speak for others.
Virtue is moral courage, like you said, Bill, it is important thing. It's to show in our faith virtue and it's so easy that and it's interesting to me to see there's three epistles written to the Jewish believers.
We have James, we have first Peter and 1St and second Peter here, and we have the pistol to the Hebrews. And in each one it's there's different ways in which this question of faith is addressed, and there's a tendency to.
In an outward way, give allegiance to what we believe, but it needs to be put into action. Isn't that what you think about it, brother Bill? It's to live it out. Don't just talk about it. Live it out. And so our faith rather than is going to be put into action when we go home from these meetings in our everyday lives. Not that we don't do it here, but it's important that we.
Make it a practical reality.
It's like to mention too, and these last two items that you mentioned, Bill, that are important, brotherly kindness or brotherly love, That's filial love.
And as you said, charity is agape a lot. And it's interesting to me to see in a number of places in the New Testament where the two are brought together and it's important.
You gave an illustration of that, Brother Bill, that I think it is important to see that both have a very real place in the Christian life.
It says in Hebrews chapter 13, Let brotherly love continue.
It's an important thing, that cultivation of mutual appreciation, and I think that's what it really means, brotherly love.
There are brothers here that I have learned to appreciate mutually.
It's something we've cultivated over the years. I've known you for a long time, Brother Don. I appreciate you. Maybe you appreciate me. And it's something that is mutual.
But sometimes there's strains on that and in that case, what are we going to do?
What?
Keep going.
I didn't hear you.
Would you want me to have Yuka Yucca?
For those that don't know, that's a a dish they serve in South America that I happen to like a lot and he doesn't. I think Doug feels the same way about it. But the point is, is that there comes times when there is stress on brotherly love. What are we going to do then? And I think it's so helpful to understand what divine love is, brethren. It's love that loves because.
Of the source of love, not because of the object. And we need at times to.
Add to brotherly love, divine love, and as I say, it's love that loves because of the Source. God so loved the world. Why did he love the world so much? Was there anything there that was?
00:30:21
Attractive to him? No, we were all enemies by wicked works. Why did he love us?
Because God is love, that's who he is in his own being. Wonderful to realize that. And he looks at you and he loves you. And so we are to add this kind of love because now that we have been born into God's family.
You have a nature that is able to love in that way. Wonderful. So we add to our brotherly love. We add love. Remember a sister in South America that was having problems with some other sister in the meeting in that particular place, and she made the statement in her anger. I hate that sister.
And a brother that was standing by, I thought answered quite well, he said. Sister, if you have been born into God's family, you have a nature that can love that sister.
If you haven't been born into God's family, maybe it is true that you have just hate for her. Well, I think it was a good reflection for her, but it shows that brethren, we have that nature and sometimes there's stress amongst brethren. What are we going to do in those cases?
Add to brotherly love. Love. Let me give you one other scripture in the New Testament, because there's multiple ones that put the two together. I think it is.
Helpful First Thessalonians, chapter 4.
First Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 9.
Speaking about the moral characteristics of believers who are waiting for the Lord to come.
Says here, but as touching brotherly love, there it is the filial love ye need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. There's the agape word. So it's put together and and I think it is helpful to understand distinction. Brotherly love is the mutual appreciation that we gain over maybe years.
Of relationship, but then we need at times to add agape love, love that loves because of the source and not because of the object.
A little while ago.
I don't know what you're trying to say, but habits is something that we have to watch too.
There's habits that we on.
Man knowingly or I don't know how to say that.
Do that's carried over from the world?
I just mentioned one you guys.
Well, why would they call us all the time, you guys? It's not. I don't know what you mean by that.
It's better to leave it off. Don't say it.
But that's a carryover of the world, because in the world you hear it all the time, you guys and them guys and they guys. But what are those guys actually?
It's a habit and that's a carryover from the world.
There's once another one that is not so obvious that people say as it were.
Well, I found that I think once in the Bible that it's used once in the Bible.
But we got to know what we are saying when we use these habitual expressions. What we mean by that is a meaning in it. I say nothing in it that.
We just use it as a carryover from the world.
I heard Paul Wilkins one time speak on that verse, you know, brotherly love continue. And he said we know so much about each other among the gathered Saints that were in danger of not letting brotherly love continue. And I think that's true, you know, because we know everyone's foibles. So it affects us or we've heard about everybody's foibles. So when we meet them, it affects our love for them.
00:35:28
This.
Is that conferences like this? We sit in meetings quite a few of the hours of a conference, but there's a lot of time that we spend in enjoying each other's company and asking about each other's welfare. That is all part of brotherly love, don't you think, Brother Bear?
Someone else perhaps to do shattered, but we were thinking yesterday about how in heaven we will not have to learn patience, for example. There's so many of these things that we have to learn here in this wilderness. But we take that knowledge and we'll take it with us into heaven to be glad that we learned it in this scene. And one of those is the need to forgive one another and to prepare with one another. And if you can learn that now, we will be so happy. Because that was one of our Lord's request, wasn't it? To love one another as He loves us. To forgive one another as He's forgiven us.
And there's a saying I maybe you've heard me quoted before.
To dwell above with the Saints we love, oh, that will be glory. But to live below with those we know, well, that's a different story. And yet it's here in this life where God is honored that we love one another, forgive one another as He has, and, and not just have the brotherly kindness, but to have that true agape. And so it's difficult in trying as it may be, that's what the Lord has for us to learn here.
Interesting comment perhaps, And that is this is as this list starts with the word faith.
Have in your faith these things.
In the faith chapter is commonly called Hebrews 11.
In general, the examples of faith are the faith in its outward activity.
That is, it begins with Abel. By faith, Abel did something he offered.
In the case of Noah.
He prepared an ark. In the case of Abraham, he obeyed.
And left his country and did something. That's one line of the result of the work of faith in the soul. It's seen in its activity as it was in each of those cases mentioned here. It's more the character of the person.
That is the result of the activity of faith.
These are moral characteristics of a person, in contrast to the things that the person does.
Yes, if there is brotherly love, it'll be seen in action. If there's love, it'll be seen in action. But the actions themselves are not what's given emphasis here too, but rather.
What the person is.
The Lord Jesus.
Work.
Was totally based on who he was.
It was his person that sustained his work.
And it is the moral character of a person that is to characterize their activity, their outward action.
And so if we're to be fruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have to be acquainted with himself and we get to know himself.
By these characteristics that were perfect in him.
But have to be learned practically in our own lives. And so someone once says, well, I, I don't have much self-control. How do I get it? I'm not very patient. How do I learn to be patient? We would like to be characterized by these moral virtues, by these character traits, but sometimes our difficulty in putting them in practice.
Is that that very thing? We would say, I want to be patient, I want to be temperate, I want to have self-control and so on. But we don't. And we're very conscious at times of our own faults and our own failings and one or more of these things. And so we say, well, how do I, how do I learn?
00:40:22
And I think the learning process is in some way more simple than we realize, and in other ways it's more difficult. But it tells us that we are to be occupied with the Lord Jesus Christ, to get to know him in such a way that the Spirit of God produces in us these characteristics. It's not that I can say, well, tomorrow I'm going to leave this conference and tomorrow I'm going to show more self-control.
Tomorrow I'm going to be more temperate, tomorrow I'm going to love my brother a little better when he says something I don't like, and so on.
I want to say to just say that is almost a recipe for failing in it. It it doesn't really work that way. But what's presented to us is to be occupied with the Lord Jesus, to be occupied with if those things which are good in themselves and virtuous in themselves. And in doing so the Spirit of God does his work.
The fruit of the spirit is love. It's in this list, joy, peace, long-suffering. That's one of the characteristics not named in that way here, but it has something to do with the the temperance side of it. And in fact, in that list of the fruit of the spirit is self-control. And so the Spirit of God is the one that will produce these things in US.
And I'm going to suggest two practical things that bring it about. One is occupation with that which is good and in its perfection in the Lord Jesus, and contrast to being occupied with evil and that which is bad.
You know, there'd be a whole lot. I'll be get right down to the rubber on the road.
There would be a lot more benefit if tomorrow or the next day or whenever we're back into our normal environments, if there were less minutes spent on the Internet and what's found there and more the same minutes spent in the things that produce these virtues. We would all be, or at least some of us would be benefited by it in a very practical way. But the, the, the other aspect of it is, is there is the need of.
The self judgment in those things which hinder the work of the Spirit.
From presenting and giving us the enjoyment of that which is good and wholesome, and that which is virtuous, but the Lord Jesus.
Exhibited these perfect characteristics in his own life.
In every interaction of his activity. Just a suggestion on our.
Personal meditation. Compare these qualities and observe the Lord in John 21.
At the sea of.
Tiberius and going the fishing was.
Just in your personal meditation, compare these things.
See them in him.
How does that ask us a question? How does what you just said fit in with used diligence? I mean, what is it? What? How are we to be occupied with the Lord Jesus? It takes a lot of self. It takes a purpose of heart to take time of life every single day to have personal fellowship with the Lord Jesus. It doesn't just happen because we say we want it to happen.
If it takes a diligence to every single day.
Listen to God through His Word.
And to talk to God.
And it's not a matter of law, but it.
Time in the presence of God to listen, and when we talk to him, we're talking to Him. When when we read the Word, it's so he can talk to us.
How much time today did I allow God to speak to me personally, privately? I'm referring to it in that sense here. We have special opportunity on the weekend, but everyday life is different and it has quite different patterns and quite different characteristics. And yet.
00:45:17
These things are not just the point I want to make. I guess burn in it is.
The diligence.
Isn't in the activity of doing things.
It's not going around here. It's in Hebrews 11. It's the doing, but here it's the moral character of the person, that is, the person in whom the divine life.
Is active in the right way and if.
I'll put it to you in a personal way. If someone comes up to you after this meeting and says a very nasty thing to you, we'll see how active these characters are in you, right? Or if someone, to me, it's the exact same thing. I'm just using you and I as examples and and yet it's to have them.
Is to not directly saying I'm going to the diligence isn't simply saying I'm going to be more temperate today.
That's my sort of point out of it.
Maybe it was there already, simply what we have in verse 8.
Which says for if these things be in you, not on us, as if we're putting them on. That was brought out. John wrote that out.
And abound they make you that you should be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Mr. Davis, the number of footnotes on this word knowledge that in many of the cases in this first chapter is full knowledge. I think that would bring out a contrast for the Jew in regards to the knowledge that he had before. And again, just to bring things together, it's not a legal thing.
And, and although I appreciate the word add, it can be confusing because it's the thought, well, I'm going to work on this one. And when I'm done with that, I'm going to work on the next one, which misses the entire chapter because as again, I excuse the reference, but Mr. Dobby puts in his translator notes, it's really the thought, not only this, but also that, and not only this but also that. And so it's not an adding and compounding as it were, but a melding of these things together, even though the order as it's being brought out.
There's a development in order here, but it's not us working on something and then adding the next thing to it, but rather this is to be a manifestation of that you like, which is within we, we, I cannot.
Love you more by my own effort. It's really an expression of that new nature that's within as are all of these all of these things. And so it's just being brought out in verse 8 and that these things, having these things in US an abounding who you shall be neither barren nor fruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's that full knowledge of what has been revealed in him that should now characterize our lives.
You said that virtue is spiritual energy, and I know, I know a person who is the head of.
A Christian.
Anti abortion, when she speaks, you know, the politicians listen and she's the most energetic person I've ever seen in the things of the Lord. She's puts our whole energy into that. She feels like she's doing something for the Lord, but it's not according to knowledge. If she had knowledge, if she would not be doing that, she'd be putting her spiritual energy into other things. So I thought of knowledge like that and I thought of a self-control is a, is a more simple thing.
You know not, Paul said he would not be brought under the power of any, and we can be brought under the power of many things. So I thought of it as a simple way like that.
And we do have that new nature. It's those first verses shows what God has brought to us so that we have the capacity and then these things to use diligence that they be worked out in our life. I just look at it in that simple way.
In fact, all of us, someone would say, oh, this is their personality.
Generally, personality is connected with some character trait that stands out in contrast to other character traits. So that someone might say that person is very patient, they're a patient person. That's that's what's characterizes them. Someone else might be looked at and said and said they're very kind. They're a kind person, and that's what characterizes that person.
00:50:21
That very often, however, though, the one trait or several traits that characterize a person at times come at the someone else isn't too happy or doesn't because something else is missing in that person's life. And so yes, they have this nice trait and then there's that word, but and then some not so nice traits are expressed.
I say it because, in contrast, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some said he has no personality. I don't really like that way of saying it. I would rather say it was a perfect one because every single trait was perfectly in balance with every other.
And his life was, as Scripture uses expression, a fine flower. There were no lumps in it, There were no exaggerated parts of it. He was absolutely in his nature, manifested nature, perfect in every characteristic, in every situation, he reacted to it.
In perfection and his character, and I think in part what we would desire is to be learned to be more like him, so that each of these things, not just two of them out of seven or three out of seven, but that all of them would have their proper place. And sometimes one has to be balanced with the other.
And.
Particularly, as was already brought out between brotherly love and love, sometimes someone is known for their brotherly love and someone else would say yes they are, but at the sacrifice of their divine love.
I remember, well, I don't know that I want to say it, but there there was a situation which her brother came to me at a conference like this 30 years ago or something and he basically said to me, Donald, I fear for you that. And then he named one thing will take you where light would not go.
In other words, that there was that he saw in me that would tend to go down a certain way to emphasize.
One aspect of Christian behavior, but at the expense of light.
And so I think that that being fruitful and abounding in Part 2 is that all of these things not we just be satisfied. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm temperate or I'm this or I'm that, I'm patient or I'm something else and at the expense sometimes of the rest.
Written to exercises, aren't they? And we need to live in view of them constantly. Brethren, notice verse eight. It is if these things be in you and abound they make you, that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful. That will be fruitfulness in our life. And verse nine is the negative side. The lack of them makes you blind, short sighted, forgetting.
And then in verse.
Ten It's the recipe to never fall.
And then he says in verse 12, I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and be established in the present truth. In other words, we never get to a point where we can say I've arrived.
Never brethren, we need always to walk and exercise of faith. So may the Lord help us in reflecting on these things to take it to heart to walk in exercise in view of those things. Not only does he say that, but he mentions in verse 15, I will endeavor that you may be able after my deceased to have these things always in remembrance.
Oh, brother, And that's what we're going over him today for.
It's after Peter's decease and here we are going over them again. They are important, but may the Lord help us never to come to the place where we think we've got them all in place now. No, we always need to walk and exercise in view of these things.
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Connection with the rather brethren give diligence is another use of the word to make your cooling and election sure. It's not a question of losing these things. In fact, even to put the word losing in the same sentence as election is not to understand what election is in the 1St place. It's not before God is before man and it's helpful to see this and I know I didn't get this for myself, but in Thessalonians, first Thessalonians, we have an example of making your election sure. In the first chapter of the fourth verse it says, knowing brethren, beloved, your election of God. Well, how did he know their election of God?
For our gospel came not unto you in Word only, but also in power, in the Holy Ghost, in much assurance, as you know what manner of men.
We were among you, for we were among you for your sakes, and you became follows us up of us and of the Lord, having received the Word in much affliction and with joy of the Holy Ghost. Their election was very evident in their walk. And that's what we have here. It's before man, not before God.
And then the fall at the end here is again, this verse is obviously being used by those that would suggest that we can lose our salvation. It's more the thought of stumbling. It's it's literally falling like we had a off the bike this morning. It's not in the sense of.
Of anything more permanent.
Trying to measure ourselves by this list? It's not the right idea. It's an encouragement to remember the instrument the Lord chose to give us.
These lists when he speaks of virtue, moral current, the Lord chose to use a man who denied him three times to write that for our instruction and talks about patience. The Lord chose to use a man that picked up a sword and jumped the gun by a minimum of 2000 years and bringing in the Kingdom. When he speaks of the temperance, the Lord chooses a man to write those words for us that didn't know how to keep his mouth shut and exalted Elijah and Moses the level of the Lord at the Mount of Transfiguration.
When he speaks again, thinking of moral courage, it wasn't just before the cross that Peter failed in that. It was after the cross when he decided he would back off and not eat with the Gentiles for the sake of trying to fit in nicely with the Jews. And then we come to that verse just mentioned. If you do these things, you shall never fall or stumble. That's written to us by Peter. And so for measuring ourselves by where we're at at the moment, it's the wrong measuring stick. But if we remember that, the same Lord who could bring Peter down the road to write these things to us.
Then He can bring us to that point where He will.
Bring us to as we had yesterday and 1St John, there's a day coming when we'll be identical to the Lord and morally and how wonderful if he brings us to that point in whatever measure while we're still on this earth. We only have 10 minutes left of this meeting and but we do have a reading tomorrow morning. But I would like to focus in brethren on what is mentioned in verse 11, the ever.
Lasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And the end of the chapter kind of goes into that and it is a wonderful thing to think about. The verse has been quoted today looking for that blessed hope which we know to be the rapture. But it doesn't stop there. The glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
It's going to be, I really believe, brethren, the most glorious event ever in human history, when that man that the world lost, last saw hanging dead on the cross, is going to come in power and glory with his Saints, with his mighty angels, and introduces that Kingdom brings to an end the times of the Gentiles.
And takes the reins of government to.
Reign supreme here in this world, and we need to live in view of that day. I'd like to ask you, Don, to quote again. What?
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Brother Harry Hajos said that you you said it a couple Times Now and I I just enjoyed it so much and I think it is so appropriate.
I was.
Teenager and I think it was the first time in my life I was allowed to go to a conference on my own and went out to a conference in Des Moines area.
And it was early in the days of the television era.
And brother Harry Hayhoe commented on television. It was fairly new phenomena. I don't even know if they didn't matter introduce color TV yet or not, that kind of thing. But he he commented on it because there was one in his hotel room.
And he said, you know, and he referred to the, I don't know how he referred to the machine, but he said if you knew.
What vision I have in my soul.
Of the coming glory.
You would understand why that machine has no attraction to me.
The word television and he used the word vision. If you knew what vision I have in my soul of the coming glory, you would understand why that machine has no attraction to my soul.
Well, such things are a lot more, but it would have been the most reminding comment ever made to me on such things.
And that's what will form us want it if we.
Brethren, the way of life that we have known in the Western civilization.
Is coming to an end.
It's coming to an end. It's not going to be that way much longer. Can't set dates, but things are going to change majorly.
At any moment now.
We're gonna hear the voice of our Savior.
We're going to hear the trumpet.
We cannot leave everything at a moment's notice and go into our Savior's presence. Sometimes try to think of what it's going to be that moment.
When they meet him.
Everything down here that has been so important to us.
Your young people for us who are older too.
It's not going to be important anymore.
Leave it here, all of it. We're going into that glory.
May that coming glory have its effect on us now.
The Everlasting Kingdom Are you interested in having an abundant entrance?
Or are you just interested in squeezing in the door?
I must say in the mesh.
That I get a view of that coming glory.
I'm interested in having an abundant entrance.
I know that there will be many that will have a more abundant entrance than me, but I'm interested. I can see it's worth putting diligence into.
Lord help us that it would have its effect on our lives here and now.
At the end of verse 19, right?
For the day.
Bass star of Rise in Your Heart.
One more comment too, that I have appreciated along those same lines, and that is that here it brings before us the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
We might wonder why the coming of the Lord for us, and all that we will enjoy with Him is not brought before us more vividly here. But Paul could say in Second Timothy 4, speaking about the crown that was awaiting him, a crown of righteousness, And he could say, And not to me only, but unto all them also that love, what is appearing.
Is appearing.
Because when it's His appearing that is in view, when it is the everlasting Kingdom of that One who is our Lord and Savior, it's His glory that is primarily in view. We can be occupied with ourselves, perhaps even in a way that we would think is a right way. And I'll use an example without turning to it, but it's in Luke's gospel.
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Where the 70 who were sent out by the Lord.
To go out and preach and given power to work miracles and heal the sick and so on.
Came back to the Lord, and they said, Lord, even the devils or demons are subject unto us through thy name.
Were they out in the work of the Lord? Yes, they were. Were they there by His express command? Yes, they were.
Were they doing it by his power? Yes, they were, and the Lord shared in that joy, so that he said, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven, referring of course to a coming day when Satan will be cast out.
But then he gives them a gentle reminder. He says, rejoice not that the demons or devils are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.
Why would he say that?
Ah, because he gently takes the focus off of them and puts them on himself.
He says in so many words, Don't rejoice so much in what you have done.
Even in a right way and at my express command.
Rather rejoice in what I have done.
And what does that do? That humbles assessment, because what did we have to do with our names being written in heaven?
Nothing but our sins, nothing but loss, guilty sinners. It was all a work of God. And so the exaltation here is, as it were, putting the spotlight on the Lord Jesus Himself, isn't it? Yes, we are to be diligent. Yes, it will result in a happy life. Yes, it will result that we will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. All very, very important. But He seeks to minister to you, to us, that abundant entrance.
In order that He and all his glory might be primarily before us. I say that because, and I say it kindly, but there is an effort in much of Christendom today, and we're part of Christendom. There's an emphasis in an effort to make God as it were.
Shall I say at the philanthropist, through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to provide everything that we need and to minister to our needs? And I say that that focus is really wrong. God wants to honor and glorify his beloved Son and bring you and me into blessing with Him. And then, as we've often said, God is far more glorified and we are far more blessed when that order is clear before us.
It says fresh to the heart of God.
As if the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified this very day, as it was the actual day in which the Lord Jesus was crucified. And as God looks at this world this afternoon, he sees it morally and as if he had put to death his Son because his Son was cast out and rejected from this world. And it doesn't diminish in his being one tiniest bit from day-to-day.
And God sees the measure in which each one of us.
Identify with our Savior as the one who was rejected in the world, so that the heart is attracted to himself with a longing. The loving His appearing is, Oh Lord, I look forward to the day when you will have your rightful place in this world that crucified you. And yet our lives practically give expression to whether that is really active in our souls.
Do we really look upon things not as if Jesus Christ, he did of course, historically died 2000 years ago almost, but in our hearts is it? Do we look upon the world as if he had been crucified in this world today? If this today's news was Jesus Christ was crucified this day, How would we think about the world and being involved with it if it was today? Well, in God's heart, it's his as if it was today. And if we love his appearing, it's, it's an attachment.
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To his person.
In a sense of look at longing for him to have his place and feeling his rejection in this world as it is today.
I might just make one quick comment.
I was thinking about the prodigal son and his father.
In regards to this.
This has been said before, but the prodigal son's father.
Was out there every day looking up down that road per SE, looking for his son to come home.
He had faith to believe that the boy would get tired of that and he would come.
But the point is, he was looking every day and expecting his boy. He wasn't just lounging around the house and going on with life just normally because he loved him.
And the Lord Jesus is the same way. God is the same way.
I just say to myself 1St and everyone, we need to be watching for our Lord and not just waiting.
Am I right? We need to expect him any moment and live in the goodness of that.
All right, Yeah.
330 If 330 what raised the wondrous thought, Or who did it suggest that we the Church to glory brought, should with the Sun be blessed? 330.
What grace the one trust?
Love you our person. Glory all children.
Are something.
Shine.
See you later.
The Holy Ghost.
We try.
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My wondrous.
Heart.
Has been our most glory.